Poor service and it take a while to get order. Better dim sum place in San Mateo Prices are not cheap either Food is okay
Jennifer L.
TERRIBLE SERVICE!! I've been waiting for a glass of water for 30mins. You have to repeat yourself many many times. Just to get one thing. A person in front of us already got up and left, because of the TERRIBLE SERVICE. This is my first and my last
Spark X.
Visited with my family and the food was okay, but I'd like to talk more about the services here. As some other review mentioned, the manager was very rude and even addressed customers in very offensive terms in Cantonese when speaking with other staff members. It's never ever okay to describe your customer as "The fat guy" even if they cannot understand your language! Shame on you.
Roger C.
Ordered $238 "Poon Choi" for Lunar New Year eve family dinner. What was showed in their advertisement pamphlet was completely different from what we actually got. Ingredients was different and not cooked properly. Very disappointed and certainly won't return for anything!
Michelle L.
My family came here for lunch yesterday, Sunday, and when we got the bill we noticed they charged us $1 per glass of water. I was shocked. We don't drink tea so we asked for water. Since when do restaurants charge for water. Wow! Food wasn't that great (chicken feet could be cooked a bit longer). Price was comparable with other dim sum places. The service was slow due to the fact that only 5 people worked there at the time, which included 1 hostess and the manager. Needless to say, we won't be coming back here again. Next time we'll go to Cheung Hing seafood and dim sum in Belmont or I'll pay a bit more for Tea Palette at Hillsdale mall. At least they won't charge us for water.
Karen P.
This has got to be one of the strangest and worst experiences I've had in the area. Ordered takeout; it was ready about 15 minutes or so later than the estimated pick up time. When I arrived, the host looked confused and started running around and then there was a bunch of shouting in the back. I honestly think they forgot my order. But it's fine. It's dim sum. It really doesn't take long to gather my order. So I stand around with no explanation from the host, but presumably the host is going to come back with my food right? She finally returns, holds up the receipt and pretends to check off and look through the takeout bag, tells me everything is there, so I go along my way. My bad for not doublechecking the host. Go home and I come to find that I'm missing about 5 items. That's not a small amount to overlook especially when it's about $7-$8 for an order of shumai. I call the restaurant, the number on Yelp isn't in service. I find a different number in Google and it goes straight to voicemail so I give up. About 10-15 minutes later I get a call back from the host who barely speaks English. But she apparently spoken enough to try to argue with me about how I was wrong that I was missing stuff. I tell her that I'm missing a bunch of things, and I start listing all the items of missing. Her response was, "no no no no no. Wait." Then she leaves me on the phone for a while without explaining anything and I was probably speaking to the air. I told whoever if anyone was listening on the phone at that point to not bother cooking anything because I was not willing to come back.
Horace L.
If people are going to Dim Sum places expecting some gourmet dining customer service or bougie colorful food-dyed French cuisine plated dishes, ya'll trippin'. First off, Crown Dim Sum is still relatively new so I'm sure they are working out their kinks, so their service might be slow. Secondly, this is a very typical Chinese banquet style dim sum restaurant. If ya'll looking for some fancy bougie stuff, go somewhere else. Ok /end rant. Onto review. 3 stars. 4 stars for the food, 2 stars for their customer service. The dim sum portions were standard but some of the dishes had dim sum pieces that were massive. I was genuinely surprised when I got the beef noodle rolls. At other dim sum establishments across the bay, they're always thick on noodles with a bit of beef inside. This one, other way around. Check out my pictures for proof. The texture of the dim sum skin was very chewy and quite thin. I appreciated the amount of filling in each dim sum dish we got. Getting seated was simple as we came during opening. Service was straightforward, got our dishes quite quickly but we immediately realized how understaffed Crown Dim Sum was. The receptionist turned into a waitress and there ended up being people waiting to be seated, even if the restaurant was barely full. I asked for Worchestershire sauce to a waiter 4x times before I received it. But the worst was... They lost my dad's credit card. They ended up finding it in the end but my dad gave them the bill, I watched the waiter place it in the front counter, and then we never got it back. We waited and another table that got their bill after us signed and left. We asked and they couldn't find the card. We watched them literally turn over every booklet, pamphlet, and paper on the front counter trying to look for it. A waiter even checked the dirty dish cart. I applaud their service efforts here. They gave up and said welp, cancel the credit card I guess. But ended up they returned our card and bill to a different table, and that table didn't know where their card and bill was, and there was all this background confusion. I just think everything can be solved if they can hire some people, even part timers, to fill some roles. It's very clear a lot of problems can be solved if they had more help. I hope they are able to find more help because I personally thought the dim sum was satisfactory for the portion size. If help is attained, I think there's less stress and rush and hopefully, service will improve.
