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Came on a Saturday night (third day of Chinese New Year) right when they opened and it was pretty empty at 530pm. It's a good thing we started early. Half an hour later, the place was full and buzzing. It was very hard to get a waiter's attention for anything. Typical busy Chinese restaurant in Richmond. We ordered the 6 person special that consisted of Lobster, Shark Fin soup, Chicken, Fish, Scallops, Prawns, & Sticky Rice. Everything was cooked nicely and tasted pretty good, but I thought the portions were a bit smaller for the price they were charging. It was yummy overall, but lacking in size, value and the service was choppy. But good to know that there's a pretty decent Chinese place in Richmond that I might give a second chance if it were a regular non CNY night.
Food: we did not order the set menu unlike many ppl around us. i think lobster was on special $8.80/lb. cooked very well. mayo walnut pork chop was very tasty altho some pieces a little fatty. string beans a little salty (prob b/c of the dried shrimp). overall the food was very good.
Service: we waited 40min b4 our first dish came after ordering. for a "high end" resto and a chinese resto for that matter, we thought this was unacceptable. yes, it's busy but that's no excuse. there was no apology or explanation until we asked a sweaty server at 35min.
Value: ur looking at $14-$17 min per non seafood dish. it is a bit pricier but the dishes are a fair size and ur paying for ambiance, apparently service, and decor.
Ambiance: very busy on a monday nite. mind you i think they had advertised some set menu specials and seafood specials for the crab and lobster. fairly elegant but a little small and cramped in some areas. washrooms could use more regular tidying up.
I usually go to there for dim sum. The price is alright and the food is not too bad.
However, I do caution that the service there is unacceptable and I will likely not revisit the place again.
We ordered dim sum @ 10AM. By 10:40AM we were pretty much finished and noticed that one dish has still not arrived. I flagged down one of their employees (the General Manager) to get the bill and also told him to cancel the dish that did not arrive for almost 40 minutes. He acknowledged and then walked away for a few minutes. Then he returned with the missing dish and just shoved it onto the table. We reminded him that I asked that it be cancelled and that we were finished the meal. He said "You ordered it so you must take it regardless" (in Cantonese). The attitude exerted gave me the feeling that he doesn't appreciate and respect customers. At no point did he apologize or showed remorse for the delay caused.
In my opinion, it is very shocking to see such attitude from a senior level manager. I cannot convince myself that this restaurant deserves any of my business.
I've visited Empire on several other occasions since my last review but they have all been banquet dinners. This time however, it was just my family and I so we had the set menu for four on a lazy Monday night.
Food: Fish mau and crab soup was good. Fish and veggies came with very very fresh sweet peas. The sweet and sour spareribs were also well done, but my favorite was the pea sprouts in consomme. Crab was just ok, along with the dessert. However, the overall quality of the food was of a higher standard.
Service: was the best I've experienced in any restaurant for a long time. (Surprisingly) From some reviews complaining about service, I wasn't really expecting anything more than average service. Maybe because it was a slower night -- we were waited on by 3 servers, our soup was refilled, plates were changed twice, tea leaves were changed (not just adding hot water), and all servers were polite, speaking both English and Chinese fluently.
Value: $88 for six courses, plus dessert. The four of us walked away full, satisfied, and carrying two packs of leftovers. Given the quality of food, service and atmosphere, I'd say this was a great deal.
Recommended and will be back again.
There are many dim sum restaurants within a 10 minute walk from No. 3 Road and Westminster so a friend and I decided to tackle this place one raining morning.
We came in the early morning service so we got the 20% discount. Dishes are ordered via ticket style, so we ticked off some established favourites, including chicken feet and siu mai. The menu was a little smaller and omitted a select few dishes usually found elsewhere. All dishes came out hot off the steamers. Good sizes on the dumplings. They look like they're out of the frozen section but tasted nothing of the like. Chicken feet had good flavour and the meatballs had nice texture with some crunch from the water chestnuts.
Our teapot was quickly topped up and dishes cleared with urgency. Staff had little to say and focussed on the important things.
Busy and noisy, with somewhat tepid morning diners filling the room, the decor was on its way of getting worn down, and could use a minor facelift.
A somewhat more than average dim sum experience but being located in an area with so much competition I would rank this one as a middle of the pack runner.
