This review is not about the food, necessarily, it has to do with the restaurant's changeover policy on the lunch/dinner changeover period and the associated price changes.
First, the restaurant's food choices are standard buffet Chinese fare and some of the items are quite good. Other items are cold when they should be warm, but the basics like breaded chicken and baked fish are perfectly acceptable.
Here's the problem: somewhere around 4 PM, the restaurant starts serving food (such as snow crab legs) that are not part of the lunch price. If you eat those items, the restaurant expects you (rightfully) to pay the higher dinner price to account for the higher price of the food.
However, their implementation of this changeover policy is nothing short of SHAMEFUL. When we walked in and paid for our (lunch) prices, no one mentioned to us that in 30 minutes they would be displaying food we would have to pay more money for. There is no sign announcing this. No one who worked in the hostess or waitress positions told us this.
We finished our meal at approximately 4:15 (lunch items only) and went to pay the bill. Before leaving, my wife and 14 year old son decided to visit the food area one more time to get a frozen yogurt. For the first time, they saw crab legs displayed, which is something they wanted to try, so they took a small quantity, perhaps 2 or 3 "knockles" each and came back to the table to eat the crab before we were going to leave.
Keep in mind, there is no noification that this is against restaurant policy and i HAD ALREADY PAID FOR OUR MEAL. While I sat there and waited for my family to finish their very small quantity of crab legs, the manager ("Ping") came to the table and wave a bill literally a foot from my face and went into a spiel about how we owed extra because we'd eaten dinner food.
We were not aware of this and were somewhat taken aback by his approach. My son was so embarrassed by this tactic that he immediately left the restaurant and paced on the sidewalk until we finished resolving the issue. This is not a good customer service policy. A few people undoubtedly time their entrance to take advantage of better food at lower prices but we did not do that.. But we got treated as if we were trying to steal dinner-price crablegs for lunch-prices.
When a discussion with Ping ensued, he explained that many of their customers take advantage of them and went on to explain how crab legs are more expensive and should cost more. I couldn't agree more. But it would be nice if the owner of the restaurant (David Guo) would take some interest in how his restaurant is managed, because everyone who eats a crab leg isnt there to steal it at a lower price.
Mr Guo apparently does not speak English so i was not permitted to speak with him, but had a lengthy discussion with Ping both on the day of the meal and on the following day.
My advice to you is that if you want to have a calm enjoyable meal with you family in this facility, you should question everyone in sight about the exact moment when lunch prices turn into dinner prices because otherwise you will be approached like a common thief. Perhaps that's a problem they have regularly, i don't know. All I can tell you is that it cost me more than $10 in gas to get to this restaurant and I certainly didn't do so with the intention of ripping them off for a $5 crab leg upcharge.
There are many many ways to handle customer service and not one good practice was followed during our meal. If you want a decent piece of fried chicken or hot and sour soup, by all means, come in and enjoy yourself.
If you want your 14 year old son to be treated like a thief while the manager makes a scene in front of the entire restaurant, you'll have a good time here. Until then, I recommend that you choose another dining spot or else make sure you know exactly what you're getting into.
There's no reason to treat people the way we were treated. We literally were told we had to put the crab legs down and leave the restaurant and it was a purely innocent mistake on our part.
Buyer beware. Some places are not run as well as others.
Otherwise, it was an OK experience.
EDIT: Ultimately, after making us feel like common thieves, we were spared the indignity of paying for crab legs we weren't allowed to eat. Wasn't really worth the price of the 14 year old standing out in the parking lot shaking with embarrassment. read more
