Cha For Tea Palace

The food has been going downhill for the past year, especially ginger beef. It’s so chewy and inedible. When I told the woman Manager, she just shrugged and said «that’s how it is.» Cha For Tea is a sad excuse for a restaurant. Definitely not going back.

Dim sum is awesome, menu food is always awesome but I find that it is over priced. They hold alot of functions there and close the restaurant from the public which can be a bit frustrating when you plan to meet people there and then have to read the sign on the door to find out you can’t eat there.

Such an over priced restaurant. I got 4 dim sum item and paid 42 $. It was tasty, but I don’t believe that tasty food need to be expensive. This is a rip off. And, I had awful service for take-​out. I wouldn’t go back here simply because the service was awful not to mention the food robbery.

We came back for the long week end gathering :
Foods and service were much better than the past, we were very happy to up date our view to 4 stars:)

Best dim sum ever Sunday morning is the best time to go always so fresh and amazing … Mango pudding with cream is to die for

Love this place, dim sum at all hours and it is always good, service is great also, definitely recommend :)

Ok, so I’ve been to Cha for Tea a few more times since my last review and I have to say, not bad. They’ve stepped it up and seem to be holding steady at a good-​average level. Not the best in town, but not bad.
But I feel I should also warn you, don’t be fooled by the «all-​day dim sum» sign like I was. True, they have it. But is it worth it? No, no it isn’t. I was foolish to forget that this is Edmonton, not Hong Kong. They’re not going to have fresh dim sum throughout the whole day. So if you go in the late afternoon or evening and think «ooh, all-​day dim sum!» like I did, expect it to be reheated dim sum left over from their morning service. And it tastes pretty obvious too. You’re much safer ordering the dim sum in the morning and sticking to the regular menu for the rest of the day. It will likely be more fresh then! Lesson learned for me.

We enjoy coming here for lunch as it is close to the office, quick, service is good, price is right and food tastes good. We normally get the dim sum and then the odd item of the menu.
Parking is normally ok. You may need to park on a side road as opposed to the lot if its busy but that isn’t too big of a deal. The décor is dated, but that’s not too relevant. The washrooms are clean and modern.
The tea is nice and staff is eager to ensure you have refills of your drinks.
The sticky rice is very good as are the shumai and spring rolls. The fried shrimp with mango sauce is great as well. The BBQ is very good, as are the pork dumplings.
Nothing stands as being absolutely phenomenal, but the staff are pleasant and the food is generally great at a reasonable price and you can get in and out very quickly :)

Although they might give you regular menus, dim sum is served all day everyday a la carte. The dim sum menu here is extremely helpful for people who are unfamiliar with dim sum as they have a picture menu showcasing the various items. Place is big, washroom are very clean. Food is mediocre definitely not the BEST dim sum or Chinese food in the city and like the other reviewers have stated it is slightly pricier here.

Used to be good. But no longer .
Management seems to have given up on this place and are letting the staff run it down. Shame as the food used to be good albeit expensive

Dim sum delight.
Myself and my partner have become regulars here and always enjoy our meals. we have had some times where they arent consistant but we expect everyone has there bad days.

Great Food but Stupid High Prices ruined the evening. They charged $ 8 for white rice! I will never return. $ 43 for no drinks and two of their cheapest dishes. At $ 16 for the cheapest dish you would think they would toss in a bowl of rice.

This place serves pretty good dim sum in town. If you’re new to it, my recommendation is to try the: pork&egg congee, pork bun, deep fried squid, BBQ pork rice rolls, sweet bean curd for dessert.
Service is as fast as a bullet train and you wouldn’t miss it.
As soon as u’re spotted by some random server, you will be sat and served drinks. Usually if it’s very busy, you could straight up order some dimsum only if u know what u want & u hv been sat (which my partner and I have been regulars and we did so which made our tummies real happy during the peak hours).
Also, if u notice there is a line at the restaurant, be sure to go straight in and put ur name on a list and just don’t queue in the line for the sake of it because some people do and they slowed themselves from being sat on a timely manner.
The servers are pretty funny sometimes. They crack you up with their occasionally silly antics and singing voices. Quite a happy bunch of peeps tbh. (^.^) one of my favourite lunch place to dine

Cha for Tea Palace channels a great dining experience with fast service and freshly made dim sum, brought to your table in a never-​ending stream of carts.
The restaurant is large enough to accommodate the busy weekend brunches, and is nicely decorated with the usual Asian elements found at most traditional Chinese restaurants. The service is friendly and attentive and the dim sum hot and delicious.
Cha for Tea is a little more expensive than other dim sum restaurants, such as Good Buddy or Dynasty, and generally serves dishes within the $ 4 to $ 7 range, whereas other restaurants often charge between $ 3 and $ 5.50 per item. This isn’t a huge difference, although if you tend to order a lot you’ll definitely start to see the effects of that price increase in your final bill.
Their dim sum, however, is fantastic. Any frequent dim sum diner can tell the difference between freshly cooked dumplings and ones that have been sitting in a hot cart for much too long. They can also tell the difference between a delicately cooked dumpling and one that has been drenched in oil. I quite liked Mirama while it was still open, simply because you could feast on dim sum for a very low price, but I was never a huge fan of their siu mai, which was often greasy and hurriedly-​made (to meet the needs of hundreds of diners).
Cha for Tea’s dishes, on the other hand, hit the nail on the head on all counts. Every dish we ordered was flavourful and fresh and, if you wanted more, came around again within a very reasonable time. My favourite dishes — siu mai (pork dumplings), xia jiao (shrimp bonnets), and the meat and eggplant (I don’t know the Chinese name for this) — were delicious, never greasy, and perfectly cooked.
The only downfall of this restaurant is, of course, the price. For two of us, with two non-​alcoholic beverages, the total came to around $ 50. If that’s too steep for you, I’d recommend sticking to Dynasty (who, to be fair, have consistently good dim sum).
If you want to try a different dim sum restaurant and are on the hunt for fresh dumplings, delicious chicken skewers, delightfully-​wrapped shrimp bonnets, and huge portions of sticky rice, then Cha for Tea Palace is the place for you.

