Top Asian Restaurant in Santa Barbara
Your Choice Restaurant
3404 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, United States
I have been coming to this restaurant for at least 10 years. The quality of the food and atmosphere has only gotten better with the years. This is rare with restaurants in Santa Barbara but if there is one secret to keeping your doors open and lasting longer than a few years as a restaurant owner in this town it would be not cutting corners with the food. Santa Barbara locals are a tough crowd. We know when you do this and we will stop coming as soon as the food gets cheap and the quality takes a dive.On the other hand, if you keep making things *better* word gets out and people will come. This is the case with Your Choice Thai. When I used to go here years ago with friends it was decent Thai food. Nothing to complain about. Now? The ingredients are so fresh, the dishes are all so well made.When I compare it to other newer Thai restaurants in Santa Barbara and Goleta I already know which ones will be closed in the next few years if they cant figure out how to make a decent Curry sauce!They have a great (efficient) take out service in the front of the house with plenty of room for people to wait for their orders without disturbing the folks staying for dinner. And trust me, you will see a crowd of people waiting for their take out on certain nights of the week! They have three walls worth of booths with the back wall booths flexible for large parties. The center of the dining room has tables that can be arranged to fit various sized parties and the entire front of the house also has tables looking out across Upper State Street and Loretto Plaza.Thats another thing to make a note of, this *not* the location (Your Place) on Milpas Street, this is on Upper State Street. (Your Choice) There is plenty of parking but it does get full during dinner time. Not to worry though, there is parking on the side streets in the San Roque neighborhood.I almost dont want everyone to know about my favorite Thai restaurant because this will make them even busier. But as long as they keep the quality of their food and dining experience top notch it should be ok! They really have earned it.One last thing, the service. They are basically a well oiled machine at this point. They have added a lot of new staff from what I have seen. Some of the newer servers are very green but all of them are very friendly and polite. The more seasoned servers will serve you your first cup of tea and ladle your first cup of soup for you. Newer servers are more likely to just put it down on the table and leave you to it. However no matter who is serving you they are all interested in helping you with whatever it is you need. If you are waiting for your take out order they will check on it for you and find out how much longer it will be, whatever specific need you have will always be attended to by whomever catches your eye first. I have never experienced any rudeness or inefficiency with anyone there. Just levels of experience. Which is completely forgivable.This is basically the restaurant I will go to when I want to br guaranteed to have a positive experience. So far I have never been disappointed.Pictured: Phad Thai with Tofu, Thom Kha soup with Veggies, Green Tea, Pa Nang Curry with Tofu and rice. My Mom and I had a wonderful vegetarian spread. We dont always go vegetarian but felt like it the other night. It was perfect. The leftovers were amazing too.
Sushi Teri - Santa Barbara Japanese Restaurant
1013 Bath St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, United States
Without competition the worst Asian food Ive ever had the misfortune of tasting. I ordered teriyaki beef and was given a pile of thin, leathery steaks that probably came in a package from Costco. If it werent for the scoop of rice on the side and the teriyaki sauce it wouldve been a white trash familys idea of steak dinner. If you want food like that from Sushi Teri, just buy a large package of thin steaks from the dollar store. At least then you could cut them up before putting them in a teriyaki dinner. The California roll tasted like crab salad, and was barely edible. The waiter forgot to change clothes after playing video games on the couch all day, and was so stoned he couldnt even begin to serve us. If you want food like this, go look in some rednecks dumpster, dont spend far too much money at it at this sushi restaurant.
