Empress of China Restaurant — Restaurant in Winnipeg

I was really excited to try this place, since it is close to home and invited my friend to treat her for her birthday. It was probably the worst experience ever and I won't be back or recommend this place to anyone. We waited quite a while before we could order our food and when it came - it didn't look very nice or appealing to say the least, everything was pale, even the crispy BBQ pork looked as if it had better days..(many moons ago)..... not crispy at all, but soggy and pasty. The chicken was extremely anemic, too and the prawns looked just barely cooked. The whole plate was covered with something that I can only describe as: frog-egg glibber. It was pretty tasteless, but the texture was so bad, I nearly threw up. I had to return the whole thing after one bite. Now you might imagine that the owner (manager, or whatever the position of the guy playing with phone behind the counter is) would inquire politely, but behold: he came and made a big scene and asked very rudely: What's going on with the food? I said that I couldn't eat it, because it was horrible and he insisted that this is the way they cook it. I replied that that may be, but I cannot eat it and never had such a bad looking and tasting Chow Mein like that. He did not even follow up and asked, if I wanted to take it home. I repeated that I couldn't eat it and surely don't want to take it home. So, still no apology, instead he ridiculed me that they now have wasted all that food!! I would have eaten it, if it had been edible - but it wasn't. (not like advertised: healthy Chinese kitchen) I asked him to stop being rude to me and when I said I would pay for it ( even though I shouldn't have) he calmed down, stormed off and got the bill!! Come here, if you are looking for attitude, poor service and tasteless food. (I surely won't be back. There should be a...

I pre-ordered the food for delivery at 6:30. Method of payment was to be interact at the door. At 6:00, they called and asked if I could pay by credit card instead as the two debit machines were “out on delivery”...Technically, this is not my problem but I agreed to pre-pay by credit card. The girl I was talking to outright asked me if I was going to tip, which I did and it was added to the total of the bill. The food arrived shortly after and was absolutely terrible. The spring rolls were icy cold and only half cooked, the wonton soups were also ice cold AND the food itself was ice cold. The sweet and sour chicken balls came with absolutely zero sweet and sour sauce. Their stir-fried fresh vegetables consisted of 95% broccoli that was as hard as a rock, one piece of celery, one piece of mini corn and a tiny sliver of carrot with a few mushrooms. Ridiculous!! Same with the second combination meal. The fried rice was also tasteless. This past summer, I ordered food from there as well and, again, it was cold and extremely bland. I will never, ever again order from this establishment. It was $70 wasted. I would give this place zero stars if I had the option… They don’t deserve a one...

Generous serving of lemon chicken and deep fried pork chop but the pork chop was refried and overcooked. Lemon chicken is not at all lemony, except for the batter, no flavour at all. Seafood hotpot could use more flavour, more veggies than seafood for $18 dollars in a small hotpot!

But that is not the worst of it though. An Asian man who looked like he owned the place or at the very least, the manager (there were only two people there, him and the female server) greeted everybody and asked about their food and experience. Although it’s not a big deal, just odd that we were the only table he didn’t asked about. And when I looked around, I realized we were the only ones who aren’t white. At check out where you have to pay at the front, he was talking enthusiastically at the older white customer and when it was my husband’s turn to pay, he got all cold and uninterested.

So what’s the deal? A classic case of fellow Asian being racist to another Asian? Sad for this person. Not eating there at all and definitely telling my Asian friends about...