Emerald Bay Restaurant

Food here was so terrible that it was funny. We all went to eat after because they didn’t give enough food to serve our table, even though people had already gone home so… there should be more than enough food for everyone.
They have this «seafood fruit salad» or something, and it is literally frozen shrimps, cantelope, and mayonnaise mixed together. It was so gross and stupid that everyone was laughing so much when it came out (first entrée of the night).
Other things that came out (I honestly forgot) were also disappointment but so gross it was funny. I dont know how you can make food so bad. Also the food looks nothing presentable…
Dont throw your wedding or event here. Unless you trollin’

If there was a way to give negitive stars I would.
Cousin was tricked by her colleague to book 63 tables at this place for her company X-​mas party. (12÷19÷14)
I dont even know where to start. They only had enough chairs and tables to accomadate 48 tables. The other 15 tables and 150 fifty chairs were crappy plastic dirty substitutions. Floor was filthy. Just bad all around.
We had to order chair covers literally at the last min, because their chair covers were dirty and unwashed. (This was 3 hours before the party)
During the xmas party. Emerald Bay management hid the beer that we supplied and sold there own beer to our guests. The servers werent allowed to serve us the beers we brought but only ones bought from the from Emerald Bay. If we wanted our beers we had to walk to the corner where our beer was «kept» unchilled and served to us by one of the guest who volunteered to help. Top of that they sold bottle waters at $ 2 a pop. No ice water Wtf… And not all items on the menu were served… so disgusted.
Never book an event here!!! New Owners should be ashmed of their work ethic!!!
If for some heinous reason you book an event here make sure that you have a contract with these people. My cousin believed her colleague and Emerald Bay to have good work ethic and didnt have a contract WROST DECISION OF 2014.

Company party was only hosted here because «someone knows the owner». You would think if «someone knows the owner» you would get a good deal, good service, better treatment. Well that is definitely not the case.
Booked 63 tables –10 each, meaning we were expecting to have 630 guests. Upon agreement, the owner said there will be chair covers, we are able to bring in our own beer, great service, free random things like peanuts, tea and 2 desserts (fruit and Che).
Day of the event, December 19, 2014. Party is scheduled to start at 6pm. Arrive at 2pm. Half the restaurant has gold chiavari chairs, the back room which holds about 20 tables has PLASTIC LAWN CHAIRS. Lazy Susans are all chipped. The worst part was the plastic chairs didn’t match with one another. There was 2 different kinds! The owner brought in chair covers with grease stains. I myself put it on the plastic chair and it ended up looking like a trash can. All of a sudden the staff brings out the better looking (of the two) plastic chairs to replace the uglier ones that don’t match. Why didn’t you do that in the first place?
3pm. Literally had to call my chair cover guy to come and bring me CLEAN chair covers made for plastic chairs and had them tied with a bow so it looks presentable. Called my flower lady to make 63 center pieces to make the place look a little better.
5pm. An hour before the party. None of the beer is chilled. We brought in A LOT of beer. I see a sign on their counter /​bar that lists pricing for alcohol and also beer. I wanted it to be taken down so there is no confusion. They said they have a liquor license and need to selll. No. You rented this entire place out for a company party. You only serve our free beer to our guests!
7:30pm food finally comes out.
Cold platter– you can’t really go wrong with this because it’s premade cold cuts.
Soup– terrible. They even had the canned peas and carrots in this.
Seafood birds nest– a lot of broccoli. Didn’t see much seafood
Then a long time passed.
Lobster with noodle– this had to be 3lb or less. Among 10 people? Wtf. That’s enough for 2 people.
Roasted crispy duck– didn’t even bother, just too much bone.
A lot more time passes by.
Fried rice– came out with styrofoam cups and plastic spoons… Normally this comes with the fish? Didn’t even bother eating this
Time goes by… So slowly…
Fried fish fillet– tastes worse than take out Chinese food
Che for dessert– didn’t even bother
Normally, the restaurant goes above and beyond for the most important table, the ones who paid for the party. We were getting our own ice. There was no water. When asked if the waitress could bring us a beer she said no since you hosted it you get it yourself. Sorry then I’m not sure what the service charge was for?! If the most important table got terrible service, what do you think the rest of the guests had to endure?
We later found out:
— they were charging people for water when we brought in water
— they were selling people our cold beer. Vietnamese places carry heineken, corona, budlight. They were selling blue moon. Our blue moon!
— people ended up paying for the cold beer because they didn’t want to drink warm beer or didn’t know there was beer to begin with (because the beer station was hidden in the corner in the back).
— they stole some center pieces and obviously beer.
— had to pack over 10 tables of food to go because after hearing the event was at this sad establishment, people didn’t show up.
— people had to park in the surrounding neighborhood and walk over.
— had to pay $ 600 for lighting and sound…
Never do an event here, wedding, party, whatever it may be unless you want to be humiliated and cheated. Everything we were promised never happened. The owner even yelled at us and gave us attitude. It was a rodeo and I never want to come here again. This place is an embarrassment for whoever runs it and whoever decides to step foot inside and give them business. They’re super shady and unprofessional. Decided to cheat people to make a couple of bucks now you’re definitely going to lose A LOT of business.

