Visited Oakland from Cincinnati. Was looking for a soul food restaurant and chose Lena’s based on the reviews. OMG! My family and I have not had soul food like this in awhile. From the blackened catfish, mac and cheese, green, cabbage, yams, peach cobbler, Chicken; yes we tried it all! It was AMAZING! Fast and friendly service. FANTASTIC FOOD.
I come to Lena's whenever I have a taste for soul food which for me is always the fried fish entree (it's Basa). I get the dinner order and it is always....did you hear me? ALWAYS hot, fresh, perfectly fried with a light crunch and oh so good. I ask for crunchy pieces and they never disappoint in freshness and taste. You get a nice portion as well. They have the b-e-s-t mac and cheese in this part of town, their greens are bomb, I even got the succotash one day and it was delicious as well! Can't go wrong with Lena's (?) Enjoy!
From Dallas visiting the Bay Area. I wanted some comfort soul food. This place hits the spot, delicious fried chicken, flavorful greens and slap your momma yams!! I went twice!!
I have been going to Lena for years and it’s getting worse every time I go..This time the Black Eyed Peas taste like dirt no seasoning AT ALL.. The gravy was package gravy it taste like KFC Boston market gravy the corn bread tasted like as if it was frozen and then reheated and the bake fish where do I begin we might as well call the boil because that’s what it taste like.. I am super disappointed
The restaurant is take out only and that's fine. The food was good! The fried chicken is yummy, I did want more cheese and flavor in the Mac N cheese! The greens didn't like fresh made greens possibly canned. But the yams are amazing and that peach cobbler is rich and buttery. All in all I can't wait to go back and try soon else!
I’ve been coming since they opened here. Everything was fine. Then they changed to putting the food under the heat lamps to keep it hot. It doesn’t work. I stopped going because the food was never hot. And just looking at the display. Wasn’t very inviting. I’am from New Orleans if you want a successful restaurant. If the food is suppose to be hot. It should be hot. Won’t go back. Sorry lost me. Southern Cafe is the choice now.
Finally had an opportunity to visit Lena's Soul Food Restaurant, located in Oakland, CA. Although the restaurant just does take-out only. I found the restaurant staff to be very friendly, the food selection great. I decided to have the fried fish plate and the food fresh. The portion sizes are hearty, allowing for you to either share a meal or spilit the entree into two separate meals. I will most certainly return in the future.
I love this place. I live so far from here but wherever i get the chance to eat here I definitely do. The food is great, the service is not bad either. My only issue is that this is the second time I paid for something that didn’t end up in my bag. Both times I ordered sweet potato pie, but sadly I haven’t had the chance to even taste that sweet pie ?. Today I didn’t recover my pie or Al La Cart baked fish with my order. It looked so good I wanted to try that fish, but I love their fried fish so much, I reordered it again with baked fish to the side. And sweet potato pieThey didn’t forget to charge me for all it. I definitely paid for it. Both times.
If you order to go check your bag(s) before you leave. Ordered fried chicken twice with 2 orders of red beans & rice plus sweet potato pie and peach cobbler. Assumed everything was in the bag but was missing 3 things. Both the pie and cobbler were not in there and there was no rice in the red beans...I have no comment about that part.
Worst oxtails EVER‼️‼️ I have a video (this is just a screen shot of said video) worst $23 spent ??♀️ The oxtails were EXTREMELY TOUGH. Not tender WHAT SO EVER. The flavor was definitely there, but the tenderness of the meat WAS NOT‼️ Highly disappointed… the rice was also hard and UNDER COOKED. Only thing that was worth eating on my plate was the yams and cabbage. The oxtails could have definitely benefited an extra 2 hours in that pot instead of rushing.