Tasty and relatively healthy food, fast service, clean and decent environment. Make a reservation weekdays or weekends, otherwise you have to wait for table.
Janet K.
Tu valoración: 3 Burnaby, Canada
Our first time at this restaurant. Had reservations and seated 15 minutes after we got there. Pretty good selection of dim sim items and we enjoyed it. A very busy place… might be a good idea to get a reservation though.
Cam T.
Tu valoración: 3 Vancouver, Canada
This is your typical neighborhood Chinese seafood restaurant. Food was average for Vancouver — nothing to write home about, but nothing to complain about either. You won’t be embarrassed to bring out of town guests here. I’ve been here many times from dim sum to dinner. Dim sum here is very busy, even with reservation. And as for tonight’s dinner, the stand out dish with the Peking duck… skin was crispy and it was meatier than most. The stir fried bok choy was not up to standard, it was stringy and aged. As always, you don’t really expect great service at a Chinese restaurant, do you? The service was fine until the bill arrived and we were told bluntly that tip was not included. Tips are not mandatory and are given to reward good service. However, I appreciate that it’s hard work and always tip regardless. I found the comment and the tone quite rude which made me almost NOT want to tip. This is first time it happened here; usually the service at dinner is quite acceptable.
Edward L.
Tu valoración: 3 Vancouver, Canada
One of the larger dim sum places in Burnaby. This place was once known as Po King. Parking is available in the nice large parking lot behind the plaza. The lot is usually sufficient, but can completely fill up during some peak times on the weekends. In those situations, there is also parking on the side streets. The inside is fairly classy, with the nice high renovated ceilings, and the lighted accents. Actually looks pretty nice, like a western ballroom. With that said, this place gets pretty packed. Be sure to make a reservation. The tables also bunched together quite tightly. My friends and I ordered a wide selection of dim sum dishes. Everything turned out to be fairly decent. The shrimp dumplings were nice and firm, and most of the items were fresh and crisp. Special mention goes to their lotus leaf wrapped chicken rice — they actually mix in quite a bit of stuff in there, instead of just rice and chicken. See photo. The mango pudding was also served in mini-fish form. Bit of a novelty. The reason this place is 3 stars instead of 4 is the pricing. While my friends and I normally eat for $ 15 – 20 per person, here the bill was almost $ 30. Yikes. Guess one gets what one pays for. Great for more special occasions, but I would suggest other places such as Golden Swan as a «regular» place.
Elaine A.
Tu valoración: 3 Vancouver, Canada
This is a good — but not awesome — dim sum restaurant. Each dish was flavorful enough, and on par with many other dim sum restaurants we have tried in the area(except for Western Lake on Victoria and 34th in Vancouver, which is OUTSTANDING in every respect.) The prices are OK although the bill was slightly higher than we expected. Portion size was fairly good. What we found different from many other Unilocal reviewers is that we found the service to be prompt and friendly and so we had no complaints in that area. In addition, the restaurant space was bright and clean, as were the washrooms. One big disappointment was that they do not have sesame balls on the menu(we even asked), so I had to do without my favorite dim sum dessert. So in sum, if a friend wanted to meet up there(as was the case today), I would not push back, but if someone asked me to suggest a dim sum place, I’d probably be keen to try my luck somewhere else. One final tip: Go early — we arrived at 11 am and the place was fairly busy but there was no wait. When we left an hour later, the lineup outside was very long!
John N.
Tu valoración: 2 Burnaby, Canada
It’s really too bad that lousy service is the norm at dim sum restaurants. I mean, it makes you wonder what they do to their employees behind the scenes. No one smiles. No acknowledgement is made after you request something. I don’t get it. How can customer service be so bad at these places? At dim sum restaurants, it’s simply a matter of ‘how bad’. At Starlet, it’s near the bottom. Anyhow, the food is the only reason we come back to this place. It’s quite good. I just wish the customer would get some respect. Today we were seated at a table which was folded so many times I could not physically slide my legs comfortably underneath. I complained to the maitre-d and asked if we could sit elsewhere. All she did was give me a dirty look and said, «Don’t order anything.» in a annoyed tone. No apology — nothing. And so, even though the food is good, I have to rate this place 2 stars.
Daniel S.
Tu valoración: 1 Vancouver, Canada
They should mention to customers how long the wait time is all they say is look and see the amount of people in line but other people who come in to eat get same treatment. Very poor service
Teresa L.
Tu valoración: 1 New York, NY
Agree with the earlier reviews, terrible service. Food is average. Come here if u are desperate.
Hubert Y.
Tu valoración: 2 Richmond, Canada
The place looks clean. The food is ok, but nothing great. Typical dimsum stuff. Service for the most part is alright. But one server stuck out for being rude-doesn’t say ‘excuse me’ when he brings anything to the table, he just pushes you aside – not cool dude.
Gerardo O.
Tu valoración: 4 Surrey, Canada
Awesome dim sum and great customer service. On weekends, i usually call ahead for reservation and that saves me a lot of time waiting at the front — but you still have to keep checking with front desk scheduler on how long the wait is(once you’re there). I have recommended this place to a number of my friends and have invited a few for some get-togethers.
Fred B.
