Imperial Palace — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

Tbh, I’ve been to this restaurant dozens of times these several years. Most of the time, their standards of “dim sum” was nice enough to eat.

But I feel as the years go by, their standards maybe dropping. Of course I can’t compare this delicacy of “dim sum” here in Edinburgh with Hong Kong but I think, it’s probably the best (as far as I’ve tried in Edinburgh).

It’s only a 3 star today because the very nice woman who was taking our orders to the table had good manners otherwise, I would give it a 1 star for poor customer service from this elderly waiter chap.

I raised our hands to ask someone to come over to take a look at the mango pudding my friend ordered because there was a drowned bug in the syrup.

The elderly chap said in Cantonese,

“There are lots of flies flying about the place. So why there’s one on there”

My friends and I looked at each other and gave a great pause.

“It’s okay” the elderly waiter chap said.

The next thing he did shocked me!! He took the spoon from the pudding and scooped the bug and placed it on the plate and said,

“There, it’s alright now”

And he looked at us for a response but all I could manage was a polite

“can you get us another one”?

He asked, “are you sure?”

I super insisted it had to be another one.

The man looked at us like we just cut off his arm and he slowly and reluctantly moved away from the table in a huff!!

When he left, my friend told me I had the biggest “OMG” face! I couldn’t believe what the waiter was implying!!!

That food was contaminated... what an absolutely outrageous suggestion!

That aside, if it was made by my grandfather in Hong Kong, I would have no problem eating it. But in the context of professionalism, we are PAYING customers, we are not here to pay for food fly infested contaminated mango pudding! (No matter how rare that pudding is!) What a shocking response!!

This visit has totally blown my respect for this place. What an absolute foot hole...

My wife and I dined here for the first time after we were recommended by someone a while back. Firstly, it wasn’t too clear how to access the car park so we ended up parking at Sainsbury’s which wasn’t a problem. When we were arrived we were seen to fairly quickly and seated within a couple of minutes. Service was good however, I asked one of the waiters what a particular dish was and he couldn’t explain and just read off the menu. In his defence his English wasn’t brilliant so it may have been difficult to explain. The waiters were very attentive which was nice to see. However, when asking for the bill I had to ask a second person as the first waiter clearly forgot. I also notice this happen at another table. Now the food we ordered wasn’t bad but nothing special to be honest. I enjoyed my meal but I felt it wasn’t much different from a Chinese you would order from a takeaway. I ordered dim sum for starters which was my first time having and it was quite tasty with an interesting texture. My wife had duck spring rolls which were probably tastier and had a nice dipping sauce. We ordered a little too much for the mains but was warned by a friendly waiter when placing the order. I had a mixed meat chui chui along with duck Chow Mein. my wife ordered crispy shedded beef and chicken fried rice. Our ‘sides’ were more like main dishes (enormous) which explained the high price. It all tasted fine but nothing to write home about. Perhaps if we ordered something different we may have given a better score but what we got was pretty average. We are yet to find a great Chinese in the UK. I believe if you want to taste quality authentic Chinese you are going to need to get on a plane. Saying that, since being to this restaurant I have noticed that there is an authentic Chinese menu so perhaps if we had tried that then we may have enjoyed...

Ah..the food wasn't half bad as matter of fact their dumplings are really nice, but my rating is unfortunately due to my experience with staff alone. The first question I asked was "Is the meat halal?"They responded no. But as soon as I ordered a pancake roll as an appetiser, which I assumed wouldn't have anything heavy like meat (it looked pretty much a chicken spring roll by the way), it had meat in it and we couldn't eat it. I asked out of goodwill not to be charged for something we didn't eat, and who happened to be the manager, said it is our fault for not asking details. I said," Well, if I ask you if something is halal( or if I supposedly told you I'm a vegetarian), I assume it's staff duty to point out to the customer if something has meat in it." Rather than even apologise and replace the dish or not charge for it out of goodwill, he waffles on about "Customer should know what they order and ask". In that case if I stated I was vegetarian, the staff would ignore if I ordered something I didn't know had meat in it and charge me rather than mention it to me in advance. Sorry to say but its not the customer who offers the service, it's the restaurant and it's their duty to be sensitive to customer needs. I was not happy to pay for staff negligence.Thanks...