Imperial Feast 山海台灣料理餐酒館 — Restaurant in Carrollton

This location was originally in Carrollton and I had really enjoyed my first time here. It was more of a “fast food” style where you ordered at the register and grabbed your food from the counter when it was ready. They had a smaller menu and it seemed more manageable and curated, along with their desserts.

However, they have since then moved to a Plano location next to Z.Tao. We went during their soft opening and it was incredibly disappointing. Similar to other recent reviews, we found the food was inconsistent and the service was bad. I understand soft opening means ironing out and figuring how things work. However, it seems like they opened simply to open and weren’t even a little bit prepared for it. It is now a sit down restaurant where you get menus and order through a waitress. We walked in, and they just seemed really confused by a customer coming in. After being nudged by another waitress, our waitress awkwardly grabbed menus and led us to our seats. No introduction, no “how are you”, customer service at all. She just sat us, gave us menus, and walked away. We looked through the menu, ordered our 4 dishes, and proceeded to wait. The fried tofu was not bad but the fried fish was very salty. These 2 took about 15-20 min to come out. Our 3rd dish, a fried pork cutlet, and 4th dish spicy wontons were nowhere to be seen. And the waitress did not stop by our table to check up on us at any point. They were too busy running around the store or else just standing and staring at customers. At the 30 min mark, we waved our waitress and asked about the pork and spicy wontons. She looked confused and asked if we wanted to add these to our order. We reiterated these were dishes we already ordered and she still seemed confused. Finally, she went to go check and said it’d be another 10-15 minutes and they had run out of spicy wontons. Mind you, we came in around when they opened for dinner service on soft opening, and she waited until after WE asked about the food to tell us they were out of it. We finally got the pork cutlet at least but the pork was so dry and flavorless. We ended up checking out and leaving displeased.

The store and staff were not set up efficiently. The waitresses would be waiting at the front and staring at the customers, but they’re also responsible for bringing out the food. So they’d end up having to run from the front of the store to the back of the kitchen, which throughout dinner service wastes a lot of time. I know this is a casual restaurant, but even then there’s usually some sort of dress code for employees. There was one waitress who was wearing athletic shorts with her oversized shirt and crocs. But everyone else had on jeans/long pants and the restaurant shirt and closed toed shoes appropriate for restaurant work. The bus boy also had to be constantly reminded to clean up a table after the customer has already left. The owner was walking around getting feedback and chatting up customers, but she only spoke to older Chinese folks and did not pay attention to the other demographics in the restaurant. Overall, the service is extremely inconsistent and the food wasn’t as good as their previous location. This is Plano where there’s lots of competition so there’s a lot of room for improvement for this...

We typically avoid mixing politics with cuisine, but here, it’s impossible to separate the two. The restaurant proudly calls itself "Taiwan," not "Taipei," in defiance of the wording preferred by the Communist Party. "Taiwan is a country," the woman behind the counter gingerly declared, a bold statement given the island’s tense relationship with its powerful neighbor—especially now.

Citizens of the People's Republic of China may be prohibited by their government from setting foot in this bastion of democracy, but you wouldn’t know it from the menu. The desserts are authentic and original, blending flavors that are hard to find elsewhere—taro, mung bean, grass jelly, and other delicacies from the South China Sea. Each dish feels like a celebration of tradition.

For those looking for vegetarian options, this place delivers plenty. Even better, the offerings are low in fat and sugar, high in protein, and based on real, unprocessed beans and other wholesome ingredients. It’s refreshing to see plant-based dishes that don’t rely on overly processed substitutes.

The atmosphere is cheerful, decorated with mementos adorned in traditional Chinese characters, deliberately shunning the simplified script associated with the People's Republic. The space is quiet enough to accommodate students leaning over their laptops, and the staff is courteous, generous with their smiles, and happy to offer recommendations.

As ordinary consumers, we are not paid or compensated in any way for this review. We are always looking for reliable and transparent businesses and hope the owner will take this feedback into...

FOOD INSTAGRAM: @northtx.gemz •••• 🍒 WHAT THEY’RE KNOWN FOR: make sure you Google “Mei Wei Taiwan Cuisine” when you look for this place because it’s a franchise inside of this business. It’s behind 99 Ranch and next door to Volcano Hot Pot. They’re know for their traditional Taiwanese desserts! 🍒 THE VIBE: the friendliest service ever!! Everyone is so incredibly nice and helpful. 🍒 PRICE: ~$10 🍒 WOULD I COME BACK? Yes. •••• Overall Rating: 9/10 Don’t let the looks scare you if you’re not familiar with Asian desserts- it’s just basically a big bowl of different kinds of boba to dumb it down. I would compare this to how açaí bowls are smoothies in a bowl- this is literally like how this Taiwanese dessert is to a boba milk tea. It’s a traditional Taiwanese dessert that has shaved ice with grass/herbal jelly as the base and grass/herbal jelly on top along with your desired toppings. It’s such a good dessert! If you know Meet Fresh, this place is very similar but different in its own way. I will say the ice at Meet Fresh is fluffier and more snowlike but this is more like traditional American shaved ice texture. They gave us a free bowl of the coconut milk with more tapioca toppings which was so sweet. The server told us that it makes the grass jelly ice more milkier and sweeter and he was right! Customer service is out of this world- will be...