Joy Luck Palace

Decided to try this place for dim sum on a Saturday morning and it was nothing but a huge disappointment.
Ordered the usual dim sum dishes. Chicken feet, shrimp rice rolls, chive dumpling, shrimp dumplings, egg tarts, and a spare ribs rice roll. Besides the chive dumpling and the egg tarts, everything came off a steam cart. While they seemed like they were steaming hot. all dishes were lukewarm or cold. Also the spare ribs rice rolls were spoiled, assuming so because the rice rolls had a sour taste to them and both my husband and I started having stomach pains about 5 minutes after we left the restaurant.
We barely finished any of the dishes which came out to be almost $ 30 dollars and just left.
Can’t believe none of the dishes seemed fresh at all on a Saturday morning. Which is pretty much prime time for dim sum.
Service was nonexistent since we had to run after the dim sum carts because they passed by us like we weren’t even there and carried our own dishes back to the table.

I’ve yet to find good dim sum in The City. Seemed promising after reading an article from TIME OUT but was let down. There was pretty much nothing on the carts, and everything tasted lackluster at best.
Their signature piggy buns were cute. But the custard or whatever inside just wasn’t for me. Come to think of it, were there any egg tarts in rotation? Urgh. Wish I had one of those instead.

They have creative dimsum option, with cute faces on them
The shiu mai is the best thing here
do not order the rice wrapped with leaves, the rice was super soggy and was not good at all
very cheap place for dimsum, good for a group of people.
Food is a little below average

Awesome food here. The staff is very attentive and very friendly. They would come and change our plates every 10 – 20 minutes. We came here for a birthday dinner. We ordered all the traditional Chinese dishes that people usually order like ginger scallion lobster, sweet sour pork chops, walnut shrimp, some sauteed spinach and etc. The owner was very generous and gave us an extra dish of lobster, steamed oyster, and scallops. This is a pretty big restaurant and I do hope to come back for their piggy buns.

WOW! I remember coming here a lot when it was Harmony. They have really vamped up the space. It doesn’t look anything like the old Harmony. They also have a big screen to project stuff!
We came for dinner, and the food was great. Not too oily, and very tasty. Even their Buddha’s Delight, which is usually quite boring, was really good!
I hope there will be another dinner here!

This new dim sum place has high ceilings and they space out the tables, which is a plus since dimsum joints typically leave you feeling claustrophobic.
Their beef tripe stew, chitterlings, & chicken feet were all standard. The spare ribs (pai gwut) was on the fatty side and the durian pastry wasn’t warm or super flaky. But I can deal with this mediocrity, since I mainly come to dimsum for their salted lava egg bun (lau sa bao). Unfortunately, this ended up being the biggest disappointment of the meal.
The lady presented the egg custard bun (nai wong bao) and lava bun and we specifically chose the lava bun. Usually, it’s a steaming hot bun encased with this golden liquid. But when I ripped the bun open, my dreams of this magical lava was replaced with some yellowish brown custard! The salty/​sweet taste was there so we definitely knew this wasn’t an accidental order of nai wong bao, especially since this didn’t have the infamous piggy on it. My family said last time, the inside was oozing yellow, so mayyybe this was a defective order. But this probably indicates an issue with quality control. I can only assume that they reheated old buns, hence the texture and darker color.
Total between 2 people was ~$ 30 with leftovers. I’d come back for the spaciousness and to see if they can redeem themselves with their lau sa bao.

Visited Joy Luck Palace on Sunday around 1 – 2 pm. There wasn’t any wait and we were able to get a table instantly. There was still a good amount of people around.
First the food. The food was pretty good. Definitely a step up from the other Dim Sum places in the city. I have had better but not in the city. The shrimp dumplings and shumai were delicious. The skin was moist and the meat juicy. We also got Youtiao, which is rice noodles wrapped around chinese churros. The churros was fresh and crunchy and the rice noodle had cilantro wrapped with it as well. I wish they gave us more sweet soy sauce with is as the churros abosorbed it all quickly. There were a couple dim sum dishes that didn’t really hit the mark. There was a shrimp and corn dumpling that ended up losing the taste of shrimp. We also ordered chive buns but they were filled with spinach instead.
Now on to the service. I think the service is where I really had to take stars off. Considering how busy the place was, I would have expected there to be more carts moving around. Most of the time on the floor I only saw maybe four carts. Also the carts would pass by us without asking if any of us wanted anything or even take a look. We ended up having to stand most of time or go directly up to the carts to get food.
I m hoping the poor service was just due to the time of the day. The food was good for dim sum in the city.

