Philippe Chow

I used to enjoy going here with my mum for the Crispy Duck. One of the few places in L.A. where you can get this Hong Kong style dish with the thin pancakes, scallions and cucumbers. Ubiquitous in London, but impossible to find in L.A. I patronized this restaurant for a couple of years until two very poor experiences.
I went with a friend and were seated in the side dining room, which is the main dining room, but oddly laid out. We were the only table at 8pm on a Saturday night. No worries. Not a particularly good sign mind you. Well, it was self service! One of us had to get up from the table to find someone for everything. To take our order, to get water, to ask where our tea was, our beer was, and of course, our food.
Second time, I took my family visiting from out of town. Including my 5 y/​o nephew. We went for an early dinner around 6pm and it was a really chilly, windy night. The dining room has no heating source and it was like sitting outside. I asked for heat, and they said they had one portable heater but it was being used by a table at the other end of the dining room. After the couple left, I asked if we could use the heater and were then told it wouldn’t stretch that far. The food has always been over priced and average, with the exception of the duck. This night was no different, except our food arrived tepid and became cold within a couple of minutes with the windchill factor! I was embarrassed to take people here. So I wrote to the restaurant and eventually heard back from Yolanda, the manager. She promised to look into this. After a month of nothing, I wrote to her again. She apologized and offered ‘a discount or a bowl of soup on the house.’
I was surprised. In the hospitality industry, one would hope for a little more care, response and understanding. Looking at the reviews here, I suppose it’s not that surprising. My understanding is that the owners are not in the restaurant business.

The ambience is nice the bar is lively. The scene is a great lounge… But the food, I’m speechless I would recommend to eat before you go. If you go early enough it is kid friendly.

The chicken skewers were very tasty. Everything else was aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Not going in the restaurant rotation.

Giving this place 3 stars because my waiter Tyson was such a good waiter, bus boy, bartender, and host. He played every role in the restaurant.
This place isnt all what people make it out to be. But its ok for happy hour every day until 8pm. The chicken lettuce wrap was the only thing good on the menu.
The other food was so NASTY! I took my friends here for there anniversary and was so embarrassed. I wouldn’t recommend this place to my dog. If u like plain food with no taste then u would like this place.

No stars really.
I honestly believe that the menu and wine list are for show. Nothing on the menu was available except for a screw off top of Chardonnay and a lychee cocktail.
The bathroom was gross and had a soap pump from the 99 cent store.
I came here for a birthday dinner. I did not choose this place. I got food poisoning from the red chicken in a stick.
They have NO SECURITY and there are hoods walking in a out of the place like crazy.

Chicken skewers are great especially with the white sauce. Walnut shrimp is also very solid. Filet is good and great to pair with fried rice. Green beans are delicious.

Great place for dinner with friends, incredible food and good service. I would definitely recommend it for friends who want to get together and have a nice meal. I wouldn’t recommend it for couples who are looking for something more intimate, the tables are close and it can get noisy.

Worst restaurant ever they ran out of everything and the food had no flavor. This was a joke some bad joke or their idea of Chinese food but it was far from that Panda Express has more flavor and better food quality or you can get fancy and go to P. F Chang’s. What ever you do at all cost avoid this restaurant like all the other Unilocalers said to do.

I was first introduced to Philippe’s by my boyfriend (who is the biggest food snob ever)
if he likes a place, it must be good!
We got to Philippe’s right when they opened around 5:30 (they tend to fill up quick). Our server Curtis was so knowledgeable about the menu items and he had such a great personality. I would come back just to be served by Curtis again!
Food:
The Chicken Satay. AMAZING. hands down this has to be the most popular item on their menu!
The Honey Walnut Prawns were great as well.
The Chicken Hand Pulled Noodles were good. The boyfriend loves them. I could do without. (it kind of looks like throw up to me and that just wierds me out) but they are super tasty!
The Salt and Pepper Prawns. OMG YOU HAVE TO ORDER THESE! I could have eaten only that item and would have been satisfied!
i made the mistake of ordering some dumplings, not so great. being of asian descent, i’ve had much better dim sum items. stay away.
overall; Philippe’s is a must go to spot when we are in town.

I don’t know about these negative groupon reviews but I have never had a bad experience in
Philippes! Curtis (The Server) is a great guy and his customer service is on point. Went in last night for Christmas dinner and my usual (Chicken Satay, Chicken Hand Pulled Noodles, Walnut Shrimp) were still great and always puts a smile on my face.

