Joyful Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Albert-Eden

Joyful Restaurant, Epsom, Auckland**

I had been looking forward to dining at Joyful Restaurant, given its reputation as a 30-year-old establishment in Epsom, Auckland. Unfortunately, my experience today was far from joyful and left me deeply disappointed. I feel compelled to share my experience in detail, as I believe it reflects significant issues with both the food quality and service.

I pre ordered the Chinese herb duck, which was decent but nothing extraordinary. The real letdown came with the pre ordered black fur BBQ pork, which was recommended by the lady boss. When the dish arrived, I was shocked to see that it was almost entirely fat with very little meat. I politely brought this to the lady boss’s attention, and while she acknowledged that it was fatty, she insisted it was still tasty. I tried a few bites, but the texture and overwhelming fattiness were so unappetizing that I couldn’t finish it. It felt like a waste of money and left a bad impression.

To make matters worse, the service was excruciatingly slow. We waited 45 minutes for our initial dishes to arrive, which is already excessive for a restaurant that wasn’t particularly busy. After realizing the BBQ pork was inedible, I ordered a lamb dish as a replacement, hoping it would salvage the meal. However, it took another 40 minutes to arrive, bringing the total wait time to nearly an hour and a half for a complete meal. This level of delay is completely unacceptable, especially when the food quality doesn’t justify the wait.

The lamb dish itself was average—nothing special to write home about, and certainly not worth the extended wait. By the time it arrived, I had already lost my appetite and just wanted to leave. The entire experience felt like a waste of time and money.

For a restaurant with such a long history in Auckland, I expected much better. The combination of poor food quality, slow service, and lack of accountability (defending a dish that was clearly subpar) was deeply disappointing. I truly hope Joyful Restaurant can address these issues and regain the trust of its customers. As it stands, I cannot recommend this place based on my experience today. There are far better dining options in Auckland that deliver both quality and...

I decided to order a sweet and sour chicken - off menu but they were kind enough to make it, deep fried squid and deep fried wonton. The food tasted great. Really great food when I or my partner goes. Normally I wouldn’t have advertised this. But it’s quite upsetting when the owner would argue it can’t be them. I ate an apple for breakfast. I had a packaged bar energy drink and a beef jerky stick for lunch. ( this is normal for a work day for me, so not odd for my tummy ) All of that’s either packaged or should be absolutely fine. About 5 hours after eating the food I woke up in bed with severe stomach pain. And ran to the bathroom with diarrhoea and vomiting at the same time. All the food came up or out. It was really bad. I have never had a bad experience before. So I tried to call them to let them know it happened- NOT to get a refund and not to be mean. Only to let them know to be careful or if it happened again. Woman just denied it repeatedly over and over. Saying impossible. She couldn’t accept the fact I became sick. Hence the sad review. Sadly will not ever order again. Did not act appropriately toward customer and didn’t handle conversation well. I hope in the future they are...

Only sad thing about Joyful is it used to be a good place to go with the family for brunch on the weekend now looks like the standard has dropped. Quite a few times have given them a chance but everytime we go on the weekend they are never open on time. If you say your open at 11am then you should be ready to serve customers, not when people come in round 11:10/11:15 and the staff are there eating their staff meal and giving you the stink eye for ordering and wanting to eat food and interrupting their staff meal. Food wise sad to say the standard has dropped as well, orderd the pekking spare ribs and beef brisket on rice was extra tough today especially unable to chew and when this was bought up with the owner just as a heads up the reply we were given were " ohh that's just how the beef arrived to is " with a oh our bad attitude. I mean if that's the answer given you might as well take the item off the menu then no? If it's your 1st time visiting there or you go as a group at night or maybe later on in the day " maybe " and that's a big maybe consider...