Hiya Chili — Restaurant in Tulsa

BLUF/SUMMARY: So frustrated with this place, I didn’t even take any pictures. Had high hopes, but severely disappointed in this place. Wanted to give 1 star, but ultimately gave it 2 as grace for them being relatively new. Mediocre dim sum, saddled by service and wait times that rivaled going to the DMV. You know how you feel like with every visit to the DMV? Well, similarly - we left very frustrated and annoyed both in service and wait times. Drive to Golden Phoenix in OKC if craving dim sum.

DETAILS: Two major issues. 1) The service/wait and 2) the food itself not even close to being worth that wait.

1. Bottomline, don’t open a new restaurant, esp in dim sum format, if you’re not aware that what makes good dim sum places successful is the abundance and frequency of dim sum food (either via push carts or orders). We were there with a party of 8, before they even opened. We were the first ones sat on a Sunday. We were there for 2+ hours, and would you believe only saw the presence of 2 (two!!!) push carts? One of those carts didn’t even have the items we wanted, that we repeatedly asked for. The same cart kept returning to us that we didn’t want - but never the other (steam) cart. We asked several waitresses and waiters repeatedly - honest, about 5x. After 2 hours, the we just asked for our bill, having an appetizer’s worth of food in our stomachs.

No apologies were given, nor implied. I understand that some of these types of experiences are expected in these types of restaurants, but this is inexcusable.

2. Sometimes, the food is worth the wait… Definitely not (even close) in this case. Despite being the first set of customers (it did get full), some of our dim sum was room temp, esp two separate orders of roasted duck for our table. We were told the order would initially take 45 mins, but then surprisingly came in 15 mins. Cold, but there. Makes us question the freshness of the cook. Taste was okay - borderline bland. Same can be said of the rest of our orders, dim sum or not. Other food we ordered is not worth a mention. In other words it was okay. Chili oil was okay, didn’t taste homemade fresh either. Looking at the bill we paid, we felt robbed and cheated of both good food and service.

Key takeaway here - I’m giving up on Tulsa having or getting a good dim sum place. I walked into Bao Bao (the other new place locally), and immediately walked out when I found out if food was made from scratch there (they said no - it was frozen) and how much they charged for it.

Go to Golden...

Authentic Chinese restaurants sometimes use peculiar proteins, and various animal body organs, that the FDA doesn’t even allow in cat food. When ordering Chinese food always be cautious and safe. Follow the wise advice of General Tso, as he once famously said, “when selecting your Chinese food, especially the protein, first make sure that it can be identified, then make sure that it is thoroughly fried!”

The Hiya Chili restaurant is exquisite. I don’t believe I have ever used that word for any restaurant, especially a Chinese restaurant. Hiya Chili inside is bright clean and beautifully decorated, attractive, appealing, comfortable. The service matches the ambiance; professional attentive.

The menu is large. On that menu, Americanized dishes and the food items that General Tso warns us about: Pig turd tunnel (intestine), Pig feet, Spicey Blood Curd and some kind of fungus. We took the General’s advice and stuck to the Americanized dishes on the Lunch Special Menu. Tso is the General’s American name; on the menu he goes by General Tao. I had that, General Tao’s Chicken. My wife had the Orange Chicken. I knew this would be more food than we could eat, but I really wanted to try the appetizers, Scallion Pancake and Smashed Cucumber Salad. Check all of the pictures.

The Lunch Specials came with the choice of soup, a wanton or eggroll, and a choice of rice. Great combo meals. Everything was absolutely delicious. The stand out was the Orange Chicken. The fragrant orange aroma is detected before the bite of food lands on your tongue. It finished with a little smack of heat from the spicey red chili pod slices. The egg roll was unusually fresh and mild in flavor. It tasted too good the be a frozen factory production. If it was, I was successfully fooled. I really like the fresh Crushed Cucumber Salad, but my wife is not a fan of the sesame oil flavor. Lots of food. We left with a tasty bag of leftovers.

A very enjoyable dining experience, delicious food, excellent service in a nice restaurant.

The nicest and best new Chinese restaurant in...

So happy this place is here! Been searching high and low for good Chinese food in Tulsa since moving here from London 4 years ago. The Mo Po Tofu is perfect, as are the green beans, fried rice, dumplings… everything! We’ve come a few times during the week and ordered off the regular menu all of which was delicious, and we’ve been twice on weekends for dim sum - first time we arrived after 3pm as we didn’t realize that the Dim Sum was over at 3 and they very kindly bought out everything they had left for us to choose from - it was all wonderful, especially the sticky rice in lotus leaves! The second time we messed up again and came very close to 3pm but they were still very accommodating and we had plenty of dim sum to choose from. The service is great, everyone’s super friendly, warm and welcoming and we always feel very well looked after. Very nicely decorated and put together restaurant feels very clean and well taken care of. We will keep coming back as it is by far the best Chinese food we’ve had in Oklahoma and an all round pleasant...