I came here for an event on Saturday December 6^th, 2014. My mom and I sat at the vegetarian table=the cheap table. I paid $ 50.00 for my ticket and only 3 dishes came out. 1 hour into food service, I asked the waitress if more food was coming out. She let the table know no more dishes were coming out and that the person in charge of the event only ordered 3 dishes. That does not make sense because the waiter took away the last dish and it still had food in it. Plus, 1 table had at least 8 to 10 people & usually 8 to 10 dishes per table. 15 minutes later, I asked a waiter to see if more food was coming out and he let me know he just put a food order to the kitchen and food should be coming out shortly. 3 more dishes came out, but as soon as one waiter put a dish down at our table another waiter was ready to take the dish away. Our table had a total of 6 dishes while other tables had at least 11 dishes. I was not too happy with service or with my mom’s friend who grabbed my arm and told me to move to the non-​vegetarian table.
The fact of the matter was 1. The service was horrible, 2. 3 dishes between 8 people is not enough. 3. Just because it is the vegetarian table does not give you the right to skimp on food. 4. If it happened to another table you better believe they will complain.
1 star for the 3 extra dishes that the other tables also received.

This place is straight up phenomenal! Everytime I come here, there’s always a diverse menu, with dim sum some days, shark fin soup for dinner, the list of surprises keeps going.
My first experience coming here was for a wedding reception. Boy, do they go all out. There’s a large dance floor (if you’re into that), a live band on the stage, and the venue is just huge, accommodating 100+ people. There was karaōke too (who doesn’t love that?).
Typical Asian party atmosphere, though. It does get VERY loud when there’s an event going on.
The décor is pretty nice, with peaceful murals in the back and somewhat classy curtains in the front.
Highly recommend!

Wow! My first thought when my friend invite mw to this place is the food will taste bad due to all the review in the past but honestly, seem like everything change from the inside out of this restaurant. Definitely thinking about going to have my wedding here next yr!!!

Went here last last Sunday for a Vietnamese cultural event. Not reviewing the event that took place but the food and service.
The food was good. Typical Chinese dishes made well and tasted exactly as they should. Wasn’t out of this work spectacular but certainly can’t complain. The service was not so great because the server responsible for our table was slow refilling our waters and bringing new dishes out when the other tables are all up to par. Another patron at our table had to get up twice to remind her that we exist.
Overall, good food cooked well.
Apparently they’re strict in the lot in regards to parking on the supermarket side during the weekend and events. Just drop your peeps off and find parking. The most underdress person should be responsible for stealing a spot on the market side and then pretend to head in for a mango.