Derek L.
Probably the most atrocious customer service I've ever received at any restaurant ever. We were here for lunar new year dim sum luncheon so it was busy, but not full, mind you. We ordered a mixture of dim sum staples and more specialty entree dishes. The dim sum quality was poor - the skin of the har gow and shiu mai was peeling off as soon as we grabbed it with our chopsticks. We also ordered beef meatballs, which seemed undercooked, as they were quite mushy. The deep fried meat dumplings took an hour and 20 minutes to arrive, not even joking! They told us the kitchen was frying them and should be out soon, an HOUR after we placed the order. And yet it still took another twenty minutes for it to arrive, and by this time they were only about half full so there was no excuse for it to take that long. And forget about that lava custard buns, they never arrived, despite repeated promises that it was coming. Worst of all was the service from the manager (disclaimer: the wait staff were all friendly and apologetic for the unacceptable wait.) But not the manager - apparently he's never learned the term "customer service" in his life because he has no idea how to conduct himself in a hospitable manner with the patrons who keep his establishment running. We ordered the roast duck and the pork ribs and finally we had to flag down wait staff to remind them that those dishes hadn't yet arrived. They seemed confused as to the hold up and so finally the aforementioned manager came by and told us that those items were sold out and he proceeded to walk away without an apology. I had had it with this super unprofessional establishment at this point, so I called the manager back over and demanded how his staff did not realize until an HOUR later that they were out of pork and duck and no one bothered to tell us that two of our mains weee not coming. He simply said it's a holiday and gestured to his restaurant, as if that were an excuse for his under prepared kitchen and staff. And then he I guess decided he was done talking to me so he once again walked away without an apology, let alone a free dessert or something to compensate us for the absurd delays and for running out of Chinese staples merely one lunch into LNY weekend. I could not believe he had the audacity to do that. I'm never one to shame an establishment, but the disrespect I had received was just unreal. I will never come back to this "restaurant" and if you want to leave fulfilled instead of fuming, I would recommend you do the same.
Sydney P.
Visited on a Wednesday around 1pm and was seated quickly as there were few patrons in the middle of the day. Overall, service was average. Not too fast, not terribly slow. Food was only OK. There are much better spots on the Peninsula for dim sum. For example, the soy sauce for char siu cheong fun wasn't sweet and the meat didn't taste fresh. Flavors fell short. Ambaince is nice. There are two big TVs playing Chinese music videos. Lots of seating and parking in the area as it's downtown. Not sure I'd visit again.
Connie C.
