Empress Palace

For Chinese restaurant to charge tea $ 2– each person is unheard of. They also charge steam rice $ 1.75 per person. All these charges were not mentioned while the waiter took our order. Not many customers while we dinned during the lunch hour there. These extra charges probably scare dinners away.
Take our advise and you won’t regret it. It’s not worthy of the food, service and prices even you use an Axxess card. We don’t recommend this place to anyone.

Awful bad service, bad food, and we had a bug in the rice ! The manager took 10% off and argues that it wasn’t a bug, the sushi was very disappointing and the Chinese food bland and tasteless !

Good fun food, open till 12am which i love! Nice staff, fast service & accommodating. I cant wait to try the ramen and the sushi! I had the imperial soup: egg drop, chicken, crab, & carrots which i really enjoyed. And the kungpao chicken no peanut: it was different then your typical kungpao dish, its richly marinated spicy chicken, onions, & bell pepper. i wouldn’t get that specific dish again but i will definitely go back for the soup and to try the rest of the menu! For the 2 entrées it was About$ 35…-if you have the axxess card you’ll get a great deal. –will go bck!

Worse, bland, boring, soggy wor wonton soup. Forgot the plum sauce for my shy chicken, watered and tasteless
When I called to complain and get refund, they said I had to bring it back in and prove it was tasteless???
Customer service FAILEd

I dont understand the low reviews on here. Their service is great, the food is great and the portions of the chinese food are huge. Quality stuff really nice staff! The all you can eat sushi is well worth the price. Good stuff, we’ll be back for sure.

THIS PLACE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES
I originally came in because I am a huge fan of Chinese food so I decided I was going to give this place a try because I pass by it all the time. To my pleasant surprise, I have learned that they just recently opened up a sushi bar. I AM A HUGE enthusiast for sushi and I had to try it. As I was looking through the menu, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There is a sushi restaurant in the Paseo Nuevo mall called Sushi Tyme, and a good 90−95% of the sushi on this menu is straight up plagiarized from their menu. The menu is literally copy and pasted. Yes I completely understand that sushi restaurants are all going to have some similarities in one way or another and have parallels, but the similarities are so glaring, it just can’t be ignored. In case any of you think that I am assuming this without any evidence, think again. I decided to do my own research and go on the sbmenus page for both of these websites to further reinforce this belief. The left column is sushi tyme’s and the right is Empress Palace, and trust me even though it may not look like it, I am one two different sbmenus pages. Everything including the menu description is identical, and this place should be ashamed of themselves.
How convenient for a Chinese Establishment to open up a sushi bar out of nowhere and rip off the menu of another establishment. I understand that this is a business, but where is the sense of morality and ethics?!?

The food is usually pretty good.
The service is ok, not great. And the place is expensive.
At the risk of sounding like a snob, we paid almost $ 100 for our meal, we had leftovers & usually they pack them for us but for some reason, the very empty restaurant & slightly over staffed place didn’t feel the need to pack our food for us.
If you take anything away from this review just know you may or may not get good service & you’ve got a good chance of an expensive & tasty meal that you may have to pack up if there are leftovers.

Lobster roll was amazing! Sesame chicken was way too dry. A lot of chicken and good chunky pieces. Fry rice was not the best! It was delivery, fast, warm food but a bit on the dry side.

Dinner C take out. Enough for three people. 10 of the largest, plumpest, freshest shrimp I’ve ever had., Extra charge for rice. menu says $ 1.75 computer says $ 1,50. Other appetizers very good and war wonton soup is included.
The two gentlemen behind the Sushi bar looked very serious but convivial. There are AYCE lunch and dinner specials M — Sat and happy hour from 3 — 6. It wold appear that this restaurant really wants to extend its reach … they are capable of very good food and servers are very pleasant and competent. I’m going back or Sushi. so should you.

While this restaurant has a varied menu, their customer service is very poor. They charge for the white rice that comes with your meal, which is not something I have experienced at any other Chinese restaurant. They are rude when calling for a take out order, and become irritated if you ask for sauces or chopsticks when you pick your order up.
I have also heard there are issues with their «All You Can Eat» sushi deal that are not disclosed in any of their advertisements. Just a heads up.

Went to Empress Palace Restaurant for dinner with a friend. We went because I had a deal for all you can eat sushi for $ 19.95. Never going there again.
Sit down and learn only one person at the table can have all you can eat sushi for $ 19.95. Price for anyone else sitting with you…$ 26.95! We order a lot of rolls because we know we can eat a lot of sushi. Waitress brings half the rolls and let’s us know that if we don’t finish everything there’s an extra charge. Then she asks if we want the other rolls that we order made. We say yes but the waitress seems really unsure about bringing us more food.
When we finally finish there about eight pieces left. She asked if we wanted anything else and I said no but I would like a to-​go box. She brings me a box. Suddenly a different waiter shows up with the bill and explains that I’m getting this to-​go box this time but it won’t happen ever again. I ask why and he explains that customers can’t take leftovers home from all you can eat sushi. I told him the lady didn’t tell me that. He said he knows but basically be happy we didn’t get charged for wasting their food.
The sushi was ok but I have zero desire to deal with their staff ever again.

