Lao You Ju

We wanted to try another Tony Hu restaurant and came for dinner on Friday night, there was one other table occupied at 6:25pm. I asked the hostess twice if it was indeed Hu’S restaurant 2times before we settled down and sipped our tea. We ordered onion pancakes, Singapore noodles, walnut shrimp and cumin lamb. Disappointed to say the food was subpar compared to Lao Shezwan and I didn’t personally like anything on the menu. Long who served us was excellent with customer service, all the food was brought to the table within n 10 minutes of ordering. When I complained about the lamb he generously took off the bill.

Went for dim sum, the dim sums were very bland. The beef stew was spoiled. Looks like they use the same filling for Sui Mai and lotus cake.

I had a morning dim sum there on Saturday (1÷9÷16) and paid with my credit card. On next day (1/10/16)I got six emails from my card company warning me that there are unusual international charges in my account. I found that I has been charged six times in Asia, Starbucks visits and some food purchases there. The latest charge was on (1÷11÷16), which is a day ahead of my time. I have to call my card company to cancel it and waiting for a new one. It seems some waiters in this place steal guest’s credit card information and scam them. Be extra careful to eat there. The food is good anyway.

Recently got a name change? I did noticed that the Chinese name changed, didn’t catch what the new name is now.
Have been going to LYJ for their dim sum for a little more than a year and I have to say their quality of dim sum was not what it used to be. However, that being said, I believe they still have one of the best dim sum in town. Their Shu Mai is definitely one of the best in town and they do not cheap out on the seafood they incorporated in to the different dishes. Everything is just a little more flavorful than other places in the area (maybe extra MSG added?).
Anyways, still my go to place and will continue to go there until I find another place to top it.

This place went downhill over the years. Food used to have good presentation and taste good but now it looks crappy and taste nasty. I would choose a different restaurant and stay away if possible.

This is a great dim sum place to bring a group of people to. You can get a ton of food for incredible prices. (Gorged myself in a group of 8 people for less than $ 15– tax and tip included.)
Our party included a gentleman who grew up in Taiwan, so he knew what to order and put in the order for us. I will attempt to describe the dishes, but have no idea what the actual names of the dishes are.
Egg custard ball– sweetened egg yolk surrounded by a steamed bun. So tasty to end the meal on.
Dumplings– chive, shumai– this place has excellent steamed dumplings. I highly recommend the shrimp and prk dumplings (shumai?)
BBQ pork bao– pork bbq surrounded by a rice flower bun. Very light, and soaks up chili oil beautifully.
bbq pork pastry thing– bbq pork surrounded by a sweetened puff pastry. My favorite dish– this was sweet, but with that spicy, salty pork filling.
Apologies for the lack of names, but they have a picture menu that you can order off of. Definitely worth a trip for a new culinary adventure. Speedy service, and not as busy as the other dim sum places in Chinatown.

I used to love this place. Two years ago, I would have given this 5 stars. But the restaurant has been going down hills. When I went with my sister, we waited for 20 minutes to order our food. They had one waitress taking order and another one cleaning, walking around, and filling water. My husband used to like the service and the food. But lately, he stays away from it. The food isn’t as good… just oily. The only good thing is the waitress who is always there. She is really the one holding the restaurant together. But she cannot run everything by herself. The restaurant itself needs a new management and a change if they want to survive. There are plenty of other restaurants in the area that are newer and better. Hope Tony can bring this gem back to life. Until then, I won’t be going back for a while.

They are selling groupon while they are NOT accepting groupon. The new owner should have at least let groupon refund the customers first so that we won’t feel cheated. Awful start. Awful service. No confidence on groupon or this business any more.

So delicious, the schumai (sp) is amazing and the restaurant is very clean and pretty to look at. They’re also really good with separate checks if its even so that’s a plus :)

I came here just to try the durian pancake. but…Had to wait 30 min for my order and they brought out only 2 out of 4. Waited another 45 minutes while trying to get the waiters attentions to check on my order even to get the soy sauce. Then after 45 minutes the manager comes and tells me the waiter forgot to put the order in.
Horrible. By then all my expectation and craving for the durian pancake is gone as I was sipping on the bland weak Chinese tea while waiting for a waiter to stop at my table. Terrible service!

Just ok. The congee was bland. We needed to add a lot of soy sauce and pepper. I felt the choices were lacking. They didn’t have the fried taro puffs filled with minced pork. There were a lot of staples I felt were missing. They did have a few things that were new like the mango Rangoon for lack of a better name. Basically a noodle roll filled with whipped cream and mango bits. Just ok. The custard buns were good. Overall, doesn’t really compare to the old standard Phoenix.

I love having Dim Sum at this place, but the dinner dishes we had today weren’t very satisfying. We ordered several things today. The way the dishes were presented gave me a high expectation; however, the expectation wasn’t met…
We ordered the Crispy Rainbow Fish (if I remembered the name correctly), which tastes like deep fried shell with tons of sweet sour sauce. The Salt and Pepper Pork Chop was good! The Frog Leg was a little over cooked. The Chinese Broccoli looked not as green/​fresh as in the picture. The Three Cup Chicken has a strong flavor as always. The fact that it was brought to our table after 2 mins we ordered it made me believed that they simply reheated it…
The service was good and everyone was friendly. I would definitely go back for Dim Sum, but doesn’t recommend for dinner.

