帝寶名宴 NKS Banquet Hall — Restaurant in Markham

We went on a weekday, I think it was a Monday for a group event that joined that was hosting lunch at this restaurant.

The restaurant is one of those classic Chinese styled banquet restaurant. They have both dim sum and regular Chinese dishes. The main entrance is locked/closed, so you have to enter through the other door, there is a sign that tells you where to go. It leads you into the plaza's "mall" area. I don't know if I would call it a "mall" but there's more stores inside. There's the indoor entrance to the restaurant inside the small mall.

The restaurant is large, with smaller private rooms, a medium sectioned off ish room that is kin of connected to the kitchen, and a large main room. Beside the kitchen, there is a hallway that leads to the washrooms. They also have these robots with cat faces that are animated, that bring you your food. However, you can't take the food off yourself, the waiters have to take it off for you. There are these TV screens/pull down not TV screens thingy with projectors and stuff all around the restaurant as well. The washroom was clean and pretty. Along the way to the washroom, you can see the fish and lobster in the tanks. There are pictures/paintings on the walls. The chandeliers are fancy. There's like this mini stage but with tables on it.

Now onto the food. I don't really know what was ordered, to be honest. The group we were with seemed to have already have ordered or preordered a set list of dim sum and Chinese food dishes for each of the 4 tables. I have no clue what any of the dishes we got were called. It just tasted good. What I didn't use were the sauces/dips cause I was worried about people double dipping and contamination.

The tea was good, but it did get watered down over time. There was hot water in a teapot and in a thermos. The first dim sum dish was some red wrapped Chinese donut shrimp thing with some greens. The next dish was some... I think a radish or white carrot pan fried cake? The next one was some pork ribs. However it was more fat and bones than actual meat. There was some pieces of pumpkin in it. The next one was beef balls but in the shape of siu mai. The next dish was a Chinese green vegetable and mushroom dish with goji berries. The next one was pork and onions (super salty). The next dish was a noodle dish with zucchini and pieces of chicken bathing in liquid sauce. The next next dish is Chinese fried rice (tasted good, but stank liked stinky tofu). And the final dish was a dessert dish: red bean sesame balls!

Overall, food was good. Food portions were huge. Especially the dim sum portions. Each dim sum piece was way larger than any dim sum I've ever seen in my life. The service felt kind of slow... But, that may have been because they were staggering it cause we were a group event. 4 tables of like 8 people or something. Service was slow at the beginning, and then it kind of awkwardly piled up near the end.

The atmosphere is classic Chinese loudness. The environment is nice to look at. The event I was at was pure in Mandarin, so I understood nothing, I was only there for the food (I only speak English). The restaurant name is pretty weird, but the inside of the restaurant was better than I expected.

I've read some concerning reviews about this restaurant, but I'm not sure if those reviews are to be truth as the reviewers themselves don't have a solid review track record. So, take it...

Food was meh. The only reason my family came here is because we thought there would be a shorter wait since it was new years eve (Wait time ended up being about 15 minutes and we arrived a bit past 12).

The table we were brought to had tea in several of the cups. Apparently the people sitting there before switched tables and nobody had bothered clearing the table before calling us over. We waited for a few minutes before anybody came to clear the plates. They didn't even clear all the plates. They only cleared the ones that you can clearly see have been used before.

Our food came quickly and the majority of it came at the same time.

I didn't like how they use the same scissors to cut different foods. The scissors had food from the first dish stuck on it and rather than using a different pair of scissors or cleaning it, they cut using the same scissors and food from the scissors came off onto the second dish.

We ordered this bbq pork rice dish that seemed rather popular as several other tables had it. The rice that came with it did not seem fresh. My family thought it tasted like microwaved rice. The bbq pork it came with was good and flavorful.

There were only two dishes I enjoyed. These dishes were the baked bbq pork buns and shrimp rice noodle rolls.

I don't plan on coming here again.

Parking here is also difficult as the plaza is always busy and you always have to be careful and look out for...

My wife and I love this restaurant.

Summary: Excellent dim sum; good price; fair selection; with environment and ambiance clean but uninspired. Friendly and attentive service, but elegance of manner and style is not emphasized. Have done a good job instigating Covid-19 protocols...

There are restaurants that are more elegant and upscale than NKS, and I have been for dim sum elsewhere (locally and around the world) with a wider selection of items. But that said, NKS' selection is good (and better weekends), the price is moderate, and the dim sum itself has nothing whatsoever to blush for. My wife and go for dim sum every week - and have done for at least 25 years - and we love the quality, price and simplicity of NKS. Moreover, we do know good dim sum when we see it!

At NKS the staff is more comfortable speaking Chinese than English, and with a manner that tends to the bluff, even if friendly. So, while NKS has no pretensions to the upscale or elegant, its dim sum is consistently second to none.

NKS has done a good job addressing Covid-19 requirements, but they could be more assiduous in insisting that customers on the move within the restaurant wear their masks.

One ongoing minor downside is that their tea very quickly becomes bitter as it sits during the meal. This is due to the excessive amount of tea leaves they throw into the teapot...