Potluck Cafe

The grilled curry chicken with lemongrass is by far the best dish I've had it. Please continue having this available! Definitely a good spot for lunch. $9 you're in and out. There's like 6-8 tables where you can dine in. The structure is a little weird but if you don't mind close contact, you can definitely dine in. Water is included

Always walked past this place leaving Jia Ho Supermarket and decided to try it out. 3 Dish lunch combo for $9 is solid for the amount of food. Taste is alright -- homecoming vibe but wasn't a fan of the Szechuan fish but the other two dishes were fine. Limited english speaking but manageable.

Went here on a lazy Saturday afternoon after hearing about this place from someone else. A true hole-in-the-wall, it's located in one of the larger alleyways of Chinatown. Be warned - the English translation of the menu is not really accurate and if you don't know what you're getting, you might be in for a surprise. The service was great as the lady in front gave us a friendly run-down on how to order on the tablet. We ordered two different noodle soups, one with beef + beef tripe + rice noodles, and the other a pork specialty with glass noodles, both requested at mildly spicy. The wait was normal, maybe 10-15 mins, and the bowls they come out with are deceptively deep. Both noodle soups had tofu, bak Choi, and Napa cabbage. The broth was delicious and the bowl themselves kept very hot for a long time. The spicy was just at the right level and for ~$13 a bowl there was a lot food to get through. Tasty and satisfying I think we spent like 20-30 mins mins trying to finish our meal because there was so much!They also have handmade baos to take home but we were too full at the time to consider it. tldr; pretty cheap, good service, good food, generous portions, 100% authentic, but isn't a clean restaurant.

Very authentic northern Chinese food. Very cheap for a decent serving size! Everything taste amazing, just like home! Def will come back for some home style Chinese food!

[update in 06/2022] this place now reopen with renovation and change in menu! They no longer offer the "buffet-like" precooked dishes but instead you order from their menu. A decent selection, same authentic tastes (LOTS of vegetable options), plus MaLaTang麻辣烫 and ShaGuo/ Clay Pot 砂锅 dishes, with or without meat. The offer complementary rice and soup when you order 3 dishes or more. The place is clean. So exciting to see their strong return. i miss this place! I am writing this review per my experience with this place in 2019 - it was a dirt cheap place where you get three dishes plus rice plus soup. It is a place where a lot of local Chinatown residents and those who work nearby went for lunch. The serDespite crowded - service is fast. the place was always full of people, all attracted by its price and relatively large selection of dishes. Unfortunately with a place relying on customer volume and needs cash flow, it did not do well after Covid pandemic starts. The owner tried to switch to a menu model - but of course given the tense competition as well as overall much smaller customer number - the place eventually closed since 10/2020. Hope it will reopen one day.

Review is for the food from the menu, not the fast food combo options.Boyfriend and I ordered the seafood mala drypot (麻辣香锅) and Tianjin buns (狗不理包子).First off, everything was served in a plastic to go container. The mala drypot was more of a stir fry than a dry pot. There was cauliflower, kelp, mushrooms, potato, bean curd, tofu, and seafood. The seafood was a few pieces of fish and some shrimp. It was not authentic. For $13 it was really not worth it. We got an order of the steamed buns (8 for $7). It was a good deal, since the buns were huge, but they were okay. The outside of the buns were a bit hard and not soft like most steams buns should be. The filling was pretty good though. There was a substantial amount of meat in them. However, I'm pretty sure the buns were bought prepackaged from the Chinese grocery store nearby and simply reheated.... Service was good. They were friendly and quick enough. I was also expecting the Chinese crepes but apparently that is no long available here...Honestly I had such high expectations for this place... I thought it was gonna be a hole in the wall with really authentic Chinese food but I was so disappointed... come if you want cheap fast Chinese food but don't have too high hopes.

I am a fan of true hole in the walk restaurants, especially in major cities like Boston. Potluck Cafe is unassuming and has no English menu. It's a true Chinese restaurant, price and all. For $6.25 you get a giant heaping of rice and three dishes. If you don't like the dishes, you probably don't know true Chinese food. The food tastes exactly like how my grandmother made it. And you can't beat the price.It's not a place to visit on its own, but every time I have errands in the area I grab lunch here to bring home and enjoy.

Today, the menu has changed, so I ordered ramen... So I decided to order volcano ramen takeout (noodle soup is packaged separately)... In the end, I don't know what I ate. The noodles were not ramen, they were clumpy and I couldn't pick them up with chopsticks. The soup was sour, and I couldn't taste the essence of Japanese ramen soup base at all (the waiter said that this was a lot of ingredients that had been boiled for a long time, anyway, it was sour and spicy and I didn't know what I was drinking). The chili oil simply tasted like chili powder, and the side dishes were normal, but they added a few more pieces of fish tofu in a weird way... I originally wanted to give the boss some friendly advice, hoping that they would pay attention to it in the future. The boss was refuse to answer the phone call, and just asked the waiter to answer it for me. Who knew that I was ridiculed and said, "This is fusion, the whole United States is doing fusion, if you want to eat authentic ramen, go to Japan."... In short, for this price, the portion is okay, and the rest is forgettable. I hope everyone doesn't step on the thunder!!!

Food is so good with the affordable price. I wish I can eat this thing every day but I lives so far....

Evidently they don't have the same "cheap" meals anymore (unless I ordered wrong), but what I got for about $19 was well worth it. I had two fried chicken legs, mapo tofu, and string beans, along with a plateful of white rice and a small bowl of soup. These were all served quickly with a friendly smile. The restaurant is a little small, but I didn't have to wait very long to get a seat. Will be back!