Save yourself. The only reason they get one star instead of zero is because their lo mein was actually really good. The whole place reeks of cigarettes. It felt like we were in a casino. All the food was gross and flavorless – not to mention the tiny portions. It was cheaper than most Chinese restaurants for the family style meal which is why we chose it, but holy crap. What a mistake!

Came here for a friend’s graduation dinner. Everything was alright nothing great nothing bad. I think it was a 8 course meal for like 8 people family style was like $ 350…but that might be because we had like 5 tables all together. I thought that was a pretty good price considering all the food. =] I think it included Soup Mang Cua, Vietnamese Chicken Salad, Salt and Pepper Shrimp, …some kind of sautéed beef and veggies, fried rice, House Special Lobster, Fried Fish in Hot and Sour Sauce, Fried Chicken. Nice place to throw a little banquet at.

Uh… I am actually not quite sure right now if I’m reviewing the right restaurant after seeing all these other reviews… o. O I’m pretty sure my taste buds and palate haven’t changed… haha xP I’m going to assume this was the place I just ate at and that it is probably under new management. I’m pretty sure whoever used to run this place just bounced and hid in shame after reading all these reviews… hahaha like dayuummm… some of this is pretty harsh xD I don’t doubt that you probably did experience that, but deeeyyyuummm… hahahaha Anyway. on to the good stuff.
Apparently they just swapped out the chefs in the back.(wouldn’t be surprised if they and the old boss left at the same time and chefs probably chopped off their own hands after reading these reviews. EEP!) But yea, as soon as I came in, an older gentleman approached me and I was promptly seated. He pointed out the fact that there was a new chef working so the food may take a little longer than usual because he/​she was still getting used to the kitchen. I waved it off and ordered a heiny first.
I browsed through the menu and came upon a couple things that I wanted to try this evening. First of all would be appetizers and I wanted to start off with the «gan ga chien nuoc mam» which would be the «wing chicken fried (in) fish sauce» mmm… then I decided to try the «bo luc lac» uhh…“beef shake” haha. And I got myself another heiny.
This was pretty cool actually… while I waited for my food. there was actually entertainment going on! Granted they were some Vietnamese singers singing mostly Vietnamese songs, I enjoyed watching the middle aged couples dancing the tango. and rhumba.and even «the twist» (that was hilarious hahahahaha) Shiet… after a couple more beers. I might have even gotten up and started showing how we do the cha cha cha nowadays xP
As I was informed, the food took a little longer than I would have thought, but thanks to the music and energy from everyone, I didn’t really mind and time seemed to pass by pretty quickly anyway. Before I knew it, my food was out. wings and beef. mmm…
The first thing I noticed was the aroma of garlic coming from somewhere, which I found out to be the fried wings. I LOVE garlic… so this was awesomeeeee… the wings were a touch over golden brown, but I assumed it was because of the garlic probably cooking too fast. (happens to me all the time) I love garlic any way it’s prepared, even burnt a little. haha. yummm… started pulling the wings apart… YUMMMMM!!! The cool thing is that it’s not like American places where it’s a drumstick or a «wing». This was a WHOLE wing… even the little wing tip (which by the way is like my favorite part of the whole thing when it is fried correctly) yea… yum…hahaha the garlic mixed with fish sauce and the whole wing being there… simply satisfying… i could have gone for a second round of the wings no problem… and I’m probably going to come back again for those wings haha.
On to the beef. MEH. It wasn’t bad… it COULD have been a little bit more tender, but at least it wasn’t like rubber how I’ve experienced before at a couple other places T_​T beef be bouncin’ around my mouth a shiet… hahaha
Overall, I’d say I rather enjoyed my experience here. Very personable manager (i found out later that the guy who sat me down and chit chat with was the manager). Chill atmosphere with an upbeat ambiance that screams «YOUTH» haha. End of the night came out to be $ 30 including $ 5 tip. Beer to my surprise was $ 2!!! At a restaurant!!! Hell yea! Had I known that from the beginning, I would have substituted my «beef shake» for a ton of beers! hahahaha jk jk it wasn’t THAT bad. I’m sure there are people out there who would enjoy it ^^
p. s. I am actually looking forward to some clubbing event they are planning to host here on the 29^th… Should be interesting seeing how they transform this banquet/​wedding venue into a clubbing scene! haha

