Royal Seafood — Restaurant in New York

Coming here on the weekend, you will most certainly encounter the long wait and lines in front of the doors. Get a number from the person yelling on the mic, and just be patient. Your number will be called in Cantonese first, English second.

Once your number is called, expect to share tables with strangers you don't know if your party is less than 5. Even if you have a party of more than 5, you might still have to share a bigger table with another group.

This is a straight up old school Chinatown dim sum Restaurant. Space is limited, privacy when speaking is non existent, but it's One of the best and authentic dim sum experience you will taste here.

Over the years, ownership has changed hands but the food is still good if not better than before. Head Chef is from Hong Kong and you will see him giving out numbers for those who are waiting for tables.

There are push carts filled with different dishes rolling around the restaurant. Be aggressive when trying to get the popular dishes, such as beef rice rolls. The carts are categorized and usually one cart would hold the same dish when they come back out of the kitchen refueled with goodies. When you order something from the cart, they will punch a stamp on your card to keep track of what you have ordered. This is the same card they will use to calculate the total you owe at the end of your meal.

Main dishes I usually get: Beef rice rolls, steamed shrimp dumplings (HA Gao), Pig intestines / stomach with a side of chili sauce, Sesame rolls (dessert), Rice congee, fried taro with XO sauce, and seafood rice noodles (special order).

After your meal, ask one of the waiters to tally up your order and give a final bill. Witness them do the calculations in their heads really fast and bring it to the...

Here’s the good - this is a large space in Chinatown - lots of tables, seating for large parties. The restaurant was popular, had many full tables but no wait if you suddenly showed up with 20 people. They did not charge a corking fee 🍷🍷Lobster and crab are market rate and so we asked and learned lobster 🦞 was $25 which we thought was very reasonable and in line with other establishments in Chinatown. Royale offers a large banquet menu starting at $498-$900+ - which is on the table to consider, different menus to choose which level works for you (each was enough for 8 to 10 people) the banquet menus are in Mandarin so use your google translator to view.

The not so great - we should have read the reviews and ordered dim sum. We ordered lobster with garlic and scallion, salt and pepper lobster 🦞 seafood soup and fried seafood basket. Lobsters were lukewarm, we strongly feel that our ginger scallion lobster - which came out first - was a send back order as it arrived quickly after we placed our order, before our soup and was only warm - also on the small size ☹️ the table next to us also ordered the same lobster 🦞 dish, it was almost double in size and we could see the steam and smell their ginger and scallion…not ours. The ginger scallion was the best flavored item. If you like it not spicy this is your place. The fried seafood basket was fresh seafood which we appreciated.

The level of service also was just okay - we asked for hot sauce and soy sauce and never received the soy sauce. We couldn’t get soy sauce, in a Chinese food restaurant.

I would say this was probably one step up from your neighborhood Chinese delivery, the seafood was fresh just not hot and if you have sauces you like at home, this would be a good take out and use your sauce...

I cannot stand any more. I tried to given them a lot chances to improve but apparently nothing happened. I have to write something here to show that I mean it. The lady that is in charge of ordering takeouts always has bad attitude. A few weeks ago, I tried to order the steamed chicken in lotus leave. She told me that the steamed chicken in locus leave was not ready yet. Then I tried to order another veggie dumpling (forgot the name of it). She raised her voice and told me that she did not have that one either in a really impatient tone. I was like what the heck. Why you had to blame me for what you didn’t have? I was not trying to give you any difficult time. What the hell could I know what you had or what you didn’t have? You can just kindly let me know what you have right now. Today I tried to give her another chance which was the greatest mistake that I have ever made. I tried to order three orders of shrimp dumplings and one order of shao mai. However, when I got home, I found out that she gave me three orders of shao mai and one order of shrimp dumpling. I am so upset now. I give you all my trust, but you just throw my trust in the trash can. To be honest, the foods are good here and the restaurant is on my way to work which is very convenient to me. These are the reasons that I am still going there for takeouts. Tips for your guys who wants to order takeouts from this place. No 1. Don’t order to many diffident stuffs because she cannot remember! What’s the worst that she didn’t even write the orders done. No 2. Please remember to open the takeouts and check to make sure she doesn’t make...