East Imperial — Restaurant in Melbourne

The worst yum cha / dim sum I’ve ever had. Anything with “prawn” featured far more filler than prawn. The prawns used anyway, if you could find them, were the tiny shrimp you would bait a fishing rod with that didn’t taste of anything. The dough on the prawn rice roll (which was 95% dough) was thick and unpleasant, like eating a glue stick wrapped around 3 tasteless shrimps. Same story for prawn sesame toast and fried prawn in bean curd skin. Pork and prawn siu mai - no prawn / shrimp to be seen at all.

The scallop dumplings were devoid of scallop entirely, using a single weird shrimp and some revolting white paste?

You would think as a to-order system with items coming out of the kitchen as soon as they are ready would mean they are piping hot, but most were warm-ish at best.

Even if we pretend it’s not a yum cha place and you just wanted to eat decent food - this place isn’t it. The worst part is how expensive it all was, presumably for the non-existent prawns. An...

I would regard the East Imperial as the BEST Chinese restaurant in Melbourne and I do eat at quite a few restaurants. My first visit to the East Imperial I said to the owner (Jo Poon) "You know what tastes good, I don't. So feed me and if I like it I will come back and if not I won't". I am yet to see a menu at East Imperial although I am sure they exist and I have been going back to the East Imperial for years. If you enjoy really good Chinese food and sensational service, allow the owner Jo to feed you and don't look at the menu. Each course will be explained to you and each will complement the previous course. Oh, the Peking Duck - to die for!! The East Imperial is not a cheap restaurant but once you have been there, if you let the owner feed you, you will go back ......

Not an exaggeration to say this is by far the worst yum cha spot I've ever been to. Coming from a Chinese dude. Siew mai tasted like it was frozen, skin broke off super easily, costco dumplings tasted better. We were served tea which was tea bags stuffed into a tea pot. No self respecting Chinese restaurant would do this. We asked for reccomendations and they reccomended Peking duck wraps which cost 4 dollars a wrap. The wraps didn't even contain any duck skin......anybody who has had Peking duck knows the wrap is meant to contain skin not duck meat. Overall horrible food, expensive, would not reccomend. You might as well buy supermarket dumplings and brew your own tea bags at home for...