KC Tea & Noodles

See Gone, But Not Forgotten

KC Tea & Noodles was a noodle, sushi and bubble tea establishment in Rochester's Park Avenue Area. There were two locations: on the corner of Park Avenue and Oxford Street, and on Goodman Street near Monroe Avenue. Both location are no longer in operation. The music was usually of a downtempo, trip-hop style, and there was usually a copy of the day's Democrat & Chronicle around.

The main draw was probably their pan-fried noodle dishes. They also had garlic, teriyaki, sesame, and other dishes with a variety of meats, along with a selection of sushi. In addition to traditional bubble tea with fruit flavors and some real fruit, they also offered bubble shreeded ice and milkshakes in many flavors.

KC Tea & Noodles was awarded "Best Place to Satisfy Your Noise and Bubble-Tea Fix" in City Newspaper's 'Best of Rochester' Critics' Picks Awards in 2009.¹

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ADMIN NOTE: Comments from 2006/2007 are now archived at KC Tea & Noodles/Comments

2008-02-01 09:05:32   Beware! Things similar to those on the lunch menu but not actually on it have a tendency to cost insane amounts of money. KC is greasy comfort food, and worth it only if you save half for a second meal (the portions are enormous). —OwenThompson

2008-02-05 21:50:14   I went to the park ave location. I was excited to go to this place, but I must admit it was a slight letdown because I expected the food quality to be a little better. However, the people that run the place are really, really nice and overall I enjoyed my time there. The bubble tea was good. The food was very oily and ordinary, kind of like your average cheapsy chinese place. The staff was really sweet, but I must admit I have a soft spot for family run places.

All in all I'd say that it's better than average, but the park ave location certainly isn't fancy. It could be a different story for the other location. —RochesterCalifornia

2008-02-06 18:12:03   K.C. Tea and Noodles is good for more than just quick soup. Their location on S. Goodman Street serves a fine lunch or dinner. I'm always amazed that it's not crowded. The food is good and well-priced. K.C. becomes an instant favorite of anyone I take there! —AlainaSomers

2008-04-12 14:29:19   After a few trips to Boston, I found myself addicted to bubble tea. I decided to go to KC Tea & Noodles because its basically the only place in the Rochester area with bubble tea. The bubble tea here is very good. I was also pleasantly surprised by their sushi. They have a very nice selection, and the sushi itself is very fresh. The prices are pretty reasonable. I highly recommend trying this place. —TomWise

2008-05-02 16:33:47   My wife and I went there for dinner and everything was awesome. The food was great, we got an assortment of sashimi, rolls, panfried noodles, appetizers and it was great. My only complaint would be that it is not worth the price. The fish/$$ ratio was way too low although it was a beautiful display and taste. —IsmaelByrd

2008-05-22 16:42:28   Hi i Just like to say thanks for the comments and thanks for the feedbacks. Ill will take into account on what people had said about KC Tea and try my best to fix things to KC standards. SO please do not hold back on comments in that it will only make us better. I have to say for a whole year working and staying a float we the family received are Liquor permit and will be serving it up !!! Ill will try to make new drinks that brought us to be the NUMBER 1 bubble tea in town. Now my mission is to be number 1 in cocktails and mix drinks. so do please throw it down and ill see you at KC Tea !

-BUBBLE BOY-
:) —spoon001

2008-07-02 11:13:37   I went to their old location, which is apparently still open and is on Park Ave/Oxford, a few times, and the bubble tea was pretty good, but I wasn't impressed by much else. The last time I went, however, I was directed to the new place on Goodman, and after going there I have to say that I was impressed. The sushi is excellent, the noodles good, and the bubble tea the same great stuff as always. It's a much bigger place, too, and much more nicely furnished. —AFrye

2008-08-11 09:40:55   Went to the store at Monroe/Goodman for lunch with co-workers. I got the noodle soup with chicken and udon noodles for $4.95. It lasted me 2 meals. It was delicious. I would definitely recommend this place! All my co-workers were happy with their entrees as well. —goldengirl217

2008-09-18 22:02:20   The people that run this place are very retarded. The bubble tea is terrible. There restrooms are a disaster looks like they have never been cleaned in a thousand years. They told me they will sell it soon and move to china. I hope so. I wish there was a real amazing bubble tea place. This is definitely not the place to get bubble tea. Do not go to this place for any food at all. You might get sick and die. There sushi is a joke. There dishes are the worst creations ever made. There Customer service sucks. —harryfreakinchu

2008-09-29 17:00:59   @harrychu wow why don't you tell us how you REALLY feel. sheesh - its one thing to offer constructive criticism it's another to just be generally angry/rude.

