Golden Bridge Restaurant

Silver Palace became Golden Bridge, which is now CLOSED.
This massive space (not as massive as Jing Fong’s) tends to resurrect itself. It is now closed, but we’ll see what is to become of it.
The dim sum at Silver Palace and then later Golden Bridge was practically the same, or slightly better than that of Jing Fong’s. It’s another touristy dim sum place.
Due to its massive size, the dishes aren’t as fresh when they reach you. I used to go here when eating with large groups or out of towners, but for smaller groups, it’s not a top choice of mine. Guess I no longer have to worry about that because they are now closed.

***CLOSED***
I used to come here for DIM SUM but the food was always just eh so-​so. I had no choice but to dine here because other dim sum restaurants were just as lousy. When I finally stopped eating here, I heard it’s been closed for good. I remember there used to be people (maybe former employees) protesting outside of the restaurant. From that, I already knew that something had to be wrong. Hence, the whole business is out now.
SIGH — I desparately wonder where all of the good dim sum places in Chinatown are. Perhaps there really are no more and the better places have already been migrated to Flushing? Please prove me wrong.

It’s been over a year since I’ve given my business to Golden Bridge. I ALWAYS make it a point to tell my family and friends to not go to Golden Bridge as well.
Here is the problem. We used to love going there. The food was good and you don’t have to wait too long to get in.
However, one day, while paying, I noticed that there was a charge for the tea (the house tea) on our bill whereas other people in line didn’t have this charge (I saw their bills). I noticed it by striking up conversations with others in the pay line and from asking them questions about the bill.
Difference — we are not Chinese and cannot read the language.
I made a big fuss about it right there but the workers insisted that they normally charge for the house tea.
Now, I’ve seen news reports exposing Chinatown restaurants using different menus with different prices depending on how you look and their assumption on your ability to read Chinese. But for this to actually happen to you?! No way, I say.
It’s not a lot of money for the tea but please, there needs to be consistency.

A good selection for dim sum here! Why is it receiving such poor ratings… Maybe I am just an easy grader. Quality of the food was good in my opinion. The carts were quick, the service was good, and there was a line where you could get extras from the side. I’m still not sure why they don’t have hot sauce and soy sauce on all the tables though. That wasn’t too big of a deal. Lots of the items I ordered are pretty common. ha gow, xiu mai, chicken feet, spare ribs, chinese broccoli, the 2 different types of tripe, shrimp balls, shrimp, shrimp cake fried, egg custard, bacon wrapped around shrimp balls, and the shrimp noodle crepes (my favorite dish). I thought it was a good meal, dim sum never really fills you up though, or rather, not for long…

I hadn’t come back to Golden Bridge in 3 years or so, but came back today after going to Golden Uni last weekend. Was seated for 2 pretty promptly at 11am. We also sat in a prime location by the kitchen. Quickly choose all the dimsum faves… char siu bao, ha gow, siu mai, ha cherng, lo mai fan. There were plenty of repeat carts, which I suppose is good for a huge restaurant like GB, where there’s hundreds of tables.
Halfway through a random couple sat by us at our table. But they didn’t order anything, which was odd.
Oh well. Solid dimsum experience. $ 18.50 bill for two.
Gong hay fat choy!

Meh meh meh. Been there a number of times for various occasions and this place is a hit-​and-​miss restaurant for me.
* Once with friends for a Christmas dim sum brunch. Overpriced and tepid dishes, blech!
* Once for a friend’s wedding reception. For that purpose, it was great as it is a large restaurant in Chinatown and can cater many.
* Once for Chinese New Year’s. Again, because of the large space, it was easy to get a table and get served quickly.
My general perception? For a quickly seated/​served meal of mediocre food in Chinatown, Golden Bridge would be the place to go.

I went here this Saturday for dimsum. It’s okay. The 1^st thing was that they offered chrysanthemum tea with sugar. This made the tea overly sweet. When you get this tea, tell them to not add sugar.
The various dim sum dishes were mediocre. The rice crepes with shrimp and the ones with beef were okay. The chicken feet was average too. I was pretty disappointed with the pork spare ribs. The shrimp and pork shumais weren’t that impressive either.
I feel like the staff understands English better than Jing Fong but less than the staff at Oriental Garden. This place can get pretty crowded especially around 12PM; however from 10 – 12 it was pretty dead. The dim sum servers are old ladys who seem to act pretty funny. For the most part, most of them were pretty cheerful. I still think overall the food quality was worse than Jing Fong and Oriental Garden, but at least i was able to try this place out.

*excellent dimsum restaurant in Chinatown.
*the turnip cake (lor bot go) gets fried in front of you. Fresh, crispy, and lots of oyster sauce!
*Must Try: Fried Squid. Just the right amount of salty.

