HL Peninsula Garden — Restaurant in Burlingame

Went here multiple times. Seeing the quality like free fall. Served with food frozen inside with ice. Multiple people on the table had stomachache after the meal. Service people were terrible addressing their issues. Won’t come any more.

Details: We ordered two dishes of salted egg yolk lava black buns, and a chicken feet, among others. The aforementioned dishes were served frozen inside with ice. We showed to the waiters and they agreed to take back the dishes and replace us with well heated ones. They only provided one dish of salted egg yolk lava black buns back (they messed up our orders unintentionally i believe), but after our reminder they still didn't come back for the rest two dishes. We had to ask them to cancel the two dishes. We talked with their manager, asked what feedback we can expect from them. Manager only answered "okay" to us, never apologized. We said we were not okay, but he said nothing else than "okay." We got the bill with 15% of service charge. We asked them if they thought their service deserved a 15% charge. They came back with a bill, throwing, yes, literally throwing, onto our table, mandatory charge replaced by a bold line of "tips not included" notice, and suggested ratios starting from 15%. We did have two guests with stomachache soon after meal, recovered after a few hours. We can’t say they’re related for sure but the food quality here has become a red flag for us.

This was the first time in my lifetime to give a ZERO tip, though I believe they deserve negative. Anyone reading to this line, please check all reviews I gave in googlemap, how many five stars vs. one star I gave, you'll know I am not picky person.

Good to know: They make Dim Sum (at least some) in advance, freeze them, and heat when ordered. I am not saying this is wrong, but it might not meet your expectation.

This restaurant was pretty good in the past, but sadly not any more now. I also had a different unsatisfied experience on dish quality the other day. Honestly, the environment is still fantastic, you can see the airplanes taking off and...

The service here is horrible and we left angry because of it. My wife and I wanted to treat ourselves on Chinese New Year's Eve, so we found this upscale Hot Pot restaurant and wanted to give it a try. We were very much looking forward to our meal. When we arrived, we saw that the place was not busy, about half-full, and the hostess sat us down right away and brought us water. We made our selections and waited, and waited, and waited. Nobody came by. I had to turn my body completely towards the dining room and try to make eye contact to flag down someone to help. I had to do the same to order wine, refill water, clean the dirty dishes and ask for the bill. Not once did anyone come to my table without being explicitly beckoned by me or my wife. The staff, including the managers, walked by our table many times and didn't even glance. They didn't remove one dirty dish from our table before we left. When we got the bill, to add insult to injury, they included an 18% gratuity for service.

The food was actually good but it was impossible for us to enjoy our meal as we were so frustrated by how little the staff cared about the customers. The table behind us were also complaining about the lack of service and attention. I was shocked that a restaurant that would cost us over $100 a person, and then add gratuity, could just utterly ignore us. The whole experience was insulting but we just paid and left as we did not want to end our year, and start the new year, on an angry and...

My visit to this restaurant was, without hyperbole, the worst dining experience I have ever endured. The service demonstrated a profound disregard for customer satisfaction, clearly prioritizing only the guaranteed mandatory 16-18% gratuity.

The problems were systemic and unmistakable:

Neglectful Service from the Start: We were consistently ignored from the moment we sat down. Simple requests to place our initial order and for glasses of water were met with blank stares. Staffs kept passing without any notice to our existing.

Inequitable and Glacial Pacing: The experience was further ruined by the absurdly slow pace of service. As a dim sum restaurant where small dishes should arrive steadily, we faced an inexcusable wait between every single basket. This was particularly galling as we watched larger parties that arrived after us receive attentive, rapid-fire service with multiple dishes delivered at once. Crucially, we were not alone; other small parties (2-3 people) around us were observed suffering the same neglect, left staring at empty tables while waiting for their next dish.

Financial Dishonesty: The final insult was a bill that charged us for a dish we never ordered or received. When we brought this error to their attention, the staff was not apologetic and instead seemed inconvenienced by the task of correcting their own mistake.

The combination of deliberate neglect, unfair treatment, and billing errors leads to strongly against patronizing this...