I waited to write this review so I can compare with Cai.
Some Observations:
— it’s not a bustling, crazy busy place as other places for dim sum.
— the décor is a bit inconsistent. they have swanky seating in some parts and regular round tables the middle of the dining area. it is supposed to be a karaōke place
Good:
–Service was attentive and friendly.
Generally, the food was rather flavorful:
–the black bean spare ribs were very garlicky but ooohhh sooo tasty. Hard to say this being a big fan of Minghin, I actually liked this version more.
–Shu mai was soo awesome.
–Lotus leaf sticky rice was freshly steamed and tasty.
–black pepper beef was very good too. this was on par or better than Minghin.
–the steamed soup buns were okay. They actually gave us soup spoons without being asked as it should be. When we ordered this in Cai, the staff was confused.
bad or eh:
— not too much was bad. The wait to get our food took a bit long when it wasn’t even full yet and we were hungry.
My favorite is still MingHin for being consistent in flavor and freshness. I would look forward to coming to Lao You Ju since some items are made with more flavor and it’s semi fresh. Cai was a sore let down in comparison as it lacked freshness and flavor.

I’ve been here three times, twice in the main dining room and once in a private room. The private room was definitely nicer and more personable. The main room has some larger tables for mid-​size groups, but it can get busy and there will be significant background noise.
The food has been average, some good some bad, reasonable price for Chinatown. But honestly if I’m going all the way to Chinatown I want to eat something really delicious and with so many other options, I’d rather go elsewhere. A big plus is that Lao You Ju takes reservations and can accommodate large parties, and the tables have always been ready when my party arrived.
The egg custard yolk bun was great, bbq pork bao was pretty good, soup dumplings were flavorful but fell apart easily. Boiled fish and cumin lamb were both average. Skip the Shanghai spring rolls and green bean jelly.

The fact that this is a Tony Hu restaurant doesn’t mean anything other than his name and photo pops up. Your food will vary based on the cook that shift. Dinner is hit-​or-​miss (2.5 stars), but dim sum is great (3.5 stars).
Dim sum: The menu is small, but has all your favorites, and what they have, they do well. The rice crepes were the most impressive since the key is getting them translucent thin, and Lao You Ju’s got it right. Both the beef and shrimp were delicious! The shrimp and pork dumplings were generously sized and juicy. Chicken feet was yummy and had substantial skin to chew on. They have xiao long bao!!!
Skip the congee and bean curd rolls unless you’re going for plain food as they really doesn’t have much flavor. I would also pass on the short ribs, which are very fatty with no meat. For dessert, the coconut red bean jello was nice.
Dinner: The eggplant, string beans, and fish fillet had one thing in common — glistening in grease. Chili oil is expected in Szechuan cuisine, but I thought the veggies would be somewhat healthy. My finicky stomach is prone to indigestion, and I was folded over in pain halfway into the meal.
Dinner may be a gamble, but I like to throw it in the mix dim sum! No wait and $ 2 validated lot parking is a plus.

I’ve only ever been to this place for dim sum so I am only speaking for the breakfast. I’ve been here with the family about 5 times. Every time, I have left full and satisfied with the food. They have all the traditional foods: the shrimp and pork dumplings, the shrimp in rice roll, the bbq buns, etc. Food comes out relatively quick and fresh; super yummy!
The thing I really love about this place is the service. They are so nice here. There’s never a long wait and they always reassure us that it’ll be our turn soon. They update you on the wait time and smile often. During the dining experience, they constantly ask for ways to improve our experience such as asking if we want anything else, if the food is good, etc. I really appreciate the way they treat their customers.
All in all, I would highly recommend this place. Nice people and awesome food!

After our first visit here for dinner, I wasn’t expecting to ever return. Everything was doused in oil and the pool of oil settling at the bottom of the plates was troubling.
After spotting some pictures of the dim sum on Unilocal,my girlfriend pushed to give this place another try, and I’m pretty glad we did. There was no trouble getting seated for six on a saturday.
The xiao long bao was piping hot and was served in little individual metal dishes, possibly to keep them from losing all their soup if they burst? Almost all of the other food items that we ordered (rice noodle-​wrapped shrimp, siu mai, ha gao, turnip cakes) were pretty good, with the exception of the water chestnut cakes.
So…come here for dim sum — it’s a pretty good alternative to Cai, Ming Hin, Phoenix, etc. etc.

This place has dim sum, and I’m not sure how long that has been the case. Anyway, it is quite good, and I would not hesitate to return. Seating is comfortable, so that is advantageous over at least one of their competitors that I can think of. Pricing and dim sum variety is also comparable to the competition.

My new favorite place to go for soup dumplings (xiao long bao)!!! I’ve been on the search, and I can finally say that this place will fulfill any of my soup dumpling cravings LOL.
I’ll have to try this place for dim sum, but we came for dinner and ended up ordering random entrees and a couple «dim sum» dishes that were available to order. The prices are reasonable, and each dish is legit. So for those of you who, like me, were looking for a good soup dumpling place, then this is it!!!~
I always order the green beans, you really can’t go wrong with this dish LOL. Sorry for being so boring and always ordering the same thing at every Chinese restaurant. But come on. It’s green beans. SO delicious and crunchy and flavorful! hahahaha.

I shall start this review by saying that if you go to Chinatown without someone from China, chances are very strong you’ll get food that has the flavouring of China Buffet. I went with a former colleague who is from mainland China and the food that we got was very reminiscent of the Chinese cooking my first room mate’s parents cooked when they visited. Authentic!
We opted for the dim sum menu options, which meant we had food galore. I’ve posted photos, so I’ll let the captions speak for the pictures that I captured. But the flavours I couldn’t capture in digital prints. Everything was spicy or had a kick without salt. And truth be told, I didn’t get the usual MSG bite either.
The service was outstanding, although the servers spoke to my former colleague in Chinese. What little bit I did understand was not a slight to me and they were very much aware of my presence. Lao You Ju is one of the restaurants in Chinatown that brings in more Americans than the restaurants that seem «off the main street.» Would I return? Yes, but with a friend who is Chinese so that I’m not served food that tastes like it has been delivered from China Buffet.