I've had nothing but fantastic experiences at KC (both locations). It's one of my favorite places to grab a quick but filling bite and I've not had anything on the menu that I wasn't super pleased with. The bubble-tea is tasty, the soups and pan-asian noodles great, I'd put a lot of it on par with what I had in Singapore and in Hong Kong, maybe a bit more main-stream / Americanized but hey, this IS America. Prices are reasonable, it's nice they now have beer/wine/liquor too. Nothing beats sitting outside on the upper deck for lunch with a tall Lychee bubble-tea and a plate of noodles. —davidmoffitt

2008-12-10 12:55:40   The bubble tea at the Park/Oxford location was always great but the food... eh, not so much. I've eaten many a chicken in my life and have never been able to cut it in such a manner as to produce something that resembles a pork rind. —BatGuano

2008-12-11 15:15:26   After reading some of the comments I hesitated about going here but after having lunch I'm not sure what the big problem is. Had some udon noodles with scallops, and a dragon roll. Both were OK, not the greatest I've ever had but good for the price, and the service was very good. I may not make it a regular stop but I'd go back. —DavidPausch

2009-03-03 10:18:37   i just like to add that we are trying our best at KC Tea & Noodles. Too update we are working with the IRS on the taxes and are able to stay open. But our hours are reduce to 11-9 on weekdays and 11-10 on weekends. As you can tell there is a for rent sign on building due to the Landloard and lease. We as right now are planning to stay open till the taxes are cleared up. Due to many options that we have its going to take time and will update you on the next plan that we have as soon as i find out. thanks again
bubble boy —spoon001

2009-04-06 15:10:25   I've always been a devoted fan of KC.Tea before they moved to the new location. The quality of the food and service have degraded so much that it is almost rediculous. Lunch menu do not offer what it says on the menu, the duck option which is the one that I ALWAYS get is not longer available for lunch, and the way they make it now is not nearly as good as they use to make it. They constantly run out of things like duck, chicken wing, tapioca. Last time me and my friends went there we were treated like crap. Non of the drink special thats on the menu were offered. My appetizer came 5 min after my entree came. They ran out of tapioca but didn't bother to tell us and the drink was delayed for about 10min. The lady offered the table next to us chopsticks, but we didn't get the offer, and we are Asian!! It almost seemed they are trying to cut costs that do not even matter, saving 2 dollar here, 3 dollar there. I don't expect to get first class service but I don't want to be treated like crap either. Sorry KC.Tea me and my friends will NEVER go back again, you just lost about 20 loyal customers. —george

2009-04-26 18:13:50   A preface: this is a difficult review to write. From early December until very recently I counted myself a loyal fan of KC Tea, recommending it to friends and dining there semi-regularly. In the past I have overlooked small irregularities (chalking them up as idiosyncrasies) such as an unwillingness of the bartender to serve two drinks at once (beer and Saki) or the establishment's inability to process credit cards. Besides, the food was delicious and the atmosphere charming. Over a weekend visit, though, simply too many things went wrong to be overlooked—let me count the ways. For starters, since it was a beautiful day, my party of four requested seating on their outdoor, upstairs patio. They had tables set up out there, and the door was propped open to ventilate fresh air into the restaurant. We were told no. Ok. We were then seated next to the only other occupied table in the otherwise empty room (not a terrible thing, but portentous of a building pattern). The waitress came to the table promptly enough for drink orders, but what arrived greatly disappointed. Feeling saucy, we opted for alcoholic beverages, especially after reading the description of their Long Island Ice Teas— "yes four shots and a splash of coke!" Sadly, this turned out to be more like four thimbles of liquor and 10 ounces of soda. At least we had the food to look forward to, right? Wrong. We requested three plates of cashew chicken and an order of chicken and noodles. The latter was perfect. The cashew chicken, however, was anything but. Billed as chicken with sauce, baked cashews, mushrooms, baby corn, water chestnuts, and celery, what reached our table was instead their chicken and broccoli dish in a poor disguise. Indeed, the plates included only chicken, broccoli, carrots, and celery (for those of you keeping score at home: only two of those four ingredients were supposed to there). Missing were the mushrooms, corn, chestnuts, and yes, even cashews. When we pointed this out, we were only offered a small bowl of cold cashews. Further, one of the three plates was supposed to be minus the celery. Nope. When we pointed this out, it was suggested that the disappointed diner "eat around them." Not only were the expected, eagerly-anticipated veggies (and legume) non-entities, but the chicken and broccoli sauce turns out to be much spicier than the cashew sauce. For two of our resident wimps, this made the main course tantamount to inedible. Instead, they resorted to the chicken and noodles, and an extra portion of white rice. The service was rough as well. We were promised water shortly after the food arrived; it came with the bill. Two of four dishes arrived very quickly; the other two took between 5 and 10 minutes later. The polite members of our party, who waited duly for the other plates to arrive, were treated to cooled dinners for their troubles. Finally, the bill. The split check arrived handwritten on the back of other, older receipts, and were not itemized. That is, we received only a handwritten total. We paid quickly and made our escape. I don't yet know whether we'll return. —JeffreyL

