Forbidden City Dim Sum & Seafood Restaurant

My friends took me here, stating that Forbidden City is one of the best dim sum restaurants in Calgary. One thing I noticed right away — the restaurant is clean and servers are pleasant. I liked the comfortable seats and linen covered tables. Servers were easy to catch.
The items that impressed me the most were the taro with pork dumplings and the BBQ pork crêpe. The sui mai and how gow were fine but I found the filling too wet for me. Overall, all the dishes were either fine or above average. As my Unilocal stars would indicate, yay! I’m a fan.

Its one of the best dim sum restaurant in NE. Very busy place. Usually with big line up. Dim sum are generally good but prices are on the high side IMO. Service is ok.

I come here a lot for dinner and dim sum with my family. It’s the only dim sum place not in Chinatown and close to home.
This place has good food for dim sum, lunch or dinner. It’s a bit over priced for Chinese food. But overall I’d give ⁴⁄₅ for food quality.
However, the service here is terrible. I know Asian restaurant aren’t known for good service. The hostess at the front for taking seating for dim sum was rude. She doesn’t even acknowledge you when your waiting to get a number and there’s no such thing as first come first serve. People were budging in line. The servers in the restaurant are too busy playing on there iPhones to take your order or serve you tea.
Overall Get Take Out instead!

What kind I say but this place is hit and miss for authentic Chinese food and their dim sum is on paper order as well so no push carts.
Service is also hit and miss but generally staff are speedy and friendly.
Large restaurant call ahead as they do take reservations but not on holidays.
High chairs available and pricing is above average but you will be getting the real Chinese experience.
3 stars for the inconsistent service and food.
Recommend to try the hot pot as well.

We had big party and waited an hour for a table. Customer service is terrible, look like they don’t have enough server. We have to look for server many time for things needed. Dim sum is good but pricey. I enjoyed their lotus wrap sticky rice most and their Ginger Beef. Their Peking duck is terrible, dry and not freshly tasted. With about 12 peoples, our bill comes to $ 400. That’s hefty price since we don’t order any seafood or alcohol.

This is my fathers favorite place for Dim Sum. I have been here more times than I can count and the food is always spectacular! Very chaotic and if it is your first time for Dim Sum, I would recommend that you come during the week days vs the weekend. It is a bit more pricey than other restaurants but the food is worth the price. I have been to a lot of different places for Dim Sum and this is by far my favorite place. One thing I have heard is that the owners don’t allow their waiters/​waitresses to keep the tips. If that is the case shame on you! I have heard them from multiple sources. That is why your only getting ⁴⁄₅ stars because those wait staff are running!

I’ve had dim sum here twice and both times I noticed that it’s packed, which is a good sign. Food is your typical dim sum items you’ll find at many similar restaurants. Service is fast. Our first dishes started coming out under 10 minutes of us submitting our order. The second our tea pot was empty and we flipped the lid (universal sign that you want it refilled) the pot was taken and replaced with fresh hot tea right away. Food was tasty. My favorite was the thousand year egg congee, steamed pork rice wrapped in banana leaf and shrimp in rice crêpe. We also ordered all the typical dim sum items like chicken feet, dumplings ect ect ect, all good. We didn’t order the Chinese donut wrapped in a rice crêpe, but we saw another table order it and it looked delicious. Also, if you’re new to dim sum dining, don’t be put off by the «service», you won’t get smiles or any warm and fuzzy sentiments from the staff, culturally, the goal is to be efficient and fast. So don’t take it personal if you don’t get any «friendliness.» The Staff work hard to make sure you get your food fast and hot!

I would probably have to say in terms of flavour, they probably have the best dim-​sum in Calgary. The food is freshly cooked and packed with flavour.
One of the things you can definitely notice with fresh vs old is the har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings). When they are fresh, the dumpling wrapper hold up to chopsticks, where as something steaming too long breaks apart before you bring it to your mouth. There are too many great dishes to talk about here as they use an order sheet rather than the cart at non-​peak times to keep things fresh.
Hardest part about eating here is not knowing what anything is or looks like. That makes it hard to order off the menu. Also when trying something new, it’s a risk as the descriptions on the paper may not be what you picture.
Definitely worth a stop for dim-​sum but be willing to work with service that sometimes seems rude and many if the older staff have limited English language skills.

As a Chinese born that grew up mostly in Vancouver, I am pretty picky about my Chinese foods. Moving to Calgary had me worried about the choices here and I was right about the limited selection. Luckily there are a few gems here and Forbidden City is one of them. This is a great place to go with a group and try all sorts of different dimsum. I highly recommend it!

Forbidden City is my go-​to dim sum spot. Usually my boyfriend and I go on a Saturday or Sunday between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
Some dishes can be a bit pricey but the food in my experience has always been fresh, hot and flavourful. The food comes out pretty quick and the service for a Chinese restaurant is also pretty decent.
My favourites include:
Pork & Shrimp Siu Mai;
Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf;
Rice Crêpe with Shrimp;
Steamed Pork Dumpling;
Deep Fried Taro with Shrimp; and
Steamed Chicken Bun.
Their chili oil is amazing as well! If you are looking for a yummy dim sum place in the NE this is your best bet!