This rating is for everything outside of Curtis who attentively served my party and played some pretty rad music from his playlist. He was funny and polite. He deserves five stars!
Here are my disclaimers before I get into specifics about my experience here so you can decide whether or not to take this review with a grain of salt…
— Chinese is probably one of my least favorite food types.
— I read the reviews for this place after purchasing a Groupon for it. Though they are mixed, I decided to try it anyway because…
— This place is related to Mr. Chow’s which plenty of celebrities and my high roller friends frequent. My friend LOVES Chinese food. It couldn’t be that bad, could it?
It was. I figured, despite my overall feel for Chinese food (after quite a few unpleasant experiences with such), this is a three dollar sign place on Unilocal and it’s related to a well known Chinese eatery.
Upon arrival, I first noticed how dark the signage is. This is his name, for goodness’ sake! It should be in bright red! It looked like a neon sign that had no bulbs. Then I noticed there is no valet parking. Forgive me, but this is Beverly Hills on a well known street and not the cheapest food I’ve encountered. Shouldn’t someone be available to park my car? I’m not one of the folks who loves valet — I would rather park farther and hoof it (with flats) than pay someone to drive my car — but this is an «upscale» venue and I was treating my friend for his birthday. I guess shame on me for the valet assumption…
After lucking up on a non-​permit needed spot on a residential street two blocks away, I (in my unnecessarily high heels — I was trying to feel cute for my outing!) made it to the restaurant. I had seen and read about the small, somewhat awkward dining space. That was in the section of the restaurant behind the host area on the left/​bar area on the right, and before the last room which seems to be for more private and larger parties.
It was dark in there! Not like sexy vibe dark, more like we are conserving electricity dark. The décor is almost elegant — it would have made it had the job been done with care.
— I liked the black, red, and white theme but I could immediately tell some upgrades are needed.
— The floor seems to be made of tile that was painted black. It could have been cool but the floor was VERY uneven — more uneven than the cement city sidewalks outside. I had to proceed with care since I could hardly see anyway!
— The right wall is covered in «dark wood» pieces that were also uneven. It looked like they had been there a long while or the adhesive used to affix them was not standing the test of time. There was also some paint stains (I imagine?) on some of them.
— The white wall that surrounds the men’s bathroom is filthy. It has dirty fingerprint stains all over it.
— Curtis (thankfully) told me that the women’s restroom in the section with the main dining room is «sketchy» and he directed me to the back section restroom. While it was large and had a separate little area with lighting (that wasn’t lit) and a large table that contained the paper towels for hand drying, it had a «cold» feeling to it. The table could have used some dusting and Pledge, as well.
I am not normally this picky about décor but this, along with the food AND the prices, made everything stand out to me!
So, for the food…
— We started with veggie spring rolls and pork friend dumplings. Again, Chinese is not my favorite fare but I figured these would work out fine. I like these items, generally speaking. They were greasy… very greasy! It seemed to leave a coat on my tongue that took an In-​n-​Out burger and milkshake (after we left here) to get rid of. The spring rolls came with a clear sweet and sour sauce. Maybe lots of places have that in a clear hue but I was NOT diggin’ it!
— My friend ordered the sweet and sour chicken. I didn’t like the consistency of it or the orange sauce.
— We ordered the pork friend rice. Bland. How is anything pork bland?!? Maybe it was the grease layer on my tongue…
— All of the flavors just kind of blended together in a very non-​descript way. I didn’t like it.
— I didn’t even like the drinks. I ordered the S&P Phillipe, a signature drink with tequila and grapefruit infusion. It tasted and felt like syrup. Not even as good as children’s bubble gum flavored Benadryl. He ordered the suggested Winter Melon — I didn’t like that either. Fruity and sweet and syrupy.
The great thing is that my friend enjoyed his time and his food. He said the ingredients were fresh and he liked his leftovers the next day. I didn’t taste fresh but it doesn’t matter — he liked it!
I will not visit this establishment again.