«I don’t want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don’t care about presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I don’t need to hang my stocking
There upon the fireplace
Santa Claus won’t make me happy
With a toy on Christmas day
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you…
You baby»
Yum Cha warms the heart on my darkest days including holidays which I’ve never really enjoy. However, to my utter shock and complete dismal, Golden Bridge was a disappointment with lack of carts circling around the restaurant and the quality of food is no match to competitors as 27 SunShine or even Jing Fong.
The Phoenix Talons, Fung6 Zaau2 were extremely thick as the cook/​chef are too lazy to cut them into smaller pieces without having too many legs. The Ngau4 Juk6 Coeng4 Fan2 skin are extremely thick in its skin with the meat all meshed up. I had to serve myself and my Mom the entire time as we sat near the stage where the hot buffet bar were since there were no carts circling. The quality of food as I agree with previous reviewers, being biased as a Canto Chigga myself, Golden Bridge’s quality of Canton cuisine and service is downhil for $ 24.50 for two people!
The bathroom attendant gave grief and rude agita to my Mom as she didn’t use the hand dryer or any paper towels, which the woman scold in Canto: «you’ve wasted my electricity for the hand dryer!» Woman, you seriously need Emily Post’s «Etiquette» and Kate Spade’s «Miss Manners» to wash that filthly mouth for your attiude in interacting with clients!
With Golden Bridge’s staffing problems of labor dispute and staff protesting directly outside, which is a direct haunting image of its previous tenant Silver Palace, Golden Bridge is no different.

I was in the neighborhood and decided to stop in and ask about their banquet offering. On a Sunday night, this place was empty. It was all dressed for a party but they were serving dinner at one table. I asked if I could see a banquet menu.
He countered by asking for the date.
I gave him a few possible dates.
He then tells me, no deposit, no menu.
I repeated his words and he says that’s how his manager wants it.
I was still stunned so I asked him how i can give him a deposit if i don’t know how much it will cost.
He enunciates with a Chinese accent … $ 500/​table.
So I ask if there is only one menu.
And now he’s shocked, of course not. $ 525, $ 575 and up.
So I clarify… But I can not see any menus without paying a deposit?
His reply… yes.
I invite Unilocalers to interpret this freely. The person was not only unhelpful but spoke rudely. With so many good Chinese restaurants,
I just know I am never going back there again. My experience at Golden Unicorn was the polar opposite where I was very happy to be eating my 4^th Chinese dinner in 2 weeks.

A little history about this place. It was originally known as Silver Palace and opened back in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Switched name to New Silver Palace, then Golden Bridge, I think 8 or 9 years ago. Apparently this place is a hotbed of labor strife, but that doesn’t account for the quality of food.
Overall, this is one of Chinatown’s staple dim sum restaurants. Without going into detail about dim sum, because there are so many dishes, in a nutshell, they do everything right. You will not be disappointed by the selection or service.
Ambiance is important to a dim sum restaurant and at Golden Bridge, there is one main huge dining room with 3 other smaller rooms. Yet, this place is huge and you will normally not wait long for a table. The prices are reasonable and don’t feel any hesitation to bring your group of friends or family to this place. I’ve been here for over 25 years and they’ve rarely disappointed.
Update: Please note that in the more recent reviews from other Unilocalers, there seems to be labor troubles at Golden Bridge which will affect service.

Dim sum usually tastes the same to me almost everywhere I go, unless it is obviously bad. So far, only one restaurant (not in ny) would fall into that category. But place got a 2 because
1) they didn’t have spring rolls at 1pm. No spring rolls, shrimp rolls or rolls of any sort that is fried. I understand that tea down dies down around 230 ish but it was 1pm so I was expecting my shrimp rolls.
2) service stinks. There were no push carts, we had to go up in person and pick out what we wanted and for some odd reason… the servers there ddin’t know what we were talking about. Okok, i was the only chinese person of our group and it’s understandable that they workers didn’t understand my friends but I was speaking chinese. They asked me once what i wanted… i stated. couple minutes later, they asked me again… i stated. several minutes after that, she asked me what i wanted! wth. It was annoying.
3) The chairs had covers and tables had plastic table cloth that they removed the top layer as the first group leaves. Ok, understandable. The chairs’ covers look like they have never been removed from the chairs since insertion for any sort of decent cleaning. They were stained, the once bright yellow turned dark mustard yellow. I didn’t feel comfortable sitting in those.

I believe the only reason why Golden Bridge is so popular is because of the whole mob mentality. People (especially tourists) walk by and see the sheer number of people inside and think to themselves, «This place must be good, look how many people are eating here.»
It’s this combined with all the local Asian seniors who’s aged taste buds favor the blander and less flavorful, that result in the misconception that this place is any good.
The skins on most dumplings have the texture of congealed gravy or a silicone place mat depending on the size of the dumpling. Fillings are lacking in proportion.
The rest of the items are equally unimpressive and follow the same recipe of: lackluster ingredients + poor preparation + let stand and grow old/​cold = food served to the table.
I’m not just saying all this based on one visit, for some reason there is inevitably someone who decides on going to this place and each time I’ve ended up here it’s the same deal.
About the service. What service?

