Tai Lake Restaurant

Wonderful giant sweet oysters in black bean sauce. $ 4.00 each but well worth it. Meaty and flavorful. We ordered 2 each and then had other dishes. shrimp and scallops hot sauce, steamed snow peas and house special lomein (with shrimp, pork, chicken). Only suggestion: would order steamed pork dumplings instead of pan fried.

Family gathering place !! Its our top place to go. Fresh (live) seafood, fast service, delicious authentic Chinese cuisine. If you see all Asian in the restaurant u know it’s got to be good! They also got a huge party room on second floor for party, wedding etc !! Gets busy at dinner time.

This was my first time to Tai Lake, but my friend who grew up in Philly has been coming here with his family since he was a kid. It’s one of the original Chinatown restaurants, and a big part of the neighborhood, you can feel and see that looking around.
Like many restaurants in Chinatown the menu is huge and you can get everything from pork and chicken to fresh out of the tank king crab. Everything is reasonably priced and the portions are very large, so sharing is ideal. My friend and I got the sweet and sour pork and a tofu/​mushroom dish (I’m not sure the name). The pork was great: really juicy and the perfect mix of sweet and tangy. The tofu dish I didn’t like as much; I thought that it could have been a bit better seasoned. The veggies in it were really fresh though.
At the end of our meal we got complimentary dessert: a tapioca drink that was warm and really yummy.
I’ll definitely be back to try more!

The food is decent. Curry thai chicken could use a bit more curry flavor and less potatoes.

The seafood here is fresh, hearty, and flavorful. It’s slightly pricier than other restaurants on the strip, but well worth it. The seafood casserole, which is cooked in a ceramic pot, has generous, meaty chunks of fresh, top-​quality shellfish, served steamy and lightly-​seasoned. I saw several pieces of scallop, two types of squid, large shrimp, and two large, fleshy chunks of a delicious, savory shellfish I didn’t recognize. Vegetables (carrots) and tofu only took up a small amount of space in the bowl — it was mostly fish & shellfish. The small amount of broth at the bottom was absolutely delicious — savory and seafood-​sweet, without any added water or other fillers. This is definitely the way that seafood should be done.
As is customary at fine Cantonese restaurants, the service is attentive, and the linen & tableware spick & span. Definitely several notches more posh than your typical Chinatown establishment.
They’re open late (past midnight), even on weeknights!

Seafood panfried noodles with old shrimp (that texture where it seems like the shrimp was re-​frozen) and A LOT of starch.
Crab meat dry scallops fried rice used to be good here. now it has more eggs than anything else. and it was extra greasy.

Crab and steamed fish was really good. Probably one of the best in Phili Chinatown. The sea bass was live as well as the crab. I Highly recommend.

Since this place was in the heart of china town i thought it would be more authentic than the typical Chinese restaurants in the suburbs. We came here for a late night meal around 1am on a Saturday. The green tea didn’t taste very good so that was disappointing. We ordered chicken and veggies stir fry and it had so much sweet generic sauce that i wasn’t able to taste anything else. My friend got the chicken tso and the chicken wasn’t very fresh. I don’t think i would wanna come back again, especially not for a late night meal.

One of my top 3 favorite dinner sit down Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. Mainly for family dinners and new year celebrations. They have the best lobster scallion in town :)
The second floor is available which is slightly bigger than first floor. Lots of fresh seafood to try, bring a Chinese friend with knowledge of authentic dishes because they will give you the American menu.

So, Chinese food is good but not fantastic in Philly. So with that in mind, this place is quite good. It’s always filled so that’s a good sign. Go for the seafood dishes. We had whole fish with ginger and scallions, long life noodles, greens with garlic, broccoli with a spicy garlic sauce. All good. Service cheerful and decent except they brought our shrimp dumplings after the other dishes.

What can I say. Duck duck duck. I visited at 1:30am to satisfy my late night craving for duck. The duck skin was crispy and meat tender. Plum sauce was yum. It came with white rice and flat buns. After a late of hitting the bars, getting half a duck is heaven.
Wow. I’m getting hungry thinking of it. Ambiance: 4 Food: 4.2 Service 4.2. This is a solid good Chinese restaurant in the heart of Chinatown that is open till 2am. What else could you ask for?..

We have had mixed visits.
Tonight was just mediocre.
Pan fried dumplings were over cooker outside and lukewarm inside.