Had the shrimp pan fried noodles & it was delicious, the shrimp were slightly crispy and the noodles were perfect and crunchy. Husband said his sweet & sour chicken was good as well.
Service was excellent several people came by to check on us. Water actually tasted good (hard to come by in SB)!
They are a bit on the pricier side but get the axxess card and you’ll be set ;)

This place gets a solid three stars for two reasons — happy hour & sushi. Empress Palace is a Chinese restaurant that has a sushi bar on the side, so it wouldn’t exactly be on the top of my «places to get Japanese food from» list, but the happy hour definitely makes it worth it. From, I think, 5 – 6 pm on the weekdays they do half off their sushi, which is awesome because who doesn’t want half off anything? The sushi chef is also a nice guy with a lot of craft. Sitting at the bar, I can tell he cares about the food he puts out and the fish looks/​tastes pretty fresh. They also have a good variety of creative sushi so there’s something for everyone. My personal favorite is the Mesa Town roll, which is avocado, eel, tempura shrimp, crab AND some spicy tuna thing who knows (and who really cares) because it was deeeeelicious. BE WARNED, the service is slow (I had to ask for the check twice) but if you got the time and patience, you’ll be rewarded with a bill that’s half the amount you’d usually expect to pay.

Two and a half hours after I called in a take out order my food arrived. When it did get to me it was cold. This place is almost twice as much money as any other place in Santa Barbara and not worth the money.
DO NOT GO HERE!

The food was excellent. Apparently there are new owners here and it shows.
Sushi happy hour ½ off between 5pm and 6. The rolls I saw pass by looked fresh and ample!
Lunch specials are now $ 11, actually $ 10.99. Portions were hefty, service was very nice.
Why they never use the outside patio is odd, nice view of the west side.

This place is absolutely disgusting. The food is just miserable. I realize this is Santa Barbara and all, but this is garbage at Santa Barbara prices. Spent about $ 60 for Mongolian Beef (no flavor at all), a small hot and sour soup (good), «spicy» salted wings (not spicy or salted), fried rice, and free egg rolls (clearly from a bag and totally soggy). Wow, dude. Even the mustard condiment was bad. Do not make the same mistake I did.
I specified hot on all items, and the only thing that came out spicy at all was the soup.
The people were nice though.

This place is pretty good all around! I’d definitely go back.
My party ordered the orange peel beef, salt and pepper squid, and mu-​shu chicken. The standout dish of the three was definitely the salt and pepper squid. There was just enough spice to make the dish palatable without overpowering all of the other flavors. It wasn’t overly salty, but you could tell that it was salted. The mu-​shu chicken was fine but I felt as though the chicken itself was rather dry; next time, I will try it with pork. The orange pepper beef was a little less crisp than I’m accustomed to, and I wish they would have included the actual orange peel in the dish.
With all of that having been said, I had a very enjoyable meal and will definitely go back, especially for the squid.

This review is only for the sushi. Chef Ryoji Oroku has moved in and has his own bar! Previously, he was the owner of Maeda/​East and Tuskemono. It’s a delight to have him back in Santa Barbara. He specializes in nigiri, but also has some tasty rolls. We always go with the omakase (chef’s choice) and he gives us delightful dishes. Don’t expect your table to be filled right away with your order, this is not fast food. It takes time and care to deliver such goodness. Delicious and fresh!
Edited 11÷7÷15. I hear Ryoji is now at Sushi Fresh Ventura.

Note: This review is just for the Japanese menu. I came here last night because I saw a review from another local Unilocaler. I had no idea that the restaurant had expanded into sushi in addition to Chinese food. My wife and I decided to have dinner.
We started out with appetizers, the spicy tuna nachos and the spicy tuna nuggets. Both were crazy delicious. Really innovative approach using guacamole and fresh salsa.
We then ordered a chefs choice roll, salmon special roll and a BSC roll. Our chefs special was creation combining mixed seafood roll and ceviche on top. It was pretty good. The salmon special roll was delicious, it was mixed seafood inside, tuna, yellowtail and then beautifully layered salmon on top. The BSC roll baked scallop California roll was my favorite. It was covered with tasty small scallops and this chef didn’t overdo the cream cheese.
I would highly recommend you try this spot out. They are open really late, until midnight Tuesday — Thursday and 1 on Friday and Saturday. And if anyone in your party wants they can order off the Chinese menu too. Don’t let combo restaurant idea scare you away. The sushi was delicious, well thought out and the chef cares about his presentation. I’ll definitely be back.
Oh, try the chef special roll every time. I watched him make 3 completely different ones while we ate and I want to try each one.

This review is just for the Japanese menu as I haven’t tried the Chinese menu. A friend told me that a Japanese chef opened a sushi bar within Empress Palace and that the sushi there was phenomenal. I came here after work with my family tonight and we were all really impressed with the freshness and quality of the fish in the rolls we had. One would never have guessed to find AMAZING Japanese food in a Chinese restaurant. It was a very unexpected nice surprise.
Our favorite dishes were:
Sushi Nachos — tortilla chips with guacamole, spicy tuna and cherry tomato salsa.
Salmon Special Roll — it had a really nice sweet and thinly sliced battera kombu that was layered on top of the salmon that really wrapped the flavors together really well. It was the perfect balance between sweet, tangy and savory.
Sushi Nuggets — crispy sushi rice topped with spicy tuna and avocado.
Jalapeño Yellowtail — super thick slices of fresh yellowtail on top of sushi rice and more yellowtail. MEATY AND DELICIOUS!
Omakase (chef’s choice roll). It’ll be different every time but order THIS. The chef is very passionate about his work and this was I what really enjoyed about his food. Trust the chef and he’ll make you something tasty and really fresh. Tonight we received a roll filled with salmon, yellowtail and tuna wrapped in thinly sliced cucumber and topped with salmon roe. The salmon roe was a nice touch to the roll; they were like flavor bombs exploding in my mouth.
Overall, we all really enjoyed the Japanese food here. The staff are genuinely nice and attentive. They just started serving Japanese food here about a month ago and I hope they do really well. The sushi is very fresh and presented beautifully. I’m very excited to have more Japanese options in Santa Barbara. We will be back again definitely!
Check this place out, ESPECIALLY THE JAPANESE MENU!