Golden Palace

Golden Palace is truly a gem, located in Lafayette/​Moraga. Interesting mix of Japanese Sushi and Innovative Chinese dishes. I was compelled to explore their menu, based on reviews and pictures from the other Unilocal reviews. For starters, the exterior does not correlate to the delicious food inside. The place is clean, modern décor and a large flat screen TV. Part sushi bar and PF Chang would be the best way to describe the format. Friendly and attentive staff, and the manager stopped by to ensure that we were pleased with the food and service. The also provided fresh tea, with an unopened tea bag. Fresh tasting and above average quality tea, but not exceptional.
Every food dish would have high marks for creativity, presentation, taste. The young seaweed with fish was amazing! Four towers of deep fried seaweed with a great dipping sauce. Chinese version of tempura fish!
Their Hong Kong pan fried noodles were also delicious and excellent presentation. Be sure to try their crab meat and sliced asparagus soup. This was their version of egg drop soup, and would rate their soup very high.
Beef with black bean sauce with fresh green beans, was a little salty but very tasty.
Every dish exceeded our expectations!
To finish off your meal, they provided us with a mango and sliced orange platter, fortune cookies, and a whole mango (to go)!

What a wonderful experience. It was date night with my niece and nephew, just the 3 of us. We ordered and within minutes our food arrived, and it was hot! We were all shocked how fast the food came out! Service was excellent, and food tasted great. The server came by 2 – 3 times to make sure our food was OK and to refill our drinks. Once we were finished we were given a sliced mango and a basket full of fortune cookies to share. Yum, what a nice treat! Then to our surprise they gave us 3 mangos. Awe. so nice! We ordered about 4 dishes ranging from $ 10-​$ 12 per plate, plus rice and drinks, the bill came to $ 56 including tip. Not to bad.
Also, there is a secluded parking available.
Overall, great experience we’ll be back again with the whole family!

Really sad to rate Golden Palace so low; love their food. They are super welcoming and generous when you come into the restaurant, giving away free drinks and fresh fruit, but will never order delivery or take out again.
Delivery: was over an hour and a half late and freezing cold (who wants soggy honey walnut prawns?!) Jay made it right by waiving the whole bill, but we had to argue about it first. Not to mention the 6 calls asking where our food was. Anyway, we gave them another chance and ordered takeaway. My husband arrives to pick it up, Jay asks for his phone number and when he types it in to the terminal his name comes up as «BLACKLISTED». Cue awkward conversation and protestations of innocence. Sorry guys, will not be returning.
UPDATED: Less than an hour after I post this, we get a fresh fruit delivery, gift certificate and apologies. We really were not expecting that but definitely a nice gesture.

Very good. Friendly and fast. Very tasty and lunch portion big enough to fill you up! Recommend this place to anyone who likes good food and good service.

Eaten here multiple times and have recommended to many!
This place is the busiest spot in Moraga any night of the week. I am one who likes to try to eat something new each time I go and the menu definitely allows that, such a great mix of sushi, full entrees and more. I went with a few buddies while we were all back in town for break and each ordered a different plate to share along with some sushi of course.
For the sushi we got Tempura rolls and the spicy tuna rolls. The tempura rolls each all had their fair share of tempura in them unlike some restaurants where you get to pieces with tempura and the rest are just cooked batter. The spicy tuna rolls were for those who like a little flame in their food while keeping all of the flavors together. These two are a must to try!
For the entrees we ordered the Green Bean Chicken, Sesame Beef, and Salt and Peeper Fish. The Green Bean Chicken was evenly portioned with green beans and chicken which is expected but not always what you get at other restaurants that pile on the beans with dismal chicken, the chicken was juicy and flavorful while the beans were obviously fresh and not frozen. The Sesame beef had very full flavor and was not bland beef. I did not have the salt and pepper fish but it looked delicious like the rest of the food on our table.
To finish off the meal we were brought a plate of fresh (and cold) fruit and fortune cookies. The fruit was sweet and the perfect dessert for the 5 of us. In conclusion this is a spot I go to regularly with my family and friends for a sit down dinner and recommend to everyone. I understand the owner also has a take out spot in the downtown Moraga shopping center but I have not had the chance to try that out yet.

