Emperor Garden Restaurant

Ordered BBQ pork lunch special, terrible taste, meat not fresh at all. Provided feedback to the lady at the counter and was told «all our dishes are fresh», wasn’t even looking at me. Terrible experience, never go back again.

Look, I’ll get this out of the way straight away. The staff are not friendly and they do their best to push food on you and get you out the door when you’re done. There, said it. However, I kinda expected that as I don’t think I’ve ever had a Yum Cha experience in Sydney with friendly service. If there is such a place, please, let me know! I just assume that’s the norm.
THE FOOD is not bad. I didn’t have a problem with anything that I ate. They had a good selection of dim sum, buns, spring rolls, veggies, chicken feet (omnomnom) and desserts.
Sure, they weren’t blow your mind amazing flavours, but I certainly didn’t want to not eat them either.
The price was pretty good (I think). It was under $ 100 and there were 5 of us eating AND we had a bottle of wine.
I’d go again.

The DIM SUM food was pretty good. We were brought here by our friends who were hosting us during our stay in Sydney. The only downside about this place was the hostess that seated us. We went upstairs to eat. Didn’t seem very friendly. However the gentleman that helped us with orders off the DIM SUM was very friendly. The DIM SUM ladies would come around after 5 min or so and a different cart would circle around every 3 carts. Some of the things we enjoyed picking off the cart were chicken feet and tripe. The food was OK but management, please have a meeting with your people. This is a tourist area and find some people who are more courteous and inviting. This is not good Feng Shui for your business.

Went here because the queue for the same companies bakery was so long we assumed the yum Cha at the restaurant would be great. It was terrible. Being a vegetarian, normally at Asian restaurants I can get all sorts of dishes, especially at yum Cha. After about 30 minutes with only 2 trolleys visiting us there was still nothing for me to eat. I ordered vegetarian dumplings which came about another 15 minutes later. As this was again the only thing that came around I ordered more and some Bok choy. Because we weren’t being served outside we moved inside and still nothing. I was advised after all of this that there were no more vegetarian options at all left. I left this restaurant after an hour and a half with 4 dumplings… Absolutely hopeless and way too overpriced for their terrible service and not that great food.

If I could give zero stars I would.
We had bought a scoopon voucher (should have known better) for a Peking duck 3 course meal with a complementary drink. It was great value (or so we thought)
The service is below par. We ordered sprite in a can. They tasted funny and we discovered that on the bottom of the can they were actually expired. When we notified the waiter, he casually looked back at us and asked «have you tasted sprite before?» SERIOUSLY, you would ask a patron something like that. I should have turned around and said «HAVE YOU?!?»
They apologised for the error and brought out cans of coke instead. It gets worse … The coke was FLAT! How does coke come out of the can FLAT?!?
First course was spring rolls which were tasty but the dipping sauce tastes too much like BBQ sauce.
We had to ask for table water 3 times before one of the young waiters came to us with what looked like two cups straight from the tap.
Second course was the Peking duck, My favorite! The pancakes were nice and thin. Portion size was good.
Third and final course we could endure was some sort of noodle dish that looked like it came out of a two minute noodle packet. I mean the noddles were still HARD! We literally had two spoons full and couldn’t endure anymore.
We walked straight out of the restaurant without waiting for dessert, I just couldn’t imagine what disaster they would have plated up.

The only reason we went here was because it was 3 PM and we were looking for a place to have a late lunch. (We had initially planned on Mamak but they had closed for lunch already, and Wagaya Tapas hadn’t opened yet.) However, hunger won out and we ended up ducking into this place. They advertised yum cha til 4 PM, and the place was maybe ²⁄₅ full, and at 3 PM it seemed promising.
My entire experience was… OK. I wince as I type this. There were 3 of us, and we were ushered to a large table near the front, which was awkward. The yum cha trolley ladies seemed a bit disinterested in peddling their wares and just stood around chatting with each other. Every now and then, someone would come to our table, but more often than not they chose not to approach us and just parked their trolleys off to the side.
We were a bit disappointed at the lack of dishes coming our way so we decided to order. The staff seem friendly if you ask them something, but due to the language barrier we were confused if they understood our orders or not.
The dumplings average an «OK.» Some were pretty standard dumplings, some I thought were a bit below average, and some were quite good (like the deep fried scallop one we ordered separately — that took a while to arrive though. Twenty minutes? Maybe they make it by hand?) I’m not sure I’d come back here though. It was a bit stressful for average food.