This experience was great, my sister and soon to be 3 month old nephew decided to have dinner using a Groupon I purchased.
The change of the restaurant is amazing and now more intimate, no longer are you sitting close to guest you don’t know. Whoever designed the first eating area did a good job. We sat in the back all by ourselves, which is where large parties are hosted, nice music, decent décor, definitely a date night place.
Our server Ayanna was very attentive to us, she was warm and inviting. Very knowledgeable of the menu and recommended a good drink for me.
Food was prompt served hot without a long wait, shrimp fried rice was good loved the serving bowl, 9 spice prawns, Mr. Cheng hand rolled noodles with veal delicious, chicken satay was on point.
They offer great happy hour until 8pm M-​F I believe. I will definitely return, because the change is noticed and the ambience is good.
Oh yeah Manny was there along with his pleasantly nice wife. The both spoke and it was genuine.

i really wanted to like this place. i read some harsh reviews but i thought for sure they must be overly critical. the service was very nice, so i can’t be too hard on them. but the space and the food is just wierd! it’s like a teeny tiny skinny space with maybe 8 tables. very narrow and not good feng sui. then the food was just strange. i got a scallion pancake, which if you know it’s supposed to be a pancake shape. instead we got a few TINY TINY donut shaped pieces. they looked literally like flat donuts. then i got the chili shrimp as my entrée but it was VERY heavily breaded! it had a very thick bread/​fried coating. chinese people sautee — they don’t bread and fry.
overall, very strange menu.

Walked in no wait. Good prompt service. Fried rice is good, sweet & sour chicken amazing. Salt & Pepper chicken not so.
It is most definitely over priced Chinese food, but almost every restaurant in Beverly Hills is.
If you bought the groupon please don’t think you’re getting champagne meals for beer money. People kill me with that.
But I did enjoy my sweet & sour and the rice.
The service was indeed incredible. The décor is amazing

This place has mediocre Chinese food at best. Their only redeeming feature is their Peking Duck, which is fantastic.
I went on a Friday night because I got a great deal on Gilt City for 50% off our bill.
My boyfriend and I ordered the:
Wonton Soup
Chicken Skewers
Sauteed Green Beans
8 lbs of Peking Duck
The portions were tiny and extremely over priced except for the duck. Our bill came out to around $ 130 including tax and tip. If you are looking for good Chinese Food I would not recommend going here!
Also the atmosphere is a little off putting. It felt like the owners of the restuarant were trying create the feel of an upscale and trendy restaurant but to me it just felt tacky.

How are you still in business? I have no idea. This place is awful. From the food to the service, all bad. When they first opened it was a cool spot, I used to live at Blu across the street and loved walking over to grab a drink. How the times have changed.
First of all, when you walk in it smells like cleaning products, disgusting! when you first walk in and open the doors they always look closed and the hostess greets you only after she finishes her text message. Incredibly RUDE.
And to the extremely rude bartender who is the owner/manager’s son, thanks for being so aggressive and rude to me and my friend. We will never come back here. The food is salty, the drinks taste like cough syrup, and everything is so overpriced, why would anyone waste their money when they can go to a better bar/​restaurant down the street? Save your time, and hard earned money, go somewhere else.

I had two deals for Phillipe Chow (one a $ 40 for $ 20 AmazonLocal deal and another STEAL — $ 50 for $ 15 that I snagged using a special offer from nCrowd), so I’ve been twice… actually I went three times, but on one lunchtime visit, the restaurant didn’t open because they said they had no electricity. Rest of the block was fine though. That was strange.
I’m not sure how this place can stay in business honestly. Both times that we were there for dinner, we were pretty much the only people there. It’s a cute place — upscale looking décor. Music choices are odd… one night it was show tunes and the next time, it was rap music (much prefer the show tunes!).
As she’s a vegetarian, we primarily ordered that way. Here’s the run-​down of what we’ve had:
Vegetarian flat noodle ($ 10.95) — decent appetizer portion… tasty
Scallion pancake ($ 9.95) — like a very large onion ring… and there is nothing wrong with that!
Vegetable dumplings ($ 8.95) — sticky… just OK
Dumpling sampler ($ 12.95) — also sticky dumplings and just OK… no standouts
Vegetable fried rice ($ 8.95) — not impressive… way overpriced and don’t even attempt to take home for next days lunch — doesn’t hold up
Mixed Vegetables ($ 10.95) — Dull. Smallish serving. Skip this one
Seasonal vegetable platter w/​tofu ($ 10.95) –they will warn you that it’s bland and offer the option of adding some garlic sauce… do that! Otherwise it truly is just a plate of very bland vegetables… still nothing to get excited about and over-​priced for the quality and serving size
So it’s possible the veggie offerings on the menu aren’t the way to go. I wasn’t overly impressed with anything. Service is frequently distracted (one visit it took nearly 20 minutes to get an iced tea — they kept telling me they were brewing it fresh… which I would think is something you do prior to dinner service) and slow despite the place being empty.
Street parking has been a breeze every time I’ve been there.
Final analysis — I sort of suspect this place won’t be around much longer, but if you score a great deal like I did, it may be worth checking out. Without a deal, it’s over-​priced and just not good enough to warrant a visit.

