The Empress Seafood Restaurant — Restaurant in Denver

I wouldn't call it Star Kitchen but unfortunately they were closed. There is a little bit of an inferiority issue with the food I'm not going to lie like I'm sorry. I can't give you five stars. I really want to. The pot sticker dough was extremely thick and I found it to be pretty gross thankfully my 10-year-old daughter doesn't have discerning tastes so she liked it haha. The stuffed mushrooms weren't very good and that's one of my favorite dishes but it was poorly cooked very tough and chewy mushrooms. The stuffed eggplant was delicious. I love the braised ribs and the duck is always worth having. The egg custard buns were on point. That is my favorite dessert. And of course everything is complimented so well by the jasmine tea that I can never get enough of haha. I thought that their Daiquiri was not very good and my daughter wanted a virgin at least they gave me $2 off since there's no alcohol but an $8 sweet drink for a kid is pretty crazy still. Also when I was boxing everything up the barbecue pork buns got soaked and my husband was clearly upset and annoyed and most restaurants when you're spending around $200 would give you some new pork buns but I guess not here they're like that sucks bummer. To be fair the person that was at our table seem to be like a chicken with his head cut off and he had never served in his life or like even imagined serving I guess. When I tried to give him the credit card to pay you could tell he was so flustered like I don't know what to do with this well then go give it to someone who does my goodness. And I guess since we had a child they seated us next to the only other family with children in this huge restaurant and the kids were screaming the whole entire meal. Like I don't know we spent a lot of money I just felt like it was a pretty mediocre experience for that much money and I really wish Star Kitchen...

Ah I always crave a good Cantonese Style dinner and this meal was delicious!

We ordered all our favorite go to dishes: Ginger Scallion Crab, Green Beans with Pork, Roast Duck, Cantonese Style Chow Mein, Shrimp with Lobster Sauce, and Potstickers!

I enjoyed the Green Beans dish. I was so excited to see chung choy in it, which added to the flavor profile. The combination Chow Mein was perfectly crispy with plentiful amounts of tender meat and veggies. Ginger Scallion Crab and Shrimp with Lobster sauce was what we expected and executed well.

Some of the end pieces of duck were a bit salty but overall was very good. I’d love to try the Peking Duck next time with the buns and the crispy roast pork.

I felt the cost of the food was very reasonable with the amount of food given.

I love the fact that you can order dim sum at any time. But makes it hard to choose what to order because everything sounds good.

The servers were so nice and had very fun personalities, always with a smile on their faces. They made our meal really enjoyable and did a fairly good job keeping our water cups filled.

The restaurant was spacious and appeared tidy. We went there on a Saturday night and there were people setting up for likely a wedding event. I’m sure Empress is a place where many Asians have their reception meals and events.

The neighborhood is a bit sketchy and was happy to see that they had their own parking lot.

We were only visiting, but we’ll definitely be back to try more items in the future and would recommend others to...

A Little Background

You don't have to be an internationally reknown chef to know that not all Chinese food comes from the same area. Just like all american food doesn't come from Utah. Different areas represent different types of food. Empress for the most part is Shanghanese. Yet the dim sum is originally originated from Beijing. The food isn't bad, but it definitely isn't great. It lacks depth of flavor, creativity and frankly just straight up love.

Two decades ago they made their stance in both the vietnamese and chinese community in Denver by offering one of only two "real" places for asians to hold their asian style wedding receptions. Now that the "X "generation is grown up and moved onto newer, better and higher quality food and spaces, Empress is the old turtle that has been caught left behind in the dust.

Too slow for the times

It's actually sad to see this place slowly go down the drain thru the decades. It's almost like you need to pour some Draino on it to help it go down faster to ease the pain. The food is mediocre at best regardless if its the lunch dim sum or the wedding style dinner dishes. It can't keep up with the changes times and competition in the area.

Old Timers Running the Show

Slow is smooth is fast.....yet not always. They've tried to change their "image" in recent years with the removal of the horrible karaoke stage and addition of two TVs. That is their response to the changing times and that is what they call...