Great food and service especially from Chelsea who took care of us and treat us like a VIP. Food was excellent and the value is exceptional.
Elizabeth
The food was far below what I was expecting based on the restaurant's reputation. The Peking Duck was a particular disappointment, quite dried out, I suspect it was leftover from the day before as I dined during lunch. They also give you a minimal amount of pancakes, not enough in proportion to the duck and then upcharge you for more- and they were cold. Service was just okay.
Patricia
Wonderful food and lovely people. Since our fav restaurant in Indianapolis closed, we've experienced a drought in good Chinese food. Mama Lu's scratched every itch ... great dumplings, veggies, and the scallion pancake was superb.
Perry
Made reservations for Jan 1st at 11:45AM. Arrive to find that there were no tables available, only out on the patio where it has been raining. I selected standard table on the app. They said we can for an indoor table to open up but it that can take awhile because most tables just sat down. This is one of those situation when you ask " Why have a reservation system when you don't honor the reservation that was made?" In the end, we left to find another location only to be charge for parking.
Michael
The formerly Capitol Seafood location presented the single , comedically awful dining experience experience ever. Where to begin? There was no wait stand to check in for our reservation so it was a mob scene on Xmas - clearly the restaurant was not prepared for. We were seated without being asked our name. An hour after ordering, food began to arrive, however the coconut buns (gai mai bai) were stale fried bread that was unedible. We were told the restaurant was sold out of Tsing Tao beer, then observed other tables were being brought beer. Other food arrived, delivered by overworked, miserable servers. The chow fun was flavorless, soup dumplings were cold by time their sauce arrived. We literally had a few unhappy bites & departed. The young manager ‘complained' : ‘We had 400 reservations!' DO NOT EAT AT THIS RESTAURANT.
Nat
Let me start by saying it was Christmas Day and they may not have been at their best, but my experience was bad from start to finish. Endless wait for a table, half the orders never come, the ones that do are subpar (greasy and everything smelled a little fishy, even beef and noodles) and service was non existent. Really not good.
april
Oversold the evening and we had a 5:45 reservation. When we checked in the told us it would be at least 2 hours wait. Horrible
josh
They got completely overwhelmed on Christmas, reservations, not being honored, food being served in plastic to go cartons, people, complaining and storming out of the restaurant. It was an absolute mess.
Todd
Absolutely the worst experience I've had at a Los Angeles restaurant. Showed up 20 minutes early, seated a half hour late. Sat at table another 15 minutes with tea but nobody came to take our order. We left as soon as we heard every table around us complaining about the slow service, and the waiter continued around the room to say they were “out of fried rice!” Wasted my time and my out of town guests.
Anita
We dined at Mama Lu's on Christmas. They were having a rough night - it seemed that they had been overwhelmed by countless take-out orders and the kitchen just could not keep up. Many people showed up for the reservations at the same time, in addition to the people there to pick up food. The front of house staff were obviously doing everything they could to handle the issues, even while some unpleasant, truly unkind, people berated them. I recognize how hard they were trying. In spite of the issues, we eventually got our table and ordered food. We ordered several dishes to share and they were each incredibly delicious. The garlic pea shoots and spicy eggplant were definite highlights. We will certainly return for dinner on a less hectic evening. All in all, we had a wonderful meal.
My family and I had Christmas dinner at Mama Lu's. The food was good however the service was poor. We waited 50 minutes for a table with a reservation. The poor host was very overwhelmed with a mass of unhappy customers waiting to be sat. Once seated, we waited another 20 minutes for a server who (understandably) was in rush given they didn't appear to properly staffed for the holiday. The food was tasty. We ordered juicy pork dumplings, pork and shrimp wontons, beef rolls, Singapore chow mean, orange chicken, Mongolian beef, string bings, Chinese broccoli and crab fried rice. The crab fried rice is the only entree we didn't enjoy. The crab was very fishy tasting and the rice itself lacked flavor and color. It almost looked like it hadn't been fried. I would come back on a regular day but definitely skip on a holiday as they are not prepared to handle the crowd.
Opentable Diner
Great food and good atmosphere for larger celebrations. We went New Year's Day and the place was buzzing but got seated promptly even with the chaos of the day. The staff was attentive and food came out incrementally but not overly slow. Have visited before and had an equally wonderful time. The food is delicious and dumplings superb! 🎉🎆
Mary
We were there on a very busy day and the staff was very nice even though it was really crazy. Food was very yummy.
jay
Went X Mas day and it was super busy. If you know you have full reservations you would think they would have more than 2 service people. The wait for the food was a joke. Over 45 min from ordering and we didn't get everything so had to cancel some items. Mama Lu's is also not a high end seafood place so don't order the seafood. We ordered lobster which was tiny...on the bill it was $190 ... they claimed it was a 5 lb lobster at almost $40 a lb lol. Total joke. Never again.
Gary
Alex works the front door and an extremely busy Christmas Eve was honest about the time we needed to wait and even in the total chaos he held it together and the restaurant delivered wonderful food to our table. Would definitely go again mostly thanks to Alex.
