Moongate Garden Restaurant

This was my to-​go place for dimsum! I’m sad it closed):

The restaurant was closed on sunday and by looking at the interior it appears it has closed permanently. No sign on the door to say that they are coming. Another dimsum place at this location has bitten the dust.

Came here on a Sunday afternoon (at around 1:30pm) and there was no wait, even for a party of 10. There were not much people, too. We were seated quickly and the staff was very quick at attending to our needs (this isn’t usually the case during the peak hours).
Anyways, we ordered the usuals: har gow, siu mai, rice noodles (shrimp and cha siu), chicken feet, and many more. There weren’t as much of a selection since we were getting the last batch of the remaining dim sum. I wasn’t sure if they made more as the lady went around with the cart. The food was good but it wasn’t to die for. I’ve definitely had better.
Overall, my experience here was good. The food was good and the service was pretty decent. The price wasn’t too bad since it was around $ 12 when splitting between six people.

Food: 5 stars
Service: 2 stars
An average of 3.5 stars, but I’ll give them a 3.
This is one of my favorite Dim Sum places in the bay area. They have the best egg-​yolk buns (why I go there) and have really, really good chicken feet. The food isn’t too salty or bland and isn’t heavy after you eat it (like some chinese restaurants out there). The food was good, but service was the worst.
There was a very long line from outside the restaurant and that was because no one was at the front seating people/​giving numbers. The workers there don’t really do what they are assigned to do and because they don’t have a set way of doing things, everything is very disorganized. People that got there later than us (of the same amount of people) were seated before us and numbers were repeated multiple times. Many people were arguing with the workers, which only added to the chaos already in the restaurant.
Overall, I would recommend this place, but either come super early (11:00) or come later (1:30) to avoid the mess that happens when they’re busy.

Dim sum was very good. Not cheap, but dim sum in San Jose is never cheap. One of the few things I love about San Francisco, but that’s a different review. I ordered chicken feet, har gow, and shu mai. All solid and huge. For what the convenience and the value, i’d say the cost for lunch was worth it. I will be back. Their pan fried noodles looked good and so did heir lobster noodles.

I have had dim sum at a quite a few places and this place was just ok when measuring up against them. It didn’t seem like they had enough variations of carts. We had the shrimp dumplings, shrimp rice noodles, tripe, and fried shrimp balls. But they didn’t have a good cart for desserts and I think their dumpling selection was lacking. It was packed, but there was nothing special about this place. Meh there are other places to get better dim sum.

Food that is acceptable for dim sum;some hits, some miss so averages out.
The hargow skin was a bit stiff; shrimp were salty.
The lo-​may gay (bamboo leaf-​wrapped sticky rice) had okay-​flavor, but had the egg, Chinese sausage and some big chunky mushroom (not the flavorful shitake one though).
Steamed barbeque pork bun was good.
Beef tripe was great.
Fish-​paste ball was unique, but didn’t taste shockingly different.
Rice-​sheet wrapped shrimp was acceptable.

Update: change of ownership = mess up everything
This was one of my top chinese food destinations in the Bay Area. Recently came to eat here to find they changed the ownership and quality along with it.
I am a regular here so when I order my normal go to dishes and they don’t make them right, it’s a total let down.
Some of the dishes we ordered went from fantastic to just ok while others were just terrible. The server totally ordered the wrong dishes not once but 2x. Flavor has fallen.
Very unfortunate.
I wish them good luck in getting new business, unfortunately they will be losing mine :(

Party: 3
Ambiance: loud
Money spent on avg: $ 40
Service: depends on crowd
I’ve been coming to this place with my family for a few years now and I didn’t realize I never Unilocaled it!
We almost never come here for the dim sum because you can get better and cheaper elsewhere. So, this review is strictly for the menu items.
We typically order the ying-​yang fried rice (two flavored fried rice), seafood pan-​fried noodles, and saucy beef chow fun. Each of these dishes are about $ 11.50. The flavors are pretty good, and the portions are decent compared to other places. However, I’m not entirely sure if it’s actually worth $ 12 a plate. The ambiance isn’t that «fancy» compared to Mayflower, and the service isn’t spectacular either.
Also, there is a fee for tea; $ 1 per person, but they do serve the finer specialty teas.

Moon Gate rocks for seafood. Has the lobster with ginger sauce and the black bean clams. Very fresh and much spiced. As with all Chinese restaurants service is not perfect but it was pretty darn good here
Walnut shrimp was very good and we also had the bean sprout and mushrooms which was very good. We brought three bottles of wine and were only charged corkage for one bottle which was really nice
If you like Chinese food and fresh seafood this place is highly recommended and bot as pricy as Mayflower.

Ehhh… I’ve had some pretty bomb dim sum to compare to this place. They just kept bombarding us with carts when we barely got seated! I was also surprised by their single card payment (no split checks!). I would recommend bringing cash. The food was alright, but there were a few dishes that stuck out. I liked these meat balls with an exterior much like the sesame ball desserts. It was savory but really tasty! Their steam bun was just like most I’ve tasted– nothing special. Their tea was just alright– not too impressed. We also had some shumai which was just okay. I can tell some items were sitting out for awhile.
Other than that, I don’t know if I would come back even though it wasn’t so costly in the end. Parking is tough on a weekday because this place is packed with 3 boba places in one plaza! There’s also a Ranch99, so it was clearly time to stock up the kitchen for everybody. I felt like we also got a lot of attention because our friend knew fluent Cantonese. I don’t know if we would’ve gotten the same treatment otherwise. I would probably try another dim sum place before coming back.

