um…look, no offense intended, but are you hopped up on goofballs or something?
i think i’ve made it pretty clear i need a reservation. these are not people who can stand or sit around
comfortably waiting for a table. i want them to be able to show up and sit down.
it happens to all of us eventually.
r-e-s-e-r-v-a-t-i-o-n-r-e-q-u-i-r-e-d.
thank you.
4/1/16
54-46 that’s my number.
It is excellent. I ate there with a bunch of Cantonese semi-experts and all were impressed.
With all due respect @paranoidgarliclover - of course you are free to do what you want, but reporting what one’s friend(s) thought of a place is kind of unfair to the restaurant, in my opinion. We can’t follow up and ask you what was ordered, what was good or bad, etc.
I understand your point but do respectfully disagree. I’m not reporting in a professional capacity, I only referencing what my friend commented on in passing, and this thread isn’t specifically about that restaurant itself (for whatever reason, I don’t feel it’s a problem to make an passing comment when the restaurant was only brought up incidentally; I would not post my friend’s comment if main purpose of the thread were to review the restaurant specifically). And I don’t feel that the bulk of what I write about are other people’s opinions.
I feel what I do is no more “unfair” than when posters eat at very expensive restaurants, report about it, and then seem to deliberately leave off how much the total bill was… ::shrug::
Interesting about the money - I rarely give prices or answer money queries here because I find my bill is so much more dependent on booze than food.
Those of us who don’t drink (me) would agree… But only to a certain extent. 
I make the “correction” in my head for price pp when I know what the general price is and roughly how much alcohol was ordered (which is esp for the places that don’t have a website that includes prices!).
I am somewhat sensitive to pricing, so I do find actual amount spent to be helpful b/c only I know what I consider expensive, right?
As for my friend… He grew up in HK, and I think has a very good appreciation for dim sum/Canto seafood places (I def wouldn’t have referenced him otherwise!). The only prob is that he can be exquisitely sensitive to price (although has been receptive when I’ve talked about going to Urasawa). However, he normally corrects for this by saying, “It was good but not worth the $$$” (which he didn’t say about Grand Harbor).
But to get back to OP’s question, certainly your rec would make me more willing to try the restaurant, esp since they accept reservations…
there is absolutely no truth to the rumour if, indeed, we choose grand harbor and do NOT enjoy it we will send a twin .45- equipped chow yun fat after ciao bob.
thought i’d update on the SGV experience with los viejos.
we would up at grand harbor – they took reservations. sadly, i would not choose
this place again for dim sum.
now, i’m not the biggest dim sum fan; i think it’s kinda overrated as far as experiences in chinese
restaurants go. but, this place was meh-ville. yes, we could have ordered more adventurously, but
even some of the basic stuff we got was just not that great.
i enjoyed the turnip cake. the chicken knees were interesting, but deep fry anything and it’ll be at least that.
one of the dumplings (sorry, can’t recall which) was fairly fresh and decent; some stuffed eggplant with shrimp
paste had a nice texture. lotus wrapped rice was…o.k.
i would have liked a little more sucking up; the staff was pleasant enough but nothing special.
i’m not sure dim sum is this place’s strength. the menus outside for dinner and lunch looked much more interesting to me.
i’d like to thank everyone for their help. it was a very pleasant meal and it was nice to give these peeps a
reasonably tasty sendoff outta california.
Is that one of those words you dislike? 
Sorry to hear about your poor sgv experience.
I’m pretty sure that you got laowei’d.
From what I am told, Grand Harbor is quickly become notorious for this. Either you get subpar food (and/or service) or ridiculous upcharge.
Sorry to hear. Look on the bright side, however. At least you got reservations.
I dunno @ipsedixit. I find it very had to believe a dim sum place would go out of their way to make mediocre dim sum just for non Chinese.
That would take way too much effort as opposed to making the same thing for everyone. Especially during the dim sum rush.
It might be easier to do something like that during dinner.
The more likely explaination is that Grand Harbour just isn’t that good.
Trust me on this, it’s not that hard to differentiate the good and bad dim sum. Especially a la minute dim sum.
Now whether Grand Harbor actually discriminates, that I do not know for a fact.
But the former point? Yes, I know for a fact.
Wasn’t there that one article that talked about a central dim sum plant supplying most of the dim sum restaurants in town anyways? So dim sum isn’t really a la minute in most places.
It’s not as prevalent as one thinks – and for those that do outsource, it’s just for the basics. For the higher-end places (e.g. Elite, Sea Harbour, etc.) this is essentially a non-starter. For more pedestrian places like Top Island and even Capital it’s generally more of a way to keep costs down.
But even for those that do outsource, that’s just assemblage. The actual cooking/heating is still done inhouse – which can and does create variations.
And also for places that do heavily outsource (like Top Island), they ain’t laowei-ing anyone. They’re just happy to get another ticket in the door.
So those places would cook it less or more to “white”
a particular party? Seems a bit far fetched.
Again, for dinner I would believe it. For dim sum, it’s all about consistency and speed. I doubt anyone is marking a ticket “white” so the kitchen can deliberately make it more mediocre. That additional effort would actually slow things down. And no kitchen is slowing down during dim sum service. Not even a discriminating one.
OK.
I’m really not trying to argue with you. I’m just passing along info from first-hand experience.
At the end of the day, it matters little I suppose. If a diner (white, black, yellow, green or whatever) has a subpar experience, it’s a subpar experiences. The why’s and how’s are sort of academic and only make for good discussion board fodder, if that.
i honestly dont remember if ive bitched about “overrated” before. when u bitch as much as i do, it all becomes, much like a 90s hip hop track, a bitch blur after a while.
that said, i think im using it accurately in this case. dim sum just isnt one of my favourite ways to eat chinese food. most others ive encountered seem to really dig it.
as for being laowei’d, well, i dont know. it sort of occurred to me service wise, but it was busy and everyone was pretty friendly. foodwise, i like to think it was poor ordering and it just not being a great dim sum joint.
the occasion was more important than the quality of the food in this case. a good time was had by all. i vastly prefer sea harbor, though.
I’m with you on this one.
And I have bitched about dim sum being overrated before. And I remember it.
If someone eats enough dim sum at different places, it’s pretty easy to tell good dim sum from bad ones. One time, a family member insisted on going to a cheap (price and quality) restaurant to get their dim sum. One of my young sons (about nine or so) ate the food and asked me in Chinese, “Can we go to another restaurant to eat dim sum instead of this food?”