Saigon Restaurant
721 Chapala St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, United States
Unfortunately, both of my recent take-out experiences with this restaurant were unacceptable. I will do my best to describe.Visit 1: Called ahead, was told food would be ready in 15 minutes. Showed up 20 minutes later and food was not ready. Sat and waited over half an hour before our food was ready. Not great.Visit 2: Called ahead, and placed an order for a couple of entrees and some dumplings. We arrive at the restaurant and the woman confirms the order with us twice. We pay and leave.Once we got home we realized that the dumplings were not included in our order, but we were still charged for them. We call the restaurant and they insisted we drive back to pick them up, which we didnt want to do. Instead, I requested a refund for the amount of the dumplings and the woman refused to honor my request. She would not issue a refund for such a small amount and insisted the we come back again.The employee of the restaurant assured us that if we let her know that she made a mistake previously that she would make it up to us by giving us extra food on our next visit. Unfortunately, she didnt ask for our name, or take down any of our information. Not the slightest bit reassuring...This is beyond poor customer service. This restaurant made a mistake, and all it would have taken to smooth it over was a small refund. Instead, they made their point.
Kyoto Japanese Restaurant
3232 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, United States
This is about the service, not about the food. It is New Year Eve, we ordered food from Doordash around 6pm, and it said the order would be complete around 6:30pm. We went to the restaurant, dozens of people were waiting at the front door in the cold evening. We asked, and the restaurant said our order is not ready. So we joined other people waiting outside, and there were more and more people joining the waiting. During the waiting, the restaurant occasionally brought out some bags and checked names, but with a very low frequency, maybe 1 bag per 10 minutes. After waiting for one hour, we couldn't stand it anymore and went into the restaurant, going through a crowd of people. It turned out our food bag has been sitting there for a long time (according to another customer next to it). However, for the whole time, we were not being called. Just waiting in cold, the restaurant didn't care if the customers got their food. I tried to ask for an explain from the restaurant, but there wasn't even an eye contact from them. WORST experience. Sadly this is the New Year Eve. We respect the efforts made by the chefs, but the service is not acceptable at all.
Flavor of India
3026 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, United States
Flavor of India has been in Santa Barbara for as long as I can remember - and I was born and raised here. Now that I am in my mid-thirties I have seen it go through a few changes. Mostly cosmetic and some functional but the food seems to be getting better with time.Which is why FOI has lasted so long in a town where new restaurants come and go as quickly as the staff in the Trump Administration! But seriously, as a local, a good tip for how good a place in town might be is to find out how long they have been here. While not definitive it is a solid clue. Its too expensive and there are too many amazing restaurants for anyone with bad food and bad service to last very long here.Back to India... I mentioned their look. They were always delicious but I think the recent opening of other Indian restaurants as well as Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine in town has caused them them to step up their game. I was pleasantly surprised a few nights ago when I walked in to see the entire place had a makeover from their dingy white walls and faded menus. (I still went for the food not the atmosphere.)Logistically they got rid of their all you can eat buffet. I think this was probably a shrewd business move on their end and I am very happy for them if it is helping their business. It also elevated the entire experience in my opinion and gives the main dining area a more open feel.Everything about the new look of Flavor of India is why I decided to spend some time today writing this review. It looks great! I also wanted to reiterate the fact that the food has not changed in all these years that I have been going there. If anything it has gotten better.There is only one small issue I think the owners and management should address for the sake of their customers. It seems like it should be an easy fix too.The lighting. Its too dark!Im only 37 years old and I actually have decent night vision but I struggled to read the menu without my cellphone glow or awkwardly angling the menu in the any direction that had some light in it. There is simply not enough light at the tables to adequately read your menu.Might I suggest a fake candle or adding a brighter bulb to the overhead lights at the tables?? Perhaps instead of 40 watts just 60 instead??Thats it! The food and atmosphere are great and you are a solid institution of Indian cuisine in Santa Barbara that has been around the longest.Let that light shine bright so I can give you five stars!
