Phu Lam Chinese Restaurant

My in-​Laws Loooooove this pLace and my famiLy has foLLowed suit.
Don’t Let the dingy Looking outside deter you.
Phu Lam offers deLicious and authentic Chinese|Vietnamese food. Whether you are in need of a simpLe meaL or a huge event– Look no further.
Our fave dishes:
–Vietnamese CoLd PLatter (normaLLy served at weddings)
–Spicy GarLic Shrimp and/​or Soft SheLL Crab
–Honey WaLnut Shrimp
–Peking Duck with Bao Buns
–Tom Yum Hotpot
–Fish Maw Soup
–Deep Fries Pork Intestine
–Seafood Chow Fun
Phu Lam is LEGIT and there is no doubt that you’LL Leave extremeLy happy after each visit.

This place is horrible! Not even one star. We went on Mothers day for my wife’s first every mothers day dinner. We get there early and they tell us there is no table yet for four. So we wait with our 7 month old twins. After half hour I ask the lady again and she points at a table that has been sitting there for ages and not willing to leave. They finally leave after 15 minutes, but guess what? The restaurant employees all these kids that don’t know what the F they are doing so no one cleans the tables. They stand around and when you ask a simple questions they act stupid. So after waiting for an hour we sit down and order. First two dishes comes out pretty fast. We eat and after a while I said to my wife where is the third dish? So we ask the waiter and he says they are making it. We wait another 10 minutes and we ask another waitress. She comes back five minutes later and says «You wait a long time huh» I was like excuse me? She says your chicken. I’m like yeah my food is cold where is my last dish? She says «You going to wait a long time» I said how long? «15 minutes or more» I was like WTF all my food is already cold. She responds «NOT MY FAULT. KITCHEN FAULT» So my wife says forget it and cancel it. I was livid and FURIOUS! Too bad I couldn’t get my twin boys to cause a racket and protest!

Food was good and filled with msg, but the service was beyond ridiculous. We ordered appetizers and a fried rice. They brought the fried rice out real fast but all the other dishes took at least 20 mins of waiting time each. By the time we got to our last dish (Peking duck) we had sat for 2 hours. We were full from drinking water due to the effect of the abundance of msg. We had to tell them to cancel our last dish. I felt sorry for the waiters. When we complained to them they said they had been running around all day without a break or lunch. All of them were sweating and massaging their legs. Management need to hire more workers. Please stop being cheap! This is not a third world country where slavery is allowed! So yea, I left them a good tip because I felt sorry for them. I hope management doesn’t hoard all the tip money!

Very good Chinese food. Probably the best I’ve had in east side San Jose. The staff is friendly, little bit of a language barrier. The shopping center it’s in is kind of scary. Some guy in he parking lot tried to sell me jewelry out of his car.

First time here, the food was not all that good. The place is clean and there is plenty of seats no wait time. But I ordered beef and broccoli and the beef had a funky taste, also the chow mien was cold and hard not tasteful.

OH MAN OH MAN!
Phu Lam has been my family’s go-​to along with other Chinese restaurants in SJ for years. I love the quality here! I usually get the salt and pepper pork chops, beef chow fun, the crispy tofu, and hot and sour soup. ALL delicious! they also give complimentary taro desserts at the end that are exquisite!
most definitely coming back!

This is the quintessential Chinese banquet place serving you all that food you’d expect at an Asian wedding. Peking duck, lobster, steam fish, walnut prawns, etc. Service is decent, and the dishes are all done pretty well. It caters to an older generation of Asians. Its not hip or trendy, and its more of a place to go to with a big group. The bigger the group, the more dishes you can order, and this is definitely a place you go to share their dishes family style and have like 4 – 5 courses come out one after the other. As it’s a big group kind of place, you should try to make a reservation.
I came while celebrating a birthday, and they had the restaurant divided up because their was a wedding going on. They get a fair number of weddings there on any given night so that’s something you should expect if you go. It can get loud in those situations, but I happen to love weddings so I had a good time. Also, due to the weddings, food can come out a bit slower than other restaurants so make sure you get in there and order quickly.

Love this restaurant!!! I’ve been coming here for over 20 years. This is my special occasion spot. Food hasn’t change, except for the cold dish, which happens to be my all time favorite dish. The last 2 times I had it, including yesterday the meat smelled spoiled. Other than that, everything is still on point. However, I prefer the hot and sour catfish soup, better at Boda.

This place serves delicious and fresh food. Definitely one of the best Chinese food places I’ve been to. I fell in love with their chow mien and fried rice. Very reasonably priced food and large portions is a plus.

First time trying this place and I must say it’s one of the best Chinese restaurants in San Jose.
Only thing I didn’t really like were their eggrolls.

Danny’s Unilocal 2016.
My family, friends, and I love coming to this restaurant. I’ve been coming here for quite some time since I was a kid and nothing’s changed. They serve authentic Chinese/​Vietnamese dishes that will hit the spot. Prices seems to be pretty reasonable if you go in a big group.
Conclusion: I’ll keep on coming back!

