.........i've had better!. i was in seattle for a birthday party from vancouver, bc over the labor day weekend. i took my cousin and his family to imperial garden seafood restaurant for dinner. this is not our first time there. we've been there for dim sum and dinner in the past. the food has always been very good!
we ordered our favorite dishes from the menu..........not going to list all the dishes but will only provide comments on the problem dishes. honey garlic spareribs was served warm. i guess it sat in the back before it was served to us. the quality of the dish was mediocre.
beef tenderloin in orange sauce was not edible. the orange sauce was extremely sweet making the dish taste more like a dessert. the beef tenderloin had the consistency of shoe leather. i've don't remember ever eating beef tenderloin this tough before. perhaps a little tenderizer would've help if they chose to serve a cheap cut of beef! the pieces of beef were very inconsistent - sugar cube size to 2" x 3" slices. the thicknesses were are very inconsistent, anywhere was stir fry thickness to 1/2" thick.
peking duck..........hmm, not sure where to start! the peking duck dish is $30 - served as 2 dishes. the first dish consists of the crispy duckskinserved with small individual bite size buns with green onions and hosin sauce. basically, you're just making a small (2 bite) sandwich with a piece of crispy skin, little bit of green onions with hosin sauce. the second dish is consists of just the duck meat with no skin. you can have it served in soup or lettuce wrap. we chose lettuce wrap.
where's the problem? the first dish of crispy duckskinconsisted of a few small 1" by 1" size pieces of skin. the rest of the dish consisted of pieces of duck meat served like turkey breast for thanksgiving dinner... carved slices of breast meat with theskinattached on the edge. hmmm, where the heck did all the crispy duckskingo?? .............peking duck, i think they're trying to maximize by the way they serve it.
i'm not surprised if they're doing this to rip customers off. this is common practice is some chinese restaurants in vancouver serving king crab. you order a 20lb crab at $18 to $20 a pound. they only serve you 15lbs of what you paid for. the other 5lbs will be served to another customer. i hope you see the point.
the sizzling eggplant hot pot with fish slices. there is absolutely nothing sizzling about this dish. the ingredients were stir fried in a wok and served to us in a clay hot pot. the hot pot was not even hot! just warm to your touch!
i did not complain simply because i did not want to offend the chef.
during dinner, we asked for a bowl of white rice.....ice water....and a few spoon so my cousin can feed his 1 year old daughter. when we asked for the spoon, the waiter responded with the comment, is there any there anything else! the waiter seemed extremely agitated & frustrated with his tones.
at the end of our meal, the manager asked what we thought of our meal. my wife told him the beef tenderloin with orange sauce was not edible. he took a fork to feel the beef. he agreed it was very tough and the chef should've used a tenderizer to make the cut of beef more tender. he agreed with my wife's comments and removed the dish from the bill. i had no intent to leave a tip. since he removed the dish from the bill. i decided to add $10 as a tip, basically the cost of the dish.
imperial garden seafood sells itself as a higher quality chinese restaurant. the décor and prices support this. will i ever go back? heck no! there are many other lower quality restaurants in the seattle area which serve the same dishes at a lower cost at a higher quality!
we were there on saturday night. the restaurant was at 10% capacity. i guess i did not get the memo.
my review of imperial garden seafood is consistent with other yelpers!