I came here because I bought a
deal. Thank goodness they honored it.
I ordered the Shaken Beef, Fish Fillet in Sweet & Sour Sauce, Salty Fish Fried Rice, and Shrimp & Cashews in their house special sauce.
Love the shaken beef and shrimp! It was surprisingly satisfying and I found myself eating more than I should. The fried rice was ok, nothing to boast, nothing to complain, but the fish I could do without. It tasted like a fancier version of orange chicken… but with fish.
The place is always empty, and I’m guessing it’s because they are too far away from Little Saigon area. But do give this place a chance, their lunch/​dinner dishes aren’t bad. They also offer lunch menus.

Ew.
We had our engagement dinner here for my Vietnamese side of the family. The food was not tasty, and the service was not good.
I had two vegetarian friends at the dinner, and asked (in Vietnamese very nicely) if they could get a bowl of rice and lettuce. The waiter said that since the party next door was so large (there’s another banquet room), they didn’t have enough staff to accommodate our request. Ludicrous! My friends left hungry that night; one of which was a nursing mother!
The space was ample for our guests, and they had a stage with instruments (which the children at the party started banging).
The place looked «fine»; nothing amazing.
Since I was too busy running around and smiling and taking pictures, the evening flew by for me. But, if I were a guest, I’d be thoroughly disappointed.

My parents brought home take-​out from Emerald Bay tonight and it was TERRIBLE.
The orange fish filet was so sweet, it tasted like dessert. Plus, I didn’t actually taste any of the fish, it was mostly the crispy coating. Everything else was just so-​so.
I don’t know if it’s under new ownership since the last time I came here, but the food was a lot worse.
We ended up throwing out the take-​out and microwaved some of our leftovers from breakfast.

Recently, I came here a few times on Thursday nights for dinner with a couple of friends. The restaurant was totally remodeled. They have All You Can Eat «Lau» Thai Seafood Hot Pot for $ 11 per person. They have fish, beef, kim chi, spinach, and squid or cuttlefish, oyster, some veggie, etc. Sometimes, they don’t have squid at all. Drinks are 3 to 5 dollars each and required to pay separately.
The service is good. People who come here are nice and friendly and some even says hi to me. The restaurant will let you sing on stage if you want to on Thursday and Friday night. Saturday and Sunday are for professional singers only.

Around 9 o’clock they have live music, one man band and ball room dancing.
By 11 o’clock, the majority of people who dance here are in the mid 40s, 50s. They enjoy Vietnamese oldies, top music as well as New Wave, Disco, Hip hop…
I’m a little surprise because of the low rating reviews. We enjoy eating Thai seafood and we stay after dinner every time to have free entertainment.
This place is definitely a Viet restaurant. Take your parents here and enjoy.

I came here for a wedding, but it was hosted at the side banquet room (not the main restaurant) because there were less than 100 guests. I have to say this smaller room was not too shabby… it did not have the typical Chinese restaurant feel or smell. The first dish (cold platter) was served around 7:30 pm and everything else followed in ten minute increments. Overall, the food was pretty decent; I’ve had worse.
Here’s the con: Our table wanted another bottle of Pepsi and they charged us $ 5 for it. What a total rip-​off! We should have walked next door to the supermarket and bought it for $ 2…oh wells!

