Golden Central

We’ve driven past this resturant a billion times but have never gone in until today. I was surprised that there was no wait for a Sunday lunch. The resturant was bigger than expected. We got a table for 6 all to ourselves. So much leg room!
The dim sum menu had a good selection of items on it. I love how they arranged the most commonly ordered items to be a the top of yhe list. The dim sum menu was in both Chinese and English, some spelling mistakes here and there but over all easy to understand. We were disappointed to see that there were no egg tarts available at this resturant to order.
We got some of our usual items. The «crab meat & pork dumplings» were a bit dry on the top, but the flavour was on point. We loved how fluffy the «steamed bbq pork buns» were. The flavour of filling was perfect, but lacking in quantity, the bun to filling ratio was way off.
The «plain rice crepes» were dripping in oil, and fell apart when we tried to pick it up. I think they ran out of nice plates to serve on as the plate we got the food on didn’t look like it should have belonged in the restaurant at all…
The lady dish we got were the «pan fried pork buns». I knew that these would come a bit oiled up to begin with… But the amount of oil present on these were not okay. There was no crisp to the bottom layer of the buns at all.
Throughout the meal I was gulping down their tea nonstop. Such thirst from eating their food. Overall not a terrible experience, open to trying their dinner menu should I need a last minute place to go to.

This was the worst service and Chinese food I’ve ever had. Our bill came to $ 150 for two people. We waited an hour for our food, it wasn’t even busy there. When the food came they forgot two dishes and brought out the rice after we ate the salty crab and disgusting egg yolk fried shrimp and the rest of the other mediocre dishes. No one there could understand or speak English. When we ordered we had to point to the menu and the guy read the Chinese part to understand. I think it’s disgusting that you work in Canada but can’t be bothered to learn English. When we complained to the manager he said I don’t understand. We wil never go back. There are far better Chinese restaurants in Calgary that deserve and appreciate our patronage. I’m sure English would be a requirement. I puked on the way home because of their fried shrimp. I do not recommend this restaurant. I would give zero stars but it was not an option.

This place was packed the day we went since 2 tour groups from China reserved 90% of the restaurant. Thankfully we reserved a table too.
The food here is good — oddly though they don’t give free rice, something which I guess I’m accustomed to in the US chinatowns. We got a lot of stuff — beef flat noodle, braised pork belly, fish roe fried rice, snow pea leaves, peking style pork chops, mapo tofu, coconut shrimp, deep fried chicken and fish maw soup. All were excellent. Out of the dishes, the ones that really stood out to me were the fish maw soup, coconut shrimp and deep fried chicken. Can’t really go wrong in any way though.
bonus: it’s outside of chinatown so less traffic, don’t have to pay for parking and you get food just as good. Woot.

I didn’t even know this place existed until my friend held her son’s 100 day dinner celebration here. The restaurant is quite big, even with 4 tables of 10 reserved they were still able to accommodate other diners while we were there.
She had the traditional 10 dish dinner, and all the food came out at a good pace and were really tasty.
I took a take out menu with me, along with some suggestions from my girlfriend on dishes she’s tried. I’ll definitely keep this place in mind the next time I’m craving Chinese food.

This is our favourite Chinese food place in the vicinity. Their selection of Western Chinese is very good. It’s a little on the expensive side, but I’d say it’s worth it every time. The fried rice is unequaled.

The food is very good overall. The service is disgusting and rude. The lady that works there, she may be the owner, is very rude and abrupt. So be aware of the slow service and bad attitude from the staff, if you are considering going there. She probably has some personal issues that she needs help with.

Yum yum. Dim Sum.
Casual, efficient service, clean environment. Came here for lunch with several of my work mates.
Staff was friendly and fast. The food was very good. I have had better dim sum. But Golden Central is a delicious centrally located option if you’re north of downtown.
Lots of parking. Lots of tables. Worth checking out for sure.

Friendly, helpful staff. A preponderance of crêpe items on the dim sum menu if that’s your thing. Fairly good food prep and OK prices earn them 3 stars, but will have to try again at dinner, as this is what my friends raved about.

Started off pretty badly, water wasn’t hot enough to adequately steep the tea, even after I asked a staff member to replace the water it was overly bland. Food was ok, so far, kinda the same issue as with the tea, not quite hot enough. Then we finally got our sui mai, and I was happily chewing on a piece, when i noticed something solid and thin in my mouth. I pulled out, wait for it… A PIECE OF STEEL WOOL. Notified a staff member immediately, 3 of them still had the audacity to ask me if I wanted them to replace it with another basket. Not even a «Sorry about that.» Are you joking me? How do you expect me to have an appetite to eat any more after finding a piece of cleaning apparatus in my food? Ended up only refunding the purchase price of that one basket. Seriously, that’s it. What a joke, I suppose they don’t want to retain customers. My appetite sucked for a week after that. Central Grand has always been great anyways. Never. Again.

This place is just going downhill… and the smaller crowds and fewer staff reflect this and so does my rating on the restaurant. This update to my review reflects several visits that I have had there since my last update. The food itself is more or less the same quality as before, so I won’t talk about it again. It is the other, potentially small details that is slowly killing this restaurants if they are not corrected quickly, as there are now other competitors in the north.
The biggest thing they need to keep an eye on is the speed that the food comes out… this happens every time I have been there recently and probably due to fewer staff in the kitchen. To eat a normal Chinese meal, if I am there for more than 2 hours it is taking too long.
Another problem is customer service. They gotta put someone more competent on the phone. Offending a patron on the phone is not only annoying to the potential customer, it will definitely come back to haunt you. If there isn’t a table that the customer can reserve, just say it and not say it in a ‘smart ass’ way that will ensure the customer to go elsewhere and never come back. Also if the food is slow, just say it and not say it is coming out, when we both know that it is not.
Finally, the last time I was there at the restaurant, the temperature inside the restaurant was 27 degrees. The restaurant was packed because of a banquet, but someone should have turned on the a/​c.

Had dim sum here a while back with friends.
Food was okay, though there was not too much variety
Service was satisfactory.

Had dinner at Golden Central. It was really, really good! The finer end of Chinese cooking. We started to order from the menu when the waitress told us that the restaurant was having a special. If we order 2 dishes from the menu except the soup, we can get to pick 1 dish out of the 4 dishes that have special prices like Kwei Fee Kai (Royal Simmered Chicken) for only $ 10! The other 3 dishes was beef, shrimp and ginger & onion crab for only $ 12.95! What a deal!
We ordered the fish maw soup with bamboo piths, snow pea leaves in garlic sauce, satay beef with vermiceli hot pot, E-​Fu noodles in XO Sauce. We decided on the chicken for $ 10! Well-​cooked and so good.