This is a pretty fancy and expensive Chinese restaurant. The tables are all covered in nice tablecloths, they have elegant teapots, and they even have porcelain chopstick rests for each person to lay their chopsticks on.
The food came out relatively quickly - we were basically in and out in about an hour. The food itself I'd give 4 stars overall. We got pork/chicken soup; Cantonese chow mein; steamed bass; and pumpkin and bitter melon coated with crispy salted egg yolk.
The soup was decent. It wasn't too greasy or salty, which was good. They added plenty of meaty bones to it, which imparted a nice flavor to it.
The chow mein came with a lot of different things: chicken, beef, char siu (bbq pork), shrimp, scallop, bell peppers, onions, and gai lan (Chinese broccoli). Everything in the dish was pretty good except for the char siu, which tasted old. It's very common for Chinese restaurants to use old char siu in these kinds of dishes, but for a fancy restaurant where we're paying over $18 just for a noodle dish, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect fresh meat. For the beef, I could tell they used some tenderizer powder to make it softer, but it wasn't too excessive like at some other Chinese restaurants. The chow mein wasn't too greasy or salty, so I was happy with it overall.
I usually don't like salted egg yolk, but I decided to try the pumpkin and I was impressed. It didn't have as strong a flavor as other salted egg yolk dishes I've tried elsewhere. It had a great crispy texture and wasn't overly greasy.
The bass was fine. It was fresh and tasty. Was it worth the $50? Not in my opinion, but my mom really has a thing for fresh fish...
What wasn't so great here was the service, which I found to be pretty irritating and intrusive. At one point during the meal, my brother's chopsticks were resting on the napkin instead of the chopstick rest. A waiter came by, grabbed the chopsticks, and put them back on the rest. And then he proceeded to rearrange our teacups on the table. Excuse me, but we should be able to place our chopsticks and cups wherever we want...leave us alone! Later on in the meal, I was in the process of serving my mom more soup, when the waiter walked up, literally grabbed the ladle out of my hand without saying anything, and then served my mom instead. It's just weird, because they do this kind of thing instead of performing basic service like bringing rice for us when we ask (we had to ask again because they totally forgot) or taking orders in a timely manner (the table next to us was waving and clapping to get someone's attention. We had to flag someone down too).
All in all, we were happy with our food and I don't regret coming here to eat. It's pricy, but they do a good job and the portions are pretty generous. read more