The Golden Palace

The Golden Palace
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

Jong Ga

Jong Ga
316 St Pauls Tce Fortitude Valley
1.5/5
Jong Ga is a dodgy looking Korean BBQ restaurant at the top of the valley, in what may be described as the dodgier part of the valley, and when entering you completely understand why it is in that location. This restaurant takes up a massive room with no air-conditioning and windows that only half open; unlike other BBQ places it has no ventilation device to take the heat away from the table and in the awful humidity of a Queensland spring/summer results in a meal where sweating is the main course.

The dining area of the restaurant is exceptionally bright and there are several Bain-maries with a selection of awfully dry dishes and dreadful sushi, however I didn’t come to this restaurant for the buffet of dreadful food, I came for the buffet of all you can eat BBQ meat, unsurprisingly the meat was frozen (it almost always is in Brisbane) but this being Korean BBQ meant that the loss of freshness was nigh irrelevant. Otherwise the room felt similar to a Sizzler or something with tables lined up in rows and feeling cheap, with a tiny fridge not out of place in a school tuckshop holding all the beers (only really Sapporo and Cass) The relative emptiness gave off a vibe of general dislike, and other people at the restaurant appeared to be the type that came because it was cheap all you can buffet.

The service was alright with a lot of attention every now and again but very little when it was actually desired, due to it being buffet style, there were very few staff in restaurant with most attending to keeping the Bain-maries stocked with food. The food was at best average and at worst sour, and when a frozen piece of meat is sour, something is seriously wrong. The Kimchi was obviously store bought, and the Chadol Baki (thinly sliced beef brisket) was in far too small pieces to be manageable on the grill plate. The remainder of the types of meat were mostly unmemorable, with the ox tongue (normally a fantastic part of BBQ) being too thin and small to get the flavour that I desired from it. The constant need to get up and get more meat, lettuce and Kimchi, made the dinner a lot of getting food, broken up by eating it.
I would not return to Jong Ga unless it was due to another’s insistence, due mainly to the fact that there are several much better BBQ’s in this city, and while they may be more expensive, I believe unless you are a greedy eat everything in sight person, the plates of meat at other BBQ restaurants will be sufficient and the quality will make up for the loss in quantity.

The all you can Eat Buffet costs $28.5 per person. Sapporo’s and Cass’s cost $7.5 each
Jong Ga is open 5pm to 10pm 7 days a week.