TD Cafe

Not as crowded. Service is better. There is more available food and no sold out food. Ambiance is more relaxed and enjoyable. Still low on staff. Offer butter pineapple bun per meal. Was here during lunch time.During dinner time, food sold out. Environment is very crowded. Waited for 40 minutes. Not efficient service. Low on staff.

First time coming. Not good. Bad.Getting our number was confusing as the counter to get our number was also the counter for payment. It was also in an inconvenient place, inside around the corner, behind the empty food display.There is no waiting area inside the restaurant. Anyone waiting for their table has to wait outside, IN THE RAIN.Seat attendance called for number 41. We were 42. She proceeded to call 43. Skipping our number entirely. It's not a great first impression.There are only 3 waiters for the entirety of the restaurant. Tables are spaced out too wide, so walk time for waiters is long. Waiters are sending food to the kitchen on only TWO computers. One really far away from the table in the corner and one hand-held tablet. Wait time for food order is exponentially longer. We waited 25 minutes, upon sitting down, for someone to take our order.Getting our food is even longer than 25 minutes. The kitchen staff is overworked and understaffed. Food was coming out of the kitchen at a very slow rate.During our wait for our food. We saw 3 different groups of customers get into a verbal argument with the staff over a certain dispute. We even saw the kitchen manager get into a verbal scolding with the employee at the front desk. It's not a good look for a restaurant that just opened.While waiting for the food. The 3 waiters were walking back and forth with plates of food to empty tables or tables with different group of customers. The customers were fed up with having little to no food for upwards of 35 minutes. I counted 4 times that waiters were bringing food back to the kitchen. Saying in Cantonese, "The customer already left."When the food did come. It was of small portions and giant disappointment. The plate of rice was pitiful for anyone's appetite. The meat portion was laughable for a "lunch special." The only saving grace was the sauce on the vegetable entrée. At least, they got the most basic dish, correct.Absolute disgrace to Cantonese Cuisine.We ordered 3 entrée. Notice how's there's only 2 pictures of entrée available. They forgot one entrée and refused to take it out of the final total. Had to manually take out of the final total and pay the difference. Disgrace of customer service.At $11.99 per dish, I can get a much better deal with much better portions at other better Chinese cafes

Sometimes I'm in full agreement with the Yelp ratings. Currently at 3.5, this describes my experience. I can't seem to round up to 4. TD Cafe is fairly new. Located in the middle of a plaza in El Monte, they're already wildly popular. I wouldn't describe this as an actual cafe. More of a seafood / HK style restaurant. Menu ranges from market price seafood, to your ubiquitous rice plates with chicken or pork chop, bbq items (which they seem to stop offering some already) and their lunch/ dinner specials at a low price, $12 a plate. I suspect this is what draws the huge crowd. That's what got us to come too. We were naive to arrive at 11am on a Sunday. The wait was 30 minutes for a table, and that's because a party before us gave up waiting and left. We placed our orders as soon as we sat down:Sautéed string beans. Compared to some other places, these were just OK. It was served with strips of pork and a slightly tangy but spicy sauce. 3/5Deep fried pork chop in spicy salt. Hot, crispy and delicious. Mostly lean and meaty pieces and nicely seasoned. 4.5/5French style filet of cod. Also delicious. Served deep friend and tossed in a mildly spicy sauce. A slightly bit on the salty side but pairs well with rice. 4.5/5Chili pepper beef: Remember that vintage 80's commercial, "Where's the beef!?" Yep, that's it. Mostly onions and peppers for color. The beef slices we got were overcooked and tough. 2/5Spam and egg sandwich w/ fries. I could've easily made this at home, but it's ok. Nothing special. 3/5Pineapple buns: I asked for the butter to be on the side. It came inside the bun, but they were served warm and so soft. After trying it,I still prefer it w/o butter. 4/5 The setup: Larger, family sized tables are towards the back of the restaurant. Smaller tables, 2 or 4 seaters are closer to the entrance. The ambiance: Pure chaos. Many Chinese folks are probably used to this but can be intimidating to others. The place is loud and you need to be aggressive to get a number, to get your table, place your order and to get servers' attention. It doesn't mean to be obnoxious, just don't be timid. They could've hired more staff, that way the tables turn over much quicker. Customers will be happier they got fed, people waiting won't stand around blocking everyone else, and higher turnover means more business for the restaurant and tips for the servers. The 'lively' vibe did not make for a relaxing meal. It was chaotic and stressful as people crowded near our table hounding the hostess, and the staff clearing the tables often had to yell 'excuse me!' Maybe after some time, the hype will die down a bit. Maybe not. But if you want to come, be mentally prepared. Side Note: They're able to reserve a table for large parties of 8-10. There's a station around the corner of the hostess counter near the entrance. There, you can get your own to-go boxes, utensils, straws, plates and napkins. It's faster than trying to flag someone down.