The dim sum here is still lovely, and before 11 am there is a 20% discount. The lo-pak goh (white radish cake) is steamed and very tasty. The dumplings are good sized, encased in delicate and thin wrappers. I loved how the beef rice roll came with bits of chopped cilantro inside. Yummmmm! It's a favorite with the early rising, senior crowd - so go early and get yourself a table!
Worth the drive to Richmond!
They offer a good selection of dim sum. Not just the staple items. Mostly average in flavours. Extremely busy before 11am as they don't take reservations before then as it's a 20% discount on orders.
The deep fried seafood wrap with salad dressing overflows with mayo but very flavourful & nicely crisped without being excessively or noticeably oily. The steamed shrimp & pork dumpling comes with 2 pcs topped with scallops and 2 pcs with shrimp rather than the usual fish roe. It is light, flavourful, with a good balance of mushrooms, pork & shrimp & fat. The prawn dumpling in consumme has a nice crunch in texture of prawn while the consumme is a simple clear soup--not exciting but pleasant in taste. The seafood salad in papaya boat is a complete waste of $$ for cheap smoked salmon & various typical salad items like scallop & shrimp boiled straight up bland.
The king crab dinners, though at a relatively low cost per pound, seems to also be a dishonest serving in portion especially during the high season(s), they tend to have almost every table of a fullhouse night ordering the same thing that some tables seem to be cheated in portion or sharing 2 crabs amongst 3 tbls, etc. It's easy to reuse the hollowed out shells of those who don't order the addition of a portugese styled fried rice baked in the shell. Other than the sense of being cheated though, the times we went for a regular dinner left me with a good impression especially when we had a set dinner for 2 tables with good rock cod, good lobsters, and huge, juicy, tasty, deep fried stuffed crab claws. Their baked tapioca pudding dessert during the dinner hr is amazing! Not too sweet. It was perfect. Though maybe 1 out of maybe 4 dinner visits, it disappointed.
The food here is definitely better than their newest addition to their mini chain of restaurants that's serving up dimsum & shanghai items in the old Yuu spot. Though the menu offerings there's quite fancy, the flavours are more than lacking.
Very busy before 11:00am as they offer 20% discount. Dim Sum menu is nothing too fancy and out of the ordinary. Good quality for all of the usual favourites. Very Busy during Chinese NY but that's typical for all restaurants. Very loud during Dim Sum but I guess that's standard as well. Well priced 10 person set menus versus others and King Crab is always on the low price side when compared to other comparable restaurants.
I went to dinner on Monday at Empire with my family of about 14 people. First of all, I've been to a lot of Chinese restaurants, and this one was the very first time I've seen napkins other than white, they were yellow to go with the restaurant theme color. This restaurant even had charger plates! I never knew Chinese people knew what charger plates were! The food was really good, the service even better. We probably had 3 servers wait on our table plus the manager too! We ordered Peking duck and the manager brought it to a side table beside us and put on white cotton gloves and began to carve it in front of us. He also came by every so often so check if everything was fine. This is a fairly new restaurant and I'll have to give it another go another time, but for now, I give it the thumb's up.
The price of the dimsum were not worth it. They charge the tea $1 per person, way too much.
I have to ask twice for a hot chili sauce. The last order was the meat ball came late. I had to follow up. It was tiny meat ball than our dimsum restaurant.
Not recommended. This my first and last visit.
Preamble: 3 people on a Monday BC Day night, fully packed house.
Food: Lobster special ~$10/lb, 3.6 pounds cooked in a clear broth. Came quite quickly, quite fresh-tasting and juicy. Two other small dishes ordered per requisite for the lobster special included dau miu/pea shoots and fried porkchops were solid if unspectacular.
Service: as it was a packed house, tea was probably not refilled as often as I would have liked, but they did perform several dish changes. Courteous and efficient on a whole.
Value: for lobster that was sold pretty much at market price, no compliants.
Ambiance: chaotic per usual for a Chinese restaurant.