This place was quite a disappointment.
For a restaurant located in Beverly Hills that prices 3 small vegetable egg rolls for $ 10.95, I was expecting tasty food and good service… Both which were not received.

AVOID AT ALL COST!!! My girlfriend found this place on Groupon (something we do to help us find new places and experiences) and recommended we try this place as it was advertised nicely while located in Beverly Hills on Wilshire with a «strict dress code» policy to celebrate my closing of a big contract.
The «No hats no shorts no service» obviously didn’t apply to the couple that walked in right after us.
There is a bar sharing the lobby area that appeared rather dark and didn’t look anything like a restaurant lobby. I guess it was the bartender who notices the confused look on our face that directed us to a someone else who then lead us to the back.
The place was rather empty but showed potential. Looks like it could hold around 150 seated guest and looked (at the time) to have around 30 present.
We were seated at a table fit to our group size but after seeing a stain on the table cloth asked for a different (I asked for bigger) table in which they accommodated willingly (the only thing done right the entire night)…
…but even that we were eventually charged for… literally… and didn’t know till the end… Given no menus only the wine list which was already on the table.
We spend most of our night waiting…
TIME LINE:
seated with nothing but a drink menu till the waiter came to take our orders. 10min
Waiter realized he we didn’t have menus and went to grab them 5 more min.
Ordered a bottle of wine and two appetizers till the wine came 5 min
from the bottle of wine till our appetizers came out. 15 min
This is when we told the guy who brought us our food that were ready to place an order till the guy came to take the order 20 min.
from when our order was taken till when the food came… WOULDN’T HAPPEN.
What do I mean by that… the place being as empty as it was FORGOT that we were even there… We were getting ready to leave after 30 min of TIMED WAITING. (we didn’t start right away) that was just as the owner (I’m guessing but don’t know for sure) walked by and looked as us all confused as to why we were there.
We told her we were about to leave and the experience we just had… she begged us to stay and that she would make it up to us. She told us of an incident (unknown if true or not) and decided to stay as we were still hungry and it was late…
Im holding back on the story to save them the embarrassment for if they do wish to change in the future… your welcome…
The cold food came out one min later and tasted horrible.
We were billed for a party of 6 when there was only 3 of us… when asking why it was because of the bigger table. AKA forced tip of 20%
We were given a bill of $ 144.32 after a «20% discount» for the inconveniences we experienced (over 2 hours of my life I wish I had back). The same value of the tip…
We walked out of the empty restaurant with almost no one noticing… The owner was enjoying drinks with people at the bar… once out and half way down the street the «owner» popped out and yelled a good bye…
I guess the good bye was necessary as I will never be going back…

A hole-​in-​the-​wall Chinese food place is better than this Beverly Hills restaurant.
THE AMBIANCE:
First off, parking is a nightmare. I had to run across the large street (Wilshire) and there was no crosswalk. I didn’t want to walk all the way down the long block to the light so I took my chances.
You walk in and there is a bar area and then a courtyard towards the back. You walk into the courtyard and there are two (2) seating sections — one on your left and one in the back if you keep walking forwards. Seating is cramped on the left but you at least get natural light. I didn’t want to sit in the back area because it looked deserted and dark.
THE FOOD:
Whack. I was very unimpressed. I’ve had way better food at hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurants. Luckily, I came with a friend who had Groupon so he didn’t end up spending a lot of money. It would totally not be worth it. We tried the sweet and sour pork and the steak with broccoli. Was it even steak? The texture of the steak was super weird like if you were eating meatloaf. Never again.
THE PSYCHIC:
The best part of our visit was meeting a well-​known celebrity psychic. We were having a conversation about the lousy food when she asked me for my birth date. This was the first time anyone had given me a reading. I didn’t ask for it, she just sensed something and wanted to share. Super sweet lady and I found it very interesting.
THE TIPS:
Pass.