Tu valoración: 1 Surrey, Canada
Absolutely terrible service. Waited an hour and a half for a table for 4. Many patrons went ahead of us that have been in line as long. Hostess was rude and only gave us a table when we protested. Food was average but the service was definitely lousy.
Mr L.
Tu valoración: 4 San Francisco Bay Area, CA
The crystal noodles, no mei guy with wild rice, shu mai with a shrimp in it, pan friend turnips were quite good and are recommended. The shrimp fried egg roll with seaweed inside is unique a must try if you have never been here. The har gow was disappointing since the flavor wasn’t there and it was a bit watery. We will definitely be back when in the area. I think the food is a bit better than Koi Palace. The actual pieces of dim sum are a bit larger than other places.
Jason L.
Tu valoración: 4 Vancouver, Canada
Came here for Dim Sum as it’s one of my favorite restaurants for such. Been coming here since before when it was Po King restaurant. The food’s always been pretty good, service has changed from bad to decent with the new ownership. I have never been here for anything other than dim sum, so this review is strictly for that. For the most part, all their dim sum dishes are very good, the egg custard bun is incredible, so oozy, so delicious, not too salty, not too sweet, nigh perfect! Even if you aren’t a bun eater, I strongly recommend trying this dish. The service here still isn’t the greatest, but this visit had no issues. For those that’s been reviewing the waiting times or long line ups, I’m uncertain how a super busy restaurant with a huge patron base can fix this… buy out the space next door and expand the restaurant? O. o Sigh…I miss the previous host /owner, her screaming across the entire restaurant and being heard rungs above the noisy customers. She added a certain irreplaceable aspect to the restaurant, this lead to my brother always referring to Po King as the screaming lady restaurant.
Kelly I.
Tu valoración: 4 Burnaby, Canada
I booked 2tables for 22 people. The service was exceptional. The manager I recognized from Prince seafood works here, Hermes. Very friendly. He said the chefs used to work at Kirin. We ordered deluxe set menus 10 people for $ 368×2. Banquet style food. Everything was delish. Cold plate, fish maw soup, free range tea smoke chicken, 2lobsters, fresh butterfly fillet fish, vet n abalone mushroom, fried Rice, Yee mein noodles, pepper corn steak, dessert. We were stuffed and satisfied. Not for everyday. Special occasions only. An improvement would be making the chicken smokier. Otherwise I’d totally be back as I live in the neighborhood.
James D.
Tu valoración: 1 Burnaby, Canada
They have a lot of customers. Maybe that is a good excuse to skip customer service. The service is horrendous. The hostess speaks Cantonese so we didn’t hear her calling our number. We complained but the second time she called our number in Cantonese again and walked away. This is despicable.
Brian A.
Tu valoración: 3 New Westminster, Canada
A little pricey dimsum but good quality. You get what you pay for. The place looks nice and clean. Service is quick and staff can speak English for non-Cantonese or Mandarin speaking customers.
Jeff C.
Tu valoración: 4 Vancouver, Canada
Quick and easy dim sum lunch Food was made to order. Was hot and fresh and vey tasty You might want to brush up on your Chinese as they give numbers while you are waiting. If I didn’t know what’s he number 55 sounds like I would has missed it as they didn’t call my number in English
Annie M.
Tu valoración: 4 Vancouver, Canada
I always have a hard time to find a good restaurant for dinner w/my in-laws at East side(Hasting & Renfrew/Rupert St). I found New Starlet reviews were pretty good and just gave them a try. It’s newly renovated, bright and clean. Overall, the dishes were good. They served better quality of meats or ingredients than other East side restaurants. Fish fillets w/Tofu — a bit greasy but taste good. Thicker frozen fish fillets I had in Chinese restaurant, haha. Stir fried mixed vegetables — dry tofu, cabbage, black fungus, mixed mushroom and etc. Steamed minced pork — Hand-chopped minced pork was pretty bouncy but a bit salty. Baked salted chicken — Pretty juicy and full flavour of chicken. Spicy fried rice — Chopped Chinese sausage with some spicy fried rice, delicious. If they put less MSG on dishes, it will be prefect!
Amy T.
Tu valoración: 4 Vancouver, Canada
New Starlet is a HUGE upgrade from the previous Po King Chinese restaurant. They’ve renovated the place and all the walls have TV screens including a massive one on the back wall. The staff are friendly, service was fast and smiles all around. My friends and I came here for Dim Sum and the food was pretty good. The prices were reasonable and you even get 10% off during the weekday mornings. Not sure if it’s an ongoing thing or just a promo for now.
Sandal S.
Tu valoración: 2 Vancouver, Canada
We went for lunch on Sunday. Arrived at 9:50. Imagine our surprise when told we were the fifth in line for a table. Didn’t seemed too bad until later when we found out New Starlet takes reservations and they have priority. Consequently we didn’t get our tablet for two until 11:00 or so. We think the customers should be informed of the fact and warn that the wait can and will be lengthy. Better still, have a reservation only policy. A young couple arrived soon after us and left after waiting for close to an hour and 30 minutes. The food is good but not good enough to justify the long wait. Such a lengthy wait was common 25 — 30 years ago but not in today’s competitive market.