Authentic Chinese /​Vietnamese restaurant tucked away in a crappy strip mall. but there foods are great and price is reasonable esp if u like seafood. We love their fung sa shrimp/​crab and their clay pots (tofu seafood) is awesome. our fav take out place. Beware lots of very loud marriage parties on saturdays

Me and my family went here for Friday dinner. Everything’s good. Staffs very friendly and their food is a nice combination of chinese and vietnamese cuisines. We love their Peiking duck. Everyone should try.

This is one of my favorite place when I’m craving for peking duck. My other favorite is Ocean Delight. We also ordered the fried pork and fish. This restaurant is located on Story Rd so it’s pretty ghetto here and I don’t like the atmosphere in the parking lot. I feel really uncomfortable parking my car here. Anyways, great food and customer service.

We hired Phu Lam to cater our wedding at Villa Ragusa in Campbell.
I see a lot of bad reviews here on Unilocal,and I just want to say — you get what you pay for. I’ve tasted both amazing and terrible wedding menus at Phu Lam — and I promise that there is a high correlation between taste and cost. In my experience, if you don’t harass the vendor too much (and especially someone as experienced and professional as Chu Kim), you’ll get what you paid for and way more.
Chu Kim and his floor manager Chu Chau are awesome to work with. They are on time, organized, and friendly — they even participated in some of our wedding games during their down time! We had them setup 40+ tables, set out a bunch of hot appetizers (chicken wings, dumplings, eggrolls, etc), serve a full 8-​course meal, bring out the cake. Our wedding guests could not stop raving about the food. What’s funny is that other family members have had Phu Lam cater as well, but haggled too much — and the quality of the food suffers. Chu Kim has been in the business for 30+ years — he knows what he’s doing. Trust him.

Food is always so good here. We come here every single time we have a special occasion. Today, we ordered so much food and we didn’t get to finish all of it. I’ve been coming here with my family for years now and we have never been really disappointed. I recommend coming on a weekday so there are no waits and the service would be better.

First time I ever tried Peking duck with steam buns and they did not disappoint. Definitely delicious!
We ordered the half order which was good for two people. They gave us a total of 6 buns which was more than enough for my boyfriend and I.
The honey pecan shrimp was good too. It was crispier than the usual honey walnut shrimp I’ve had at other places and I really enjoyed it.
The jasmine tea wasn’t really strong in jasmine taste.
What I didn’t like about this place was the service. We were seated after a couple minutes of standing and then our food seemed to be forgotten. We only ordered two dishes and noticed people around us seated after were receiving their food before ours.

My family and I had dinner here a few times. I really like the family style dinner where you order many dishes (often too many if my mom is the one ordering!) to share. My favorite dish is the fried rice. The salt and pepper pork dish came out as deep fried pork which felt too greasy for me. Fried eggplants and fried tofu dishes were delicious. Sea bass dish though expensive was quite tasty. The place was not crowded for this late Friday (8:30) and they were getting ready to close when we left around 9:30PM. The waiters were really nice to us/​thoughtful. One of them came up to our table to put some of the half eaten dishes in smaller plates to allow for more room on the table which was nice since our lazy Suzanne was overflowing with dishes.
Overall good food but now I have food coma.

The hours here are messed up. This restaurant def not opened till midnight (maybe except for wedding days)
Anyways this is one of my favorite restaurants to go to for a family style meal! I always get the salted crab and Peking duck. The salted crab is always consistent. Crunchy all over and you could taste the garlic and ginger. Yums!
This is my go to place for Peking duck. I like my duck to have little to absolutely no fat so if you like fattier duck, don’t order from here. All you get is crispy skin and meat which I LOVE!
Also to those of you who like Chilean seabass (or smoked seabass), this place has the BEST! You don’t have to wait to go to a wedding to eat it either! You can call and order it a day ahead.
Service here isn’t that great which is why I only gave them 4 stars instead of 5

TL;DR? Subpar Chinese restaurant in terms of quality, quantity, and service. There are so many Asian Chinese restaurants around the Bay that competition is tough yet since there are like a bazillion Asian people and Asian food fans that Chinese cuisine thrives in the area. Save your money and go elsewhere unless you like heavily salted, tiny portioned Chinese foods.
Food Quality and Overall Experience: C … Three words: SALT and SMALL PORTIONS. If you prefer that, then go for it, blergh.
Let me list all the foods I’ve tried: Fish Maw and Crab Soup, Salt Pepper Shrimp, Combo Claypot, Greens, Lobster Fried Rice. They were all SUPER SALTY and Oily! The cook needs to be evaluated for a sanity check. The foods almost induced arterial hardiness and a myocardial infarction because it was like gritting through a bag of salt.
In addition, their complimentary dessert, banana che, was SOUR and old! How can a restaurant serve bad foods? Unimaginable and slothful.
Service was completely bland and non-​existent. I don’t care if you’re a Chinese restaurant. I am exhausted about the notorious bad rep that Asian restaurants get because we are expected to provide bad service. It is not acceptable that half of my dining experience is trying to flag down your servers especially when the restaurant was not that busy. Tips are not mandatory, they are a reflection of your service and we did not tip graciously.
Two things make or break my experience: Food Quality and Service. I can stand that the restaurant isn’t some Michelin fancy looking thing or if it’s located in a shady plaza, but what keeps me as a regular customer is the food and service. This is what I get for venturing into the unknowns of Chinese cuisine in San Jose. Save yourself, save your money, hide your kids, hide your wife, don’t even try!