Emerald Chinese Cuisine — Restaurant in San Diego

Our family has been going to this restaurant for 30 years. I don't know why we keep coming back because we continue to have bad experiences.

And Mother's Day was no exception. It was the worst experience I have ever seen.

I ordered War wonton, Peking Duck, two orders of beef chow fun, and Char Siu fried rice.

We specifically told them we wanted the War Wonton first before anything else.

The first thing out was the Peking Duck, I immediately told our waiter we wanted the soup first.

Our waiter apologized and said he would get it. It never came, but the fried rice did come, but it was not Char Siu fried rice it was shrimp fried rice.

Then what was supposed to be 2 orders beef chow fun instead, it was fried noodles with beef.

Then the soup came out, and it was cold like it had been sitting back there for half an hour.

Then another 20 minutes went by before we got the right beef chow fun but by this time so much time had gone by no one really wanted to eat. We didn't even get the other half of the Peking duck to the very end. I mean, really...

As angry as I was I tried to hold it together and calmly explain that our Mother's Day dinner had been ruined.

All the manager wanted to do was give us free dessert. What a joke.

Any other restaurant would have comped the entire meal as a result of the complete incompetence of the waiter and the cook.

The manager did not want to do anything else other than that. I told the waiter I was only going to pay half the bill because that is all it was worth.

He argued with me and things got loud to where the entire restaurant could hear me.

I had my entire family leave while I handled the situation.

I wrote on the receipt I will only pay 50% horrible service. The manager would not accept that, and at that point, I was the focus on everyone in the restaurant.

I told him that he was not happy with the 50%, then keep the $50 that I was giving to the waiter.

I paid $190 of a $276 bill and I feel I shouldn't have even done that

I said if you're not happy with that, then call the police and left. No one dared followed me.

This was a complete disaster, and because my mother is in poor health, most likely will be her last Mother's Day.

I'm a very calm and peaceful person and have not complained or got into an argument with a restaurant manager in 20 years.

Their level of incompetence left me with the worst taste in my mouth I have ever had and will never go back there and I recommend that if you want a good experience at a good Chinese restaurant do not go to Emerald Chinese seafood.

They only get a one-star because there's no option for a half a star.

Jasmine has much service and that's where we will be going next time.

Pissed off. will...

1 star because that is the minimal rating I can provide.

Unclear pricing, they charge $3/person for tea! And it's a tea bag shared amongst the table. Not great tea by the way. $3 gets me a donut and a hand poured coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. I can almost get a handcrafted drink with that price and not dipping a tea bag into hot water. They should out of courtesy tell customers the pricing on the tea cost per person and also offer more authentic tea options and not only a jasmine tea bag that I can get an entire box for cheap. Good job on scamming customers.

Prices on menu are also unclear, only one item had a price to it. But fine, I didn't want to hold a menu and ask what the price is for every item shown on the menu.

Steamed rolls. It's NOT hot. It was barely room temperature. What is "steamed" rolls? They served is something that was microwaved for 10 seconds and served.

But their other steamed dim sum items came out steaming hot, so that was decent, but taste was truly mediocre, not worth the price for the quality of food you get in return. The flavours were not amazing. We paid more than AYCE pricing per person for 5 dim sum dishes and a congee. We didn't leave starving, but didn't fill us up entirely either. If this is the best dim sum restaurant in San Diego, then I pity the restaurant scenery here.

Owner, if you see this review, feel free to ignore it because it seems like that's how you would like to run your business, but I am here to warn others to spend their money wisely and spend it elsewhere.

Definitely not coming back, and I want to let others know what they coming into.

Edit: Had a severe diarrhea after...

Cash only. Since others have claimed they’re cash only then I guess it might become a long term thing. The meal was so expensive, let me rephrase, RIDICULOUSLY expensive, for dim sum. Check out my pictures on pricing as on Oct 2022. I saw someone posted a picture a month ago and the pricing is about $0.30 less per dim sum category. This month they must have added another higher category, charging $10.68 for a dim sum dish. And $3/person for tea. Yikes!

The food was mediocre. Half the stuff is good. Half not good. ☑️siu mai ❌shrimp dumpling (tough texture, wrapper breaks easily) ❌ beef tripe stew (tender, but color and taste were not authentic) ☑️ shrimp rice roll (silky roll, good sweet soy sauce) ❌ radish cake (toooo salty) ☑️ egg tart ☑️ duck egg yolk custard bun

As for service, not much smiles going on.

We didn’t even enjoy the meal. But it costs $90 for two ppl after tax and tips. We don’t even spend that much elsewhere with alcohol included. I would not recommend this place nor will I return.

Pro tip: I haven’t been to Golden Island for a few months now since I thought that place was expensive. Little did I know Emerald is worst. But at least every dish at Golden Island is delicious. Staff was friendlier and they take credit cards.

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