Overall rating: 3

The restaurant was mostly full of Chinese speaking customers except for our diverse table of 5 (1 Caucasian; 1 Indonesian; 2 Chinese and 1 Japanese).

Food: 3 stars for Dim Sum The siumai dumpling was mushy, malformed and the bits of shrimp were not good quality. However, the leek/chive shrimp dumpling was good as was the black bean spareribs with pumpkin. The crispy shrimp rice noodle was a hit and I enjoyed it more here than at Lunasia. Pan fried turnip was larger than Lunasia's and had a nice sear. One of the guests at my table really liked that and the baked pork bun with the crunchy topping, but I would have preferred steamed char siu bao. The shrimp har gao; chicken feet were just a-ok.

Service: 3 stars No rolling food carts for dim sum -- you need to decide what you want ahead of time and mark it on a sheet and hand that to the waiter.

Be sure to order tea and water at the beginning of the meal because all of the servers will ignore you the rest of your meal. (it would have been 2 stars, but they took off an undelivered item from our check as requested and also gave us free mango pudding (was a little too firm, though).

The restaurant's staff has a reputation for being rude and I did witness that here and there, but it wasn't as bad as the waiter at the legendary Sam Wo in San Francisco (now closed).

Despite my rating Monterey Palace a 3, I'd be interested in going back to try a la carte entree and side items because that's what most people were doing unlike the group I was a guest of (unfortunately, my group's Chinese host didn't read up on the restaurant's signature dishes beforehand).