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| - One of the gauges of a good Chinese restaurant is the number of Chinese people who patronize the place. Emerald Chinese Restaurant has a lot of patrons.
My wife and I mainly come for the dim sum brunch (9:00 AM ~ 11:00 AM) on weekends. The food is great, the place is clean, and there is ample parking around the restaurant. From within the restaurant, you can easily see outside as three of the four walls are made of glass. This gives the place a sense of airiness that some places we go to do not.
*The ideal time to come on weekends is between 10:00 AM and 11:00 AM. Come before 10 AM and not all the food is available yet. Come after 11 AM, expect to fall in line.
The staff is efficient, but do not expect a lengthy conversation. For a place like this, this is not a put down. It's what I expect.
The quality of the dim sum is comparable to what you'd get in a good Hong Kong dim sum restaurant. The hot food is mostly brought out in steamer carts which means that it reaches your table hot and fresh. Fried foods and dessert items do not come in the steamer carts. The turnaround is pretty quick (a food cart seems to be depleted every two rounds of the tables) so very seldom is the food going around for too long. My personal favorites are the sweet pork - served either in a steamed bun or in flaky pastry, chicken feet, shrimp - served in a dumpling or the white rice wrap, pork and century egg congee, and the douhua (silken tofu) with syrup. My wife loves the giant oyster served on its shell with garlic and glass noodles.
There may be a few fancier places out there but if fancy is not that important to you, then this place is difficult to beat.
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