Baby Cafe

Located right next to Gyukaku Brookline, this is a great option for people interested in Cantonese Cha chaan taang culture. It offers rice plates, noodles, congee along with modern Cantonese interpretations of popular classics. I ordered the stewed beef sizzling plate ($22.95 w/o tax), the baked Portuguese chicken on rice ($18.50 w/o tax, and stewed beef rice cube ($20.95 w/o tax). I highly recommend the stewed beef sizzling plate as it comes with plenty of stewed beef and crispy noodles. I loved the fried egg on top to make it truly decadent. The Portuguese chicken on rice had plenty of sauce and it is a sizable portion. The stewed beef rice cube is good to try one time, but I will not order it again as it is more of a gimmick. Service is friendly and came back to tell us about an allergen that we did not realize is in one of dishes. Bathrooms are modern and relatively clean.

I was really excited to try this place because I love Hainan chicken rice, but the experience in all was just okay. That being said, there's not a whole lot of places I know of where you can get chicken rice near Brookline, so it wasn't a total loss and I may come back in the future if I had a craving. One thing to note is that the menu here is HUGE. Like probably 8 or more pages long. There were so many options and some of them seemed strange for an Asian menu (like seafood pasta or other pasta bake items), but there definitely is variety. Still, after looking through the menu for a good five to ten minutes, there weren't a whole lot of items I really wanted to try. In the end, I ordered the chicken rice and an appetizer of salt and pepper calamari:Hainan Chicken Rice ($17.50) - The price for this dish is absolutely astounding. I'd expect chicken and rice to be maybe $12 or $15 at most, but the price here seems disproportionate to the ingredients. Still, this came out extremely quick (it seems like they have this ready to go at any time) - maybe in less than 5 minutes from ordering. The chicken itself was moist and flavorful, and I really did like the ginger scallion oil that it game with. However, the peanuts seemed unnecessary and the huge mound of rice was fairly dry and lacked the flavor and fat that I tend to enjoy with chicken rice. It was also yellow and tasted a bit like curry which threw me off a little bit. The chicken was the star here though - I'd come back for this chicken because it's hard to get a flavorful and moist chicken with the soy sauce flavor embedded in the silky meat outside of Chinatown or Quincy (or maybe Watertown?). The rice, while not my favorite, was also a huge portion - I ordered an appetizer because I thought the chicken rice wouldn't be enough to fill me, but it came with probably 1.5-2 servings of rice. I was definitely full just on this dish, so if I returned I'd only get the chicken rice next time and skip the appetizerSalt and Pepper Squid ($10.95) - So the weird thing about this is that we ordered this snack at the same time as the chicken rice, but it took maybe 20 minutes or so to make - it actually didn't even come out until we had both finished our chicken and only had a few scoops of rice left on our plate, which was very strange and definitely not something I would have wanted. When it did finally come out, we were pretty full but decided to try a few bites of this anyway since we love this dish at other places. Unfortunately, every single piece of squid was massively overcooked. The batter was nice and a bit on the salty side, but not terrible, but the squid itself was like rubber or leather. I tried to bite a piece in half and took 15 seconds trying to rip it with my teeth only to give up and shove the whole thing in my mouth, which then took extra time to chew through the protein. If they had cooked this for less time, the flavor and batter would have been great, but it was almost inedible with how tough the squid was.All in all, I have to give some grace because this restaurant recently opened up in Brookline, but there were some pretty big areas for improvement. The price of the chicken rice is a lot higher than I'd like, and the fact that the snack/appetizer only came out after we had nearly finished our mains was very weird. We had actually thought that they had forgotten about the order and were getting ready to leave before it came out, and then on top of that it was incredibly hard to eat because it had been overcooked by a degree of several minutes. The last critique is that some tables were given water pitchers, but we finished our waters and waited 10 minutes or so for a refill, eventually having to flag down someone to get our waters filled even while the restaurant had some empty tables.HOWEVER, the chicken itself was very good, and the ginger scallion oil was also tasty. I can see myself coming back just for that or ordering takeout of just the chicken without the rice in a pinch. 3/5 - but there's definitely potential for this to be raised to a 4 after they've been open for some time and get into a rhythm service-wise.

Big menu but a lot of the items seem odd and not something I would try, ie lots of the spaghetti dishes. Tried the dry fried beef chow foon, ma po tofu and curry beef. The beef chow foon was very good. Ma po tofu was also good. The beef stew was disappointing - it was not cooked/braised well and was very hard to chew, not how this dish is supposed to be with that cut of meat. Prices are also quite high.

One of the new restaurants along Beacon Street around St. Mary's, located right next to Gyukakyu. This location is much smaller than their Allston location, so groups bigger than 6 would be more difficult to accommodate if they are busy. There are about 10 tables that accommodate between 2-6 people. I came for dinner on a weeknight about a week after they had opened. They are offering free tea drinks with their grand opening. My friend and I ordered baked spaghetti pork chop, fish balls, and hai Nan chicken rice plate. I also got a free lychee green tea which came in a huge glass. The hai Nan chicken rice plate came out first and the best part is the chicken is deboned except for the wing and drumstick. The chicken was flavorful, but the rice was a bit dry and flavorless. We finished our entire chicken rice plate before the baked spaghetti came out. The porkchop was good, but the cheese sauce and spaghetti could have been better. The fish balls were soft, but nothing noteworthy about them. Overall, the service was a bit slow, but I would come here again to try out their other dishes.

The chicken rice is very high quality for the price point and they seem to have a lot of variety. Will be supporting this business more often, they know what they are doing.

As someone who has lived in Southeast Asia, I miss Hainanese chicken rice! This was pretty good and had a good amount to fill me up, along with the Japanese tofu (my fave!). The place itself was really clean and it is new so I'm glad that I got to try it out. The workers were also nice and attentive as well. I would definitely come back! It is on the more standard pricing these days for meals ~$20 per person

Went for lunch and was excited to try this new spot. ordered Hainan chicken rice, baked pork chop over spaghetti and hot & honey chicken wings. * The Hainan chicken was great! The rice was lacking in flavor. * The pork chop was fine. But I've had better. * The wings. disappointment. Flavor was not what I expected. Wings are very small. They cut the flats in half. what? Don't get the wings. Many things on the menu and would like to return and try more. They are new so always give them time to perfect things. As mentioned in my other reviews suggested tip is based on total bill not pre-tax. Is this a trend? Mostly seeing this at newer establishments.

Everything about the food is on point! The salt & pepper Shishamo and special chicken wings appetizers are a MUST. The flavoring of the wings (quite juicy too) and the combo of jalapeños for the shishamo is prefect, adds a nice kick to it for someone who loves spicy. For entrees, ordered the Hainan chicken with seasoned rice and a black pepper beef spaghetti. I enjoyed both dishes, very spectacular taste. As a sweets person, had to order their durian with sticky rice dessert and some hong kong milk tea to go with my food. 11/10 for the durian with sticky rice bc it's my type of dessert and in general, if you love durian, this can never go wrong!! i love a good hong kong style milk tea and this is THE ONE! strong tea flavor but nicely balanced overall. definitely one of my favorite items on the menu! & love love love the interior too esp the greenery all around!

Awesome place to get some HK style foods. I tried the HK style french toast as well as the baked pork chop spaghetti and they were the perfect combination after a long work day. The staff was also super attentive and always had a smile on their face. I will be back soon!

Food is okay, some are creative but definitely not authentic Hong Kong style! However, be aware of the 'suggested' 18% tipping which they demanded when you pay your bill. Long gone are the days that tipping is to provide incentives and rewards for good services...sad!