Sea King Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Ottawa

We ordered delivery from Uber Eats. My Chinese mom gets tired of the food served in her retirement home so I ordered from Sea King. We have tried a lot of Chinese takeaways in the neighbourhood of Merivale and Meadowlands and Sea King has been the best so far. Even my finicky mom (who used to be an excellent cook) dubbed the food as “pretty good” which is the highest praise I have ever heard her give to a restaurant. We had the pea shoot stir fry which was tasty. I was surprised to see such a premium ingredient on a suburban menu. The pea shoots were a little on the mature side, so less tender than at some famous posh restaurants such as Din Tai Fung with branches in cities like Bangkok, London or New York. But still, really nice to have that natural sweetness of pea shoots. Our order of beef short ribs was excellent. Very tender and only subtly sweet. Prawns with snow peas were also very tender and redolent with ginger. Accompanying vegetables were mostly still crunchy snow peas but also disks of carrot for colour, oyster mushrooms and celery for texture. I think the standard of cooking is high. My only criticism was that the food was slightly under seasoned for my taste. But that’s something easy to adjust with a salt shaker. Our order arrived quickly within the estimated time given by Uber Eats. Warning that the packaging is poor. So expect a lot of leaky containers in the takeout bag.

Photos from a second slightly less successful order. Garlic pepper shrimp were tasty but hard to eat being unpeeled and deep fried in the shell. They had not been deveined. Broccoli and eggplant both good but be warned that the garlic eggplant is quite sweet.

We have since ordered a 3rd time and remembered to take photos. The stir fried peeled shrimp in the “shrimp with seasonal vegetables” had been deveined. Good wok hei on the vegetables. That’s the Cantonese term for the smokey scent of food touched by flare ups in a very hot wok—something not achievable on a domestic burner because it can't reach a high enough temperature. Nonetheless the shrimp were perfect and not overcooked. Impressive. Eggplant with beef was tasty and tender.

Have added photos from a 4th order. Stir fried bok choi was great and suitable for my geriatric mom who can’t handle hard vegetables like broccoli. Peking pork was very tender, and the sweetness of the sauce was tempered with Chinese black vinegar. Very flavourful if a bit greasy. Gong Bao chicken was a dud I won’t order again. Full of frozen vegetables like peas, carrots and mini sweet corn. Some grayish overcooked green peppers and very little chicken.

Added photos of 5th order. Green beans was our star dish. Tender but still green with lots of wok hei smokey flavour. Stir fried with a little beef mince. Our other dishes were a dim sum sized portion (3 pieces of) of eggplant stuffed with minced shrimp and ma o tofu. Both were okay but no extraordinary, like the green beans.

Ordered again from Sea King and I wouldn’t recommend the beef hor fun which had overcooked noodles and lots of too liquid sauce. Salt and pepper fish was good. Bok choi had...

I've have numerous amazing experience with dimsum in Toronto and Montreal. This is the first dimsum I've tried in Ottawa after reading the reviews. I was skeptical, and I was right. No idea why people complimented on the dimsum here so much, because they are honestly very sub par to every dimsum I've had. Probably the most disappointing dimsum I've had in life, and I've been to many. Everything is great, the atmosphere, the service.. BUT Food QUALITY is a legit 2.5 stars. Asian fail. We ordered about 10 dishes. 4 of them are not even lukewarm but room temperature, including fried calamari (i make better than these rip off fried squid), fried taro, steamed (but cold?) soy ribs, and stuffed eggplant. They're all in the pic. Cold fried food is just disgusting, I'm sorry. On top of that, I'm a person who eats very little salt with a bland palette. Yet half the dish here has no taste. I cannot taste the taro, it just tastes like flour and deep fried oil. There is no salt in the calamari. Stuffed eggplant tastes super healthy, the most organic flavor of the eggplant and nothing else. Maybe the chef burnt his tongue today? I don't know, but T&T's got better and cheaper dimsum than this. The soup dumpling is also dried and stiff. It tastes like 3 day old leftover, Ive been there so I know what leftovers are like. I thought we come to restaurants to eat 'fresh' food, not some microwaved leftovers. Absolutely disappointed in these ratings. Maybe their dinner combos are better. I am willing to try again, I always give restaurants another chance if I can. I just wish there is something I can tell all my friends across Canada that we have in Ottawa worth coming for. Seriously. Up the standards a little bit. At least make your food worth the $7/ tiny soy sauce dish. More expensive and less quality - definitely not the deal any foodie...

TERRIBLE!!!!!! I am now 81 years old going 82, and like eating at Chinese restaurants since I was in high school in Hong Kong. So, I have been eating in Chinese restaurants for about 65 years.

I have been in Ottawa for 37 years, so I have visited all Chinese restaurants in Ottawa, like the old Yangtze, old Fuliwah, old Chu Shing, Ben Ben in Chinatown, Shanghai One, Eng Cusine, Beijing Legend on Bank and Walkley, and the one on Greenbank road etc. I went to Big Lobsters Restaurant, and other Chinese restaurants when I visited my son in Toronto.

Few months ago, I had dinner at Sea King Restaurant with my wife and our adult daughter. The fish soup was stink as the bone smell, and the fish with vegetable dish was not fresh. Immediately once I walked into my house, I threw out at the washing basin inside the powder room. Looking back, I should have reported to Health Canada.

Last night, my son was home from Toronto, my wife suggested Sea King for dinner. We ordered stuffed To Fu, vegetable with shrimps and squib, deep fried pork centre cut, and beef steak prepared in Chinese style.

There were about 10 thin slices of spicy deep fried pork, while there were about 9 thin slices of beef sitting on top of chopped onions to raise the beef so to look there was more food on the plate.

The guy at the cash always has stern face, the two waitresses with white shirt never smile and have angry face (learnt they are the owners' wifes. The two male owners are the cooks of the restaurant).

As we (4 of us) did not enjoy the atmosphere, and the food (poor quality and quantity), we have decided not...