Joy Luck is a decent dim sum restaurant. Can’t say much about banquet style dining during the regular week however the food is above par. Since having renovated from Grand Harmony, which it was before for many years prior, it’s got a modern feel albeit, a bit stoic. Either way, they are busy at the hours you’d expect it to be for dim sum and not overly packed to the gills. I’m sure that will change in time as more people venture there over the other places throughout chinatown. Definitely worth a try over the other area restaurants I’m used to going to. The draw is definitely the custard buns in the shape of piggies as well as the carrot shaped offering.

Came here for mothers day and luckily there wasn’t a crazy line, but when I taste the food I understood why. Most of the food was a little bland. The fusion dishes were interesting and edible but nothing great. I usually judge a dim sum place by their chicken feet, this place wasn’t good. Beef rice roll skin was sticky and the beef didn’t have any chestnuts in it. Not sure if it’s suppose to but I usually prefer they do. The worst part is when I found a dead bug in my food, I wouldn’t mind if I had been prepared for it but was completely off gust by the nice décor. I do like the variety of baos, especially the piggy bao hence 2 stars.

What a great job the owners of Kam Hing have done renovating the former Grand Harmony dim sum restaurant. Of course I would expect nothing less as their sponge cakes are the best in Chinatown as are their prices!
As I experienced yesterday, they are busy even at 2 PM in the afternoon when other places are quieting down. All the dishes looked delicious. I have nor mai gai… sticky rice filled with chicken, sausage, quail egg and a few more things that many other places leave out. Prices I believe are $ 2.25, 2.75 and 3.25 or maybe it was 3.50.
My fear is that the Jin Fong crowd will hear about this place and it will even be more mobbed… the price I pay for writing good reviews I guess :-)

First of all, make sure you have got enough time to spare as the waiting time can be insane, just as other Chinatown dim sum places. However I would still recommend this place to girls due to the famous piggy bun!
While their other dim sum plates were just ok, the piggy buns were simply so adorable! If you squeeze it really hard, the egg curd could even flow out haha! The durian custard was also crispy and flavorful.
Good deal if you could come in earlier and secure a seat right away.

There is a new Yum Cha banquet hall in town! Out with the old and in with the new. Brighter décor of modern neon changing lights in the ceiling. Chairs replaced without broken cushions but Dim Sum push cart ladies constant chatter rather than serving patrons as I had to grab a spoon from the cart as my request when into void. There is one unique Dim Sum that I have not seen which is the piggy bun but sadly it was not available as the kitchen was in the process of cooking it. Price is reasonable. The business name bears a strong resemblance of Amy Tan’s renowned fictional novel «Joy Luck Club.»
My foodie synopsis (using Jyutping romanisation for Chinese Cantonese):
燒 賣 (siu1 maai6*2) — Pork and mushroom dumpling was okay, somewhat stale
豬 腸 粉 (zyu1 coeng4*2/4 fan2) — Chee Cheong Fun noodle roll emits a thick noodle skin and pork is okay
蝦 腸 (haa1 coeng4) Rice noodle roll with shrimp contains thick noodle skin and shrimp is okay
珍 珠 雞 (Zan1 zyu1 Gai1) — Sticky rice lotus wraps were good
蝦 餃 (haa1 gaau2) Shrimp Dumplings emits a very thick skin that sticks with other shrimp dumplings
鳳 爪 (fung6 zaau2) Phoenix Claws was good without swimming in an ocean of oil
芒 果 布 甸 (mong4 gwo2 bou3 din1) Mango Pudding was good with pieces of actual mango, not watery
Notes: Newbie restaurant will have a minimum of half hour wait or more. No cellular signal inside. Restroom facilities are located in the lower level with lots of windy stairs making it difficult for the physically challenged.

Joy Luck sure knows how to throw a party, and dim sum is the name of the game.
Even thought they’ve only been open for roughly a month, Joy Luck Palace’s popularity has blown through the roof. I blame Eater, but hey, I guess good food is the hardest secret to keep. We arrived at 11AM on a Sunday, and it still took over 45 minutes to get a table for six. Arrive on time, do a little shopping, and then make your way back.
Service is one of the better ones I’ve seen in Chinatown. There was never a lull in carts, all the servers were actually courteous and explained what certain dishes were when we assumed incorrectly, and our teapot was never empty.
Food-​wise, they did a pretty good job. My favorites, including rice noodle shrimp and fried taro balls, passed the test, although the taro balls could’ve had a little more flavor to them. The highlight of the meal and what everyone has been taking photos of were the little pig buns. They’re basically your traditions egg cream buns, but their cuteness and fluffiness just make it that much more enjoyable to eat. The only thing I wish I could’ve changed were the pea shoots. Their dim sum was awesome, but a simple pea shoots with garlic cost us $ 17, by far the most expensive item of the morning.
I’m glad to see that there’s a new dim sum option in the neighborhood, although places aren’t opening fast enough for the growing demand. The fact that a 300+ capacity restaurant opened up and the waits are just as long means you still got to wake up early if you want that dim sum fix!

