Royal China Restaurant — Restaurant in Duluth

Hidden charges, lack of food and bad service! Been here so many times I can't count. Only decent place for dim sum. But it seems to be declining each and every time. Went for lunch on Mother's Day. There was a good wait and expectedly so. However, the hosts are rude and obnoxious. Seating is disorganized and random. A one point, they were calling all the two-tops -- numbers ahead of ours and so we thought that maybe there were a bunch of empty 2-tops but when we finally went in, we saw that they seated a bunch of people who had numbers after us in tables for four even though they had 2 people. The restaurant was so crowded that they couldn't serve any food. There was a total of 4 carts serving the entire restaurant that had about 150 tables. Every time a cart came by, you had to go get their attention or they were not going to come to your table if you are not seated on the aisle where they push their cart. We ended up having to order multiples of the same dish in order to have enough food. The carts were slow to come by and we would have stretches of 10-15 minutes of no food at all. Obviously, they were not ready for Mother's Day. The dim sum is the only pleasant thing about this place. The service deserves 0 stars. You cannot get anyone at all -- not even to order off the menu. We finally gave up and after a long wait, was no longer hungry. We left without eating many of our favorite dim sum dishes. At check out, I realized that all the dishes had almost doubled in price. What used to be $3.75 for a small plate is now $5.90. Our tab came to $130 for 4 and we weren't even full. The kicker was the hidden tea charge. They charged $3.75 per person for one pot of tea that they never bothered to refill. The little pot barely served four. The whole idea of dim sum is eating small dishes while drinking tea. Most dim sum restaurants may charge a $1 fee per person. Royal China used to charge $1.30. Yesterday, it was $3.75. Then, there's the tip they expect you to give -- for rude, insolent and lack of service?? I know that they don't care and won't improve on their customer service because people will still frequent the place regardless since they are one of very few that serve decent dim sum. It will no longer be one of my frequently patronized...

We've had dim sum and dinner here on 2 separate occasions. Both met with terrible services and mediocre food. First time we came with a party of 20, seated at 2 different tables, we ordered food from both the menu and the dim sum cart, the food took almost an hour to come out, and it wasn't even decent. I get that place is heavily under staffed, but having to chase down dim sum carts after seated for 30 minutes is unacceptable. Dim sum is very forgettable and lukewarm at best.

Despite having the negative experience the first time, we came back a year later for dinner with our family after reading rave reviews for their dinner menu. This time, we were met with a very rude and obnoxious waitress who commanded us to order more and all at once because it's easier for their chef, even after we had already ordered 12 dishes to share among 10 adults and 6 kids.

We ordered from the traditional menu, some of the seafood is fresh but they literally price gouged on the Market Price items. Two items that jumped out were the seafood fish maw soup and live crab. Beware that the price of the seafood fish maw soup is portioned for 2 people, at $17.95. Our waitress did not explain this to us and when we ordered 2 orders, she went ahead and charged us 10 times for 20 people. YES. 2 bowls of soup cost us $179.50! I wish I could make this up. She claimed that we took 2 tables and hence, we had 20 people. Mind you, the other table was for the 6 little kids who all share 2 noodle dishes. 🙄

The live crab was very skinny with very little to no meat, they did not bring out the crab to ensure we were fine with the size. Each crab was less than 2 pounds that cost $55/lb! Total for 2 tiny crab was over $200. Our dinner bill came out almost $900 (including tax and gratuity) with no leftovers (small portions). Everyone drank tea and water. No special beverages either. This place had so much potential with the beautiful decor and some decent dishes, but they are literally out to get you. Save your money and go somewhere else, Duluth and Atlanta have so many decent chinese restaurants with much higher quality food and...

UPDATE: Looking forward to returning after COVID is over. Happily updating review to 5 stars. I’d give them 4 1/2 stars if I could because there is room for improvement, but I’d like to offset my initial 2-star review. Food quality is very good to excellent. Menu is gigantic. Venue is fantastic for upscale Chinese and events. Dim Sum experience is solid with consistent execution on all the classics. COVID had them shut over the last six months or so. I don’t know their status. We have been here at least 6 times now, I’m very glad we gave them a second chance after their settling in period. Pork with young bamboo shoots is a staple for us.

INITIAL Review: I really wanted to be happy, and they refused to let me. The food might be great (I'll eat after this review) but they won't get a second chance regardless. They were unweloming--strikingly so. The location is the nicest venue for Chinese food in Atlanta I can recall, and we've gone out for chinese food at least once a week for the last eleven years. Eaten at their Buford location 10 or so times over the years. Taken the in-laws, and they are Taiwanese. Here's the deal. No online menu (checked 4 sites). So i drove there to order. Front desk was nice, but English was not up to discussing the menu. Tried to recommend numerical menu Id's to make this work, but...well, English. So talked to 4 employees to finally find someone who could understand my concerns. Asked for the floor manager, but they had left. 15% covers on a Thursday night at 6:30. My guess, they are gone on this expansion by early 2021. A shame. Management failure. Black bean clams as good as canton cooks (which is a big comliment). This was a test if we could bring everybody for Dim sum. If you are Chinese, please go I'd like them to survive to work things out. The order pictured was $85, black bean clams, pork belly with beans and eggplant, 2 hot and sour soup, salt and pepper seafood,...