Dai Wah Yummy City

I went here for a chinese new year lunch and I thought it was going to be a bad experience. Surprisingly I am quite surprised about their improvement. It is nice how they decided to take the time and clean up. The food was actually surprisingly good great job! Here is the run down of food we had that I remember
meat platter
meats on rice
mayo shrimp
steamed fish
peking pork chops
lobster dish
sweet and sour tofu
Keep up the good work and you may be my new go to restaurant the next time I go to new york. I regret everything I said before. Thank you

This is the worst Chinese restaurant I have ever been to. I am honestly surprised this place is still in business when other better restaurants in the neighborhood have been replaced. The food is super salty and many dishes with sauce had sauce that was too watery. The restaurant is not exactly the cleanest place either and service was essentially nonexistent.

Did not care for this place at all — dirty and unprofessional (even more so than the other typical Chinese establishments in Brooklyn/​Queens/​Manhattan Chinatown… now THAT’S saying something, you know?!)
When you walk in, it’s a small restaurant, fluorescent lighting, overall no frills and on the shabby side — none of that are deal breakers of course (I care more about the food and the customer service and cleanliness). About 3 four seater tables in the front, and the further you walk in, 4 round tables that can fit around 8 – 10. Service is kind of typical: you order, they bring the food, and other than that, you need to flag or wave them down for extra soda or rice, etc. They definitely don’t come here to check on you.
But what was particularly off putting was the dirty and greasy floors — they weren’t wet but super slippery. Just walking in with sneakers, I felt myself sliding. When my dad went to take a picture, and moved backwards to get a better angle, he nearly slid and fell but managed to catch himself. The live fish tank in the back, the water was super murky — they don’t filter it. So if they are cooking your fish directly from there, good luck.
My aunt requested the house soup that comes with every meal — the bowls and everything were already set up. But apparently the soup wasn’t ready. To be fair, we did come early, maybe around 5:30−6pm so maybe they were in the middle of cooking it? However, ALL three large round tables had the soup, and while they came after us, they didn’t come 2 – 3 hours later. They came maybe 30 minutes or so after us. I remember we were still waiting for our dishes to come out when other people arrived and filled those tables. So either the soup was miraculously done in time for them, OR they purposely didn’t want to give us the soup just to be dicks. Maybe we weren’t their «preferred» clientele, since we mostly spoke/​ordered in English, and my aunt can be kind of demanding when it comes to her food requests. Maybe they were turned off and insulted, but we are paying customers, we are giving them business still, and we did not curse them out or make fun of them, so there’s no reason for them to not treat us the same as everyone else. Regardless, the proper thing would have been to offer us the soup later, or at least ask us if we still wanted it.
The worst part — they came up to my dad at the end of the meal after we paid and said we didn’t give them enough tip. Wow! These kind of restaurants, the workers barely do any work — they don’t check up on you, they aren’t friendly or offer smiles, and they literally just bring your dishes and leave. I thought that was tacky to do, and again felt like they thought they could bully us into giving more money — Americans are programmed to tip, after all.
Sorry peeps, you only get 15−20% when you EARN it. Doesn’t matter, not coming back here, ever. Oh, and as for the food, nothing special. People rave authentic and delicious; I get the same quality in Chinatown.

Average spot. There aren’t a lot of options in the neighborhood so it’s definitely appreciated to have decent authentic cantonese food.
Most of the customers order out. I rarely see any customers sitting down especially since it’s a small place and looks a bit shabby.

Small establishment as it usually serves small parties usually up to 4 and only has 3 large tables that serve 10 and at most 12. Service is lacking here and they usually didn’t pay us any service unless asked but you come here for no frills chinese food. They have a Lobster/​crab deal where you get a lobster and crab in a dish for a set price. The clams with black bean sauce is also good. Though i thought their flounder dish was lacking as it was way overfried. Stick with seafood here. Their roasted items were also good as the roast pork was tender and the roast pig was crispy and meaty.