This place has been operating for a long time according to friends who used to live in Sydney.
The reviews so far are based on their dinner and is not doing this place any justice for their yum Cha /​dim sum. It’s very authentic and I think they must have an old dim
Sum chef still around to make their dim sums. :)
I have to say though it was quite pricey for two people at approx $ 20 per head for our so called breakfast. We didn’t had much either.
Will definitely come back next time.

It was 9:30am on a rainy Sunday morning. I was walking up and down Dixon st. looking for a place to eat dim sum. The only restaurant that looked open and had diners in there was Emperor Garden. Since I had their delicious cream puffs next door the night before, I thought to myself that this place is probably good. I mean, their cream puff window always has a line. Well I was wrong. Their choice of dim sum was very limited. I wanted egg tart, but I noticed they abandoned their pastry cart to the side the whole time I was there. Is that normal? I was better off going to the bakery next door and getting an egg tart to go.

I have been lurking on Unilocal for years, but the dining experience I had at Emperor Garden was so terrible that it inspired me to write my first review.
My wife and I were looking for a decent meal in Chinatown, and being very tired and hungry, I mistook this restaurant’s reviews for a similarly-​named restaurant in the vicinity. I realized my mistake half an hour after we ordered and we still hadn’t been brought a single morsel of food. At that point we asked our waiter if our food was on its way, and he assured us it was. Ten minutes later two of the dishes we ordered appeared: steamed dumplings (fairly tasty) and barbeque pork (would have been tasty if it had been more than medium-​warm).
Fifteen more minutes pass and still no sign of the third dish, which was my vegetarian wife’s main course. Once again we flagged down the waiter, who said it was on its way. Ten minutes later a dish arrived which was not what she ordered. Ten more minutes to get the waiter’s attention. Further assurances that the proper dish was on its way, leaving us scratching our heads as to why they’d brought the one they did.
Ten more minutes and the correct dish arrives (tofu, mushrooms, and vegetable sauté). It seemed promising, until we bit into the well-​browned tofu to find that it was cold in the center (I’m certain that we didn’t order it rare.) But at this point we’d been strung out for over an hour, and just wanted to fill our stomachs and get out of there.
To be fair, the waiter did offer to bring my wife a free glass of juice, and he did give us free white rice. But for putting us through what can only be described as culinary malpractice, it amounted to a further insult.
Granted, we looked like tourists. Also granted that there were two large tables that they appeared to be spending all their efforts on. Further granted that we probably should have walked out before the real horror show began (as another couple did while we were there).
But to sum up: dining at Emperor Garden Restaurant is not advisable if you value time, accuracy, or properly heated food.

I guess I should have taken the nearly empty restaurant as a sign. The food here was sub par. I’ve had way better chinese dim sum in the States.
The dim sum was soggy. I usually love har gao, this one had some weird shirmp paste in it — not so good. The gailan was overcooked. the shao long bao was not soupy — the bread had absorbed most of the liquid. Service took a bit long. I was not impressed at all.

We came here for a late afternoon meal. Little were we aware for what they would be offered. The dim sum carts were all limited to the leftovers of what they were serving during the peak lunch hours. There was really no selection if you are expecting dishes from the menu. It took 20 minutes for the baked char sui bao to be made. The gailan took over 30 minutes for it to be brought to the table. It’s just steam vegetables, how hard it that?
All the steamed dishes that they served from the carts were over steamed. Even the gailan that they made was over steamed. Flavor for all dishes was just lacking.
Not a very good eating experience for my partner and myself. I think the food may have been better, taste and selection wise, if we went during the peak lunch hours. But that will have to wait for another day.

food — the peking duck skin was very average, the cut had quite a bit of meat in addition to the skin (which is not supposed to be the case). Too much hoisin sauce on the pancakes and no opportunity to make your own. The second course of the peking duck, with the meat sauce and soja was pretty bad (too sweet and gelatinous), ate 2 bites and that was that.
atmosphere — none, basic chinese restaurant
service — lackluster. carving the duck table side sounded nice but the waiter did it with about as much enthusiasm as if he were performing an autopsy
value — half peking duck, which serves two, with rice is about 44 AUD, which is fair and plenty to eat
never again

We were seated quite quickly, considering how hungry we all were after wondering down the Chinatown Night Market food stalls!
Since there was a group of 3 of us we shared 3 plates. One beef, one chicken and one lamb. The food wasn’t anything out of this world. It was edible though and my growling stomach was happy with the result.
But then we didn’t come here to be wowed by the food. We were just hungry.