San Mateo really doesn't have many dimsum choices. We walked past this place on our way to Suruki, and decided to try them out instead of Palette. This location used to be Champagne, which was pretty decent, just out of the way for me. We made a reservation since it's LNY weekend, they got all the info only to tell us they didn't find the reservation on the day of. They were able to seat us down. My crew was seated first, I got there about an hour after, their first round of food barely came and had submitted the second round not too long before my arrival. Service was slow and horrendous. The second round of food took like 40 minutes to come out, nobody was actively cleaning up the empty plates at the tables, we had to stack ours in the nearby empty but untidied table. Not only that, we had some food orders that were from the first order, took them until half an hour after my arrival to tell us they're out of that dish, only to still see that dish on our bill. You have to repeat your request to multiple people too often. There were random dishes coming to our table or ours going to another, it's like you run a restaurant but your system can't tell which table ordered which? or that your servers don't know their table systems well enough? The food isn't even great enough to compensate on the terrible service. We had ordered steamed fish balls and steamed beef balls, you might as well rename them to steamed patties, because all the balls just flattened out and bunched up together. We ordered the bean curd stick with sweet pea leaf. The dish came without any bean curd served, just few pieces of garlic over the veggies, that broth or however the veggies were cooked in was so salty to the point where it was bitter. I had to put one leaf in my mouth with a sip of tea in order to wash it down. The fact that their prices were not too far off from Palette's, about 50 cents difference for most dimsum items, I think I'm better off at Palette.
We’ve tried both dim sum and dinner, they tasted good. And the boss Elaine and the staff are both nice, highly recommend!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Eric Chung
Came here on a Thursday night to try out their dinner options. There was an event happening that night in the main area, so we sat near the front. All the food was good quality!The only downside was that it was pretty pricey ($20-$25 per dish). Tea and the taro tapioca dessert at the end complementary for dinner.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
Tyler Song
I ordered 5 dishes. Only 2 dishes showed up after waiting 1 hour. The food that did show up was subpar. The waitress was rude.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 1
Service: 1
mimi l.
I usually check out new restaurants by doing a take out. The review is based on my take out experience. Ordered Ham Shui Gok ( savory glutinous dumplings ). Meh. 2/5 at best. The filling was skimpy and not tasty . And it was greasy. Most places this would be considered a S. Here it's a M ( $6.55 ) . Note: Many other dim sum considered S ( small) items at other places are a M ( medium) here . Not worth it. Will not return. Especially since there is no atmosphere. And lackluster service.
Siyu C.
Nice new ambiance. we came for dinner on a weekday and food came 15 minute or so. Quality of food is good!! Servers were nice who moved us to warm nice seats
Poor service and it take a while to get order. Better dim sum place in San Mateo Prices are not cheap either Food is okay
TERRIBLE SERVICE!! I've been waiting for a glass of water for 30mins. You have to repeat yourself many many times. Just to get one thing. A person in front of us already got up and left, because of the TERRIBLE SERVICE. This is my first and my last
Visited with my family and the food was okay, but I'd like to talk more about the services here. As some other review mentioned, the manager was very rude and even addressed customers in very offensive terms in Cantonese when speaking with other staff members. It's never ever okay to describe your customer as "The fat guy" even if they cannot understand your language! Shame on you.
Ordered $238 "Poon Choi" for Lunar New Year eve family dinner. What was showed in their advertisement pamphlet was completely different from what we actually got. Ingredients was different and not cooked properly. Very disappointed and certainly won't return for anything!
My family came here for lunch yesterday, Sunday, and when we got the bill we noticed they charged us $1 per glass of water. I was shocked. We don't drink tea so we asked for water. Since when do restaurants charge for water. Wow! Food wasn't that great (chicken feet could be cooked a bit longer). Price was comparable with other dim sum places. The service was slow due to the fact that only 5 people worked there at the time, which included 1 hostess and the manager. Needless to say, we won't be coming back here again. Next time we'll go to Cheung Hing seafood and dim sum in Belmont or I'll pay a bit more for Tea Palette at Hillsdale mall. At least they won't charge us for water.