I decided to take my family to this restaurant on a friday afternoon, and the place was incredibly busy. The restaurant was packed and so was the entrance. We had a long wait to get a table because of the size of the restaurant (which is small by chinese restaurant standards). There really are just not enough tables and the smaller room wasn't open for some reason. Meanwhile, for the existing tables, many of them were in a bad location (i.e. by the aisles). I know chinese restaurants are known for being loud but this place was incredibily chaotic...even the General Manager was yelling at the staff right in front of the customers. I find that extremely tacky and rude and it wasn't even the fault of the staff! We also got pushed down on the waiting list because the GM wanted to give the good tables to his buddies (nice, eh?). The rest of the staff were great, however, the waiters, the hostess, even the assistant manager ? who came to check up on us once in a while.
The food, on the other hand, was delicious, and for a great price too. I especially loved the egg tarts (very crunchy!), BBQ pork buns and siu mai. The food and value is quite good. However, I find the atmosphere/environment of this restaurant very stressful and noisy. I think I'd rather go to another one of the many other chinese restaurants in Richmond to get cheap dim sum!
We recently went to this restaurant for dimsum and then for dinner. Dimsum was OK if you didn't mind being crammed next to a bunch of other tables, unhappy looking staff, and breathing in the humid air. It was so darned unpleasantly hot and looking at the condensation dripping off the windows didn't make it better.
Dinner was a fiasco. Some of the waiters were quite good, but we discovered that the problem was the surly and rude General Manager (ahh, the source of the unhappy looking staff, I imagine). Starting with the unpleasant reservation experience with the dimwitted and morose hostess, to being shown the coldest and draftiest table in the restaurant despite having made reservations about 5 days in advance, then encountering the horrible GM who insulted us for something that his assistant manager suggested we do, to not receiving our dessert....I won't waste any more of my time and energy on this place.
Do not dine here--unless you want to leave unhappy. The food was fine but certainly not fantastic enough or of good enough value for one to endure the upsets.
After we pick up friends at the airport, they are generally hungry and a good Chinese meal is a good introduction to Vancouver. Most often we go to Empire Seafood. The prices are a bit higher than many Chinese restaurants, however the quality is also high. The dim sum for lunch is tasty. If it is dinner time, our order will include one of the soups, shrimp and scallops with baby bok choy (instead of shrimp and scallops in birds nest- if requested the restaurant will prepare or modify a dish to your liking).
When it was Alaska king crab season, we splurged and tried the king crab. The presentation and taste were both excellent.
Service has always been excellent and the ambience is that of a "nice" restaurant.
I was there on a Sunday night and it wasn't very busy. They made me take a 2nd sitting reservation at 7:45pm. The other was at 6:30pm or something. After seeing some rave reviews about their peking duck, I had to check it out. Unfortunately it was dissappointing. The server brought the duck over to let us see it very quickly and it was a small duck. It tasted good but seems like portions were scarce. I had better duck at another restaurant for much better price. Our 1st soup dish was meant to be shared between all of us but they just brought the soup and didn't bother to bring enough bowls and spoons for us to share. In another dish, we found a strand of metal cleaning pad. The food is good and doesn't use a lot of msg so they do have good chefs but portions are small. I told the server and he explained it was from the cleaning of the wok, took it and walked away. At the end, there was no appologies, discount or future credit for their mishaps. Most of their dishes are expensive. They are trying to be high end but with sad service, expensive price, small dishes, I definitely staying away as far as possible from this place.
The food was excellent! I loved the food so much and I go there all the time especially for teh Dim Sum on Sundays. Now usually I don't eat out but this was a treat instead of the MacDonalds i occasinally would have. The prices are not insane and the staff was friendly. What more could you ask for?
I went to this restaurant on Friday night with three of my friends. It was pretty full. We had to wait about 3 tables but the hostess was very talkative so that I didn't fell like I was waiting for 20 minutes.
When she brought me to the table, I saw everyone was having a big crab. I wondered and asked the server why there were so many people having the big crab. She said these Alaska King Crabs were on special. It's unbelievably cheap at only $12.8 a pound! We tried it. I have to tell you the truth. This big crab was THE-BEST-FOOD I ever tasted. The meat were naturally sweet. I also ordered two other dishes: scallop with vegetable and beef tenderloin with sweeten sauce. They were also beyond my expectation.
Overall, I think they are one of the best Chinese restaurants in GVR. After this dinner, I asked my friends to come back next week.