Great food and service especially from Chelsea who took care of us and treat us like a VIP. Food was excellent and the value is exceptional.
The food was far below what I was expecting based on the restaurant's reputation. The Peking Duck was a particular disappointment, quite dried out, I suspect it was leftover from the day before as I dined during lunch. They also give you a minimal amount of pancakes, not enough in proportion to the duck and then upcharge you for more- and they were cold. Service was just okay.
Wonderful food and lovely people. Since our fav restaurant in Indianapolis closed, we've experienced a drought in good Chinese food. Mama Lu's scratched every itch ... great dumplings, veggies, and the scallion pancake was superb.
Made reservations for Jan 1st at 11:45AM. Arrive to find that there were no tables available, only out on the patio where it has been raining. I selected standard table on the app. They said we can for an indoor table to open up but it that can take awhile because most tables just sat down. This is one of those situation when you ask " Why have a reservation system when you don't honor the reservation that was made?" In the end, we left to find another location only to be charge for parking.
The formerly Capitol Seafood location presented the single , comedically awful dining experience experience ever. Where to begin? There was no wait stand to check in for our reservation so it was a mob scene on Xmas - clearly the restaurant was not prepared for. We were seated without being asked our name. An hour after ordering, food began to arrive, however the coconut buns (gai mai bai) were stale fried bread that was unedible. We were told the restaurant was sold out of Tsing Tao beer, then observed other tables were being brought beer. Other food arrived, delivered by overworked, miserable servers. The chow fun was flavorless, soup dumplings were cold by time their sauce arrived. We literally had a few unhappy bites & departed. The young manager ‘complained' : ‘We had 400 reservations!' DO NOT EAT AT THIS RESTAURANT.
Let me start by saying it was Christmas Day and they may not have been at their best, but my experience was bad from start to finish. Endless wait for a table, half the orders never come, the ones that do are subpar (greasy and everything smelled a little fishy, even beef and noodles) and service was non existent. Really not good.
Oversold the evening and we had a 5:45 reservation. When we checked in the told us it would be at least 2 hours wait. Horrible
They got completely overwhelmed on Christmas, reservations, not being honored, food being served in plastic to go cartons, people, complaining and storming out of the restaurant. It was an absolute mess.
Absolutely the worst experience I've had at a Los Angeles restaurant. Showed up 20 minutes early, seated a half hour late. Sat at table another 15 minutes with tea but nobody came to take our order. We left as soon as we heard every table around us complaining about the slow service, and the waiter continued around the room to say they were “out of fried rice!” Wasted my time and my out of town guests.
We dined at Mama Lu's on Christmas. They were having a rough night - it seemed that they had been overwhelmed by countless take-out orders and the kitchen just could not keep up. Many people showed up for the reservations at the same time, in addition to the people there to pick up food. The front of house staff were obviously doing everything they could to handle the issues, even while some unpleasant, truly unkind, people berated them. I recognize how hard they were trying. In spite of the issues, we eventually got our table and ordered food. We ordered several dishes to share and they were each incredibly delicious. The garlic pea shoots and spicy eggplant were definite highlights. We will certainly return for dinner on a less hectic evening. All in all, we had a wonderful meal.
Restaurantji Recommends
My family and I had Christmas dinner at Mama Lu's. The food was good however the service was poor. We waited 50 minutes for a table with a reservation. The poor host was very overwhelmed with a mass of unhappy customers waiting to be sat. Once seated, we waited another 20 minutes for a server who (understandably) was in rush given they didn't appear to properly staffed for the holiday. The food was tasty. We ordered juicy pork dumplings, pork and shrimp wontons, beef rolls, Singapore chow mean, orange chicken, Mongolian beef, string bings, Chinese broccoli and crab fried rice. The crab fried rice is the only entree we didn't enjoy. The crab was very fishy tasting and the rice itself lacked flavor and color. It almost looked like it hadn't been fried. I would come back on a regular day but definitely skip on a holiday as they are not prepared to handle the crowd.
Great food and good atmosphere for larger celebrations. We went New Year's Day and the place was buzzing but got seated promptly even with the chaos of the day. The staff was attentive and food came out incrementally but not overly slow. Have visited before and had an equally wonderful time. The food is delicious and dumplings superb! 🎉🎆
We were there on a very busy day and the staff was very nice even though it was really crazy. Food was very yummy.
Went X Mas day and it was super busy. If you know you have full reservations you would think they would have more than 2 service people. The wait for the food was a joke. Over 45 min from ordering and we didn't get everything so had to cancel some items. Mama Lu's is also not a high end seafood place so don't order the seafood. We ordered lobster which was tiny...on the bill it was $190 ... they claimed it was a 5 lb lobster at almost $40 a lb lol. Total joke. Never again.
Alex works the front door and an extremely busy Christmas Eve was honest about the time we needed to wait and even in the total chaos he held it together and the restaurant delivered wonderful food to our table. Would definitely go again mostly thanks to Alex.
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