Empire — Restaurant in Boston

I’ve visited Empire Boston one too many times, because I trusted its food quality and impeccable service. I always count on Empire Boston to provide a phenomenal dining, or simply a night out, experience. I made a reservation on Monday, Nov. 8, using this “personal reservation link” with a strong promise to be “extra well taken care of”. I received the exact opposite.

No waiting staff came to our table until approximately 15 minutes after we’ve been seated. No water, no attention, no nothing. Our orders weren’t taken until almost 15 minutes later. Our food didn’t arrive until approximately another 30 minutes later. It took ONE HOUR until we have food on our table. ONE HOUR. We also wanted to order more food, but our waiter was no where to be found. We tried getting another waiter’s attention and he kindly informed us that he’ll get our waiter. Nope. No one came for the next 20 minutes. We also ordered another round of drinks, except my friend's "Bourbon Ending” from this round tasted like straight up soda. I’m someone who will get sick from just a sip of bourbon, and I could chug that drink like it’s water. Either there was no alcohol at all in that drink, or there was a maximum of 3 drops. Our waiter told us he’ll make things right and bring us a new drink and another on the house, with a promise that the drinks will be to Empire Boston’s standard. The drink never came. About 20 minutes after the drink order, we informed ANOTHER waiter that we’re still missing the drink. The waiter once again promised us that he’ll get our waiter over and deliver our drinks. Let me highlight this one more time. THE DRINK NEVER CAME.

After a horrible dining experience, at this point, we were both sick of the waiter’s absence, the entire waiting staff’s lack of attention, and the restaurant quite frankly. We simply wanted to get our check, and get the heck out of there. Nope. We could not get our check because our waiter was no where to be found, again. We waited approximately 15 more minutes until our waiter showed up, after I obviously waved him down. Did we get our check finally? No. We waited 15. FIFTEEN minutes until he finally showed up in the room again, and ring up our check in the register. When he handed the bill to us, I quickly put my credit card in the bill and placed it obviously on the table so we could leave. The waiter never came and pick it up. We’ve spent more than 2 hours at the restaurant and 4/5 of it was waiting on our food, service, and check. My friend actually had to go to the register, stop the waiter from chatting with other staff member, and ask him to CHECK US OUT right in front of him, so we could leave.

This may have been a misstep from Empire Boston, and I’m probably going to receive a response something along the line with “this is not a true representation of our service”. Whichever it is, this is a misstep that is likely to permanently prevent me from going back there ever again.

I strongly suggest the management team to look into the waiter who served us last night. I took a picture of the bill with the waiter’s name on it in case Empire Boston contacts me. At this point I’m convinced that we were ignored on purpose, and that the waiter was actually high. Not to mention his mask was no where near his nose throughout the night, and I mean the 3 times he actually came to our table. His mask was also obviously pilling because he was removing it all the time to chat with other customers and staff members. He also made up all kinds of excuses and blamed the missing order on “his friends” and went into a tirade that “he trusted his friend to bring us our drinks”.

Again, I’ve had many great experiences at Empire Boston, but last night was the major deal breaker, especially after we were promised to be extra well taken care of by using the personal reservation link. I expect an acceptable explanation and a detailed plan on how Empire Boston is going to resolve this moving forward.

Until...

I had my September 2025 WEDDING at Empire and it turned out better than I or my family expected – I can’t wait to go back for my anniversaries!

First of all, I do believe that without Empire, I wouldn’t have had a wedding at all. I was engaged for 2 years, struggling to blend the best of an American wedding (ceremony, vows, first dance, cocktail hour, and luxury) with the best of an Asian wedding (tea ceremony, lion dance, delicious food, and relaxed atmosphere of a restaurant) but as soon as I found Empire as my venue, everything just fell into place because…

Empire is PERFECT for weddings with its distinct spaces. Private dining rooms for the ceremony and makeup/changing room. The bar/lounge for cocktail hour. The upper level main dining area for the reception. The lower level cafe as the dance floor. The salon for the tea ceremony. We utilized every spectacular inch at Empire so our guests didn't miss any details.