We took our Mom out for her birthday tonight at this restaurant that was new to all 10 of us. They booked our party in for 5 pm, but they really open at 5:30--the person taking the reservations left out this fact. We waited for half an hour for them to open outside the London Drugs where it was well lit. Once inside the restaurant we were sat at the most drafty table where I thought the air conditioning was left blowing--I politely asked them to reduce the air conditioning, but apparently it was not on. We enjoyed our Peking duck set menu with our coats on; the pea tips, the crab, the fried rice, and the fish were all delicious. Prior to the food arriving, almost in an empty restaurant, the General Manager, without asking, told my sister that her stroller was interfering with his ability to do business. I thought I had misheard because this sounded very rude! My sister was told earlier by the Assistant Manager to leave the stroller there, behind a table near a wall because it would be out of our way; he said that he would tell us if he needed the table near the stroller. It turns out that the General Manager was entertaining a group of his friends and needed the better table to house his buddies, and move the existing reservation to the table next to our stroller. Our waiter, Raymond, was excellent; he was efficient; he used humour to diffuse a tense situation; and he made friends with our kids. Without our waiter's knowledge, the Assistant Manager brought us our bill without our asking for it. We had not finished dining! In fact, we were still spooning food into our mouths, and the dessert that came with our set menu never made it to our table. By this time, we just wanted to leave and never return. Just before exiting the restaurant, some of us waited at the exit for my husband and son while they went to the bathroom. We got the furrowed eyebrows and glares from the cashier--the same unsmiling and ungrateful woman who took our payment for our meal. I think the only thing interfering with some of the staff's ability to do business is poor customer service. They still have time to learn some basic skills and good manners before they make a fool of themselves in front of the world in 2010.
The dimsum experiences have been generally good, price and food were decent. This made us want to go back and have dinner there.
We made a reservation for four and asked the price for the king crab per phone, they told us the price was 18,80 per lb (last week the special price was 10,80 per lb). Later when we went to the restaurant, we ordered a kingcrab for 18,80/lb. We asked why the price differed so much from just last week. The waiter in a suit told us that kingcrabs are scarce now, there are only two more left. So according to the price of 18,80/lb, we bought a crab that was around 8 pounds and asked them to prepare the crab in two ways, which wasn't a problem (many restaurants will have this service as well). We also ordered live prawns for the special price of 9,80/lb and two other dishes. The service was generally appropriate, f.e. they changed the plates quite often and were quite attentive to our requests.
However, we were caught by surprise when we received the bill. Suddenly there was 10$ extra charged for preparing the crab, which we thought was part of the total price of 154$. The restaurant did not tell us there is an extra charge for cooking the crab. Also, we didn't get the special price for the prawns. Supposedly for 1,5 lb, we were expected to pay around 15$ but it was charged for about 25$. When we asked about this, we received the following explanation. Apparently the crab for 18,80/lb was a special price, because normally the crab is sold for around 30$/lb. And because we got the crab for this 'special price', we were not able to get the live prawns for the special price, but have to pay for the regular price. This was not communicated in their advertisement nor in their menu or through the waiter. We asked about the price of the kingcrab twice, and this was the first time we heard that this was the special price. And that we actually cannot order two items for a special price, that's why we paid the regular price for the prawns, which was never communicated to us in any ways. So we end up paying 20$ extra, feeling cheated, unclear communication or embedded charges. We were just expecting a nice dinner out, not minding the prices, but all what we received was a blame of their collegeae who wasn't clear to us?? We are not satisfied with this way of doing business. We are definitely not going back anymore, it really spoiled our dinner experience and our experience of the Empire restaurant.
Went here with 4 friends last week for dinner. It wasn't busy on a weeknight so we were seated right away. We had made reservations prior. We ordered a set menu and added a few dishes to it. We had Peking duck which consisted of 2 dishes. Both were fine. We also had the shark's fin soup which was individually served and each contained a decent sized piece of fin. This dish was very flavourful. The other dishes in the set menu were lobster, fish and seafood fries rice. We also added a shanghai bok choy and steamed chicken plate. All the food was decent & good but my favorite was the shark's fin soup. Service was attentive and we never had any dealings with the manager as other reviewer's did so I can't comment on that. Overall food was solid & good, service was attentive and interior was nicely appointed. Price was a touch higher than other restaurants but this is supposed to be a higher end place.
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