Royal Queen — Restaurant in New York

I tend to visit Flushing quite often because it does have a lot of choices for food and dessert. It is known as one of NYC's Chinatowns. However, I did not know until recently, that on the third floor of the New World Mall is an entire restaurant! ⁣ ⁣ I had been as far as the second floor for hot pot and of course the bottom level has the famous food court. When I was informed I did not believe it. So I made plans with a friend for Dim Sum. When I went to look for the restaurant I could not find it at first. But I found the escalator and there was a quite a commotion...the kind of commotion you see with busy restaurants. This was during the week in the afternoon and I was very surprised to see that many people there for Dim Sum (since I am used to only being able to go to eat on weekends usually). By no means was the restaurant full (there was a whole area that was empty) and it makes me wonder how the dining area looks during dinner time. ⁣ ⁣ You go to the desk / podium where the hostess issues you a number. There is a couch area in the center for when you are waiting for your number to be called. I looked around for a bit and the place is quite impressive. The decor is very elegant with a big open space dining area... endless tables on both sides of the escalator! I invited a friend for Dim Sum and the seating did not take too long (this definitely varies during busy and peak times of course). We were given a table that seemed to be one of the most frequented areas for the carts. ⁣ ⁣ Dim Sum on the carts is what everyone is used to. The employees that come around (and they did quite frequently) were curt and asked if we wanted anything off each respective cart. It is a quick pace and very expected. My friend and I chose certain dishes that were favorites and mainstays.⁣ ⁣ The dishes we chose were: ⁣ ⁣ Chicken Feet - this is a staple of dim sum but it is something I rarely order myself but my friend loves them. They were very flavorful but a lot of work to eat because of the small bones. ⁣ ⁣ Steamed Pork Bun - one of your classic item. Fresh steamed pillowy buns with hot pork that billows smoke when you break open the bun. You get three good sized buns in one steamer. ⁣ ⁣ Rice rolls - the steamed rice roles were something I did not order before but am very fond of now. We got the one with shrimp inside but there are other options like beef that are available as well. They then pour soy sauce over everything (the rice roll itself is very plain and has no real flavor).⁣ ⁣ Shumai - very plump and fresh. ⁣ ⁣ Pineapple Bread (bolo bao) - a personal favorite. The thing about this was was that it usually contains no pineapple at all and are modest in size.. However the one here at RQ was at least two to three times the size of a normal bao (enough to cover a face) AND it contained cheese and pineapple as fillings! The bread was fresh and tasted as sweet as I remember. ⁣ ⁣ Chinese sausage - they had some fun with this one. The sausage was wrapped in some bun bread and decorated to have a face. The fatty sausage is a favorite and also can be found in other steam dishes and clay pot dies.⁣ ⁣ Pudding - they have pudding in the mold of a dog that is resting. When one of the carts came around I spotted it on the second shelf. It jiggles and is quite entertaining for photos. Up close it almost does not look like pudding. The taste was similar to coconut and there is apparently a mango version (which I did not see during my visit).⁣ ⁣ All the food was fresh. The appropriate dishes came to the table either hot or warm. The ladies with the carts visited so frequently we had to eventually keep turning them away (but they did their job very diligently). ⁣ ⁣ Taking into consideration it was dim sum time, the experience was very good. The employees can be quick but they have to make the rounds in a timely manner. Management was very courteous and polite during our visit.

I am curious about the dinner menu and entrees and will probably plan a...

Disappointing!

It’s not the first time we came to this place, but today we had the worst experience. We arrived around 11am. There was already a line which is fine since it was Father’s Day. We waited around 15 mins and was seated near the elevators. This is when it started going downhill.

Service: The waiter (middle aged lady wearing black and white suit) asked us how many people we had in our party, we said five. She left promptly and we thought she went to get us an extra set of tableware since the table only had four. We sat awkwardly waiting on the tea and tableware. One of the cups also needed to be exchanged for a clean one because there was horrible stain and leftover tea leaves inside. We tried to get other staffs attention but was ignored. The middle age lady came back, but without the tea or tableware. When we said we have five people and need an extra tableware, she said “I can see that.” She came back couple minutes later and slammed the tableware on the table and left without the tea. Other staff got the tea for us.

Food availability and options: The food is delicious here, but the options over the years have decreased drastically. I’m not sure if it was the table we were seated at or what, the lady’s pushing the carts rarely swung by our area. We had to get up and track the food down ourselves multiple times. When we asked for a certain dish, they said “wait”. We waited and waited, but they only rotate the few options they have. We gave up and went to pay the bill.

Asking for extra tips: We went to the counter to pay the bill since we didn’t wait to wait any longer for the staffs to calculate the bill for us. When we came back to put the tips in cash on the table, the middle age waiter came up to us again and said your bill was XXX, you need to give more tips. This is unbelievable since there wasn’t any good service to begin with. We threw extra cash on the table and left.

This was the worst and disappointment experience. I will be telling my friends and family to never step upon this place again, especially during any holiday or special event. Take your money elsewhere for food and dim sum...

Royal Queen has many delicious tasting dim sum dishes that my friends and family thoroughly enjoys, like the cha siu patries, malay cakes, custard buns, tapioca pudding, tofu with shrimp, fried fish, etc. The dishes that were mediocre was the stir fry clams and the haw gao, which both had the seng taste (腥). The closest English translation is "fishy", but even that is off because the meaning of it is that the seafood isn't fresh or prepared properly.

The atmosphere has a grandiose feel with an hall for wedding banquets. Threre's a KTV lounge and sofas right outside the bathroom. The bathroom is beautiful, but was pretty dirty with wet floors in multiple stalls, overfilled waste baskets, and dirty toilet bowl seats, even though there was a cleaner.

Another negative was that they charged our table for tea ($5) and I think a service or seating fee ($12.95) when there was only a party of 5. I've been to other dim sum places that has neither of these charges, even with of 6 - 10 people, and I've only ever experienced these extras in the price tag at Royal Queen. Plus, the dim sum dishes are one of the highest priced places I've eaten at.

I've been here several times and the service was fine for me. The one nuance is that when I went to pay with my credit card and I signed off at the receipt, they told me to put down tip. That's pretty rude to demand tip when it's really more of a bonus. If the employees are being paid unfairly, don't take it out on the customers.

I'd say go somewhere cheaper with no extra fees, and has fresher seafood, and a place that doesn't just demand...