The Grand Cafe

This restaurant is great. Food reminds me of some of the Chinese restaurants I grew up with in the Chicago area. Food is reasonably priced and tasted delicious. The staff is warm and attentive... They always remember us. A great family restaurant.

The Grand Cafe is hit and miss, but when it's been a "hit" it still hasn't been that great, in my opinion. The restaurant is old, and inside it looks like Chinese restaurants used to look 30 years ago. Personally, I kind of like that for the nostalgia aspect. I'm not complaining about that at all. The service is usually above average, which is certainly nice. However, the food is typically "eh." Their egg rolls are usually very good and much better than the egg rolls you get in most Chinese restaurants. However, they can be very salty at times, and when that happens, it kind of ruins the rest of the meal since this place is known for their egg rolls. As for the entrees, they are usually so-so. They too are sometimes too salty. Yes; Chinese food often uses a good amount of salt, but even it can be too salty. Their sauces can be good and bad as well. I've only had their Mongolian beef once, and the sauce was more of a gravy than a sauce. That just didn't seem right. I'm willing to go back here; it has never been bad enough to keep me away, but there are other places in town that are consistently better.

I headed to Grand Cafe a couple of weeks ago with a friend. We both love Asian food and thought it was cool that this place has been there for 90 years.  Well... they haven't updated their menu or ingredients in at least 50 years, so if you like truly old-school Americanized Chinese food, this is the place for you (trying to be positive here).  We did not like anything we got (sesame chicken, General Tso's shrimp, and egg rolls), with everything being really salty, oily, and flavorless.  The staff was really nice, however (not a Chinese person in the place, though).   There are better options in town (Imperial Buffet, Great Wall, Thai House).