The Moon 花好月圓 — Restaurant in Richmond Hill

I’ve been dying to try out this place, especially after my friend vouched it for dinner/ dim sum & it came highly recommend but the experience felt short for Dim Sum. The good thing is the place is beautifully decorated, modern & new. High ceilings with inviting space. The lady at the front does have a lot of patience manning the list so as the other lady but they definitely need more people to enter orders, take payment etc.

Even though I had a reservation & arrived 25 min early, we were not seated on time. So for those with kids on a schedule, beware. The reservation system is a joke & means nothing. You can arrive at your reserved time & all they do is check you in & add you to the end of the list of patrons who have already walked in, waiting for a table. They write your name next to a # on their only list. The only good thing about a reserv. is you MAY get priority over walk ins. However, if there are no tables available, you still got to wait, which be 30 minutes to 1hr+. Also, since it is so hectic, they may not remember you. So you got to constantly remind them of your presence or they may forgot you. Also, their voices became so strained, u could barely hear them so you got to stay nearby.

We were finally brought over to a table on the other end, after waiting close to 50 min. We were not the ones who had reservations but still end up waiting for a long time. While the individual table & space was inviting by the window, quieter & more private, there was completely a lack of service. I rather sit in the main dining room as we had trouble getting items as no staff on site. They should have staff walking by constantly to make sure nothing is missing or have something at each table that it can alert a staff to come by to see what is needed. Mind you the waitress was nice & sweet but I felt sorry for her as she had to handle so many tables by herself.

The menu is not huge but it had a lot of the standard items. We placed the order right away but it took a long time before we got a paper back that said the order was placed. Close to 20+ min. It looks like they took our order but were either too busy to enter it or it was forgotten at the desk. The food finally came after 35 minutes of wait and it was a hit and miss...More miss than hit.

-Ginseng dumpling with soup was good but lukewarm, which means it was steamed but sitting there for a while. -BBQ Pork pastry w/ pine nuts was delicious & good size. -Hargow were big but the skin was kind of thick. -Siu mai were big but it lacked taste -The biggest ripoff is the shrimp balls, which was also listed as a special menu item. While it looked pretty in red, it was half of the size of any standard dim sum place, even smaller than their har gow & it was covered in cheap fried rice instead of the usual almond flakes. Seriously, how can they get away in charging this as a special item? -Short ribs were delicious, covered in sweet honey, likely my favourite dish. Good portion size too. -Molten Egg Yolk buns came out all shrivel, meaning they steamed it for a while and left it out to the point it became cold before serving. Quite disappointing with no lava oozing. --Seaweed Shrimp Roll was well fried & not oily. However, would prefer red sweet sauce over mayo. -Fried Shrimp Dough Roll was not bad but again lukewarm. Oyster sauce, peanut sauce and soy sauce made the dish a thousand times better. -Chicken feet were ok.

Overall, the food is just ok and prices are too high. They basically trying to be a high end dim sum but with average food. I would still try them for dinner & maybe go back for dim sum because the atmosphere & the tea is great. I would still be willing to try out diffent dim sum dishes. However, if the wait is long, I rather go somewhere else.

Not sure if the exp. is different when you go on a weekday over a weekend. I did go on Thksgiving. Could be why it was such an underwhelming experience vs my friend positive exp. They have a dim sum special where the price is the same for small, medium , large during M to F, between the hrs of...

I've been seeing this restaurant on different social media posts and made my way here to check it out with a couple of friends today.

I called around 10:00am as soon as they opened to make a reservation, at first they were a little reluctant and told me that even if I make a reservation for 1:30pm for 5 people, I will still have to wait. I arrived around 1:00pm hoping I can start lining up but because my other three friends hasn't arrived, they wouldn't give me the table. I understand that it is their policy, but a little frustrating as they start calling other people waiting there.

Ambiance reminds me of Yu Seafood. It's nice dining area and even the washroom have the Shangri la scent. Moving onto the food, the lychee shrimp balls were not bad, the Truffle & Foie Gras Har Gow definitely tasted better than they looked. I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.

The black cod pastry, you can't taste the fish, but it was moist inside and tasted more like mashed radish in terms of the texture. Flavour was not bad at all but just can't really taste the black cod. The crispy shrimp rice roll was pretty good, not too soggy and they managed to keep the crispiness inside. We wanted to try the Mango sago but it was sold out. My friend said the durian pastry was quite tasty. I wanted to try the fried pepper stuffed shrimp, but that was crossed out and not available today.

The salty egg yolk pumpkin was not bad, my friends enjoyed it and we will come back and order a larger portion for dinner in the future.

Overall, I liked the ambiance, however the waiting policy upon full party arrival before we can sit down, I find it a bit strict. The food was not bad, during soft opening it's definitely not bad at all. A good spot to check out if you want to try a chinese restaurant and new dim sum spot but probably during this time be...

The restaurant is beautifully decorated with a very Chinese aesthetic which I really liked and was what drew me in to give it a try. They offer an early bird special from 9:30 to 11:30 AM where all items, regardless of size (S, M, or L), are priced at the small size price at $5.88, which is a great deal.

My favorite dish was the baby octopus curry, which is usually considered a special item or priced as an extra large item at most dim sum places. The congee was also flavorful, and I appreciated the small candle underneath to keep it warm, that was a nice touch. That said, some of the other items were more on the average side. For example, the har gow had a wrapper that was too soft and borderline mushy, maybe steamed for too long.

Unfortunately, the service really impacted the experience. When we were ready to pay, the their system wasn’t working but no one informed us until ten minutes later when we asked again. We offered to pay in cash, but they insisted on waiting for the system because they needed it to print the receipt. So we continued to wait, they rang up two items at full price, despite us having placed our only order at 10:15 AM, well within the early bird window. When I brought it up, they initially claimed we had ordered two items after 11:30, which wasn’t true. It took some back and forth, but they eventually corrected the bill.

Overall, while the restaurant is very beautiful and a few standout dishes were really delicious, the service just wasn’t really there. Mistakes happen, but it's much better to acknowledge them and apologize rather than trying to shift the blame to...