Kirin Court — Restaurant in Richardson

Last Saturday afternoon, my husband had an itching for Asian and, as we have driven past Kirin Court, just off the Central Expressway in Richardson, countless times, we finally decided to try it. . .especially since the dinner crowd hadn't arrived yet.

The restaurant is located on the second floor of a small strip complex and the dining room was spacious with a number of rooms and many large tables equipped with the traditional "lazy susan."  The room was well-lit and clean. . .thanks to an attentive staff.  Actually, they might have been a little overly attentive, since the bussers moved in to clean off the tables even before the meal was over. . .but that's jumping ahead a little.

Kirin Court has a reputation around Dallas, especially for its robust dim sum menu with dozens of offerings, from the familiar to the slightly more exotic.  We decided to order just a few dim sum items and then some entrées.

We weren't ready for alcoholic drinks so early in the day, so I ordered a pot of oolong tea and my husband just ordered a Coke Zero.  The drinks came out right away, my tea was hot, but needed several minutes to steep: that's to be expected.  My husband's Coke Zero came out in a can and he told me that he was reminded of going out with his family for dinner (in the dark days before "free refills"), when his mother admonished him that, "don't drink it all right away.  You're not getting another one!"  Lol.  He's a little rebellious, so he asked for another can--of course, both showed up on the bill.

We ordered some pork egg rolls and some traditional pan fried dumplings to start.  Then I ordered orange chicken, and my husband ordered some barbecued pork and fried rice.  Nothing exotic, but certainly within the sweet spot of most American Chinese restaurants.

The dining experience is made up of a number of components: the atmosphere, the table service, and then the food:  it needs to look good, smell good and taste good (and correct).

So, Kirin Court gets an B+ for  atmosphere, a little bit dated in terms of décor and ambiance, but clean and serviceable.  They get an A- for table service: timely ordering and timely service:  we just didn't like the table being bussed before we could put our napkins down. . .and the hostess hasn't learned how to make guests feel welcome.

Back to the food: Kirin Court gets a B- for that: the dishes came out quickly (dining room wasn't that busy. . .so maybe mid- to late- afternoon is the time to come here).  The food looked good, correct appearance (color, sheen, etc.), and well-arranged on the plates.  But, the taste didn't live up to expectations.   The egg rolls were golden brown (good sign) but greasy (either fried at the wrong temperature or not properly drained).  The dumplings were firm, but bland and served without any kind of dipping sauce--maybe an unreasonable expectation.

The orange chicken was well-fried, glazed and attractively garnished with bright green broccoli. But, it was blandly sweet, with no orange aroma or taste.  When I requested some hot chinese mustard (I was thinking of Colman's-style mustard), they brought a few miserable packets of the typical take-out variety.

My husband's barbecued pork look like char-siu, with the correct appearance (red on the outside, white on the inside), but, once again, disappointingly bland, although he told me the bite was tender.  His Yangzhou fried rice came out nice and hot with diced pork, shrimp and vegetables, but unfortunately, not fried enough, and a little light on the soy sauce--not really what he expected it to look or taste like. I'm not sure if Kirin Court offers low-sodium menu items, but we certainly didn't choose them.

The waiter brought the check and the fortune cookies (I don't know what I would have done if they had stiffed us on the fortune cookies!!!).  For the items described above, the total with tip, was around $90.00.

So, if you're not looking for dim sum, and if you want to overspend on disappointing, less than run-of-the-mill Chinese food, please go to Kirin Court on...

My family and I always dine in and have great experiences here except for today. We ordered dim sum and we mistakenly ordered an item (pan fried taro cake) when it was supposed to be pan fried radish cake. So we immediately mentioned to our server Jimmy that we wanted to cancel the pan fried taro cake and order the pan fried radish, can we please do so? And he said no it's too late to cancel that it's already being made. I have never been to ANY restaurant that has told me no you can't cancel an order. We mistakenly ordered, yes, we apologize for that but it was only within 5 mins that we put in our order. And then server Jimmy told us no, we cannot cancel it. He shrugged his shoulders and basically told us we're just gonna have to eat it and pointed at the table. That is so absurd to me. I am furious at this point. I told him I'm not paying money for something that was mistakenly ordered? Plus we aren't even going to eat that taro cake. It'll just sit there. So what are we going to do about it? And then he goes okay let me go and change it now. He doesn't even apologize about his initial response and lets us eat while feeling utterly disgusted. Then continues to just stare us down while the food arrives. I have NEVER felt so disrespected at any restaurant in my entire life. This experience has been the worst. I asked another server if we could speak to a manager about this whole experience and guess who walks up, Jimmy. Jimmy claims to be the Manager. I asked him can I speak to the manager Jimmy said I am the Manager, what's the problem. What do you mean what's the problem you already knew what it was? He sure isn't dressed like a Manager he's dressed as one of the servers. I went ahead and told him about the experience again and he still didn't apologize for any of it. I told him he probably doesn't care about me being upset at this experience and all he said was ok and the end of it. He's a real big A hole I'll tell you that. I felt like I wasted my breath for nothing speaking with him. So I obviously had to speak with someone else about it like upper management so I asked the host is there another manager around he said yes the General Manager and his name is Michael. I spoke with Michael and told him everything and he apologized and said that we are always able to cancel orders so he is very sorry that happened to us and will talk to Jimmy. Next time you guys come here look out for Jimmy he might just tell you no too and stare you down the whole time while you're...

Unfortunately I have to share my bad experience. The older generation working here are quite set on their ways of not being nice to anyone that’s not Asian. I was married to a Cantonese man for nearly ten years and we lived in Atlanta. We spent every weekend at the oriental pearl in chamblee, and I’ll say they treated me better there and their food was 10x better. When they weren’t walking past my table with their heads turned, avoiding me, I was having to wave them down and verbally call them over. We were there for over an hour and they all seemed to be avoiding my table. Also I was excited to try a variety of dimsum but they only seemed to have har gaio, siu mai, beef fun roll, char siu bao, chicken feet, tripe, and tofu skin wrapped pork. I was asking for other options specifically and they were all just telling me they don’t have that. I was confused because their menu shows these options. The chicken feet was poorly seasoned, and not cooked long enough, they also didn’t properly prepare it, skin still too hard. And the tripe was not cut up in bite size pieces. Also the baked pork bun was way too sweet. Also one lady randomly walks up to my table without a cart, she says “do you need anything?” I said “yes, I’d like some radish cake please”. She said “go there!” And pointed over by the wall where they have a few options premade sitting in a box waiting to be ordered. I walked over there. Two women talking and I think I waited many 3 minutes before one of the women turned and looked at me, she said “can I help you?” And I said “yes, I’d like radish cake and baked pork bun”. She looked at me like she had a problem with me. And she stood there and didn’t even move or say anything. I was so uncomfortable. She gave me cold, over cooked, nearly black radish cake, she also gave me hard, dried, stale bbq pork bun. If my ex mother in law could see how I was being treated, I am sure she would have complained to the manager right away. When I would flag the ladies down with the carts to return to me since they were clearly avoiding my table, they had a big attitude and only kept showing me har gai, and siu mai. They wouldn’t show me anything else. I had to ask for it by name and even then, reluctant to give it to me. I was shocked to see other customers with abundance of varieties on their tables. My 11 year old was upset how they were treating me, she’s half Chinese. I brought her here to enjoy some dimsum. I really don’t think we will be back. This...