Brisbane Phoenix Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Brisbane City

I had an extremely unsatisfactory visit to brisbane phoenix restaurant. I visited in a group of 4 people for lunar new year on feb 12. We had made a booking for 8pm and arrived promptly on time, to a fairly empty restaurant and a long queue outside. When my partner enquired about our table, and mentioned we had a booking, he was told that “everyone has a booking”, indicating the long line out the door. This was despite the fact I asked a person in the queue if they had a reservation and they said they did not.

Once we finally were seated, it took another 30 minutes for anyone to take our order. In this time four other tables were seated and had their orders taken, and I had to ask a waitress to even get any service.

We ordered four dishes and a fried rice between us. The first dish (a bbq platter) arrived fairly promptly, and then nothing arrived in the half hour following. We had no rice (plain or fried) with which to eat any of our dishes. After the half hour, another dish (crispy chicken) arrived. Approximately 15 minutes later the barramundi arrived with the fried rice. The last dish (scallops) never arrived at all. It was only at toward us finishing the fish and rice that we asked about the scallops, and ended up just deciding to cancel the dish.

The food was average, palatable but not amazing. However two out of the four dishes preceded the rice, which made them salty and difficult to eat on their own. For the exorbitant fine dining prices they charge I expected much better - this was not fine dining.

I am astonished that, for what I imagine would be one of the most demanding days for a Chinese restaurant with massive demand, that the restaurant was unequipped to handle the number of orders. Their staff and time management skills need massive improvement as I can only rate my experience as significantly subpar.

(Note: I welcomed feedback from the restaurant as regards my review on OpenTable and heard nothing back. It seems this restaurant either does not care about poor reviews, or improving...

Disappointed that they wouldn't split the bill. We were three friends wanting to pay 3 ways and they wouldn't let us. Completely ruined the whole experience for us. If you go with friends either take cash or be prepared for one person to pay the whole bill and have to EFT the money to that person. Its 2021, I really couldn't believe how backwards they were about this. Also when we asked why, they had no reason other than its company policy.

As for the dumplings they were nice but the long noodle (changfen) they haven't got the noodle consistency right. It should be a lot softer and more translucent. It was still nice though. The kimchi dim sum was really bad.

Cost wasnt that bad, was around $40pp for yumcha.

The staff were all great. They all spoke really good English and served with a smile. I can't fault the staff at all. They were really friendly and professional.

Other biggest disappointment was they were not getting people to check in(for covid). People walked in without doing it and no one asked us or checked to see we had done it. Its disappointing to see a restaurant not taking it seriously.

I personally won't be going back. I think I'll try other places first before going back...

This was a very disappointing meal. Aside from our starter soups (which were fine) every course had problems.

The jumbo chili beans prawns were cooked from frozen, but hard, the authentic sauce had been replaced with a simple lathering of Thai sweet chilli which wasn't what the dish it. The prawns had also not been cleaned which meant we had to scrape out unsightly large black lines from them prior to eating as well

The Phoenix fried rice was cold and tasteless, the scallops were actually cold as if just defrosted to room temperature then tossed in the rice. We simply couldn't eat it

The Shantung/Shandong chicken was dry and there was inadequate 'shandong' flavour. Black vinegar, garlic, and chili all lacking

The beef with honey and black pepper tasted like generic meat in sugar, the beef was old and over velveted (excessive Chinese rice wine for sure) and there was no fresh honey flavour at all.

The only reason this isn't 1 star is the service was excellent and I don't want them discouraged by an absolute failure from the kitchen.

Quite possibly the worst chinese food I have had...