Very interesting experience in this dimsum place!
So this used to be Chef Elite 88 and I did not have the best experience staff- or food-wise here if anyone saw my scathing review before
Food we got (6 dimsum):
- 灌湯餃 (large seafood dumpling in soup)
- 定海神針 (fried shrimp in seaweed rolls)
- 蛋撻 (egg tart)
- 豬手 (pork hock)
- 沙律蝦角 (fried shrimp wontons with mayo)
- XO 醬帶子腸粉 (XO sauce scallop rice rolls)
Food was generally OK. Nothing super remarkable aside from the pork hock. The soup dumpling didn't have that strong seafood taste and they didn't use dried shiitake mushrooms (冬菇) so the taste was not as complex as it could've been. It's pretty rare to find pork hock as a dimsum so my mom loved that!
I'd definitely stay away from the shrimp stuff. They don't devein their shrimp so I had to spit out probably a quarter of all the shrimp stuff I did have. Their rice rolls had very little scallop... maybe 1 small piece per roll? My mom and I split the 3 rolls and unfortunately I did get a single piece. Like at least put 2 pieces in each one so if we cut them in half, everyone gets one piece...
Egg tarts had the thickest and most layers of puff pastry I've ever seen in my life. I'm pretty sure it was more puff pastry than egg at that point. Unfortunately, the puff pastry layers weren't very buttery, so I'm not sure why they had to make it so thick lol.
Staff was generally pretty friendly, but a little odd when we asked a waitress to please change our plate (under the bowl) because my mom's plate had a lot of bones from the pork hock dish.
As you can see, the original tableware has the golden/bronze mountains on the plate, bowl, teacup, and saucer. This waitress was carrying away our finished soup dumpling plate+bowl, and when my mom asked for a plate change, she really was going to give us the plate used for the soup dumpling to us...
Not even the craziest part, but when she came back with 2 new plates, they're just the serving plates and not the plates with the mountain design. Why was the plate different from the original tableware?? Was this a management decision to "save" the pretty plates for only when customers arrive, but if they request a plate change, then to just give the basic white serving plate?
The waitress asked if I needed a plate change too, and I said no thank you. Then she TOOK THE NEW PLATE AWAY??? Never in my life have I had this experience where the waitress takes away the new plate. Typically, they would not even ask if I also needed a plate change: they'd just switch it out for everyone, or if they're too busy, they'd leave the new plates on the table. But they wouldn't TAKE the plate AWAY.
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Their washroom was very dirty in the hallway leading up to it: used tissues were thrown onto the sides of the floor. Then inside the women's washroom, there are 3 stalls.
Ventilation was poor because the smell of was pungent. 2 stalls' floors were wet, 1 toilet had leftover pee on the seat, 1 toilet had literal smeared in the middle of the seat, and the other had a LOT of toilet paper scrunched up on the floor.
I couldn't go. I left the washroom immediately and we got the bill. The good news is that the bill already includes the 12% service (tips), so you just pay exactly the amount that's on the bill. Some people don't like this but I'm fine with this for dimsum places.
Based on the subpar taste, weird plate change management, and honestly disgusting washrooms, I don't think I'll be back. It's too bad because we're looking for a good dimsum restaurant to eat at instead of always the same one on Sundays. read more