Golden Inn Restaurant — Restaurant in Nanaimo

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So this is two parts. My parents, wife and I stopped to try it out. The service was awsum very attentive girls. However the food sucked. I really wanted it to be better. I love chinese food and i was disapointed. Some of the things on the buffet should not be there to take up room that are not dishes. This shows the customer that the restaurant is too cheap to put out the required dishes. If you want to be busy give great dishes with proper variety. Again reasonable expectations were not met. Now if this had have been later on in the evening i could see it. However we the first ones to the buffet. There is a reason why it is slow there. The desert bar is a misarable attempt. I would remove it or give some variety. Empty ice cream bins and 10 nanaimo bars on a plate with a handful of cubed jello spells cheap. 4 of us ate it was 70 and change. So by being cheap other than the service would be the reason to not brother coming back. Food quailty was also not there eaither. Smarten up guys. You can do better than this seriously. I have been to three chinese buffets in Nanaimo and 1 was good. This...

After 6 months in Nanaimo, I thought I would never find any traditional Chinese food... But thanks to the recommendation of our friend (local foodie) we found a winner at Golden Inn!

We had the 3 course Peking duck ($53.95), seafood hotpot ($20.95), and a Chow Kui Tew ($16.95).

For the Peking duck: it comes with the crispy skin and wrappers, lettuce wrap, and duck soup. It all tasted very authentic! The skin was crispy (I wish there was more!), the filling for the lettuce wraps was perfect, and the soup was so flavorful! This was definitely a pleasant surprise to find in Nanaimo 💕

The seafood hotpot was good as well, filled with scallops, prawns, squid, tofu and veggies. A little saucy but fresh!

The Chow Kui Tew was great, with lots of "wok hay" (smokey wok flavors) but could've used a bit more salt. Flavors were all there though!

Overall we were very satisfied with our meal, the quality, and service! Although portions are a bit smaller, we'll definitely come back to try their live seafood and other...

Others have and continue to have greater success and their reviews seem to be genuine. Although we were a mixed group, it seemed that we were being given the gweilo treatment. Hopefully, they will continue to strive to do better and their efforts will be met with success.

The evening we visited, however, which was some time but prior to the pandemic...: amongst the worst meals I've had in decades. We ordered the Kung Pao chicken which had to be returned because the cook forgot to add any chicken what-so-ever. The cook (owner?) brought back the dish himself which did include some chicken the second time around. We pointed out that neither was there any chicken in the chicken chow mein. He accused us of eating all the chicken whilst looking right at the dish which was only half eaten and the toppings on the uneaten portion still intact. In retrospect, it was no surprise that the restaurant was nearly empty that...