Hmmm. I can’t give this place a 3 star because the food didn’t really even hit «meh it’s ok» for me. Had dinner here today. No crowd on a Saturday night.
Why 2 stars? Well it wasn’t horrible. And service was fine. But damn the food was… bland. Everything was so BLAND. Everything left me unsatisfied… disappointed…as if they could’ve done differently.
So yes, 2 stars. I only came here because someone Else picked it. I would never have thought to come here for dinner before and now I know not to.

Visits: 7
Rating: 3.5*
Decent dim sum here. Better than it use to be. The main reason we come here is there Egg Lava Bun. It’s a baked bun that looks like the pineapple bun but with a liquidity, semi-​sweet, salted duck egg center. It might sound weird to some but give it a shot anyways. It’s delicious, especially to those that love salted duck eggs. One of those things you will crave for since Moongate is the only one that makes it in the area. As far as I know anyways.

[ Dinner review. ]
You should be able to tell looking at the fish tank up front — what’s in there is definitely not happy, potentially diseased, and probably tastes worse ‘fresh’ than if it had been killed a couple days ago and brought in frozen.
We had a lot of disappointing dishes here, we overall were not happy… The only thing that was good was a clay pot dish containing braised tofu, and a weird tea-​leaf salad thing. The rest is kind of a blur (usually for me, means that it wasn’t good.)
Oh well.

I only dim sum when my parents are here visiting. Otherwise, you won’t be finding me in any dim sum place the rest of the times.
It’s not that I don’t like dim sum; I freakin love it! But I don’t have the urge to have it like my other cravings that I usually have. So it’s always a treat to have dim sum with my parents whenever they’re in town.
I tried this place for the 1^st time a couple weeks ago, and it was pretty good. We got the lobster noodles which was pretty delish & low priced too! Usually in Chinatown SF, the lobster noodles is high priced, but then again– it’s in SF, that’s why.
It’s the usual where you can checkmark what you want & turn in the menu to the waiter or just wait til the ladies push their carts to you to pick your dim sum delights.
I still have to say that my favorite & the best dim sum place I’ve had so far has to be Dublin’s Koi Palace.

I came here on Father’s Day with a couple of friends. It was already a bad idea since it was a Sunday, but this place gets PACKED! We couldn’t find parking so we parked in the residential neighborhood behind and my friend had to park across the street in a different plaza.
The food was good and I think it’s decently priced. My boyfriend has been here twice and he said the har gao (shrimp dumpling) and the ngau churn (beef rice roll) are difficult to come across! He didn’t get it the first time when he went because he was tired of waiting for it to come out. When I went, we finally got it and it was soo good! They were huge! There was like 4 or 5 pieces of shrimp in one dumpling!
I’m a little disappointed that the char xiu bao (pork bun) is made special to order and not on the regular carts. They’re my favorite!

Only been here on weekdays for lunch with coworkers. I was surprised that it wasn’t crowded at all on a Friday lunch time.
Moongate served typical, basic dim sum — nothing fancy. Don’t expect to find any modification or enhancement of the traditional dim sum, where a lot of other places do.
Quality was alright, portion was big, price was decent. If you just want to get a quick fix, this may be a place for you.

Moongate is another Chinese restaurant that serves dim sum for lunch. The prices are pretty average but I wouldn’t say that the quality is all that great. I came here a few years back and thought it was the best thing ever because it was the first time I had a pineapple custard bun. I came here recently and the food is just not the same. Their pineapple bun looks like a muffin so the ratio of crust and bun is off. If you want a good dim sum restaurant in Milpitas, go to Mayflower Restaurant.
**TIPS**
1) You can never go wrong with custard pineapple buns!
2) Enjoy!

I came here at around 1:30 PM for dim sum, and there were barely any carts going around even though dim sum is supposed to go until 2:30. Despite this problem, my friends and I were still able to order any of the dim sum items we wanted.
The Xiu Mai and Shrimp Dumplings (standard dim sum fare) were both HUGE and delicious! The Egg Tarts and Spare Ribs were also surprisingly really good. In fact, the flavor of the Spare Ribs was so good that I ate more than I normally would. The Sweet Buns with Salted Duck Egg were only ok, so pass on those!
Not bad for dim sum. I will be back!

Pretty packed on a Sunday night. Got seated right away and served hot tea.
Straight to the point:
–Sizzling spare ribs
–Rice
–Hot and Sour Soup
–String beans
I ordered whatever I could see what every other table was ordering. The soup and string beans was what I decided on since it must be good.
The string beans were really good! hot and crunchy. Bits of pork I think in there too. The soup was just how hot and sour soup should taste. Nothing spectacular but good. The sizzling spare ribs were SIZZLING! A lot of oil in my opinion… it was popping all over the place! I had to shield myself with my napkin to keep the oil from splashing in my face. Overall it was good and I liked that they serve complimentary dessert. I’d come back to try other menu items.