Palace Chinese Restaurant

6.5 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  7      Value  6     

Pretty average yum cha, no better or worse than others in the city. Dumplings are good, the usual roast pork and duck and chickens feet, all the usual fare done in the usual way. Best for those who favour seafood. The restaurant is a reasonable size for al a carte, but maybe not for yum cha in the city. The wait for a table at lunchtime mid-week can be longer than most. Try arriving a bit before the hour for best chance of reduced waiting times.

May 29, 2012 

4 Below Average

Food  3      Ambience  7      Service  1      Value  5     

Very disappointing. I went to this place from a recommendation.

The service was poor, there was a trolley, (on avg) every 5 minutes that wouldn't have seemed so bad if there was variety. The only food available was dumplings, there wasn't even mango pancakes!

The price was ok but everything else was pretty poor. There are too many good Chinese Yum Cha in the city, I will not be coming back to this one.

May 12, 2012 

6.8 Recommended

Food  6      Ambience  7      Service  7      Value  7     

I've been here a couple of times for yum cha. It was not great. We ordered the glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves - it was fridge cold inside when we ate it. It was not heated properly. Dumplings like 'har kau', prawns dumplings and chive dumplings were good size but ordinary. The pork bun was good. We had egg tarts and silken tofu, 'tau foo far' for our desserts. Egg tarts were nice but silken tofu in sweet syrup was not silken smooth! They have put very few tea leaves in our teapot and our tea was too washed out and light. Overall, its okay not great! I like the location as it's quite central and close to the shops.

Jan 05, 2012 

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  8     

We went for an a-la-carte family dinner with my girlfriend on a Sunday evening, and the food was fantastic - very fresh, high quality chicken and beef dishes and all the vegetables are fresh and flavoursome. I'd highly recommend the Chicken San Choi Bau for an entree, as well as the chicken with cracked nuts (sorry, forget the name of the dish) for the main course- wonderful marinade flavour.

The cuisine is Cantonese, I've also dined at a high quality restaurant when travelling in Hong Kong and I'd say the mains are on par. I regularly eat Chinese food and this is well above average. I look forward to trying Peking Duck another time. The service is usually very good, we have been here a number of times and I was suprised by a couple of the other comments. Any minor issue such as taking down the dessert incorrectly was corrected without any fuss or delay. There is an offering of both Asian and Western desserts.

I'm not much of a wine drinker but BYO is expensive, better off choosing a bottle from the wine list. Highly recommended.

Oct 15, 2011 

3.3 Below Average

Food  6      Ambience  4      Service  1      Value  2     

Just had one of the Worst customer service experiences of my life at Palace Chinese Restaurant! I was so appalled by the staff’s response that I signed up to eatability specifically to spread the word about their bad customer service.

My boyfriend and I would occasionally go to Palace Chinese Restaurant for yum cha as it is local to us. Today, we invited a friend to join us as he hadn’t eaten there before.

Being a chili lover and knowing our friend is one also, I asked the waiter for another plate of chili sauce, to which he replied “We can’t do that.”

Did I hear right? Was I refused chili sauce at yum cha?! I had to ask again. “No I can’t give you another plate of chili sauce, we can only refill your sauce plate once it’s finished.”

What if one of us was sick and didn’t want to share from the same sauce plate? You’d have thought I made the world’s most complex request! After much back and forth and seeing how tight they were on the chili sauce, I offered to pay for it and they would have a happy customer. His next reply was unbelievable, “We don’t ask our customers to pay for sauce.”

It was the most Ridiculous response I have ever heard in my yum cha experience!
I asked for the senior staff and he repeated the same thing. It wasn’t a pleasant scene. The logic was lost on the staff. They would rather lose a customer over chili sauce?!

It was a simple case of give the customer what she wants, or face the consequences. They lost a customer (or three), I lost a great day.

23.07.2011 - My last check-in at Palace Chinese Restaurant.

Jul 23, 2011 

6.3 Average

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  6     

Food quality and service during day and night, yum cha and dinner is reasonable, I would say the best in the city atm. Flavours are authentic and consistent.

May 04, 2011 

7.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  6      Service  8      Value  9     

If you want good trolley action, this is the place for yum cha. Although we were far from the kitchen, our large table could not keep up with the relentless pace of the tasty trolleys full of all dumplings fried and steamed. Rice noodle and eggplant dishes were tasty. Good choice of vegetarian dishes too. Good wine list.

Apr 25, 2011 

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  7     

Came here for CNY dinner and the service was nice, decor excellent, comes with cheap $7 all day parking. to top if off the food was actually quite good. pleasantly surprised and will return for dinner again!

Feb 08, 2011 

9 Highly Recommended

Food  9     

I'm Chinese and love yumcha. Just rating the food: Excellent yumcha. Revisited since my first review. Still the best in the CBD. Competes with Kam Fook Chatswood and Sunny Harbour Hurstville for the freshest and best tasting dumplings. Prawns and scallops are amazing here.

The roast duck dumplings were a highlight this time. The lightly battered and fried squid was also delicious. Came for a brunch on a Saturday morning at 10:30am and within 15 minutes, the restaurant was full of diners. Shows you how popular the place is and it is hidden in the back of a minor shopping centre!

Feb 05, 2011 

6.8 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  7      Value  7     

Pretty good yum cha. The dumplings and dishes are nice, especially the mango + sago dessert. Ambience and service are decent. It can get really really hot on a hot day though (insufficient air-con).

Jan 30, 2011