Golden Century Seafood Restaurant (金唐海鲜酒家) — Restaurant in Sydney

There is only one rule to remember when visiting Golden Century or GCs as it is affectionately known: don’t visit before midnight. This rule can only be broken if at least 50% of your party is already inebriated. And this, friends, is why I don’t show food porn photos of live lobster sashimi or the famous pipis with XO sauce. Rather, what you see is the aftermath: the smashed crab claws, half-empty beer bottles, discarded pipi shells, bottomless tea pots and splashes of MSG-laden sauce over the Lazy Susan. This is what GCs is all about and detractors should take note.

I can see why some diners may be upset with their GCs experience if they don’t follow the rule. The service is average, the atmosphere is stuck in the eighties and it is far from a bargain. What they are forgetting though is the tradition, the reason for the rule itself. Eating at GCs is akin to stepping back in time, to an era where restaurants were judged on the amount of sea creatures kept in tanks at front of shop, on the white starchiness of their bright table cloths and on the abundance of options available in their bible-like menus. Things have changed but GCs refuses to recognise it. This is not, however, to its detriment.

First things first: beers for the lads and white wine for the girls. The pipis with XO sauce is a must-have - the sauce is rich, thick and more addictive than crack. A seafood congee with youtiao to dip is the Chinese equivalent of dipping biscuits into coffee. Okay, not quite but you get the idea. Completing the trilogy is the salt and pepper squid which does exactly what it says on the packet, maybe a little more so, with that salty tang requiring at least another beer to quench your thirst.

Old favourites like lemon chicken, mongolian lamb, roasted duck and BBQ pork are all available and you’d be worried if they weren’t. We always try and splash out on something new. This time it was crab: deep fried with salt and pepper and steamed with ginger and shallot. It’s as fiddly and messy as you imagine and you even get a little receipt saying when it was caught or when it was received or something. It seemed very important at the time.

Before you know it, your bellies are full, your pockets empty and it’s just another night at GCs. A place where everyone is welcome, from top chefs to try hard food bloggers, present company included. It’s all about the experience here so leave expectations at the door and relish the fact that you are eating in a Sydney...

Terrible food, worse customer service. There are some wonderful Chinese restaurants in Sydney. Don't waste your time with this one.

This must be the worst restaurant experience I have ever had. The food was terrible and we have never been treated so disgustingly in our lives.

Where do I start?

Our prawn crackers were stale. When we asked the waiter to replace them we were told to our disbelief, and with no apology, that all of their prawn crackers are stale so there is no point in replacing them.

No wine could not be tasted before being ordered. This policy (though strange) may have been understandable had the waiter not then poured some wine from the bottle we'd ordered into my wife's glass for her to taste. What could she say if she didn't like it? Pointless exercise.

These complaints pale in comparison though to the main dishes that were served up. Our pippies were served in a very gritty sauce and half were missing from their shells and nowhere to be found. When the waiter came to take away the serving plates (still mostly full of food) we told him we hadn't enjoy our meal and provided constructive criticism. To our disbelief, he just ignored us and took the plates away.

We repeated that we hadn't enjoyed the food again when the bill was brought to us and asked to speak to the manager. The manager told us we had finished all of the food so we must have been happy with it. At this point we wondered if we lived in a parallel universe where customer service doesn't exist.

We politely informed the manager that the food had been largely untouched but were told that there was cctv footage proving otherwise. When we requested the footage (yes, it really did get this far) he refused to produce it, then asked for security to surround our table so we couldn't leave.

This debate, which for us had become over principles not money, went on for over an hour and was very public and embarrassing. By the end of it the manager had changed his story to say that we hadn’t finished our food, but that must have been because we were full so it’s not his problem.

Reviews on here indicate that there is a recent history of providing sub standard food and lying. If the Golden Century once had standards then it clearly doesn't any more. Its arrogant approach to customer service is unacceptable and I suspect its ratings will fall...

I won't comment too much on the food (which has consistently been pretty decent) but the SERVICE we experienced on Saturday night was atrocious. Not particularly from the wait staff during service but from a neighbouring table that had an altercation and long story short, threw a chair AT OUR TABLE.

Our table was a family with four elderly parents celebrating father's day, so there was definitely nothing we had done to provoke the other table - throughout their dinner restaurant staff had been happy to supply them with cocktails, up until one of the males in the group shoved his girlfriend and knocked the food that one of the waiters were preparing. At this point all the waiters had scattered from the table and left standing from a distance staring at the hostile party. The enraged man then proceeded to verbally abuse people in the crowded restaurant and to make matters worse, hoisted a dining chair threw it in the direction of our table. I intercepted the chair (which still brushed against the head of my brother's mother-in-law) but due to the weight and force of the chair being thrown had myself been hit in the mouth, splitting my lip and started to bleed and inflame. At this point the man was escorted out by his remaining party, and while the situation de-escalated the waiters only proceeded to clean up the table and re-sit the chairs strewn around the floor, ready for the next diners. At NO POINT had staff or management offered to help, intervene to calm the party down or even have the decency to ask if our group was unharmed afterwards. We spoke to one of the supervisors who justified their position - and started arguing with us - that the situation is commonplace and parties of that ethnicity can't be reasoned with. As we walked out the waiters (which now magically reappeared nearby) began to snicker and laugh amongst themselves, with the floor manager only giving me a consoling pat (ice pack anyone?). Overall I am DISGUSTED by the horrendous duty of care (or lack thereof) that this restaurant offers it's diners. I would forewarn those that come here you won't be looked after should a hostile situation arise, but they are more than happy to take your money and clear your table when...