Where do I start? Well, first I was looking for East Ocean and saw that Yelpers reported it as closed. I then found out it was replaced by "Asia Palace". No big deal - appears to be the same restaurant - Chinese food with Dim Sum.
Well, when I came there were less than a handful of Yelp reviews (of which were no good anyway) but I figured I'd give them a chance. Very regretfully - I brought a friend who really likes dim sum and my family here. Seems like they cleaned up the place a little bit and tried to make it a little more classy. We were greeted by a few familiar faces from the old East Ocean restaurant (also note that their dim sum menu still says East Ocean on it). Apparently this is an Asian Fusion restaurant that also serves "dim sum"
Well anyway - we were there for the dim sum so we asked for the dim sum menu. Other yelpers are correct in that they don't push the carts around anymore (which to me is part of the dim sum experience anyway).. half the items on the menu were crossed off with a marker.. WTH.. no chicken feet, no congee among other things. We proceeded to try the few items that were not crossed out.. let's just say the items that were normally steaming hot now taste microwaved and the fried items are well.. fried to hell. Big disappointment. I pretty much figured out that they've eliminated items that take a long time to prepare and replaced them with things they could either fry or microwave quickly.
Oh, also another big disappointment - they couldn't/wouldn't serve us tap water for "health reasons" ... does this mean your water isn't even safe to drink let alone cook with? Good thing they talked a couple of us into buying Cokes but where did the water come from to make the ice cubes?
Way to make the place look fancy with a bar area and a roped off wannabe "classy" dining area and completely destroy the food. I'm sure this would be a cool place to hang out but their food/menu and water situation is a mess. I'm surprised the health inspector hasn't shut them down for having non-potable water. What a disappointment after going to what once was the best dim sum restaurant on this side of town. Mark my words, this place is going downhill fast. At least the waitress was nice.
Run away