I came for an event during a sunday afternoon/​brunch. A typical wedding banquet type meal. Service sucked! They kept skipping our table and then taking forever to serve us the next entrée.
The food: the goi (chicken salad) was pretty good, the chicken was alright, the fried rice was blah, the fish fillet was like a filet o fish at mcd’s but with lots of sweet n sour sauce over it. They also serviced walnut shrimp —-
Here is my review of walnut shrimp: negative 1 star. the walnut was stale, the mayo sauce on the shrimp was too much. Walnut shrimp is generally pretty good overall, but man… how can the walnut be stale!!! no crunch at all (this was the plate they brought out very late to our table).
I think they just need more servers to accommodate the # of ppl, especially if they tend to do a lot of banquets. For the event we went to it was fine, but for once in a lifetime wedding celebration — please don’t have it here. The food overall wasn’t that bad. I actually came here once before for dim sum — not too bad.

Should I really add to the reviews here? I mean, they’re all very indicative of how the food is here. I also attended the same wedding Bob C went to and experienced the same lineup of food. Sigh, why is this place open at all? Do chinese people come here for chinese food or for some other reason? If for some other reason, please tell me what it is because I can’t see myself paying for anything here. Heck, I’d be scared to order a drink here seeing how poor the food was.
I only have 1 word to describe the food here: FLAVORLESS. It’s true of the fried chicken stuffed with shrimp paste, the shrimp paste by itself, sweet & sour rock cod, fried rice (wrapped in banana leaf) and the spicy lobster.
The shark fin soup tasted ok, but it’s missing the most important element: the shark fin itself. WTF?
The place itself was a bit cramped to fit 34 tables for a chinese or vietnamese wedding. It’s no wonder you have to get a GPS to navigate your way to your seat. There was a table full of our friends who was placed right next to the speakers. It’s a good thing we bought some hard stuff from the liquor store next door to ease the ear-​blasting for them.
My final complaint: how freaking slow is the service? I have never seen a wedding where the food came out all different times to different tables. We saw the lobster pass us by 10 times & waited 30 – 45 mins before our table got our lobster. There were 9 courses but it just seemed like they split the 9 into waves of 3. So the first 3 come first, wait 30 mins, then the 2^nd 3, 30 mins, then the last 3. At that point, the cake was served before the last 3 arrived and a lot of people had left already.
Well, if my friend reads this review, I hope he appreciates my honesty in the review, but I don’t remember him ever mentioning Unilocal to anyone in our group so maybe he won’t find out.

How in the world did I end up here?
Well, for a dear old friend’s wedding reception. I’m always loathe to write reviews about these things, especially when so much time is spent picking the menu and everything; but, hey I figured he (my friend) knows me by now and that I usually don’t hold anything back. So here goes…
I think the first thing I noticed was the uncomfortable seating. The seats themselves were standard issue chairs, but they had them covered up in white dress, which really restricted ones movement while seated. The second thing I noticed was that the door to the kitchen was held open by duct tape, that’s right duct tape! Can you say Gee-​to-​the-​Eht-​to-​the-​Oh?
Regardless of that, I’d have still rated this place highly if the food was up to snuff. It wasn’t.
This was a nine-​course vietnamese wedding reception menu which included:
— 8 item cold appetizer plate which included JELLY FISH (sweet and snappy, good) & various Vietnamese COLD CUTS (just like you’d find in any asian grocery store).
— SHARK’S FIN SOUP (really could detect absolutely no shark’s fin in this dish, not even the fake kind)
— DEEP FRIED SHRIMP PASTE (absolutely tasteless)
(wait for 1 hour)
— LOBSTER OVER NOODLES (Probably the best dish of the night, but not even close to the best lobster I’ve ever had)
— FRIED CHICKEN STUFFED WITH SHRIMP PASTE (eh, nothing remarkable about this)
— BABY BOK CHOY WITH ABALONE & SEA CUCUMBER (nothing special here folks, let’s move along)
(wait another 20 minutes)
— hey they’re serving wedding cake! It’s strawberry & vanilla! Not too shabby!
— FRIED RICE SERVED IN BANANA LEAF (?) (tasted like No Mai Gai, not bad if you like No Mai Gai)
— For the life of me, I can’t think of what the missing dish was, oh well, couldn’t have been very good. Oh, thanks Gerald & Vicky, it was DEEP FRIED COD. And it was completely forgettable.
— TARO DESSERT (a number of folks liked this one, I liked parts of it and not so much other parts)
Overall, not a do-​over.
The only good thing is that my friend is happily married now.

