Hei La Moon — Restaurant in Boston

Mandatory Tips & Discrimination

We strongly advise against dining at Hei La Moon, especially if you’re Chinese, as the service is unfair and discriminatory.

Billing Experience

Although the restaurant closes at 10 PM, a server approached us at 9:30 PM and said in Chinese: “Settle your bill first, then you can take your time eating.” (The server seemed to have a Fujianese or Cantonese accent, and their tone already made us uncomfortable.)

When it was time to sign, I custom-tipped 10%. The server impatiently pointed at our total bill of $58 and, seeing that I didn’t choose 18%, said bluntly in Chinese: “You’re spending $58, and that’s too little for a tip.”(translated by me)

When I insisted I wouldn’t change the tip, the server remarked: “You don’t get it.” Then, she turned the payment screen toward my friend, making the situation awkward.

Considering the service was minimal—bringing out dishes without even refilling our water (which we had to pour ourselves) or checking on us during the meal—my friend and I felt 10% was fair for a $58 bill. However, due to the server’s attitude and the uncomfortable situation she created, my friend reluctantly selected the 18% tip to avoid further conflict.

Afterward, we felt extremely upset and dissatisfied with the forced tipping and poor service. Originally, we thought the food was average, but the server’s aggressive behavior and the mandatory 18% tipping policy significantly ruined our dining experience.

Possible Discrimination

We also believe the server displayed a form of implicit discrimination. As a fellow Chinese person, she abused the tipping culture in the U.S. to unfairly pressure us into tipping 18%. Her sharp words and impolite tone, especially when speaking to customers of the same ethnicity, showed blatant disrespect and unequal treatment.

This incident confirmed the old saying: “The Chinese exploit their own people.” It’s disappointing to encounter a fellow countrywoman acting in such a condescending and self-serving way, treating us rudely while trying to enforce American tipping standards.

A Better Experience Elsewhere

The last evening, we dined at Dynasty, a similar restaurant. Our total bill was around $150 for three people, and we willingly tipped 18% because the service there was courteous and professional.

Conclusion

We cannot recommend Hei La Moon due to their unfair service practices, particularly toward Chinese customers. Dining here is not worth the trouble or the...

Hei La Moon Restaurant The Hei La Moon restaurant is something of a legend in Boston. Leaving aside stories of collegiate escapades, four coworkers and I entered the front door this afternoon. A confusion of diners, servers and staff greeted us, which I believe is par for the course at this place. The price you pay for dining at a legend is popularity—even on a Tuesday at 12:30 in the afternoon. My group and I were seated quickly and were set upon by the dim sum trolley almost instantly. The most seasoned dim sum-er in our group showed us how to shoo them away without getting anything we don’t want. I’m glad she did, because I could easily imagine that had I been alone the table would have been groaning under the weight of food I could never eat. Our expert called over a server and we ordered Crab Rangoon, boneless spare ribs, vegetable fried rice, General Gao’s Chicken, and beef with broccoli. Despite the surprising speed with which they brought the food, we still had time to order two plates from the dim sum trolley: pork buns (Cha Siu Bao) first due to a miscommunication looking for pork dumplings, then a plate of pork dumplings. Both were very nice, the bun was sweet, with a lot of bun and not much pork (is that common?). The bun hand a nice, light and sweet flavor and pretty smooth texture, while the pork within was heavy with salt. The dumpling had maybe a little more noodle than I would prefer, but was perfectly acceptable. The star of the meal, in my opinion was the Crab Rangoon. It may be my imagination, but I thought it had more crab than your neighborhood Chinese restaurant’s. The shell was very crisp, and with the sauce I was very happy. The beef with broccoli had very fresh broccoli, but not the crowns; just the stems and leaves. The boneless spareribs, vegetable fried rice and General Gao’s Chicken were pleasing but forgettable—in fact just a few hours later I can’t really remember a distinguishing thing about them. The overall verdict was that we got standard Americanized Chinese fare. Certainly a lot better than Panda Express, however. The portions were plenty generous, and not overly saturated with either MSG (that I could taste) or salt. Given the crowd however, which I think was almost completely Chinese, leaves me wondering if I missed out on what’s really good there. Here’s hoping that someday I can go back with someone who really knows the place, can communicate well with the staff, and wants to share their knowledge...

My review and overall score for Hei La Moon is based on the last two occasions that I was here. My first visit was because of a Traditional Chinese Wedding Banquet and my second being a Dim Sum visit.

I came here for a Chinese Dinner Wedding Banquet, with about one-hundred guests in attendance. The blessed event served 10 both very beautifully and delicious dishes, each one having an amazing presentation and it’s on unique flavor to in honor to this celebration. I have been to many of these banquets, especially recently with all my friends getting married, and they are all good, however, something you notice when attending banquets with a large amount of guests is that by the time one of the dishes come out, it is cooled because it takes so long for the back of the kitchen to plate all the dishes for all the tables. However, this was not the case for this banquet. Hei La Moon executed this very well, where the dishes came out very timely to all the tables, making it so the dishes were hot.

Because of the great experience that I had with the banquet, I came back here for Dim Sum with visiting friends from out of town. This too was done very well. We came on Saturday, and had to wait 30 minutes for a seat. FYI for those who are not familiar with Chinese Dim Sum and weekends in China Town, it’s very busy, so expect to wait a bit and also be prepared to share a table with complete strangers. However, the wait and sharing the table with another group of customers is so worth the food and the experience of having Dim Sum. It was actually because we were sharing the table with a group of strangers, that my friends from out of town saw some things that they were interested trying and ended up liking very much.

The Dim Sum dishes here are very good, there are a lot of options and the carts being pushed by the staff are moving around very quickly, making it so you can get your items quickly. If there is something you want and had not seen yet, you can flag down one of the staff with the vest, and let them know what it is you are looking for, and they will bring it to your table. I have yet come here for dinner, but if the Dim Sum and Chinese Banquet is any indication of their work, I can only imagine that it is...