Tom’s Tea House
Tom’s Tea House
1333 Hilyard St
Eugene, OR 97401
(541) 344-1175
Eugenified.com rating: 
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You know how sometimes you find a really bad restaurant that’s so bad it actually becomes good in a way? Well, Tom’s Tea House is not one of those. No, the dial gauge pointer for Tom’s has spun all the way around, gone past bad, back into the good range, but then continued on to stop firmly in the bad range. That’s double bad. Astonishingly bad.
Why is this restaurant so bad? Let me count the ways:
- The front door doesn’t close all the way, so a 2 inch gap of icy air enters during the winter.
- The front area where you place your order is a mess.
- The lady owner is rude and indifferent.
- The male owner (“chef”, this title is placed in quotes due to its marginal connection with the reality of his cooking “skills”, also placed in quotes because they are “meager”, also placed in quotes because he has none) seems slightly insane.
- The tables and chairs appear to have been purchased from six different garage sales at 4:30pm on a Sunday afternoon, after everything of any value had already been sold, and the homeowner was trying to figure out if the trash service would charge him to haul this stuff away.
- The decor is a mix of leftover stuff from the previous three failed restaurants PLUS a load of kitschy kaa-rap from the worst tourist trap in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
- The kitchen is a dirty mess. How can they pass inspections? Knowing quite a bit about how things are done in mainland China (these owners are from mainland), I can only assume it has something to do with a red envelope…
And now for the food:
- It’s bad. (all dishes)
- No, seriously, it’s really bad. (all dishes)
- Overcooked noodles (beef noodle soup)
- Lots of MSG sprinkled about the place (all dishes)
- Fatty beef (beef dishes)
- Terrible flavor concept (all dishes)
- Stinky pork, probably 2 weeks past fresh (potstickers, etc.)
- Dirty dishes (all dishes, literally)
By my calculation, if you added up all the undercooked dishes and overcooked dishes, then divided that sum by the number of dishes, then subtracted four times the price of each dish, this place would still suck.
One star is being generous. Not because I am a good guy, but because the rating plug-in that I am using for this website does not allow 0.5 star ratings. I wonder how to type the shortcut for that little puking emoticon? I really could use it right about now.
Eugenified.com rating:
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March 6th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Hilarious review. Great site all around.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:35 am
[...] Sauce Sky is often compared with Lok Yaun as the worst large-scale Chinese restaurant in Eugene (Tom’s Tea House “wins” hands down among small-scale Chinese restaurants), but really, it is not a fair [...]
March 21st, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Several of my friends have mentioned Tom’s Tea House is the most authentic asian restaurant in Eugene.
March 21st, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Your friends are clueless. Take it from someone who lived in China and Taiwan for 20 years.
June 21st, 2011 at 6:08 pm
First, you mentioned how bad the food are might be the fact that you dont speak no Chinese.So you dont know how to ask for it. Secondly, you might does not have the patient to look over the menu and just order shit like orange chicken, something something fried rice and yes let me tell you that; No Chinese would eat them. And if they run longer than a decades, they are obviously aint that bad because dozen of international students still go over there. Well, next time how about you observe what other people orders are then you make comment. And please if you are happy with Panda Express, then let me tell you this; you dont understand Chinese food at all.
June 21st, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Who says I don’t speak Chinese? In fact, I do.
As for their business surviving a decade (true?), they can survive because they have very low overhead. I have never seen any employees working there. They don’t need much space inside because they store boxes of food ingredients in the van that they park outside the store everyday. Plus it appears the old couple live in the back of the space so they probably feel they are saving money on rent. That said, the food is terrible low low quality. Yes, low-income Chinese students (mainly from mainland China) eat there because they lack money and/or are homesick for Chinese food and will eat anything even slightly similar to it.
June 21st, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Have to admit, your comment about “orange chicken” is pretty funny and true. It’s the classic “idiot dish” to order in a Chinese-American restaurant. The other one is sweet and sour pork. Speaking of which, try the sweet and sour pork at Lok Yuan and you will have tasted food that is actually worse than Tom’s Tea House. Hard to believe, but true.
The best Chinese food in Eugene (remember, it’s a relative term, since almost all Chinese food in Eugene is terrible) can be found at Jade Palace. They also have some terrible “idiot dishes” for the fixed-income elders that frequent there, but they also have a good number of delicious and quite authentic Chinese dishes. Again, not great, but definitely good. It’s location is not ideal for the international students at UO, but a quick bike ride will solve that problem.