This new Dim Sum and Banquet Hall open recently in the place of the old Harmony restaurant.
The décor is brighter and more comfortable then the previous restaurant.
The are also related with the Joy Luck Restaurant in Brooklyn 8 AVE Chinatown.
The dim sum in better than most other places in Chinatown.
They have a couple of unique dim sum designs like the piggy egg custer bun and the carrot shape fried dim sum.
If you like dim sum you will like this place.
The wait was long; 45 minutes starting at 11AM and the crowd just kept growing.

Robert Sietsema called this place spectacular. That is all I need to hear in order to go anywhere. I usually go directly across the street to Royal Seafood as Miss A loves three specific things there. In addition, on weekdays, they are the first dim sum place to open in Chinatown and I can park right out in front on a week day and have a half hour to eat with free parking. I find it all to be not exciting but, Royal seems to be the best of the bunch. Well, i should say, I haven’t been to any other dim sum place in Chinatown in perhaps 2 or 3 years so, who knows at this point.
The foodie world and my group of Chinese Friends who did not hear about Joy Luck from Sietsema were also hearing rumblings about this place. We arrived two weekends ago and the place was a mob scene. We arrived last weekend and the place was again mobbed to the point where there was a wait to even get a number. Both times we bailed.
We arrived yesterday (Monday) morning around 930 and there was still a 20 minute wait. We were the only non Asian customers in the place. You had the usual old people killing time and nursing a plate or two but, you also had large rowdy tables of people chowing down. It’s exciting, in the boring landscape of Manhattan Dim Sum, there is a new place where you can order 5 or 6 new dishes.
We started with beef tendon:
Gelatinous, there was a sesame sauce and wine and some of the flavors in a classic chicken feet. Also had some pumpkin or sweet potato. Miss A was scarfing this down and singing it’s praises. She didn’t know right away that what she was eating and I wasn’t rushing to tell her. I eventually came clean and by this point the dish was finished. She was happy and this was the most successful dish of the meal. Worth going for
They offer two versions of this dish. What we normally find in Manhattan are the steamed ribs with wine and fermented beans with some jalapeño tossed in. These were the steamed ribs with peppers and some pumpkin. It was a little bland but, the quality of the ribs were nice.
Fish ball: topped with black pepper. These were nice. Good to dip into the red sauce. The hot red sauce has some orange in it.
These were excellent. Glutinous Blobs filled with pork and pickled vegetables wrapped with nori. Loved the texture, loved the whole thing. Another thing worth coming for:
Baby squid in curry. This was pretty good. Mild curry. But, there is something about a generic yellow curry that is very comforting. I use to get tin foil chicken and curry chicken when I was a kid at the Chinese restaurants.
then we moved on to the desserts. Now there are two desserts at Royal Seafood that we love. One is the custard buns. I have had them all over China too and I have consistently found, the ones at Royal Seafood to be my personal favorite. .Royal seafoods custard buns are a lot more loose. It’s like hot buttery custard where most places have this pudding type consistency in their buns.
this is another item that goes head to head with Royal. At royal they have these crispy green balls filled with peanut and sesame. Here they are carrots. While super cute, ball form is better:
Durian Pastry for me. These were hot and crispy with a really nice filling. A very proficient version:
In conclusion, the place is good. The place is kind of upsetting because it highlights the sameness and monotony of Manhattan Dim Sum. Oh well, we shall take what we get. I will be back for sure.

Decent dim sum place in Chinatown. This place is completely renovated. There is a big screen projector looking thing at the back of the restaurant now, which is pretty cool. The lightings are so much nicer. All in all, the atmosphere is so much greater than what it used to be.
As for the food, I only stopped by to try a couple of things since I was going on a food adventure that day. I did not want to fill myself up with too much. They have pretty unique dim sum that I have never saw at any other restaurant. If you like the cute and creative dim sum, then this place is the place to try. I usually get the good old original dim sum dishes. Haha, the chicken feet, churng fun, spare ribs, and etc. Those were pretty decent. I have not had good dim sum in Chinatown for a while and this place cuts it for me though Brooklyn places are still better (haha, IMO). It could possibly be the new renovated atmosphere that made me enjoy the dim sum more!

