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| - two stars in my book is below average, not horrible, but not good, and that's what I feel Hsin Cafe is.
In this location, you'd expect an inexpensive, large portion, take out style restaurant like Panda Express or the many copycat versions of it. Unfortunately for me, and for the students in the area, that's not what Hsin is. Instead, you'll find a very unpretentious but squeaky clean neighborhood restaurant with a somewhat limited menu of Chinese favorites, served with a "healthy" style.
The man who was running the dining room during my visit was very friendly but didn't seem to understand what I wanted, or perhaps just didn't want to budge. I really was in the mood for Orange Chicken with some noodles, but in their meals they serve white rice, veggies, and main dish. It's $6.99 for the meal which isn't outrageous at all, but I just wasn't feeling steamed veggies. I asked if I could swap the veggies and rice for a small portion of noodles, and he tried to sell me veggie chow mein for an additional $2 which would have made my meal $9, now it's sounding very expensive. The recommendation then was to buy a la carte Orange Chicken, at $5.99, and add veggie chow mein to it, at $4... That's $10 as well. Why not add some flexibility to the menu for people who want something different? Most places will give you a choice of this or that, but Hsin seems to have the attitude that this is what we have, eat it or leave. When I got home, I thought the hot and sour soup I ordered was completely average, albeit a very small portion especially for $2. My orange chicken came in a decent sized order, but tasted like someone dumped a bottle of sesame oil in the batch. If I want to suck on a bottle of sesame oil, I'll go home and stick a nipple on the bottle in my pantry.
The saving grace for this place is definitely its cleanliness, but the flexibility on the menu, the relatively high prices compared to the portion sizes, and the taste of the food is really all lackluster. You can be as "nice" as you want, and you can get away with mediocre food if you're really amazing with customer service, but Hsin is doing it wrong.
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