Regency Palace — Restaurant in Calgary

I rarely write reviews but thought I'd do this one to express my disappointment over a restaurant I used to love but has clearly went downhill, especially the last few times I've been here. This was mine and my boyfriend's favourite Chinese food place for years, we will be switching after this most recent experience though. The first issue was the service we had during dim sum at the restaurant. There was a private event which walled off half the restaurant and I understand this would've made them very busy. However, the lack of service for the regular restaurant/customers was appalling. We never got checked on once. No courtesy drink refills, no follow up for extra orders, nothing. Our waiter was either constantly going back and forth from the event, or just stayed inside the private area. We tried to get the waiter's attention to get a drink refill(just water) multiple times and couldn't because he'd walk too far away and too fast from the tables. We would've had to yell across the restaurant to get his attention. When we finally were able to get the attention of someone(another waiter) he said "ask your waiter, this isn't my section today." We explained the situation and that we were unable to, which he did end up notifying our waiter so we got more drinks, but then he didn't check in for the rest of our stay. So we got 1 refill and only food from our first order when we sat down. Dim sum doesn't usually work that way, you're always asked if you want more dishes. Our family also needs a lot of drinks with supper, 2 small glasses of water is not enough. At the end of our meal we sat waiting for the bill for so long that eventually we had to go up to the front and ask for our bill ourselves because again our waiter would not check on us. When questioned about it we explained the situation but not much was said, not even an apology. I understand private events can cause a bit of chaos, but it does not excuse completely neglecting the rest of your customers. If a restaurant can't handle serving both, either shut the whole space down to cater to just the event, or have staff specifically assigned to either the event or the restaurant, not both.

The big issue has been ordering Chinese food for home. The food quality has decreased while cost has increased by a lot. We have been continuously disappointed for the past year while expected to spend more. The salt and pepper squid used to be well battered and a bit crunchy with nice pan fried peppers. This time it was soggy and peppers were flavourless. The ginger beef used to have a flavourful dark, sticky and a bit spicy sauce and lots of it, now it is basically all vinegar and watery sauce. This time the wontons' meat was not spiced, very bland. They also added veggies to the wonton soup(mini corn, broccoli(uncooked), etc.) That is wor wonton soup, not wonton soup, we did not order wor wonton. It was clearly just to add filler to give less wontons in the hope no one would know that's not normal and a totally different meal. Shanghai noodles had no flavour either. They also miss multiple little things. They have always given way too little amounts of soy sauce packets. We ordered 6 dishes, one of which was rice based. Got 3 soy packets, that is not enough for that amount of food and considering the extent of the order it was clearly feeding multiple people. They also never provide fortune cookies, its a little thing, but that's pretty standard for Chinese food.

Regency used to be good quality, now it's just disappointing...

Regency Palace Restaurant is located on the third floor of Dragon🐲 City Mall. This restaurant is hard to skip. At the entrance, visitors are greeted by 2 lions (a symbol of power and success). A humpback bridge guides guests through a swimming pool with carp. Regency Palace Restaurant is a spacious room with lots of tables. Crystal chandeliers, chairs made of dark mahogany (to tell the truth, the oilcloth on the chairs had a somewhat repulsive look, but I understand that it is convenient), Chinese panels, an abundance of gold in the decoration, a ceiling broken by beams - all this creates a sense of a real Chinese interior. We made an order. And then something strange started happening. The waitress was beginning to carry a cart with boxes between the tables and opening them one by one. We couldn't figure out whether the waitress had mixed up the order and brought us someone's food, or whether it was an offer of something already cooked, while our order wasn't yet served. And only now I realized that this was dim sum. When deciding to visit the Regency Palace Restaurant, I thought that dim sum is some kind of popular dish in this restaurant. And only now I found out that dim sum is a Chinese tradition of snacks. Dim sum is a dish that is in bamboo baskets, which is served with a cup of Chinese tea🫖. These can be steamed buns; vegetables, meat and seafood in thin wrappers; rice or wheat dumplings🥟. How stupid I was that I didn't try any of this!!! Nevertheless, I was completely satisfied with the dish I ordered. It was Beef Balls & Fish Balls Rice Vermicelli Soup. The broth was rich, the beef and fish balls were fresh, the vermicelli was very satisfying, the bok choy🥬 was also in good condition, not raw and not overcooked. Summing up my visit to the Regency Palace Restaurant, I would say that this place is very colorful and with good cuisine. But it would be nice if I learn a little about this spot in order to fully enjoy all the...

Took my visiting parents here on a pretty fun night.

First things first. The food was not great. To be fair, this was during a large event they were hosting of nearly 200 people. They were fine with us coming in and sitting down despite not being part of the event. I have a feeling that the kitchen had cranked out a large dinner service for the group event and thought they were done for the day until we showed up (it wasn’t very late).

My parent’s aren’t overly adventurous with their tastes so a lot of the table dishes were pretty standard fare for a western Chinese restaurant.

Noodles, spring rolls, etc..

I am a big fan of pork feet when they’re done well so I ordered that as well. Honestly, felt like it was prepped three days ago and tossed in a microwave.

The noodle dishes had little to no depth in the flavour. Kind of a jumble of ingredients just tossed together stir fry style and put on a plate.

Atmosphere was meanwhile a bunch of fun. There was a party happening that eventually turned into karaoke and a dance floor. That’s always a good time. The novelty of walking over a koi pond on your way in with an option to buy fish food is also a cool gimmick with a nostalgic charm to it.

I’ll likely try this spot again sometime and hopefully during a normal dinner service. I have a good sense of what to expect and perhaps that expectation will be exceeded.

Thank you for...