Malee's Kitchen

Reviews

• TL

  Titania Lynida

  5 days ago
  5.0
  Food is amazing! The meatballs are always delicious. Be careful about parking tho! It’s next to a gas station, so be careful coming in and out. Other than the parking, wonderful food and great customer service. Will be coming back whenever I’m near the East Side.
• JT

  Jennifer Thao

  Jan 4, 2026
  3.0
  I really wanted to love this place but unfortunately I didn’t. We ordered close to $100 worth of food and felt like everything was either too salty or too sweet. We ordered papaya, egg rolls, meatball on a stick, pork belly and fish. The papaya was sweet, egg rolls didn’t have a lot meat and the flavor was okay, egg roll sauce was sweet, meatball on a stick was small and personally not worth the price, pork belly was too salty and very thinly sliced, but the fish was good. I wanted to love the food but the balance of flavors just wasn’t there for me. I like a balance of salty and sweet but the food felt like it was one or the other. I would definitely go and try it for yourself but maybe just order 1 or 2 dishes first to see if you like it. This review is not to criticize but more of constructive criticism. I hope to return again and try their food!
• LS

  lemon Sourdough

  Dec 31, 2025
  1.0
  For the prices of the food you would expect to get a good amount, but they skimped on everything. You can buy a pack of 12 Hmong sausage for about $16 at the Hmong store, but here they serve 1 sausage for $10 no rice. Not worth it since it’s not even house made. Don’t pay for extras because they usually don’t add it in. Bought a tum pho and it was only about 3-4 bites and came with 6 small shrimp and 6 small wedges of meatball. The sauce was water downed as well. Paid for extra papaya on the side and it didn’t come with. Someone already mentioned but customer service needs to be worked on. No one greets you when you walk in/leave and even ordering felt like they were trying to rush you out the door.
• PX

  PKS Xingo

  Dec 28, 2025
  4.0
  My first time going because it was highly recommend. I'm from Wisconsin. It's actually a food truck. You order at the truck then get your food and can sit inside or outside on the patio. Place looks clean. Food: Pork belly and rice: pork was fresh but nothing fancy. Its deep fried and comes hot and crisp. The stick rice is im a sandwich bag like they serve at Hmong parties. The side of pepper was good but a little on the sweet side. Spicy though. Kapong: above average because it comes with tons of veggies, cabbage, chicken and quail eggs! Broth was little on the sweet side. It was creamy. Papaya: little sweeter than I like it. Cute little place and seems to be popular.
• KX

  Kia Xiong

  Dec 15, 2025
  2.0
  I ordered the pork belly, egg rolls, steam rolls, papaya salad, and nab vam. The pork belly was actually pretty good, but the portion size was really small for the price you pay for it. The chili sauce for the pork belly was skimped on in my opinion, and though it was good, it was a bit sweet, which is not what I expect when it comes to Hmong pepper. The sticky rice was solid/standard but they also skimped on this as well. The egg rolls were great, as well as the peanut sauce that came with it. Texture and flavor was on point. The steam rolls lacked flavor, and though the sweet and sour sauce that came with it could’ve saved it, the sauce was actually too sweet for my liking, which was disappointing. I would’ve preferred a more standard, saltier and more acidic sweet and sour sauce, but maybe the cook/cooks just prefer more sugar in their foods, which isn’t a terrible thing, but too much sugar in too many menu items doesn’t necessarily make the food taste better. The papaya salad was delicious, but once again, a pretty small portion for the price paid. Overall I appreciated that they gave the option to customize the spice level, and that the “mild” option was actually really mild and not too spicy. I’m not the most picky eater but I do appreciate when food is done right. I am, however, picky about nab vam, and the nab vam here was surprisingly perfect and I really enjoyed the flavor - and again, I liked that they gave the option to customize the level of sweetness. The reason for the 2-star rating is due to the customer service, the high cost compared to the smaller portion sizes of most items, and the overall quality/flavor of the food. When I walked in, I was not greeted by anyone, which I thought was rude. Whether you’re Hmong or whether you’re from any other ethnic background and working inside a restaurant, I think it’s just standard practice to greet your customers with even just a quick hello or smile/nod - none of which I got. The only acknowledgment I got was when I got to the counter and the person (who had not looked at me even once but was taking someone’s order on the phone) rang the countertop bell to notify her coworker that there was someone waiting for service. When the coworker came out to help me, I told her I was there to pick up an online order, and she said that the order was outside in their food truck. She then led me outside, unenthusiastically gave me my food, said a nonchalant “Thank you,” and that was that. As someone else has already mentioned in their review, the saddest part is that I actually left a tip, too. The total bill after taxes and fees came out to a whopping $62.88 (not including tip), which I thought was absurd for the small portion sizes (specifically for the pork belly, chili sauce, and papaya salad). To be honest, more stars would’ve been given if at the very least the customer service was on point, but unfortunately the lack of good customer service was a major turnoff. I’m sure there are plenty of customers who could care less about the service, but I’d like to think most customers want to feel like they’re walking into a welcoming atmosphere when they enter a restaurant. Instead, throughout my unpleasant but thankfully short experience at this restaurant, I just felt like the employees treated me like a soulless robot that they didn’t actually want to deal with. It’s unfortunate because the food was not bad.

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