The Jade Restaurant

Our epic dinner at The Jade Restaurant in Richmond.

Continuing with our Monday tradition, we decided that we needed a Peking Duck dinner. So after looking high and low for a decent Chinese restaurant in Richmond I decided that we should give The Jade Restaurant a try. I've been to The Jade with family for dim sum but never for dinner. Originally it was going to be four of us having dinner, but it went down to three and of course I over ordered. We had Peking Duck two ways - (crispy skin wrap and lettuce wrap), Roasted Squab, Black Cod Clay Pot, Garlic Pea Shoots and a Chicken and Coconut soup. 

Out of all the Peking Ducks I've had The Jade Restaurant is probably not the best - almost borderline bad. All three of us didn't like how tough and thick the pancake wraps were, especially the rim of the pancake wrap was very stiff. Also the pieces of duck was carved too thick and it made it hard to wrap. Usually the duck should be carved thinner and closer to the skin. The Roasted Squab and Pea Shoots were pretty good no complaints there. As for the Black Cod Clay Pot that dish no one really touched and it was a poor recommendation by our server - we asked for a recommendation because they were sold out of fresh fish and scallops.

Now lets talk about the service. It was a typical Chinese restaurant service - which means you get no service. It took 20 minutes for someone to take our order, none of the servers were very good at making eye-contact. It was near the end of our meal before anyone gave us new dishes - our old dishes were piled high with bones from the squab. It also took several tries to flag down a server so we could pay our bill because everyone was too busy standing around and not making eye-contact. Oh and one more thing one of the servers "complained" that we ordered way too much food for 3 people because he was having trouble finding room to fit each dish. In my defense the restaurant staff should be intelligent enough to know how to organize a table full of food and its just bad manners to complain in front of your customers. Anyways I am going to stop here, because we won't be back anytime soon, not because of the typical bad service but because the food quality was pretty poor.

Until next Monday.