This has got to be one of the strangest and worst experiences I've had in the area. Ordered takeout; it was ready about 15 minutes or so later than the estimated pick up time. When I arrived, the host looked confused and started running around and then there was a bunch of shouting in the back. I honestly think they forgot my order. But it's fine. It's dim sum. It really doesn't take long to gather my order. So I stand around with no explanation from the host, but presumably the host is going to come back with my food right? She finally returns, holds up the receipt and pretends to check off and look through the takeout bag, tells me everything is there, so I go along my way. My bad for not doublechecking the host. Go home and I come to find that I'm missing about 5 items. That's not a small amount to overlook especially when it's about $7-$8 for an order of shumai. I call the restaurant, the number on Yelp isn't in service. I find a different number in Google and it goes straight to voicemail so I give up. About 10-15 minutes later I get a call back from the host who barely speaks English. But she apparently spoken enough to try to argue with me about how I was wrong that I was missing stuff. I tell her that I'm missing a bunch of things, and I start listing all the items of missing. Her response was, "no no no no no. Wait." Then she leaves me on the phone for a while without explaining anything and I was probably speaking to the air. I told whoever if anyone was listening on the phone at that point to not bother cooking anything because I was not willing to come back.
If people are going to Dim Sum places expecting some gourmet dining customer service or bougie colorful food-dyed French cuisine plated dishes, ya'll trippin'. First off, Crown Dim Sum is still relatively new so I'm sure they are working out their kinks, so their service might be slow. Secondly, this is a very typical Chinese banquet style dim sum restaurant. If ya'll looking for some fancy bougie stuff, go somewhere else. Ok /end rant. Onto review. 3 stars. 4 stars for the food, 2 stars for their customer service. The dim sum portions were standard but some of the dishes had dim sum pieces that were massive. I was genuinely surprised when I got the beef noodle rolls. At other dim sum establishments across the bay, they're always thick on noodles with a bit of beef inside. This one, other way around. Check out my pictures for proof. The texture of the dim sum skin was very chewy and quite thin. I appreciated the amount of filling in each dim sum dish we got. Getting seated was simple as we came during opening. Service was straightforward, got our dishes quite quickly but we immediately realized how understaffed Crown Dim Sum was. The receptionist turned into a waitress and there ended up being people waiting to be seated, even if the restaurant was barely full. I asked for Worchestershire sauce to a waiter 4x times before I received it. But the worst was... They lost my dad's credit card. They ended up finding it in the end but my dad gave them the bill, I watched the waiter place it in the front counter, and then we never got it back. We waited and another table that got their bill after us signed and left. We asked and they couldn't find the card. We watched them literally turn over every booklet, pamphlet, and paper on the front counter trying to look for it. A waiter even checked the dirty dish cart. I applaud their service efforts here. They gave up and said welp, cancel the credit card I guess. But ended up they returned our card and bill to a different table, and that table didn't know where their card and bill was, and there was all this background confusion. I just think everything can be solved if they can hire some people, even part timers, to fill some roles. It's very clear a lot of problems can be solved if they had more help. I hope they are able to find more help because I personally thought the dim sum was satisfactory for the portion size. If help is attained, I think there's less stress and rush and hopefully, service will improve.
Probably the most atrocious customer service I've ever received at any restaurant ever. We were here for lunar new year dim sum luncheon so it was busy, but not full, mind you. We ordered a mixture of dim sum staples and more specialty entree dishes. The dim sum quality was poor - the skin of the har gow and shiu mai was peeling off as soon as we grabbed it with our chopsticks. We also ordered beef meatballs, which seemed undercooked, as they were quite mushy. The deep fried meat dumplings took an hour and 20 minutes to arrive, not even joking! They told us the kitchen was frying them and should be out soon, an HOUR after we placed the order. And yet it still took another twenty minutes for it to arrive, and by this time they were only about half full so there was no excuse for it to take that long. And forget about that lava custard buns, they never arrived, despite repeated promises that it was coming. Worst of all was the service from the manager (disclaimer: the wait staff were all friendly and apologetic for the unacceptable wait.) But not the manager - apparently he's never learned the term "customer service" in his life because he has no idea how to conduct himself in a hospitable manner with the patrons who keep his establishment running. We ordered the roast duck and the pork ribs and finally we had to flag down wait staff to remind them that those dishes hadn't yet arrived. They seemed confused as to the hold up and so finally the aforementioned manager came by and told us that those items were sold out and he proceeded to walk away without an apology. I had had it with this super unprofessional establishment at this point, so I called the manager back over and demanded how his staff did not realize until an HOUR later that they were out of pork and duck and no one bothered to tell us that two of our mains weee not coming. He simply said it's a holiday and gestured to his restaurant, as if that were an excuse for his under prepared kitchen and staff. And then he I guess decided he was done talking to me so he once again walked away without an apology, let alone a free dessert or something to compensate us for the absurd delays and for running out of Chinese staples merely one lunch into LNY weekend. I could not believe he had the audacity to do that. I'm never one to shame an establishment, but the disrespect I had received was just unreal. I will never come back to this "restaurant" and if you want to leave fulfilled instead of fuming, I would recommend you do the same.