I came here specifically for the Piggy custard buns and was happy that they had them! Last time I went in the late afternoon, they were all sold out. So it was pretty exciting to eat them and get a great Instagram photo op.
First off, the place is mobbed on a weekend morning/​afternoon like any other dim sum place you will find in Chinatown. It was two of us and we probably waited about 30 minutes before we got seated. at a shared table.
Our table pretty much sucked because the carts would go right past us. We had to flag them down to get what we wanted or go up to them before they left the kitchen to roam around on the floor.
The highlight was definitely the piggy buns and also the baked char siu baos. Didn’t get to have much food because we were filling up on all the carbs, but the shrimp roll was good too. better than I’ve had at other places.
The waitress who was in our section was really attentive. Cleared all the empty baskets in a timely manner and refilled our tea when we needed more water.

Went at 2:30pm for late dim sum. The restaurant was half empty. Parties of 3 – 5 were occupying the large tables.
The dim sum was mediocre. I’ve had better elsewhere. They were lukewarm and under seasoned. We ordered dim from the side table. There were no dim sum carts.
The beef chow fun was okay. Decent amount of beef and noodle ratio.
While we’re were eating, the staff sat at the next table for their lunch. We though it was weird as typically in other dim sum restaurants they would sit further from patrons. They were a bit loud.
The carpet was very dirty, and there were food/​crumbs on the chairs.
There are better restaurants in Chinatown for dim sum. I wouldn’t go back.

My favorite dim sum place! I like how they take classics and add their own spin to them. Among other things, we ordered the little piggies with custard, turtle pineapple cake, shu mai with roe and gelatinous dumplings wrapped in seaweed. That last one resembled sushi a lot in appearance but was more chewy and had a meat filling. Everything was delicious and moderately priced. Yes, the wait can be long but it is worth it.
Additionally, I also came here for dinner. I think the dinner quality of food is on par, if not better than the dim sum. One of my good friends, Patrick, is one of the shareholders and explained that their head chef has over 20 years of experience and that they are working to add new items on the menu. We had the lobster salad which was just mindblowingly refreshing, crispy chicken with garlic, eggplant dish and a pork belly dish with gingko nuts. We were also served free dessert: sweet red bean soup and oranges. Loved, loved, loved the meal. I recommended it to my mom and a couple of friends.

I’ll agree with the current overall rating.
Came on a Sunday afternoon to give Joy Luck Palace a try. Both JLP and Jing Fong had an hour wait, so we figured we’d try the new place. Waiting outside, we took a look inside, and it was chaos as usual. Thankfully, we were seated after only waiting about 15 minutes, albeit having to split the table with another party, which was actually fine. The place is pretty much like a smaller, slightly more modern version of Jing Fong, sans escalators. The only problem is that even though there’s a lot of space, it’s still very crowded, and there’s barely any space for the carts to roll around. Be prepared to have the carts run into your chair every once in awhile, and being shouted at in Cantonese. Oh wait, that’s just life at dim sum. You’ll notice that there’s a platform at the back of the restaurant, complete with huge TV screen, that I think could easily cause a seizure with all the lights and screen savers going on.
Got the staples: shrimp dumplings, shrimp long noodle roll, lotus-​wrapped sticky rice, pan-​fried turnip cakes, pork and shrimp shao mai, chicken feet, and pork spareribs. Everything was actually very good. The shrimp dumplings (har gow/​xia jiao) are easily the hardest to find, and they only come out every so often, so people pounce on the carts when they come out. We also tried the egg custard buns, made to look like cartoon pig faces, something you can also find at Golden Unicorn. The bun itself was pretty good, and a good end to the meal. In all, the food quality is slightly better, but the variety of dishes is far superior at Jing Fong. That being said, we may have caught them on an off-​day, so there will be further investigation into this.
Service is pretty typical of a dim sum restaurant: fast-​paced, kind of aloof, and not much grace. That being said, our service was fine, and they managed to bring everything out. The prices are excellent and just about on par with the other dim sum restaurants, as the 4 of us ate for $ 50 total ($ 12.5 per person), which included tip and tax.
In all, Joy Luck Palace seems like a solid place for dim sum, with many aspects similar to Golden Unicorn, Jing Fong, etc. The food quality is good, yet there’s not quite yet an outstanding reason to come back over the other dim sum places. I’ll be back to see if the variety improves, but at this point, you should go to the dim sum joint that will seat you the quickest.