Everything was awesome from the time you walk in you are immediately sat down at nice clean table and you are offered Hot tea with sugar and glass of ice water. Once you order your food you are able to choose what ever you want fresh from the tank. The staff very friendly and polite and eager to serve you. Once again the food is awesome and a great location.
FRESH FOOD! Quick service. Feasible! Of course I shall return

This place is a family favorite, authentic in Cantonese styled dishes for the Chinatown community.
This isn’t a MKee or Ting Wong where you can order a rice or noodle dish for an individual. If you come, make sure to do family style because dishes come fairly large and you’d want to try a variety of dishes! It’s best to come with a group of 4 or more be and ready to eat!
There is free «tong sui», chinese hot dessert drink/​soup at the end that changes each night. The owner is super sweet and always gives us extra free quarts if we ask– would definitely not miss out on this if you enjoy sweets!
Dishes to try:
–black pepper beef steak
–baked soft shell crab (salt and peppered)
–sautéed clams
–pan fried seafood noodles

3.5 stars.
Came here last night after a win in AC (it wasn’t big, but it did pay for this dinner!) We ordered take out since it was getting a little late and we wanted to get the kids in bed. Oh man, I didn’t realize this place gets beyond crowded, but it didn’t effect my food being made in a timely manner.
Scallion ginger lobster — Amazing. Lobster is my staple food choice. I can eat it everyday for the rest of my life. This place makes it so good! The lobster is covered in the perfect amount of flour and seasoned just right. My wife ate probably 3 pieces and I ate the remaining order. No leftovers for today :-(
Peking duck — I recommend skipping this. One, I thought peking duck shouldn’t have bones… what happened here? I got a dish filled with it. And 2, I thought it also isn’t supposed to be as fatty? I felt they gave me roast duck and threw in some Bao’s and called it a day.
Salted fish fried rice — so good! This is the first place that I’ve tried it years and years ago, and it’s still as good as I remember. Only place that you can actually taste the salted fish. Delicious
Snails in black bean sauce — The snails were of nice size and so tasty. For those who don’t know how to eat snails — try and suck it out and if you get it out, make sure you spit out the black scale looking thing. If that doesn’t work, dig it out with a toothpick. Swirl swirl swirl, and wala!
Beef chow fun with gravy — Ehhhh, i felt it too bland. the sauce wasn’t flavored enough. I felt like I was eating noodles in water.
Fish Maw soup — love that they make it thick, however, I felt it could have used a tad bit more seasoning. They did give me spicy soy sauce, so I used it to give it more flavor.
Overall — When I go back, it’ll mainly be for just the seafood. Fresh and cooked just right.

This Is probably one of the best places to get seafood in the Chinatown. My sister had her wedding upstairs, so we like this place!
Can’t go wrong with any of the dishes here; it’s pretty good compared to other Chinese restaurants in Philly.

This place is pretty good, it’s well known restaurant for its Cantonese food. There are always events held at this restaurant, so I advise to call beforehand and get a reservation for large/​small groups during dinner hours. Out of all the times I’ve come here, ⁴⁄₅ times I was told to wait 15mins + before getting seated.
The service here is on par, waiters and waitresses are always bustling around cleaning up or serving. Your drink will always be refilled instantly and you won’t have any problems trying to find a waiter/​waitress to assist you.
The price at this place is a tad higher and you might want to think twice before you come here casually. I would say be prepared to spend about $ 25+ .
My favorite dishes is the half duck and the black chicken soup. Growing up my mom always made me the soup, so it’s like eating a home cooked meal to me!

Was on vacation in Philly and came here on a recommendation from a friend we were staying with.
Atmosphere: Entrance has aquariums filled with fresh, live sea food of all kinds, good start. Place can be spruced up a bit décor wise, slightly old-​fashioned. Waiters were dressed nicely with ties and white shirt and aprons. Cloth napkins and tablecloth was a nice touch along with water glasses that you would find at a banquet hall. Most of the dinner guests (It was almost a full house of people) were of Asian decent.
Service: Good. Waiters were slightly curt and very unfriendly, especially when mentioned that our dinner guest is allergic to shellfish (he got a chicken dish, and we got pork fried rice, and we figured it would just be a good idea to mention this to our waiter). She looked at him and in a frustrated and slightly accelerated tone said something along the lines of «You got chicken… how is chicken seafood… there is no seafood in that!» Then our highly allergic friend said «I’m going to die» (Jokingly) to us after she left the table.
Food: We all got a wonton soup which was great. I got sweet and sour chicken which I liked a lot, my boyfriend got general tso chicken which I also liked but he said he’s had better, and our guest got the lemon chicken which I thought was also delicious. The pork fried rice that we all split wasn’t totally the best ever, but it was good.
Price point: For all mentioned above (four dinners, three soups, and two beers) it cost me 70 dollars (tip included). Okay, so I know we didn’t get anything authentic, and the food was good, but for the typical Chinese takeout stuff, 60 bucks isn’t cheap. I would have been just as happy getting takeout somewhere up the street for 10 – 20 bucks less.

This place might be a better after hours spot than David Mai La wah. I am a fan of the salt pepper wings at mai la wah but the chinese food at Tai Lake is pretty decent!
We got the jellyfish, beef ho fun, fish tofu (so good) and some spicy dish (not so good).
I recommend getting the beef ho fun and fish tofu.
They stop serving alcohol after 2am.

As far as Chinese seafood goes in Philly, this is the place to go! Tai Lake offers some fresh authentic seafood cooked to perfection. If you like seafood, you must try.
The dishes to order:
Fish Maw & Crabmeat soup (add red vinegar)
Clams in black bean sauce
Lobster in ginger scallion sauce
Dungeness crab salt and pepper style
Steamed fish in ginger soy sauce
Order those exact dishes and you will be in heaven and thank me later!