Lunch #64: Pacific Cafe

Without a clear goal, MSG150 has spent the last few month going back to favorite spots and watching for changes in the ID. Soon after our Fort St. George review, Pacific Cafe, opened in the shell of a failed restaurant next to the sketchy bar on 5th and Main. About that time Brad Cassiday, a freelance writer for the Seattlest, found our blog and asked if he could join us for lunch so we invited him to try out Pacific Cafe with us. We showed up with a crew of six and met Brad at the door.

Pacific Cafe, Seattle
Address: 416 5th Ave S, Seattle, WA
Cuisine: Chinese: Hong Kong
Average rating: 2.9 chopsticks
Lunch date: 9/12/2008 @ 12:00:00
Time taken to be seated: 3 minutes
Time to take order: 5 minutes
Time for food to arrive: 30 minutes
Total lengh of meal: 75 minutes
Chopstix quality: Fork
Do they use MSG?: Yes
Where is the owner/chef from?: Hong Kong
Number of tables: 11
Number of occupied tables: 11 (100%)
Number of business lunch tables: 6 (54%)
Number of "local" tables: 6 (54%)
Healthcode Score: N/A
Links: Yelp!, Urbanspoon

Luncher: Emmett

Lunch: #9 - Sliced Beef with Onions - $5.95
Rating:

Emmett's Review

Happy 2009. We ate at this restaurant back in September 2008, when the Seahawks still had a chance at not sucking and Lehman Brothers still existed. We got lazy and started watching our fortunes dwindle, and we hosted this thing at Hing Hay park, which turned out to be a fun filled evening.

Our bud Joey apparently knew somebody who knew somebody who ran this place, and it looks real pretty on the outside, so we were totally psyched to go in. We found a table in the back, and joined up with some blogger guy who writes about Football and wanted to do a Pre-Game Football Food article or something. My choice this day was #9 - the Sliced Beef with Onions, which I guess appeals to my German Midwestern roots in some way. It had lots of black pepper on it, was very saucy, and it sucked. Alright it didn't totally suck. I mean it looked good on the outside, and like You, Me, and Dupree, it had all this potential. But then it just wasn't good, and I wanted to leave.

Service was slow, food was unremarkable, I'll probably never come back even though our new office is a block away.

Luncher: Geary

Lunch: #2 - Singapore Style Fried Rice Noodles - $5.95
Rating:

Geary's Review

Pacific Cafe is clean and has a modern feeling. There is a big flatscreen TV over the service bar broadcasting beautifuil photos of menu items toward the folks waitng for tables in the small entry way. As we sized up the menu we noticed that nobody was using chopsticks. It's strckly forks and knives at the Pacific Cafe.

I went with #2, Singapore Style Fried Rice Noodles. The H&SS starter was marginal. It was bland and neither sour nor spicy. The noodles were passable, but nothing really outstanding. The dish consisted of wide rice noodles with shrimp, small bits of BBQ pork, and a few veggies tossed with a dry curry. It was certainly no better than the $4 Singapore noodles on the Golden City lunch menu.

Luncher: Adam

Lunch: #1 - Shanghai Style Stir Fried Noodles - $5.95
Rating:

Adam's Review

A new restaurant? Awesome. It's good to have my eatin' shoes back on, and it's time to review.

When you see a lunch special menu like this one, it's hard to determine what to get. A great method: pick something from the beginning of the list, they must be putting great things at the front. I was following this method to the extreme when I ordered: "#1 please."

The Shanghai Noodles were pretty delicious. You can't really go wrong with a dish like this. Loaded with lots of tasty ingredients and cooked to a nice consistency.

The restaurant is clean. They give you forks (not chopsticks). And there isn't hot sauce on every table. This isn't your standard Chinese restaurant. Not quite a 4 for me, but it's close.

Luncher: Rob

Lunch: #47 - Tofu with Shiitake Mushrooms - $5.75
Rating:

Rob's Review

When I picked the Tofu and Shiitake Mushroom dish from the hundred or so lunch options, the waitress asked, "No meat?" in order to make sure I would not be disappointed when a meat-less meal showed up. Points to them for looking out for their customers. On the menu was one other veggie option, plus a couple of fish dishes, so there you go. The restaurant was packed, and it took about three hours for our food to arrive. Well, it felt like three hours because I was hungry and lots of other patrons were eating, but it was really about half an hour, and the wait staff apologized for the inconvenience. But still, a long wait for a pile of rice, veggies and tofu. The food was fine, but nothing great. The sauce was light and tasty, the tofu was the usual deep-fried stuff, the mushrooms and whatnot were decent. So yeah, it was a lunch. I'll have to make sure to go early or late next time to get faster service.

Luncher: Jared

Lunch: #43 - Shredded Pork with Vegetables on Rice - $5.75
Rating:

Luncher: Michael

Lunch: #11 - Sliced Beef in Tomatoes Sauce - $5.95
Rating:

Luncher: Joey

Lunch: #19 - Grilled Pork and Chicken Steak - $6.50
Rating:

VIP Luncher: Brad from Seattlest

Lunch: #3 - Sliced Beef with Stir Fried Flat Noodles - $5.95
Rating:

Brad's Review

The noodles were really good, and it made me realize that I don't eat noodles nearly enough. Especially with fall coming, the noodles were a big hit for me. The beef was better than average and the scallions were crispy. Kinda surprised the server didn't push drinks more, since that's were the profits are. The place was packed and the location is perfect. The porkchop for $6 is a steal.

Pacific Cafe Photos

Pacific Cafe - Hong Kong Kitchen


Pacific Cafe Menu


H&SS


#11 - Sliced Beef in Tomatoes Sauce


#2 - Singapore Style Fried Rice Noodles


#3 - Sliced Beef with Stir Fried Flat Noodles


#19 - Grilled Pork and Chicken Steak


#47 - Tofu with Shiitake Mushrooms


#43 - Shredded Pork with Vegetables on Rice


#9 - Sliced Beef with Onions


#1 - Shanghai Style Stir Fried Noodles