Luong Hai Ky Restaurant - Mira Mesa

As noted in the comments of this post, Luong Hai Ky's second location has finally opened in Mira Mesa. And about a week after their opening I found myself in the area, so I thought I'd check out the home of, ahem, "The Original Chinese Noodles". I'm pretty sure I don't need to elaborate.....

   

The Owners have done a pretty nice job with the interior.....down to having the now standard plasma televisions mounted on the walls....

 

I could tell that the level of disorganization was still running pretty high, I was asked for my order three times, by three different Servers. My hot tea didn't arrive until I was almost done with my soup (though this was not as bad as what happened later), and so forth. Being in the midst of a "grand opening" make such problems reasonable......

I stayed with my usual, the Won Ton & Dumpling Egg Noodle Soup ($5.75):

 

After making a brief stop at another table, the bowl of egg noodle soup arrived. The soup was piping hot, but much like my last visit to the Convoy location, lacked the nice rich flavor that I had encountered on previous visits. I'm guessing this is the standard broth at LHK now...bummer. The won tons were a bit softer than the norm, and the dumplings even better, toothsome, but not hard, and the shrimp flavor came through.

Still, this was enough to warrant another visit, this time with the Missus in tow. On this evening the Missus ordered the Combination Fried Rice ($7.50):

    

We both thought the shrimp were excellent, the rice had been cooked well, with a nice caramelization. But for some reason, the rice had an overly sweet taste. The Missus had to add fish sauce and soy sauce to balance out the flavor.

I ordered the Combination Crispy Noodle ($7.95):

 

Not enough sauce...which again ran on the sweet side. This meant instead of the nice combination of crunchy, to chewy, to soft and tender textures, I felt I was eating stuff from a can. The veggies were done perfectly, nice bit of crunch and weren't overcooked, and much like the fried rice, the shrimp was the best thing about the dish. The accompanying soup was fine, if a bit heavy on the sodium.

And than there was the tea...or lack thereof. We ordered hot tea with our meal, which never arrived. We inquired about it when our food arrived, and were assured it was on the way. I figured it was going to be like my previous visit, and end up at the table later on, but it never made it. When our check arrived, I asked what happened to our tea. The Server gave me a puzzled look, looked at the bill (even though it was written in Vietnamese, there were 3 line items). Seeing that they had forgotten the tea, we were told: "that's ok, no charge for tea anyway!" And walked away..... I guess because tea is free it's ok to not serve it when ordered? Having been caught off guard by that answer, we couldn't help but laugh........

One other thing, it does seem like prices are going up rather quickly. I noticed that both locations of Luong Hai Ky share the same take-out menu. So if this is accurate, I paid $5 for Won Ton and Dumpling Egg Noodle Soup around November 19th, of last year. It's now $5.75, these "Mi Gia" noodle houses are getting out of the zone of cheap eats rather quickly. In the end, even if I don't believe that Luong Hai Ky is "The Original Chinese Noodles", I sure received a pretty original excuse for forgetting part of our order!

Luong Hai Ky Restaurant
10606 Camino Ruiz #2
San Diego, CA 92126

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Comments

[ed (from Yuma)]

That zone of cheap eats keeps getting smaller and smaller. Used to be a $5 lunch was standard - now it seems rare (well except for a banh mi).

Thanks for the report!

[[email protected]]

Yeah, Kirk, I can tolerate mediocre food, but bad service really gripes me. Bad service is what kills most restaurants and business establishments.

[bill]

I miss the Asian food of SoCal.

[janfrederick]

Funny, I had a similar experience when I tried the place out for the first time last week. A bunch of servers milling about, seems like three were waiting on me, my requested water didn't come with my soup, and there were a couple of the employee's kids having a full on battle in and out and in and out of the restaurant.

I think I'm pretty good with chop sticks for someone who didn't grow up using them. But at my slightest fumble with a won ton (they were watching!), I was asked rather brusquely if I needed a fork. I said, "No, but could I get a glass of water?"

Also, this kid of thing isn't limited to this place, but I have a pet peeve about having my condiments swapped out while I'm in the middle of eating. I usually dine pretty early, but having worked in restaurants, I know that it is easy enough to handle this before you open your doors. And if you want to save money and have it done after opening, handle the other tables, and wait for me to leave.

The soup was decent, but I think I prefer the version they serve across the parking lot at Hong Kong Express (very simple I'll warn you--no shrimp chips, etc. just won tons and noodles). I did enjoy the pickled chillies, but didn't notice any French's mustard.

Yah, seemed a bit expensive for what I got. For my money, I'll probably stick with Pho next time...although variety is the spice of life. Then again, pho comes with a wide variety of meat. ;)

[Lynnea]

That's funny, since hot tea is just so easy to make and serve. seems like it would automatically be the first thing to the table.

[Kirk]

Hi Ed - yeah.....pretty soon only Carne Asada Burritos and Banh Mi will make the under $5 list.

Hi Alan - Agreed, though hopefully LHK will get it's act together.

Hi Billy - Welsome back, we missed you. I hope you're able to find some great eats in SA.

Hi Jan - The service seems to be a bit disorganized and scatter brained...and a bit uncaring. The broth at Luong Hai Ky used to be my favorite, but I've noticed that things have changed a bit.

Hi Lynnea - I think it's because they are not in synch yet. Hopefully they'll get organized as time goes by.

[Selba]

I'm food blog hopping :)

The Combination Crispy Noodle is called "I Fu Mie" here in Indonesia, usually got gravy on it.

[Kirk]

Hi Selba - Welcome and thanks for taking the time out to comment. Since this is a Vietnamese style - Chinese Noodle House, I think they call the dish Mi Xao Thap Cam. And it is supposed to come with "gravy", which was seriously lacking in this instance.

[Passionate Eater]

Huh. I am speechless about the tea. Well, I guess I would make a comment about how "tip" is not included either, but leave one anyway. I would say that, just to see the look on their faces.

[Kirk]

Hi PE - he-he-he... now why couldn't I have come up with that?

[johnnym]

I have experienced quite the same experience when visiting this location when i went there to eat last week. I usually dine at the pho resturant across that street at Pho Ca Dao but since my friends and i figured, why not visit Luong Hai Ky since some of us have not been there since the grand opening. When we entered, there was a server who directed us to our table. Having plenty of time to look over the menu. We still did not get any service, no drinks offered, etc. There was only a few waiters (about 3-4) having to serve so many tables in the resturant at the same time. When we finally got a visit from one of the waiters, he could obviously tell we were irritated. The server quickly took our order and was off to another table. Yet again we had to wait for our food which took a long time. The food arrived after we stopped another server to check up on our food, and sure enough it finally arrived. We were only a table of four but the party consisting of seven nearby came in after us but they got their food before ours. We questioned, since there were so many tables compared to all the other vietnamese/chinese resturants, why were there only four waiters? The other resturants around this area were smaller but there's fast service,plenty of servers, great food, and great costumer service. This was the worst experience i had in a while at any resturant, and i would not recommend it, i would rather stick to the regular pho.

[Kirk]

Hi Johnnym - Looks like this location has a bit to go servce wise.