Empress of China — Restaurant in Melbourne

Chinese 101 ... Transformation for the ... ???

Where can you get a serve of Spring Onion pancakes for $3.80 on the main street of Chinatown Little Bourke St?

Mains are around the $20.00 too, or a lunchtime meal style of a serve of steamed rice and a single dish (about less than half of main size) around $10.00, that's cheap in Chinatown ...

On the taste alone, in general 6-7/10, dumplings are okay ... a bit small and dry, no juice, dare I say frozen, mains are enjoyable with some steamed or fried rice ...

Nothing fancy, but the place is well run and quite clean considering the amount of people dining in ... it was packed at 10:30 pm, downstairs and upstairs. Most of the crowds are non-Asian looking, in their late teens to late 20's, you can feel the vibes. It's a great place to dine once in a while, or even a starting point for anyone that didn't grew up on Chinese food ...

It also comes with the novelty of #selfservice too :-) ... chilli oil, water and your wine glass ... and with covid, 1,5 hr eating time, yes, remember it's a volume business.

In saying that, what used to be one of the most opulent Chinese (Cantonese) restaurant in Chinatown (with the same name), that was across the street front he current site is now converted into a Dumpling joint.

The former was a 4* and the new dumpling joint is definitely great value for money, and on the price alone 5/5.

It's BYO too, they do have limited range of reasonably priced wines.

If you never been to a Chinese restaurant in your lifetime, this would be a great introduction to Chinese...

Went here for lunch with my little family (husband and daughter). In the restaurant there is a sign said maximum 1 hr eating time (we know and we don't mind). My husband and I finished our food before the time (30minute), but we were still waiting for my 6yr old daughter to finish her food.

Suddenly, One of the waitress (its the first time we saw her), suddenly gave us our bill without we asked for the bill (as my daughter were still eating and still have 20minutes eating time left). After she handed us the bill, she kept watching our table everytime she passed our table!!!

It's just rude in our opinion, as it's not even 1hr yet and we also didn't asked for our bill!! Even if it 1 hr she shouldn't did that, as it was very inconsiderate because there was young kid as well, if it all adults, then yes. The rude waitress didn't even handed bill for the people before us!!!

After my daughter finished her food (still 10minutes time left), my husband went to paid our bill, the rude waitress were taking her time to checked the money (from notes to the tiniest coins "10cents" she flipped the coins over and over, not sure why?! Maybe she thought we gonna gave her the fake notes and coins???), unbelievable!!!

She really need a proper training for her inconsiderate and rudeness!!! We are regular customer in this restaurant but never once this happened to us! Wanna give 0 star, but I gave 2 stars for the other waitress (she was nice) and we...

I would like to thank Empress of China for giving me the most hilariously awful experience I have ever had at a restaurant. We entered the restaurant and the man at the cashier gave us the wrong table number, they took 30 minutes to approach our group to ask us what we wanted, and when we asked to order before that they disappeared. Not only did they insist that we had to pay $15 per person, they took almost an hour and a half to serve our first round of food, and we ran out of time to order more food before our intended leaving time. They insisted we pay an extra $100 for food we could not possibly order and eat in the four minutes before we had to leave. When we went down to discuss this with the cashier he verbally abused us, chased us up the stairs to our table, swore at us and threw our change at our faces. I was terrified that he was going to hurt myself or one of my friends. He not only brought myself to tears on my own birthday, he insulted all of my close friends and family and humiliated us in front of the other patrons by swearing and throwing things in the middle of the restaurant. I am tempted to report this restaurant for this one incredibly rude, hurtful and unprofessional staff member, and would advise anyone wanting a pleasant night to...