624 Ann St Fortitude Valley (Cnr Ann and Chinatown)
2.5/5
The visit to Golden palace was an unexpected one, especially unexpected for dinner. But like most things you don’t know they’re going to happen until shortly before. So in a Saturday afternoon rush of trying to find an Asian restaurant in the valley worth eating at with family members, that wasn’t already booked out. I gave up and went with a restaurant I had been to many times before for their Sunday morning yum cha.
So the dinner (which was 6pm exceptionally early in my opinion) was set. There’s a great many things I like about Golden Palace, #1 of those things though is the fact that in the last 5 years of going there not once have I noticed an iota of change, even the quantity of fish and lobsters in tanks appears the same every time. The only difference I noticed this time around was the Christmas decorations sparingly placed and that maybe the red carpet on the stairs was ever so slightly more faded. So that takes me to the next greatest thing about this restaurant, the decoration of the place. Just at first glance you realize two things A: The 80s must have been boom times for Chinese restaurants B: How badly must the Chinese decoration bubble have busted in 1989. The decoration of the place creates a great vibe, with a mixed of subdued and extravagant blending nicely to create a public dining space that even while empty feels exciting.
Now onto service and food, while the service was near exceptional most of the night with three of more waiters attending frequently. The service of orders wasn’t particularly prompt, and not just of food (which can be understandable especially considering we ordered the duck) but also of drinks, which comes entirely down to the wait staff, however the service time wasn’t awful and I am of the opinion that unless the service is absolutely dreadful, that service is no reason to judge a restaurant.
The food of golden palace is fine, the Peking duck that we ordered coming in two courses and being the standout of the dishes I tried, however the other dishes being run of the mill Australian Chinese dishes may have instilled a sense of bias against familiarity. Even with the duck though I believe that while the fantastic flavour of the duck was still present in both courses, there was a failure to accentuate the flavour and the surrounding flavours either supplemented or shrivelled to the meat, instead of complementing. While I believe that this is a failure it should not be taken to mean that I thought it was bad, because even though the flavours didn’t match like I believe they should have, the dish was still thoroughly pleasant if only a little bit flawed. The other dishes were underwhelming to me, but as I said earlier this may largely be due to familiarity more than anything else, but even then, at the time of writing this I can barely remember anything about them (the next day).
In Conclusion, while I believe that Golden palace is worth visiting, I am sure that their Sunday morning yum cha is a far more entertaining and pleasant experience than their dinner menu, however I would return to golden palace for dinner without convincing.
Golden Palace a website with .pdf menus available at http://www.thegoldenpalace.com.au
The price of beers/ciders is between $5-$7 with imports (Tsingtao) being $7
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