China Harbor Restaurant — Restaurant in Seattle

We had our wedding reception here. My review is only based off of my personal experience with Fawa (one of the managers) and nothing else. Initially, when communicating with Fawa she seemed really nice and responsive, but gradually she started to show annoyance when I had more questions and concerns (which is completely normal and expected for the bride to have questions and concerns), that I even apologized for “bothering her” even though as a paying customer and a bride who is already over the top stressed out about wedding planning, shouldn’t feel like they need to say that. In my communication with Fawa, I have never been impatient nor rude, I’ve always shown my appreciation and thanked her for her help and guidance.

The night before my wedding I came to drop off and set up some things, which is nice of Fawa to allow me to do that (I will give credit where it’s due). I noticed that there were a lot of food pieces on the carpet, the windows were full of hand/streak marks, the light on one of the chandeliers went out, and several chair and table covers had noticeable food stains/residue. So I kindly pointed those things out and asked Fawa if the restaurant will take care of those things before our reception. I didn’t want to assume that it will get done, so I asked her about it to make sure that she was aware of it. Those questions/concerns I had were all very valid and relevant. I mean, who would want to pay tens and thousands of dollars to have their wedding reception at a dirty place right? Everyone wants their wedding venue to look clean and presentable, that wasn’t even unreasonable for me to ask that.

After I asked those questions Fawa looked at me with a shocked/disgusted look on her face, she then pointed at me with her finger and looked over to my husband and said to him, “wowwwwwww you are marring that for the rest of your life. Good luck. Wowww.” And she shook her head, then laughed. She said this in front of my husband and group of friends to try to humiliate me? I was shocked by her utter rudeness, and responded, “you know, I’m getting married for the first time, so it makes sense for me to ask these questions?? I just want to make sure that everything will be good and as close to perfect for my big day.” My friends immediately defended me and said out loud that these were very normal questions and that I was not by any means, being unreasonable nor demanding for what I had asked Fawa. I even offered to put on the table and chair covers myself if she just provided clean ones to make sure I wasn’t asking for too much, which I wasn’t at all.

Fawa’s comment was completely rude, unnecessary, disrespectful, degrading, insulting, and out of line. I was shocked that a restaurant manager would say something so mean and demeaning to a paying bride. Why would someone say that towards a couple who is getting married and paying a lot of $ at your establishment?? Fawa should have some empathy towards a bride who has a million things to worry about for her wedding. Because of that comment, it invalidates everything else that she had “helped us with.” People won’t remember what you’ve done, but only how you made them feel. And the impression that Fawa had left on us, was a very negative one.

On our wedding day, my cousin noticed some plates had food residue/stains. She kindly informed Fawa and asked if those plates can be replaced with clean ones, and Fawa apparently gave my cousin an annoyed look and rolled her eyes. That kind of attitude/behavior is terrible and unsuitable for a manager. Just unbelievable. We would not recommend anyone to do their wedding here since they will unfortunately, have to deal with Fawa.

I hope that moving forward, Fawa will learn to show more patience, understanding, consideration and kindness towards people, and treat them with dignity. It will go a long way. These qualities are very important for a manager because they are the face/representation of...

Food: most were average, a few were great Service: worst I’ve experienced in a long time

Dish that stood out: Radish cake with XO sauce, pineapple buns

We arrived at 11am on Sunday for dimsum. Yes I do expect you to be busy on a weekend but there were only 3 tables when we were sat. No one bothered to check on us until we had to flag someone down around 11:25, at which we were told that we needed to put our order on a piece of paper. Submitted our paper order at 11:30. Food came out at a good pace but then stopped 30 minutes later - after half our dishes were out. More patrons were sat and the waiters were scrambling to catch up. During this 30 minutes, we observed the disaster going on the floor - food was being brought out to wrong tables - at one point the chef started bringing out food. The table behind us walked out because of the lack of service. Dirty dishes were not getting picked up as staff went back to kitchen empty-handed. Hot food was left and forgotten on empty tables when they were supposed have been dropped off to patrons. At one point, one of the waiters went around to all the tables with food and started asking if a certain table had ordered that dish. I finally got impatient because people that had been sat 30-45minutes after us were receiving the same dishes we’d ordered an hour earlier. The dishes we ordered were being brought to other tables. The waiter took our ticket into the kitchen, brought out a dish 5 minutes later and asked us what else we were missing…well you took our ticket so we could only rely on our memory. We were still missing 5-6 dishes at this point. We received 2 more dishes 5-10 minutes later. We waited another 30 minutes and at this point we’d been sitting for about 2 hours already. I got up and spoke to the owner and asked her when the remaining dishes were coming out. She printed out our receipt and there were dishes on there that we never even ordered and also ones that were missing that we did order. We decided to just check out and not put in another order for the food that we had ordered 2 hours ago. 18% auto-gratuity was applied and we just paid it because we were so done with the whole experience.

Would we go back? No, not on a weekend or when it’s busy. Is the food good enough to compensate for the horrible service? NO, definitely not. I understand that China Harbor has been receiving more hype and popularity on social media, but they definitely do not have the staff or training to accommodate the influx of customers.

Photo: piles of dirty dishes accumulated on our table within the 2 hours...

Went for a night-before-wedding dinner party. When you walk past the cashier and see two large TVs facing you with live CCTV footage overlooking all their dining areas, that's your first clue to turn around and go somewhere else.

The bride-to-be had ordered two large family meals for our two tables. You'd think they'd be identical, but each table ended up being served something completely different from the other. At one point a waitress brought out sweet and sour pork and sweet and sour chicken, then remarked that she had no idea which was which.

Not that it really mattered... I'm no professional food critic, but this is decidedly some of the worst Chinese food I've ever had, and you'd think they'd try their best for a wedding party. As traditional and authentic as a mariachi band in a French cafe. Everything lacked seasoning and barely had any flavor. The Egg Drop soup was flavorless yellow sludge. The Crab Rangoon had maybe one thin fiber of crab meat per dumpling. The bok choy in the vegetable plates were only cut in half, leaving you with a massive bulb of toughness to stuff in your mouth without any knives. The chow mein was a gloopy mess. You can spend $20 at your local grocery's freezer section and get way better results than what was served.

The decor is dated, dirty and poorly painted. The service is less than average. The entrance to the restaurant is cavernous, dark and empty, and the stairs leading up to the front doors are steep and loose. Truly, the restaurant's only saving grace are the views of the lake. We were the only ones there on a Friday evening.

If you're looking for good Chinese food, you won't find it here. Even your local drug front masquerading as a teriyaki joint would be a more...