2.8 starsMy mom wanted to try this place, so here we are! My first impressions of the restaurant is that it's spacious and oddly designed. The interior has a very industrial look, but then, chandeliers decorate the ceilings. Booths and tables still look pretty new and clean, but our plates were filthy so we got that changed out. Service: The service is somewhat all over the place, but that is to be expected for such a new restaurant. We came in at 10:30am, but we waited 15 minutes for the iced milk tea, 25 minutes for the fish, and around 50 minutes for the X.O pan-fried rice noodles...which ultimately got cancelled because the kitchen never got the order. The table next to us didn't fare much better...they waited around 50 minutes for the remainder of their order. I hope they iron out the wait times quickly. The servers are doing the very best they can, but I think it's a serious case of being understaffed front-of-the-house and back-of-the house.Our orders:Iced Milk Tea: this was $1.95 with our entree order. I thought it was really sweet, but tasty. 3.5/5 starsSalted Black Bean Fish Filet ($11.99): A savory stir-fry dish with fish, onions, and bell peppers. Delicious and goes well with white rice. Unfortunately, the white rice was hard... so 3.5/5 starsX.O. Pan-Fried Noodles w/ Chicken: 0/5 stars due to technical issues. Kitchen never received our order due to tablet not communicating w/ printer. Aside from horrible wait times, I think this restaurant still has potential.

Drove down Lower Azusa and saw a banner that advertised the grand opening of TD Cafe. Decided to try it out with my parents and was pleasantly surprised with how busy it was on Saturday evening. The restaurant itself is fairly big with a good number of tables - about 85% of tables were filled when we walked in and there was a steady number of customers entering during our stay. We don't have too many HK cafes in the area, so I can see this place being busy. TD Cafe is located in the bowling alley plaza - there's been a lot of restaurants popping up, so hopefully this one is here to stay. Parking is not an issue - located in a fairly large plaza with a ton of parking space. Overall ambiance is nice - high ceilings, large space for people to meet and chat. The menu offers a good selection of Chinese dishes with lunch and dinner specials, several special combinations (comes with a drink and soup), as well as some Western dishes. Prices are pretty affordable. Not sure if they have breakfast, but they do have some items that are typically found for breakfast (kaya toast, French toast, HK style pineapple buns). Ordered the special combination of the clay pot rice with preserved meat, dry morel and chicken soup (the other more popular soups were sold out for that day) and an iced lemon tea ($18.99). The clay pot rice does take about 30 minutes to cook, but the wait time wasn't too bad. I really liked the soup - slightly medicinal, super warm and healing on a cold evening. Lemon tea was made well, but slightly on the sweeter side. As for the clay pot rice - I really enjoyed this dish! Came with a separate sweet soy sauce that we poured over the rice. There was a generous amount of Chinese sausage, preserved meats. I also enjoyed digging at the bottom of the pot for the harder rice pieces stuck to the bottom of the pot. Fried stick rice with preserved meat, dried mushrooms, dried small shrimp, peanuts $12.99. This was well made - good amount of ingredients, liked the chewiness of the rice, and the peanuts on top gave the dish a more fragrant and elevated feel. And we got the deep-fried pork chop with honey garlic sauce $11.99 - one of the lunch and dinner specials that come with steamed rice. For $12, this was pretty worth it. A good amount of pork chop pieces. Sauce was a bit cloying, but overall had good flavor that went well with the rice. They also gave some free garlic bread as an appetizer, which was appreciated. Honestly, this was a hit for me and I definitely will be back to try the Western dishes and the HK pineapple buns! Hoping that it continues to do well and become permanent in the SGV.

Food was decent but the customer service really let really let the experience down. Hopefully they improve i would like to try it again soon since it's so close to my house. The pineapple bread was really good!

I decided to take my family to dinner at TD Cafe tonight. We arrived around 5:30 p.m. tonight; this place is like a zoo--people everywhere. There are a lot of people waiting outside; we waited inside the café because it was so cold outdoors, and there are a lot of people waiting on the side, on the path, and it's a mess. We are a group of seven, and the waitress calls the party of eight to the table despite the fact that our waiting number is ahead of them. I believe it's my luck that we're usually overlooked, and they'd rather give us the table than other parties... The table we received was not even cleaned, had no settings, and was not even wipe clean. I asked one of the female servers to give us the settings, but she ignored me and went on to do something else. Finally, I got one of the servers to take our order, but the items we wanted were all out... So in the end, we just ordered whatever was available... I must add that all of the dishes are really small and not worth the price. Even my kids disliked the food and barely took a few bites. Overall, it was overcrowded, the portions were small, the prices were high, and the service was poor... This restaurant requires significant improvements in order to thrive in the future. I wouldn't recommend this restaurant...

This is my first time to try its special lunch. I was there at 11:30 am, and the line was super long. I didn't get my table until noon. The restaurant itself is in chaos (in a good way). The servers were trying their best, but there were too many people. I tried the 2-item BBQ plate, mushroom beef, and stir-fried beans. They ran out of rice at one point, and I had to wait for the rice to cook despite this chaos. The food was delicious. I noticed many people were getting to go, and I may try that next time.

Food was pretty good. Got the bbq pork, roast pork, roast duck, garlic snow peas, and herbal chicken soup. Everything tasted good but it all came out cold except the rice and snow peas. They must prep everything in advance and then service it without heating it up. This would be awesome for to go but not for sit down. Being new, the place was clean and fresh with plenty of seating.Service was quick, but once they bring you food they never came back to check.Wanted to give 5 stars but cold BBQ was a strong miss. Will be back to try again.

i love the duck and fish!! the customer service was amazing. the ambience was very lively and welcoming! 10/10 would come again!!