Growing up just down the street, I’ve seen multiple restaurants come and go in this location, but this being the most interesting with its Chinese/​Japanese fusion.
My first impression going in — is this really a Chinese restaurant? I know I shouldn’t be surprised that when my family walked in here, we were THE ONLY Asian family, but I should have taken this as a huge red flag.
We ordered a pao pao platter, some sashimi, a roll, hot and sour soup, and honey & walnut shrimp. All of it was hugely disappointing.
My family used to frequent The Great Wall in Lafayette and they had the best pao pao platter. They gave you the little thing that had fire in it, with chicken wrapped in foil that you could bbq a little, as well as some beef skewers and other goodies. Golden palace gives you shit. Literally, a poo poo platter. The egg rolls were so mushy inside, my mom couldn’t even decipher what it was comprised of. The chicken and beef skewers were like eating tasteless jerky, and it cost us $ 16! They also garnished it with some rotten broccoli that I noticed tasted bitter as hell after I saw all the black spots in it.
The hot and sour soup tasted alright, but it didn’t have any fungus. or white pepper — probably catered for the unadventurous folk. China Moon does much better.
The honey & walnut shrimp was disgusting. The batter was so heavy that we peeled it off and just ate the shrimp, which also did not seem the freshest. Not how I remember this dish being.
The sushi was alright. Not the greatest, but reasonable.
Also, my fortune cookie was weird as hell. My fortune said «One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.» …like, I can only be happy if I forget I ever ate this meal?
All in all, the service here was nice. No complaints at all with it. But the food was horrible. And expensive for what it is. We ended up paying $ 80 before tip. My parents have decided to NEVER take me here again. (YES!!!)
EDIT AFTER OWNER’S COMMENTS: I’m glad that the owners take the time to passive-​aggressively respond to their reviews. At least they «care» about what their customers say about their food. But reaaaally, no need to try and rebut my review with your sarcastic remarks — I’m just letting other people know about my honest experience!
Yes, we did consume almost our entire meal, because as I said, it was expensive for what it was and the sushi was at least decent (which is what we ate in its entirety). And as a family who 1 — isn’t really into causing a scene at the restaurant, and 2 — just isn’t into wasting food, we’re gonna eat it! However, we won’t necessarily enjoy it. And plus, everyone was super nicer and courteous, always checking in — it’s hard to be like, «hey, your food tastes bad!» — and I’m sure many diners in general feel the exact same way about the whole dining experience.
Also, I proved with photographic evidence that my food was not of the greatest quality, so not sure how facts can be argued there. AND I did not consume everything as you could see large globs of batter left behind on the plate.
Sorry for the novel of a review.

Service is wonderful, a lovely group that checks in and seems genuinely interested the diner’s experience.
The food was good. It was a little bland for me so I added salt to almost everything. Servings are reasonable sizes, the plates aren’t stacked high with cheap quality food but rather normal serving sizes with good quality. The fruit at the end is a nice touch.

I had previously bookmarked this place on my Unilocal account but never got around to trying it until now. We got there 50 minutes before they closed. We didn’t realize that this restaurant served Japanese and Chinese food until we got there. So we ordered a mixture of foods: the sizzling rice soup in medium, the young seaweed with fried fish, the golden lover roll, and the lion king roll. I thought it was really cool that this restaurant takes your order on a tablet, which is a huge upgrade from the normal pad and paper ordering. Our servers were really nice, always checking up on us to see if we needed anything and refilling our waters despite the fact that we were the only customers left in the restaurant. The first thing that came out was the sizzling rice soup. This is one of my favorite soups. You can’t really go wrong with it. Their sizzling rice soup was so good. They don’t add water chestnuts to their soup but they make up for it with a lot of vegetables, like peas, carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli, which is equally yummy. The broth is very simple and they don’t add msg to it. A medium sized bowl was enough for both of us to have seconds.
The second thing that came out was the golden lover roll and the lion king roll. The golden lover roll was a take on the cherry blossom roll, but better because the tuna sashimi was so fresh that it melted in your mouth. The rice in the roll was flavorful and they didn’t over stuff the roll with rice like some other places do. As for the lion king roll, it was pretty good as well. Though I still like the lion king roll at Sushi House the best. The lion king roll was moist and had good flavor.
The last thing that came out was the young seaweed with fried fish. Honestly, we only ordered this dish because we saw a picture of it on the menu and we were up to trying new things. I’m glad we did. Though it looked really weird, like fried green hair, the young seaweed was really light and flaky. And the dipping sauce complemented the seaweed and fried fish. The sauce tastes like the mayo used on walnut prawns. If you like seaweed like I do, this dish is worth trying. We were too full to finish this plate so we took it to go. The waiter gave us a complimentary fruit dish which consisted of cut up watermelon and honeydew pieces. He also gave us some complimentary fortune cookies in a basket, allowing us to take as many as we wanted. And he gave us a whole honeydew fruit. I had noticed some of the tables that were there before us had honeydew on their table but I didn’t think they would seriously give us one until they actually did.
I have nothing but good things to say about this restaurant and their service. I’ll definitely be coming back.

Very accommodating! My husband wanted to watch the NFL playoffs and they sat us right in front of the tv and changed the channel. Food came out quickly and was delicious and fresh. Multiple people came and asked if we were ok, the place was clean and free dessert of fresh oranges came. Very friendly with lots of smiles! Feels like a friendly yet trendy eatery with two big screens and lovely décor!