Lotus Pond

1.3 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  2      Service  1      Value  1     

Reading the comments below, I agree with both the positive and negative comments below. Food was terrible. If you are looking for authentic Chinese, I would not recommend this place. Food portions were small. The price we were paying is around 2-3 times the price compared to other Chinese restaurants. We were aware of the prices, but did not expect the food portions smaller than other restaurants.

The waitstaff had either extremely fantastic customer service or were extremely rude to customers. Unfortunately for us, we had the former. It started off with their blasé attitude when we were enquiring about the dishes and placing our order. Dishes were slammed on to our table. We ordered lobster. The waiter dragged his feet as he brought the lobster to us for inspection. When our $300 lobster dish came out, there was no flesh, just the shell. When we asked one waitress, she told us she will ask her manager. 10 minutes later, nothing. We asked another waiter, but he brushed us off. Finally, another waitress came and we asked to speak to the manager directly.

During this entire time, we noticed the same waitstaff providing extremely good service to the non-Asian tables around us. To their credit, they did replace the lobster dish with another, and we were offered a 20% discount. We were still disappointed with the service and would not come back here again.

Oct 22, 2010 

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

Really poor service, the waiter spoke to us with a really bad attitude when we asked for advice on the dishes. Foods was small serves at highly inflated prices. Would not come again.

Jan 08, 2010 

9 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  8     

Lovely food and it is a very nice restaurant but there were a couple of service glitches like putting the rice tin over side of the table so we had to get up to get it. They have some great seafood on offer. it is expensive $107 between me and my girlfiriend but yet lovely food.

Dec 20, 2009 

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  10      Service  9      Value  9     

Had my special birthday there, food was good especially the peking duck definitely my old time favourite. Definitely was well looked after throughout my night as one of our dish was missing and when we asked for it, the waiter brought it out to us. Value is a little bit expensive other than that I would definitely recommend it for special occasion.

Dec 18, 2009 

2 Not Recommended

Food  2      Ambience  3      Service  2      Value  1     

Came here upon recommendation and geez, what a big mistake and waste of money. What a mean prank to recommend us here.

This noisy restaurant is quite big and appears bigger because it is empty. The lighting is dark with areas lit by low wattage bulbs and the wait staff are dressed in cleaner's uniforms. So it feels like you are about to eat in a factory in Asia.

The food portions are tiny and that's acceptable except they are triple the prices of other Chinese restaurants in the city. I had a shark fin soup and it tasted like msg mixed with chicken broth, so salty I had to pay almost $10 for a cup of orange juice. We ordered crab and it was tiny and expensive at $150. The crab dish was mild in flavour and extreme in msg and saltiness.

The teriyaki beef was so salty that I had to rinse it in tea. After that I filled my hunger with fried rice, or just oily rice with some burnt egg flakes. The waitstaff are unprofessional and deliberately drag themselves around. 1 waiter banged our dish onto the table. The waitstaff are obviously not profiting much from the expensive dishes.

The bill takes 20 minutes to come so ask for it early on. When asked where is the bill, we were treated like children and told we are waiting for the bill. That's really professional to reply with the question.

The experience at Lotus Pond ruined our night in every way. Biggest regret is driving for 1 hour to pay 6 x $50 dollar notes for 4 people and go home disappointed, thirsty, roof of the mouth dry and gums inflamed from extreme msg and salt content of each dish.

Oct 26, 2009 

9.3 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  9     

Wonderful place to be for chinese food, service is great. Definitely recommend it on any occasion as the atmosphere is quite different compared to other restaurants especially around the water front.

Oct 24, 2009 

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

Terrible food, service and way way over priced.

Sep 20, 2009 

9.8 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  9      Service  10      Value  10     

Ate at Lotus Pond in Star City numerous times, and hence very familiar with the menu. Food was absolutely beautiful [you must try the lobster sashimi.] A big variety on the menu, a great wine list. The decor of the restaurant was beautiful.

Service was very friendly and attentive with lots of quality checks [AAA+++] not your average chinese restaurant all cramped up. Very roomy and if you pull your chair out, you won't hit another chair. Everything on the menu is excellent. Would recommend for either the casual diner, or even that special occasion! Very casual a-la-carte. Table service was beautiful. This could possibly be the greatest Chinese restaurant in all of NSW. Very much recommended. 9.5/10

Jun 25, 2009 

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

This has got to be the worst Chinese restaurant in Sydney! I get to eat here a lot due to my father being a big time gambler, but every time I go I dread the experience.

The food often tastes like bleach, as it has been the past few times I went. The servings aren't even enough to feed a starving child. The BBQ platter had BBQ pork, chicken and duck that's all. I'm sorry but that is not a BBQ platter, you order that dish from any other chinese food place they will serve you a huge plate with about 5-7 varieties. This plate was a main dish size plate with 3 items on it and it costs $50. Give me a break!

The service is equally as horrible. Ordering 2 glasses of OJ they tried to serve us 2 jugs instead because they didn't hear correctly, why would any table with 2 people want to order 2 jugs of orange juice. It was just a way to try make use customers pay more. Not to mention last time I went when the bill came, they tried to charge us twice, and insisted we did not pay and tried to force us to pay another table's bill. The place wasn't even busy, how can you mix that up? Not having business is one thing, but starting to try to scam your customers is another.

Honestly there is absolutely nothing that will make me want to go there on my own. Beware this resturant is horrible.

Jun 23, 2009 

1 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  1      Service  1      Value  1     

We were greeted to this large and spacious restaurant with a request to wait for 5-10 minutes, very odd when there were numerous tables that were empty. Nevertheless, we waited and was promptly ushered to our table at the very far end of the restaurant. The waiter who took our orders recommended some of the specials, out of which we ordered the Portuguese Tofu, when it came out the dish seemed like it had been left out for a while as it had a thin, solidified layer over the gravy. Ignoring that, the dish was, at best, bland and hard on the tastebuds.

The ambience is OK. I feel the decor may be too pretentious for my liking. This is a fine example of a chinese restaurant pandering to western ideas of what is 'chinese'. The waitress who served our food was not friendly and whilst not impolite, obviously had her favourite customers sitting beside us because she would turn around and speak to them, ensuring that they had everything in order both times that she was serving our table.

None of the gestures that she showed to her favourite customers were shown to us, also paying customers. This frustrated us further when we asked for the bill and showed her our entertainment card, to which she said OK and turned away. When the bill came, we found out that she was not paying attention and had not included our entertainment card discount. We then had to have the bill re-calculated again. Very unneccesary had she paid attention during the two times we asked for the bill, which took ages to arrive.

The final straw came when they did not return our change, assuming that we are kind tipping customers. We would have if they did not assume. We demanded the change and the reason cited was because "we are too busy tonight, sorry". Of course, we took every cent of the change. They do not deserve it and the restaurant certainly did not earn their wages that night.

May 27, 2009