Empire served our choice of a sushi station, hors d'oeuvres: duck crostini, crab rangoons, chicken katsu buns, and tenderloin lollipops, and 5-course meal: tuna tataki salad, beef teppanyaki, spicy salmon rice bites, and a choice of chilean seabass and korean rubbed sirloin, and our choice of both the vanilla/lemon cream and strawberries and cream cake, and our choice of his/her drinks.

Empire even provided my cake and did a wonderful job executing my vision, provided his/her drink and the food menus, and candles for all the reception tables. They also proactively packed my cake topper, cake riser, cake utensils, and my ceremony reserved signs for me without being asked – I never had to track down anything. They even moved my 2nd and 3rd look dresses from the coat closet to the changing room for me.

I worked with Rebecca Plant for my event and she was a dream to work with. Because I had Rebecca – I didn’t hire a wedding planner or a wedding coordinator. It was truly a pleasure to work with her – she often got back to me the same day, always answered every single question in my emails (and there were many), always clarified any ambiguity, and she really held my hand through it all – we planned the event together in just a little over 4 months.

Asian parents and asian aunties and uncles are hard to impress – the best you can hope for is they don’t vocalize any complaints – but that day, they vocalized rare compliments: Empire was a beautiful and special venue. Empire was both modern and traditional. The wedding Empire hosted was such a unique blend of Asian and American that they had never seen before making for a pleasantly surprising and fun event for all ages from babies to grandparents. And finally, Empire hosted a wedding that was worth getting out of bed for even for a crowd that doesn’t even like attending weddings!

For all the above reasons, I am so grateful to Rebecca, and the team at Empire for playing such a big role in our wedding. See you soon and see you at our...

First, DO NOT BELIEVE THE GOOGLE RATING, GO TO YELP.

If you like good food, do not go here. The food was beyond terrible with portions that were ridiculously huge with high prices for the low quality. They clearly charge for the portions here. I brought my wife and sister in law (under 21) so we made a consensus not to drink. I wish my wife and I did so the alcohol would make the food taste better.

Let me go into further detail. We ordered the Kung pao cauliflower and the chicken dumplings for an appetizer. The Cauliflower was fried, however, the breading was so moist so there was no crunch whatsoever. The breading fell off the moment we grabbed it with chopsticks. It gave the impression, it was not freshly fried or left to sit in cold oil. The dumplings they were no better, they were dry and had no flavor. The sauce was no better.

As for the entrees, we ordered the Curry noodles, the shrimp tempora, and the pad thai. None of these had any flavor. There is a hole in the wall in Quincy, Ma (Little duck thai) that had MUCH better pad Thai and for Significantly cheaper. The curry noodles were not good, the flavors of the seafood, curry, pork, veggies, and the noodles did not mesh together (coming from a Jamaican man who loves making curry chicken, curry goat, and curry shrimp). Also how does an Asian restaurant not carry yum yum sauce? As for the sushi, my sister in law did not like the food at all. She had others that tasted much better for the price. I’d recommend Wagamama in the prudential or Douzo Sushi in Back Bay. Much better quality, much better price, much better portion sizes.

The restaurant looks nice, and has a club atmosphere which was cool, but the food is clearly reflected on that. Club food is good when you drink haha. Back to the review, we ordered those 5 things and spend a whopping $170 just to take EVERYTHING we ate back home. Never in my life have I asked to pack up an Appetizer 😂. There was no way to finish everything we ordered. To put this into further perspective, we ate at the Rare Steakhouse the night before at the encore (and valet parked). We ordered the lobster rolls, each got a soup, the ladies ordered the half chicken and a salad, while I ordered the seafood risotto. We also ordered dessert and……. We spent $200 without bringing ANYTHING home.

I always thought that when you eat out, you should finish everything there and enjoy your time and experience. If I could ask for my money back I would have. After dinner we ended up giving the food to the less fortunate instead of throwing it away. Id say this is great for kids. No so much...