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| - Food: 4 stars
Service: 1 star
Our family of 9 (6 adults, 2 children, 1 toddler) visited the restaurant on a weeknight with a reservation at 6 p.m. When we arrived on a particularly warm evening, the restaurant was almost full but they were not running AC which made for a very uncomfortable dining experience. We also noticed that there was a 3 hr limit for their parking.
The restaurant strives to be nouveau luxe with its high ceiling and fairly opulent decor (well, for a Chinese restaurant) but falls short because of bad space management. I can tell you with 99% certainly that they have crammed in too many tables for a restaurant that size. We had a hard time getting to and from our table without bumping into someone else's chair or the serving carts and we're not large people.
Uncomfortably crammed in our table, we ordered 11 dishes and I must say, their food did not disappoint. I did not order the dishes so I can't say for certain what they're called on the menu but I can list them from my taste memory.
Lamb with cumin, cilantro and chives, Fresh whole prawns steamed with garlic, Braised pork hock, Braised pork belly with sticky rice and buns, glass noodle in sesame broth, Regular Peking duck, Duck soup, Beef and scallion pancake wrap, Snowpea leaves in garlic sauce, Spicy daikon and carrot pickle, Steamed fish with mushrooms.
All the dishes were above average and considering the fact that my father-in-law who is from Northern China gave them a thumbs up (well, compared to other Chinese restaurants that claim to serve Northern Chinese cuisine), I'd say Dayali's saving grace is their food. Everything else was just irritating.
We were there for a birthday dinner and we were rushed out by the staff who were busy cleaning our table as I was still feeding my daughter from a plate which they tried to take away. It was also pretty disgusting to see one of the staff splash leftover water from one of our cups over the lazy susan to use it to clean it all the while we're still sitting there. That's pretty brazen.
Again, no change table at a family restaurant just made the uncomfortable visit that much worse. Would I return to Dayali? Maybe. But it's really just too far out of the way to go and endure the bad service again. I would, however, consider ordering take out if I'm ever in the area.
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