2009-05-28 14:17:53   i enjoy KC's Lychee Bubble Tea (fruit not shake) It is delicious... —R

2009-07-10 21:38:40   The bubble tea at the Park location was often OK, the bubble tea at Goodman was and will always be bad. It seems like they get cooked at 9 in the morning and sit until you order them in the evening. At Park it seemed that they were kept in a closed container with some sort of honey/water (?) solution so they were sweet instead of just tapioca. Can you fix this, KC? I can't find bubble tea anywhere else. —JaneBryant

2009-10-23 12:45:13   I enjoyed lunch at KC Tea and Noodles with my boyfriend today. The server brought us complimentary crunchy noodles and dipping sauce, and also complimentary wonton soup. He was very friendly and prompt in his service. We both got the lunch special: fried pan asian noodles (I chose the udon noodles with shrimp). The noodles were pleasingly greasy and savory and my dish came with five good sized shrimp. My boyfriend's bubble tea was too sweet, but that was our only criticism. I had low expectations because some of the reviews on here, but I was pleasantly surprised. Can't get much better for a $15 lunch for two people. —OxfordWriter

2009-12-04 11:49:53   Went on a recent Friday for the first time with a friend and thought the food was pretty good. Opted for the Seafood Meifun( Shrimp and Scallops) and got a whole lot of food. Wonton soup was really not very good. Also had an excellent Tuna sushi app. Thought the prices were fair (got a full glass of wine for 5 bucks).In our case the wait staff was a bit to attentive, checking on us at least 10 times to ask if we wanted anything else. —almorinelli

2009-12-20 11:52:29   My wife and I try to go here once a week. Small but excellent menu, friendly staff. Great lunch prices. I'm a big fan of the garlic chicken and the sesame chicken, and my wife loves the pan-fried chicken and the bubble tea. —TimCrist

2010-05-02 15:08:16   I would recommend going here for drinks only, not for food. I called ahead to see if the deck would be open for dinner, and they said yes, just order at the bar and they'd bring our orders up. So, my 4 friends and I did so. There appearred to be only 1 server/bartender, but I didn't think this would be a problem because there were only a few customers there besides us. The bubble teas and the 2-for-1 well drink specials were pretty tasty. When our server began bringing up our food I requested my 2nd well drink - but he said I had to go back downstairs to place the order! So I went back down and told the exact same server/bartender what I wanted to drink for the 2nd time. (Was it really necessarry to make me walk downstairs when he was going back down anyway to get the rest of our food?) Anyway, he explained that they had "stopped serving the deck," even though we were the only people there. Interesting. Well, the mango daiquiri turned out to be worth the walk, but the food, ugh. It was not even worth the already low prices. Instead of containing chicken, my friend's chicken teriyaki contained deep-fried chicken fat. No real chicken - just batterred fat globules. And the "pork" in my husband's noodle dish had so much breading on it that he couldn't even discern any actual pork. My dish, spinach noodles with scallops (breaded and fried of course), was the only one that was even palatable, despite not containing any of the advertised veggies. Basically, only eat here if you love deep-fried fatty food and don't mind poor service. Otherwise, just pop in for some yummy drinks. —AJH

2010-06-02 13:59:27   i love KC. I love their bubble teas, best in rochester. the lychee fruit iced tea is awesome, so is their plain banana milkshake bubble tea. i just tried a new dish, the "house" salad... amazing! pleasantly surprised! nice restaurant owners, although sometimes the service can be a little slow. otherwise, really fun place to go! —R

2010-08-23 23:41:23   I love KC Tea & Noodles. I take my parents here whenever they are in town, and we all enjoy it every time. We've never been disappointed by their food or service. It's my favorite lunch spot, and $4.95 for noodles is a beautiful thing. It's a huge portion and made very quickly. I would recommend getting anything with the cashew sauce. Try it out:) It's amazing! —PaulineColes

2011-06-07 10:35:31   UGH! they were the absolute best for bubble tea... where can you get GOOD bubble tea now?! —R

2011-10-21 14:34:38   RIP SWEET PRINCE

Try Lee's vietnamese sandwiches for bubble tea. What happened to the shitty bar that replaced KC? —jabyrd3