Visited on a Wednesday around 1pm and was seated quickly as there were few patrons in the middle of the day. Overall, service was average. Not too fast, not terribly slow. Food was only OK. There are much better spots on the Peninsula for dim sum. For example, the soy sauce for char siu cheong fun wasn't sweet and the meat didn't taste fresh. Flavors fell short. Ambaince is nice. There are two big TVs playing Chinese music videos. Lots of seating and parking in the area as it's downtown. Not sure I'd visit again.
San Mateo really doesn't have many dimsum choices. We walked past this place on our way to Suruki, and decided to try them out instead of Palette. This location used to be Champagne, which was pretty decent, just out of the way for me. We made a reservation since it's LNY weekend, they got all the info only to tell us they didn't find the reservation on the day of. They were able to seat us down. My crew was seated first, I got there about an hour after, their first round of food barely came and had submitted the second round not too long before my arrival. Service was slow and horrendous. The second round of food took like 40 minutes to come out, nobody was actively cleaning up the empty plates at the tables, we had to stack ours in the nearby empty but untidied table. Not only that, we had some food orders that were from the first order, took them until half an hour after my arrival to tell us they're out of that dish, only to still see that dish on our bill. You have to repeat your request to multiple people too often. There were random dishes coming to our table or ours going to another, it's like you run a restaurant but your system can't tell which table ordered which? or that your servers don't know their table systems well enough? The food isn't even great enough to compensate on the terrible service. We had ordered steamed fish balls and steamed beef balls, you might as well rename them to steamed patties, because all the balls just flattened out and bunched up together. We ordered the bean curd stick with sweet pea leaf. The dish came without any bean curd served, just few pieces of garlic over the veggies, that broth or however the veggies were cooked in was so salty to the point where it was bitter. I had to put one leaf in my mouth with a sip of tea in order to wash it down. The fact that their prices were not too far off from Palette's, about 50 cents difference for most dimsum items, I think I'm better off at Palette.
Restaurantji Recommends
We’ve tried both dim sum and dinner, they tasted good. And the boss Elaine and the staff are both nice, highly recommend!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Came here on a Thursday night to try out their dinner options. There was an event happening that night in the main area, so we sat near the front. All the food was good quality!The only downside was that it was pretty pricey ($20-$25 per dish). Tea and the taro tapioca dessert at the end complementary for dinner.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 5
I ordered 5 dishes. Only 2 dishes showed up after waiting 1 hour. The food that did show up was subpar. The waitress was rude.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 1
Service: 1
I usually check out new restaurants by doing a take out. The review is based on my take out experience. Ordered Ham Shui Gok ( savory glutinous dumplings ). Meh. 2/5 at best. The filling was skimpy and not tasty . And it was greasy. Most places this would be considered a S. Here it's a M ( $6.55 ) . Note: Many other dim sum considered S ( small) items at other places are a M ( medium) here . Not worth it. Will not return. Especially since there is no atmosphere. And lackluster service.
Nice new ambiance. we came for dinner on a weekday and food came 15 minute or so. Quality of food is good!! Servers were nice who moved us to warm nice seats