I’ve seen other reviewers complain that if they’re not Chinese/​Cantonese they don’t get good service here.
I can’t say the same, I mean the service wasnt great but it was typical of similar establishments. Nothing better nor worse than any of the chinese joints I’ve frequented downtown in the China Town area.
Food was good, came out fairly quick, hot, fresh.
Clean food, no hives or swollen lips or stomach ache after. Reasonably priced. Overall just really decent chinese food. Located in a bit of an unfortunate part of town, I don’t often make a trip here specifically, but if I find the need to be in the area I wouldnt mind stopping by for lunch or dinner.

Awesome food, I alway the this chain of restaurants as the owner’s first rule is best ingredients and always fresh. Otherwise you get the boot.
They are almost always busy. Great for dim sum lunch and dinner. Well worth a try in terms Chinese food.
This is Cantonese style food.

Worst effin service ive ever seen but I’m sure its no surprise. Just sat there for over an hour waiting for take out yet continuously watching people come and go. Do something about your service people hire more staff if you can’t keep up.

Best dim sum in town!
Food is fresh, not too salty.
Service is okay.
Big place but still need to line up on weekends, so try to go before 11am

Enjoyed dim sum. Food was tasty and generally liked. The portions though were universally commented on by being small. The price did not reflect the portions. Good food, small portions, big price.
The outside signage was non existent so for those not familiar with the location it can be difficult to find.

Found after a bit of a drive-​around as I was on my first visit to Calgary. The lack of external signs did not help.
Located in a wing of a mall, the hostess greeted me as I walked in the door. There are two sides to this restaurant and I chose the more formal side because of their a la carte food offerings. The other side was more of a noodle shop, which is great but not what I was after.
A nice pot of chrysanthemum tea was brought, and you can choose any of the teas they have, while I perused the menu. There was way too many items I wanted to order, but since I was only in town for one more night, I finally, and with difficulty, ordered the Sauteed Shrimp and Scallop with Vegetables. It was very good, the shrimp were perfectly cooked. I was charged $ 2 for rice, which must be the standard practice here. A complimentary, sweet carrot soup dessert rounded out my meal.
Overall, a very good, reasonably-​priced restaurant that was easy to locate once I found it.

This was my first time having Dim Sum here, and I’m definitely a fan.
Timely service. Good tasting food. I like the al a carte style vs the old cart push method. Don’t get me wrong, I like tradition, but it’s nice not having to wait for my food to make it’s way from the other end of the restaurant.
I would have bumped my rating to a 4 star, but the rude mannerisms from the staff and manager really put me off.

Food is OK. Service is sub-​par at best. I made reservations and they still made us wait for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes we found out some of our party was already seated. Poor handling of the reservations.
Their servers placed a dish on our lazy susan incorrectly and it spilled some tea in the process. The manager scolded us and told us we should be more careful. He didn’t even get anyone to come by and clean up the spill, we had to clean it up ourselves.
Would’ve given it a 1-​star rating if it wasn’t for the food quality and cheap price.

A year ago, I would have given this place a solid 3 star. It really was nothing special for dim sum. I’m not sure if it changed owners, or what happened, but this place is definitely my favourite dimsum place in Calgary now. It’s a little busy, so if you’re going after 10:30am, be prepared to wait a LONG time.
I like that they have the tea heating pots on each table so that your tea is always hot.
I like the small sui mai instead of the gigantic ones that seem to have become the trend at other places (but they give you 5 instead of 4, so you’re still getting lots of meat).
They have great pea tips as well, I would definitely recommend it!
Their ja leung (the Chinese donut wrapped in noodle) is always crispy.
I’d recommend the sui mai, ja leung, pea tips, congee (with the preserved eggs — the eggs are cut really small and bite size), egg plant (they do a great job of it here), fried tofu (really good!!), lo bac goe… and most of their dumpling dishes are pretty awesome. This place has really improved in the past year and the service is fairly good for a Chinese restaurant! Prices are average.

My friend and I were in Calgary today, hailing from Edmonton and we were yearning for some dim sum! I searched on Unilocal and found this location & we thought we’d give it a go!
We arrived a bit after noonish and waited around 10 minutes or so to be seated; which is understandable as it’s a Saturday afternoon.
Once seated although, we had no idea what the process was to get food as we hadn’t been here before & nothing was explained by the «hostess». (Thankfully these Unilocal reviews shined some light on what to do!)
After filling out the little sheet; we waited & waited… & waited… Over 15 minutes passed before someone acknowledged us to take our order. In that time of our waiting, many waitresses passed & even after speaking up, ignored us… :(
The food although didn’t take long to arrive to our table which is a good thing because we were both pretty ravenous & it was pretty good!
Overall, I wouldn’t return to this place no matter how much I love dim sum.
I found the atmosphere to be too loud; I could barely hold a conversation with all the other conversations & constant clinking of dishes being placed or removed.
There is no customer service with the waitresses; not one of them engaged in polite conversation or even cracked a smile which kind of made me feel unwelcome to be honest.
The chopsticks had food encrusted on them; I found this pretty unnerving & didn’t appreciate the eye roll from the waitress when I asked to have them replaced.
There’s no explanation of the process for newbies trying out their location.
The wait time to actually order anything is ridiculous; we waited 15+ minutes after completing the little sheet before we finally got someone to pay attention to us.
The only thing I found good about this place was the food.