Grandeur Palace located at 2301 Brimley Rd in Scarborough

Grandeur Palace is the newest dim sum restaurant to appear in Scarborough after re-inventing itself after the former Dragon Dynasty Chinese Cuisine restaurant at the Chartwell Plaza closed its doors.  Grandeur Palace has completely renovated its interiors so that you cannot recognize the former restaurant’s space at all (other than the washrooms.. the layout is the same but they did jazz it up with new tiles).  

I didn’t receive the memo of why Dragon Dynasty Chinese Cuisine restaurant closed down as it was a favourite spot of my family’s to go to for our weekly dim sum lunches (do you know why they closed?).  Nevertheless, I was glad to be able to try this new Chinese restaurant out for dim sum with my family once again.

It was really nice inside; definitely reminded me of some parts of a palace due to its colour scheme

Dim sum sheet

Rice and noodle dishes

Other meat and seafood dishes

Promotion flyer!

We ordered several dim sum items to share off of the order sheet and I found that service here was very professional, prompt, and courteous.  In terms of the food, I found that everything was clean (served in brand new dim sum steam trays) but was lacking in flavour a little bit.  Perhaps they cater to senior citizens and families looking to simmer down on the sodium and MSG, because if that is the case, they are definitely doing their job.

This Meatball Dragon Pearl dish was actually a shrimp ball covered in pecans.

Meatball Dragon Pearl

I really liked this Layered Cake!  It was served cold but smooth and sweet enough to be a really yummy dessert.

Layered Cake

These Pan Fried Turnip Cakes were large and substantial but lacked flavour and tasted bland — healthy though, I guess.

Pan Fried Turnip Cake

These noodle rolls were chopped up into chunks and thrown into a hot pot with a little XO sauce with chopped onions and green peppers.  Again, the XO sauce was barely detectable which made the dish a little bland.

Noodle Roll in XO Sauce

I liked this Steamed Thousand Layered Red Dates Cake.  It was sweet throughout and best eaten warm.  I also liked its presentation too. 🙂

Steamed Thousand Layered Red Dates Cake

This Pan Fried Green Onion Flower Roll was really soft but tasted extremely bland.

Pan Fried Green Onion Flower Roll

The Steamed Chicken Feet were very soft — the skin fell off the bones — and just the way I like them.

Steamed Chicken Feet

Ginger with Chicken Buns

Plump Shrimp & Chives Dumplings.

Shrimp & Chives Dumpling

The quality of these spareribs were high, meaning that there was zero fat on them.  However, because there was a low fat to meat ratio, it made the meat very rough to eat and weren’t the best spareribs I’ve had.

Steamed Sparerib with Taro

Shrimp Sui Mai, a staple of any dim sum meal!  I found these were again kind of bland in flavour.

Shrimp Sui Mai

We finished off with the Sweet Tofu Pudding which was served in a traditional-looking wooden bucket.  The tofu could have been way more soft and smooth.  Thus, it was just so-so.

Sweet Tofu Pudding

Tofu Pudding

Despite the bland flavour of the food, I already know that I’ll be returning to this restaurant again in the future for more dim sum gatherings and dinners — my family likes to stick to one or two dim sum restaurants and that’s it.  It is a popular location for the Scarborough community to enjoy Chinese cuisine! 🙂  Even when we were leaving, there were still people waiting in line for a table.

There are also smaller private rooms to the left

Doorway inside Chartwell Plaza

– – –

December 25, 2017:  Since the above visit to Grandeur Palace, as I have mentioned above, I have since visited this restaurant many times again since due to my family’s preference in this Chinese restaurant.  I’ve been here for dim sum and dinners alike.  We had a dinner here on Christmas Day and so far what I think of the food is that it’s definitely moderate to good.  Some dishes are a bit too oily while some dishes are just right.  For example, the seasoned oysters with broccoli last night was very, very good.  Their chicken was done right as well as the crispy roasted pork.  The portions of food are very reasonable too and great for sharing.

The only downside is that their service is quite poor.  Many times during the dinner service, one or two dishes may be missing and in order to wait for that solitary dish, we end up waiting for 30 minutes or more, which actually surpasses the original time we spent eating.  There were a couple of times where after our dinner service was completed, the dessert what was kept us waiting too.  They serve complimentary dessert here but don’t serve a complimentary pre-meal soup.

Overall, I know I’ll be coming here again and again in the future so no matter how poor their service is, I personally have no choice but to accommodate my family’s preferences.

Photos of our dinner that night:

Dinner

Desserts at the end of meal

Also, since that very first time of visiting, it seems as if they have removed a table or two from their main dining room so that the space isn’t as cramped now (and much more safer in terms of fire hazard safety).