Be Social

Houston Press Insiders

Cafe 121 Chinese Restaurant

5727 Westheimer

Houston, TX 77057

713-784-8999

This place specializes in pan-Asian cuisine, including Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai dishes. They also focus on healthier versions of Asian favorites, using no MSG and only skinless white chicken meat. An extensive menu includes some dishes that are hard to find or not available elsewhere, like soup dumplings and mango shrimp.

Cuisine(s): Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese
Hours: Open Seven Days A Week ~ Lunch & Dinner
Price: $
Serving: Lunch, Dinner
Alcohol: Full bar
Reservations: Not Accepted
Parking: Lot Available
Payment Types: All Major Credit Cards
Features: Takeout, Private Party

show/hide reviews (1) Please log in to write your review

Overall:

My fiance and I walked in on a Sunday evening. There were only two other tables.

We noticed that hot tea was $1.75 (for a tea bag and hot water?), so I got water, and he asked about beer. The waitress started with their most expensive imported beer, and then stopped and waited. Hungry and unwilling to drag the rest of the list out of her, he got water too. It came without lemon. When we wanted to ask the waitress for some, we noticed she was nowhere in sight.

Eventually she came back . She did actually write the orders down and repeat them back. We had the "Kung Pao Shrimp" ($8.95) and the "Tangy Spicy Chicken" ($7.50) which included soup, eggroll, and fried rice. We got a couple of small soup cups half full of broth with one underdone wonton in the bottom. Then, we each got one finger-sized egg roll and one cream cheese puff (both the prefrozen foodservice kind), but no plates or sauces to eat them with. We badly needed more water. We looked for the waitress, but she had disappeared on us again.

By this time (about 8:30) the other two tables had gone and we were alone. When the food came it was barely warm. They came with two large scoops of mushy flavorless brown rice. I got only FIVE total medium sized shrimp (for $8.95!), some broccoli and peanuts, and a sauce so salty I could barely choke it down, and in fact could not finish it. The dish had dry hot peppers diced into it, so I could not pick them out, and chewing them was like trying to eat shrimp shells. Disgusting. His dish was neither "tangy" nor "spicy," but was equally heavily oversalted. It contained canned mushrooms and used cheaper jicama instead of water chestnuts (oh, yes, we can tell the difference, we cook with fresh and dried mushrooms and jicama at home).

The waitress did not come out even once to check on us. We had to call her over again to get the check. We won't be back.

There are hundreds of GOOD Chinese restaurants in Houston. Why bother with this one?
Review by Badgersdaughter