Crystal Jade Seafood Palace — Restaurant in Sydney

A disappointing experience at the newly reopened restaurant. We were recommended to come here for great yum cha, and unfortunately, this was not good. The service was shocking, we waited fifteen minutes to be seated while the staff simply stood around chatting to each other or ignored us, and took even longer to get our orders placed. When we did, the man taking our order was a little impatient and not very welcoming. We ordered a full duck and while it was at our table for ten minutes, it was simply getting cold while we had to wait again for someone else to come cut it (and it was cut rather badly). The food itself wasn’t bad, everything tasted fine, but the wait for everything made the food a bit cold and I couldn’t really enjoy it because I’d gotten so hungry after waiting nearly half an hour to be seated and get my order taken. I also ended up getting a fried ice cream, and while it was good, I expected a sauce to come with it, and when I asked the server for the sauce he said there wasn’t any. However, when we went to pay, I noticed they had sauce on the order note, so why weren’t we given the sauce? I asked the cashier about this and he made a joke, but it doesn’t explain the fact that they’ve basically made no attempt to remedy a situation with either the staff or to the customer in a satisfying way. We were then told that because we didn’t order anything with noodles or rice, we had to pay an extra $10 fee for the seafood we ordered for ‘extra labour costs’. When we asked why this wasn’t disclosed to us when we ordered, the cashier again dismissed us saying it wasn’t his job since he wasn’t the boss. Since he seemed unwilling to pass our concerns or to try to amend this on the day, I hope this will help some other customers visiting this restaurant to avoid similar issues with the hidden costs and inept handling of general service. No matter how good the food is, I’m not tolerating bad attitudes and subpar service when there are far better places with better food and service. I usually expect newly opened places to attempt to give a good impression to new customers but I won’t be back and I won’t be recommending this to anyone until they’ve taken the...

A very chaotic dinner. Clearly struggling in the kitchen and serving customers. Saw almost every table complain to the cashier as they left the restaurant.

Upon arriving we had booked a table at 7:30pm. We told the restaurant we had a booking under our name and they said they couldn’t find it. The restaurant had our table empty, but no staff member would let us sit down. After 20minutes of waiting around for them to figure out their tabling system they finally gave us the table. Whatever.

Ordered the lobster labelled 1.7kg, wasn’t shown the live lobster. Taste? Not fresh. Overcooked. The shell was plasticky and difficult to bite into. There was barely any meat. Worst of all, asked for a seafood clamp to break down the shell but was told they were all dirty or other people were using them. So as a normal human being who doesn’t want to break their teeth from lobster shell, the only thing I knew to use was the chopsticks.

XO vermicelli noodles with prawn. Saw a table get a massive bowl of it, yet our table received half the size. Didn’t realise the menu had different sizing for the dishes. Wonder if it was the same price? It felt more like leftovers. Taste wise, watery, bland, no flavour and frozen prawns.

Other dishes were meh nothing amazing nothing you’d really look forward to going back for.

So what was good? The very first dish, steamed oyster. Plump, not too salty and very tasty. Set the bar high for it to all be ruined....

First visit. Booking of 6. 27/8/25 Ambience — Restaurant was extremely busy at lunch service. Book ahead. Arrival Staff — were flustered and hesitant about our booking, even though we booked online through their booking site Open Table and reconfirmed twice in the morning, through SMS and Open Table. Frustrated they just pointed us to an available table. Floor Staff — No interaction or banter with us other than methodically taking our order, delivering food to our table and processing payment. Just a number, not a customer, kind of feeling…..Next ! Service — Needs improvement. Had to repeat requests several times before getting any action. Requested glasses for a table of 6, waiter delivered 3 ? — had to ask for another 3, some dishes arrived with no serving utensils—had to ask, ordered extra rice—had to ask several times, basic stuff a good restaurant should be on top of. Staff just drop food on the table and race off. Payment—Wanted to check the bill before payment, since the service was a bit chaotic, but it was written in Chinese! Hmmm! They did however give us an English docket upon payment that we did check. Food — We did enjoy our meals. Decent sized portions. Reasonably priced. Would go back for the food, however, they need to show they value and respect their customers, without customers—they...