Empress Of China

Food is on point, chilli oil dumplings and pan fried dumplings are great value for money. Customer service is unfortunately non-existent! Very disinterested girl at the counter, had to wait to five minutes for a menu and ended up taking it from the front counter myself. Has been the case whenever I've visited the last five years, so don't go here if you're expecting a good dining experience.

Very cheap prices and big portions, but you are truly paying what you are served. No quality. Not your authentic taste for mains. This is for the unsuspecting tourist who wouldn’t know better about real chinese food. I didn’t finish my twice cooked pork belly rice dish. You can’t really stuff up this dish but they did. Rice was old and dry. Pork dish was sloppy and on the sweet side. No wok flavour. Pumpkin pastry and red bean pancake were pretty good, the pumpkin one was my favourite of the lot. I would only go back for that but then again. Many chinese restaurants serve this pumpkin pastry.

Xlb was bad overcooked no soup in the dumpling at all, we had to get it refunded. Mapo tofu seemed to be missing salt. The la zi ji is sweeter than usual which was weird. But dumplings in chilli oil and soup were amazing! The beef was good too! Portions were huge perhaps why the place is so crowded due to its relatively cheap price yet huge portions.

Dishes are either a hit or miss. Xiao long bao was overcooked and dry. But dumpling soup and dumplings in chilli oil were delicious. The soup base was well cooked. Stir fry beef was nice and tender. However their spicy chicken tastes more like honey chicken cooked with chillis, so kinda strange but not bad. Mapo tofu was average.

A group of us came to Empress of China on a Friday night for dinner. We ordered a wide range of food such as honey chicken, sweet and sour chicken, dumplings, greens, fried rice, noodles, as well as drinks. The overall atmosphere in the restaurant was vibrant and bustling. Because they were very busy, they asked us to leave after 1 and a half hours of sitting. However we weren’t notified of this when booking so it was a bit disappointing to have to leave. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed our time here and were very happy with the food! Thank you Empress of China!

What can I say, this place is different. Come early and you will line up for a table. Get inside and the service is non-existent. Get your own glasses and cutlery. Write your order on a piece of paper and hand it to the waitress. Don't expect a smile. If you get one your going well. The food is cheap and for what you get it's good. You go for the experience. You don't always need to be waited on hand and foot. It's part of the reason I like this place.