Having dined at this restaurant for a wedding banquet and visited for dim sum, I can draw the possible conclusion that Golden Bridge (GB) is just consistently mediocre. I have never experienced good Chinese banquet food outside of The Golden Unicorn or Jade Asian Rest. in Flushing, so why should I expect otherwise here. The noodles were soggy, the chicken was rough and saltier than salted fish, and the fried rice was plain oily and lacking in ingredients outside of the rice. That is just to name a few.
As far as dim sum is concerned, the experience was a bit better. Yet, it ultimately succumbs to mediocre offerings such as using overly-​frozen shrimp in their dumplings and poorly pan-​fried rice noodle rolls. It is also overpriced compared to King’s Seafood and 88 Palace, but we won’t even need to get to that. The biggest let down was the service at the pan-​fry food station in which one of our group tried to order a few many items ended getting ushered away because she was ordering too much. Forget about the fact that she was trying to know about she was ordering, and she had a huge appetite to experience with different options at the table. It lacked etiquette and it lacked common sense.
I know of many locals that love this restaurant and make weekly visits. But alas, Golden Bridge has succeeded in telling me that I shall not be one of them. If it wasn’t the sub par banquet food that did it, the bad service and dim sum quality puts the nail in the coffin. The repeated attempts to tweak its name cannot disguise the fact that this is one «bridge» to an unsavory experience.

For my first dim sum experience, I have to give this place 3 stars. It was pretty damn amazeballs. I would give it 4 stars, but i have nothing to compare it to yet (so I might change my response later).
I was warned that there would be some food passing by on the cart that I would be a bit frightened of, however I will try almost anything once. We were seated pretty quickly, considering there were 8 in our party. The section we were seated at was not the best location for food carts, but we made the best of it.
I tried chicken feet– not bad. I f I were to choose a favorite it would have to be the fried taro (which I’m sure has a real name), and the fried silverfish were pretty awesome. The group we were with made the experience more enjoyable. I can’t wait to go back, now that I know what I like and don’t like.
This was easily the most interesting brunch I have ever had in NYC.

It’s funny how regardless of what day it is, there’s always a crowd for dim sum!
Unfortunately I was slightly disappointed in Golden Bridge. Generally, I’m not used to having a section that you can get up and get yourself — but I don’t necessarily think it a bad thing. They had a long table at the back of the restaurant where they were cooking some dishes, if you’d like one, just bring your card with you for them to stamp it. I guess the disappointment comes in the few carts that they had and the small selection of food. Not until we were ready to give up, did we finally find the one cart with shumai! I want to say there were only about 3 carts — and the restaurant needed maybe 10! It is a pretty big place. The few foods that we had were okay in taste — the shumai was smaller than I’m used to. I like that they serve the chinese broccoli with the sauce on the side. Other than that, a few of us left kind of hungry.
Service was typical. We got water in paper cups — then when asked for a refill, he just gave us the whole pitcher… but I guess I was expecting it.
On a plus side — their bathrooms were surprisingly nice!

I’m OK with this place because:
(1) it’s convenient to get to via the M103 bus down 3^rd Avenue
(2) they have a relatively large number of small tables in the back… i hate sharing tables with a passionnnnnnnn
(3) their bathrooms aren’t entirely barf inducing.
The food here gets like a B– to C+. They have good pork + preserved egg congee, good snails, and good shumai. Pretty average dim sum fare — nothing great and nothing horrific.
It’s a fun place to take 1^st timers because the atmosphere is truly hectic and indicative of a dim sum experience — if you expect stellar service at dim sum you are delusional! But it is definitely true that the crowd this place attracts is not exactly classy. A lot of parents screaming at their kids in Chinese, competitive flagging of the food carts, and chewing with open mouths. But whatever — you’re not uptown anymore! Put your head down, concentrate on the food and it’ll be A-​OK. :-)

This place is disgusting. Both in service and in food quality. It totally ruined my view of Chinatown dim sum and almost swayed me towards Flushing forever.
The waitor rudely and loudly demanded a dollar more for tips because we didn’t leave 20%. He actually had time to get our attention as we were leaving to get that dollar, but didn’t have time during our stay to give us tea.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t have an appetite the whole time I was there because everything was just so plain and mediocre. There was nothing special about it, and even the standard dishes were extremely greasy and tasteless.

I would give Golden Bridge more stars if a variety of food came to our table, because what we had was really rather good.
Despite the incident involving our foraging quest to find pork buns for my husband that got my friend scolded by a dour looking woman, I had a great time… I just wish I’d gotten to try a better selection of their offerings.

— decent/​good dim sum
— too loud, too crowded, too big, usually a wait
— reasonable pricing
— would rather just go to Chatham Square Restaurant (see other review)