I used to frequent this place a lot. I like the décor. I always go here when I want to eat dim sum and if I’m by myself, to really enjoy the quiet with jasmine tea. The dinner is too pricey, I would go in the afternoons or tea time.

We came for a family meal and the restaurant only had about 10 tables occupied. I noticed there were diverse customers and not many of them Asian. Maybe they are scared of the higher cost of the dishes here as compared to other restaurants.
We ordered dishes off the menu instead of the dinner for 8 or 10. The dishes included tofu soup, chicken, sweet and sour pork, duck, lamb, mushroom and tofu, peaches and shrimp, and seafood with vegetables. The dishes were smaller than other restaurants but I found most to be flavourful and there was sufficient amount of seafood in those dishes.
The décor is lovely with the gold trim chairs and 3 chandeliers in the middle of the restaurant. The washrooms are clean too. Service was decent but there are a few wait staff that don’t speak any Chinese dialects. For the 10 of us the bill came to just over $ 200 so not as much as I thought it would be.
I would give it 3.5 stars if I could and wouldn’t mind coming back to try the dim sum.

My husband and I used to frequent Cha until we discovered Jumbo Jumbo Dim Sum down the road.
Cha is good — but probably the most expensive Dim Sum I’ve had in Edmonton.
Our bill is always $ 30+ yet when we order the same items elsewhere it is frequently only $ 20.

Major props go to Aditya R for planning an awesome UYE at Cha For Tea Palace out on the west side of town! It was my first time trying out dim sum!
The ginger beef set a high bar when it came out first. It was seriously great!
Of all the other dishes that came out, my favourites were the pork buns (although I should note our steamed chicken buns did not come out properly), and the dumpling things (there was so much food! it’s blurring together). I didn’t even mind the shark fin and the squid, although my mental block wouldn’t let me get past more than one bite.
It was quiet, so service was good and the food came out fairly quickly.
I appreciated having a card full of food pictures to play the matching game. Made it easier to avoid some of the seafood-​y type of items that I don’t really like.
I found that a few of the dishes were a bit bland. They all seemed to have the same general salty flavour. Overall, the food was pretty good and I had a blast because of the company I was with!

Although I’m not a big dim sum guy, I do appreciate the preparation and execution involved with dim sum. Cha For Tea palace has the strangest name (why are they telling us that tea is called cha in Chinese?), but they serve up a full variety of dim sum. Dim Sum is basically Chinese tapas originally from Guangzhou, but didn’t take too long to reach the west ;-).
I think, between the 4 of us, we ordered roughly 12 small plates and I would say about half of them were of 4 star calibre while the other half were roughly 3 stars. Certainly the steamed buns were good and so was the sticky rice with meat inside («Treasure rice?»). I also thought the shrimp cakes were quite tasty and so was the eggplant dish. The ginger beef was really quite good. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the chicken spring rolls and was a tad disappointed with the curried squid. The dumplings were okay.
It was a worthwhile experience, with the faint hope of something better. I like that we got a lot of time to relax and drink jasmine tea while chit chatting about Community with great company at the Unilocaly UYE. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt since we did go on a Wednesday evening and as I have realized, most people eat dim sum in the morning. I’m guessing that the kitchen although equipped to make dim sum, wasn’t in full flow. There were just two other occupied tables apart from ours.

Cha for Tea Palace may be known for its fabulous Dim Sum, but that’s not all this fantastic restaurant has to offer. The facility is large enough for birthday, Christmas or anniversary parties, wedding receptions, banquets, and extensive families. They also offer delivery and catering.
I have hired Cha for Tea Palace in the past for an enormous 400 person function, which required the restaurant to not only be shut down for the entire day, but also ‘relocated’ to the venue in the back of a truck. The occasion? Chinese New Year 2008: The Year of the Pig.
J.R., the owner, and his marvelous staff provided a copious 10-​course, authentic Chinese meal, including the roast pig, after hours of slaving in a kitchen not their own (starting at 6:00 AM). J.R. provided advice for the décor and atmosphere, as well as insight into the traditions associated with Chinese New Year. If this isn’t considered going above and beyond, I’m not sure how it could be classified.
The food is scrumptious, the service is incomparable and the atmosphere is quite tasteful. I love going to Cha for Tea Palace for special occasions. My entire family fits quite nicely and there’s lots of room to spare for the other guests just dropping by for a bite to eat.