Maxim's Palace (Central) — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

Go early, expect high prices and so-so food. If you don't read any more than that, this will be your most important takeaway.

I visited the dim sum restaurant pretty late in the day (2.30, after a half an hour wait), just before they closed for cleaning, and was not impressed by my experience.

There wasn't much left when we got here and from the selection that we had, I wasn't sure why this place is so popular. I am aware that this could be due to our arriving when maybe the food isn't as "fresh" but I do think that standards should be maintained regardless. And it's dim sum - how bad can it get over a few hours?

We had steam shrimp dumplings, steam pork dumplings, barbecued pork buns, fried squids with spicy salt and some weird prawn paste and tofu thing that my fiancé mistakenly ordered.

Nothing stood out particularly for me. Mind you, I'm not saying it's bad, but it's not great / mind blowing. It was all food I could get at any reasonably priced dim sum place anywhere else. I would even be willing to accept a decrease in quality for a lower price.

For nearly 300 HKD, the food we had was definitely NOT worth the cost. Neither the ambience nor the service made up for this - I could barely see the view of the harbor with the crowd in the restaurant and when we were seated, the service staff laying out the table just tossed the plates in front of us. They were generally impatient and (I find I keep using this word about Chinese restaurants) surly.

Tl;dr: visit if you want to say that you did, but it's REALLY not worth it. I'm saying this as someone who's visited enough dim sum...

This restaurant is at the top floor. Speak to the lady and take a Q ticket. We went at 1245hrs and got a table for 2 at 1325hrs. If you go at 1400hrs, there is no Q but some of the dim sum dishes would probably be sold out. If you miss your Q number (within 4 numbers), you have to give way to 4 more in the Q before they will allocate a table for you. More than 5 numbers and they want you to take a new Q number. Dim sum wise, we enjoyed the pork ribs with rice flour noodle which was more like clear pieces of square noodle under a bed of succulent pork pieces. The chives dumpling is also very good. We tasted chicken's feet (not so flavourful), deep fried yam ball (creamy filling which was a little too heavy), siew mai, custard bun (not runny and too plain tasting), prawn roll, deep fried prawn dumpling (big fat ones), deep fried wanton and pan fried radish cake (dry and a slight bitter aftertaste). In retrospect, this place is good for the atmosphere of a non-local dim sum place where nobody brings along their newspapers and read the dailies, and the dim sum trolley ladies are actually friendly and will help you hunt down their colleagues who is in charge of something else you want. Do note that har gow (steamed prawn dumpling) is not available from the trolley. You order it from the waitress instead. A circus tent blocked part of the waterfront view but if your table is not too far from the huge windows, you can still get a nice decent view of Kowloon. Otherwise, look up at the chandeliers or enjoy people watching. Plenty of suits, mainland chinese and travellers come here...

Very traditional style dim sum hall. We tried their chicken buns, pork buns, shrimp and veggie dumplings, steamed beef dumplings, pork puffs and spring rolls. The beef dumplings were my favorite among all. The beef had small pieces of ginger in it, that added a nice crunch to every bite. Nothing too overpowering though.

Whatever you try, don’t forget to leave some room for the dessert. We had the mango, pomelo and sago in mango soup. If you’re a mango and tapioca lover, you’re gonna love this dessert so much that you’ll probably want seconds. Not exaggerating!! The sago tastes very much like tapioca pearls, but smaller and slightly less chewy.

I’m giving it 4 stars for 2 reasons. Maybe it’s common in Hong Kong or maybe it was a busy day, but the ladies with the carts weren’t moving around the hall very much. So, a few times, instead of them bringing the cart to us, we had to get up from the table and go to where they had parked the cart to get more food. Not a huge discomfort, but would have been nice if the food was moved around more as we expected from a dim sum hall.

The veggie dumplings were labeled simply as veggie dumplings. On first bite we realized that they also had shrimp in it. No big deal for us because we love seafood but it could have been a huge bummer for...