Wanna hear something funny…
I ALMOST GOT HAD MY WEDDING RECEPTION HERE! OMG, what was I thinking?!
My ex and I were broke and he had a list of 350 guests on his side and I had 25. Seriously. That’s the difference between white people and asian people right there. LOL.
Anyways, after searching through seafood buffet #1, and seafood palace #3, etc… we settled on this place. The price ($ 10,000 for the large room) was good compared to other places… and compared to the other places the décor here was actually the best.
Sigh. Thank god i didn’t get married. My family would have been completely flabbergasted with this ghetto funkdified place.
Oh, and they kept our deposit without a refund even though I gave her 6 months notice. $ 3k gone. I guess that’s how their doors are still open.

This was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had going into a restaurant. Hubby and I were in the area and noticed this restaurant in the corner of a strip mall. We ventured over to take a look. There was a sign «DIM SUM DAILY 25% OFF» so we walked in. We asked the man if they had dim sum. He said no. I was confused. I pointed to the sign with dim sum on it, then asked him again. He said must wait for it to be steamed. We shrugged and said it was fine.
Hubby and I were shown to a table. I was blown away by the kitschy, gaudy 70s décor we were surrounded by. The entire restaurant was done ready for a wedding banquet if one was to walk in right now — and that is saying IF that’s the kind of wedding banquet you wanted to have. White chiffon material ran across the ceiling, chairs were covered with white with a pink ribbon donned across the back of them keeping in tune with the pink and white theme of the restaurant albeit the maroon middle setting on each table. There was also a palm tree and a mock crystal champagne class pyramid against a back drop of a picture of a waterfall. WTF? (if you don’t believe me see photos)
I couldn’t stop looking at the décor.
We ordered 2 dim sum items — har gow and stuffed bean curd sheets — and a lunch special of eggplant in garlic sauce.
Complimentary soup was brought out to us. Hubby liked it, I didn’t. Pickled cabbage was also presented. This was really lovely and refreshing. When we finished the plate, they asked if we wanted more. We said yes and they brought us a heaping plate.
There was no one in the restaurant except for the staff. One man came in to buy take out. Our dim sum arrived — har gow was so so, but the stuffed beancurd sheets were the best I’ve ever had in soCal. The filling had pork, but also, black wood ear fungus as well as water chestnuts. The ingredients had wonderful contrasting textures which is quite unheard of in this dish. Usually it’s just a lump of ground pork which isn’t very appealing.
It took them a long time to bring the eggplant with garlic out. We were waiting and waiting and then I noticed they sent one of the staff members out. He returned shortly with a bag of eggplants in his hand. I thought it was absolutely HILARIOUS. I said to hubby that maybe they don’t get lunch time traffic much.
When the eggplant arrived it smelled wonderful. When I tasted it, it was also very very good. A bit greasy but the flavor was very good — better than China Garden in Irvine (I hate that place). Naturally we couldn’t finish our food since we had just eaten elsewhere prior to finding this place (yes, hubby and I do that a lot).
I thought the service was super but then again there was no one else in the restaurant except us, although a couple came in towards the end of our meal to finalize their banquet menu.
Our meal came to $ 8.60 (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) with the 25% discount. We’ll definitely come back again when we feel like a lunch time special deal, I mean free soup AND free pickled cabbage, it was insane how reasonable this place was. They also do dim sum with carts on the weekends, but on weekdays, you have to order and wait for them to steam it. The dim sum menu doesn’t look like much, but it has all the essential dim sum items — just not any of the special stuff.
3.5 stars.