Santa Barbara Craft Ramen
436 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, United States
These incidents happened a little over a year ago, so they might not apply if the management has chanced. The servers here are generally nice, but I encountered a manager who was a real piece of work.One of my friends and I had a craving for ramen. I wanted to go to Nikka Ramen, but he didnt want to drive that far and we ended up here. That was a huge mistake, as it took 10 minutes just for us to get served water, and another 15 for a server to take our order.Now, I could let that incident slide, but its the following incident that compelled me to write this review. I was delivering food for DoorDash at the time, and was picking up a SB Craft Ramen order. It wasnt my first, so I knew good places to legally park while still being able to quickly get to the restaurant.As always, the employees were friendly, but this time I was immediately confronted by a manager who asked me What time did you get here? The employee tried to defend me saying, He just got here? but the manager talked over him pressing me, How long is it going to take you to deliver this? I gave him an honest answer based on the mileage, but he just smirked and said Okay.I should have replied with an it gets there when it gets there, because Im under no obligation to risk my safety or the safety of others to some jacka** who doesnt even pay my car insurance. Normally Id let stuff like this slide, but if youre going to criticize my speed, its only fair game for me to criticize yours.
Mandarin Palace
3955 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, United States
Ate at Mandarin Palace for dinner tonight. Such a great restaurant with the best Chinese food there is in Santa Barbara! And Im telling you, being born and raised in Bangkok Thailand, you can really distinguish between American Asian food and Asian Asian food. Mandarin palace serves REAL, delicious Asian dishes and its a go to restaurant for every time I want to eat Chinese food in SB.
Hana Kitchen - Santa Barbara Downtown
503 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, United States
Its very cheap and you can eat a lot of food. There are only two types of food: beef or chicken rice bowls and chicken tacos. Theyre small tacos, enough to fit two bites, and at $1.50 each, eating two is a snack. However, the tacos should just be slightly warmed, but they are grilled on the grill just like the chicken, so the outside gets charred and its not good to eat. In Korea, there is an uproar that eating something burnt like this is a big problem... I think the rice in the rice bowl is made with Korean rice. Its sticky and plump. Its just bare rice with shredded lettuce and a lot of grilled chicken on top, so it doesnt have a deep flavor. However, I think it would be good for students or office workers to grab a quick bite to eat when they are hungry. There is no place to sit indoors. There are only 7 to 8 chairs placed at the bar along the window and wall. Because it is crowded with customers, it is better to take it with you and eat it somewhere else as they put it in a lunch box. There are cucumbers coated in red pepper powder and very spicy pickled red peppers. You can eat them instead of kimchi, so grab a lot of them. You can sprinkle additional green onions, but if you add a lot, the simple taste of the rice bowl will be enriched by the aroma. For an adult male, the regular bowl, which costs $8, is a bit large, so there is a lot left over. I think the $5 small size would be enough.
SB Pho
1221 State Street Suite 10, E Victoria St Lot 5, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, United States
Cute restaurant but the pho is far from authentic, sort of picked up on some hint when on the menu under pho the options were beef, chicken or vegetables instead of choices on the beef slices (tai, flank, tripe etc). The pho itself tasted off, very oily, with very thin and tiny portion of beef slices despite the $15 for a small (this price will get you an XL size combo pho at most Vietnamese places). The veggie on the side looked so sadly sparse. But I can accept a higher price for its location.Thing that I had a harder time accepting is how they prepared their tea. Ours was made by the cashier, without handwashing just dug hands into a lose leaf tea jar, grabbed a handful, put in a pot and dump a whole bunch of hot water in. Unsanitary.Re: owner's reply - maybe hiring a PR team would be good when engaging with customers online.
Meet Up Chinese Cuisine
2251 Las Positas Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, United States
Everything I ordered was amazing! Unappetizing.1. Vinegar shredded potatoes have no pot gas. The taste is similar to shredded potatoes, which are boiled and mixed with boiled green pepper shreds before serving. The taste is very bland and not salty.2. Qili Xiang Pork Ribs. After taking one bite, I didn't want to eat it. The biggest problem with pork ribs is that they don't have a burnt flavor. Delicious pork ribs should have a sizzling aroma of fat and lean meat after being heated to a high temperature. It will taste very fragrant, and the fat meat in the corners should be a little crispy. But this pork ribs are not fragrant at all. The ribs are blanched, mixed with some sauce and served. The taste is also relatively bland. Nothing salty.3. Lanzhou Ramen. This is not ramen at all, this ramen is not chewy and the soup is mediocre.But the service attitude is very good.