Dai Wah (aka Yummy City) is the only 1 of 3 authentic Cantonese-​style restaurants in 18^th Ave. The very spot where they have opened their business has been sold and put to new management numerous times and this one has survived the longest. Most recently, Dai Wah actually had new management and was renamed into Eternal Garden. However, they’re the only business that I’ve ever seen in which a business is bought over and returned to its previous owners, a rather rare feat!
Positives: Authentic Cantonese restaurant, convenient
Negatives: Lacks consistency, not always clean, loud and rude staff (typical in most places), poor sense of hospitality
Experience:
The food they make here is actually on par with many Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. However, they lack consistency with their cooking. They have at least two different chefs at different shifts and depending who you have for that service, the food won’t taste exactly the same as you ordered between afternoon and evening services.
Morning services mainly sell dim sum and ready to begin lunch service by around 11AM; the dim sum could last to early afternoon and any remaining dishes are sold off as clearance items as they can’t be used nor sold for another day.
The staff are of your typical kind in Chinese places, loud and rude. Chinese waiters are mostly men and women who couldn’t find other jobs and find work here. They think it’s simply taking orders and giving the correct change, but most of them don’t know how to please the customer and at times try to trick them into taking certain things after making mistakes.

First thing I realized is how small this place is. They have maybe 15 – 20 tables at most. Waiters are your typical chinese restaurant type of waiters – rude, horrible service, and only speak Chinese. One thing I didn’t like about this place is the limited Chinese dishes the served. For God sake, if you open a Guangdong cuisine restaurant, at least serve the most popular dishes. Another thing is how salty the food is. When we complained, they hesitated to give us another dish but instead opted to diluted the saltiness by recooking it with some extra water. And the food after that got worse. The only thing that is decent is the jellyfish appetizer. That explains the two stars instead of one. Beside that, Won’t come back again. Please avoid this place at all cost.

Why doesn’t Unilocal give us the option to rate a business 0 stars because that’s what this place deserves. This place is dirty, disgusting, and the employees have terrible customer service. I’ve ate here a few times, every single time not at my will but this time (2 – 3 weeks ago) I felt compelled to write a review And do some justice by warning people about this restaurant before entering this establishment. Their table cloth is worn down and has holes in it. Their teapot looked really dirty and stained. As soon as you enter the waiters start asking you what you would like to order and starts throwing the names of some of their most expensive and «popular» dishes at you. None of them even taste great. Some of them taste decent but not great. There was one dish that we ordered with some type of Chinese mushroom type vegetable and my cousin and aunt were able to taste that it wasn’t fresh and seemed to be expired so we told the manager and he goes «what do you want to do?» So we ask him to try it himself and we put some on a dish for him and he brings it to the kitchen and comes out in a few mins and says «there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s fine.» That is bad customer service. If it tastes bad then you offer to cook us a new dish or cancel it off our bill, and some places will even go as far as to giving you a free meal. Instead this guy is not only reluctant to exchange it for us but he walks away from us. As a place that deals with people you should know that «the customer is always right» even if they are wrong but in our case, we were right. Anyways Unilocalers, do not come here!

Came her with my husband to try a duck for lunch. We have been on a quest to try more authentic Chinese cuisine around Brooklyn and came her on recommendation.
I have to admit when I walked in I was terrified by the décor and deserted look. There were no patrons with the exception of one occupied table and the whole place is decked out in dated pink linen and old seat covers. It’s an eyesore.
However, the servers who met us were very kind and patient in spite of the language barrier (we know no mandarin, and they spoke very little English). We ordered a duck, a lobster and some vegetable rice. The food was nice. I was scared it wouldn’t be, but it was. The vegetable rice was fluffy and tasty and the duck was good! The lobster wasn’t too awesome and tasted of sea water, but in their defense we couldn’t explain how we wanted it so they winged it and made it a ginger coated lobster plate. Not so much in their defense it shouldn’t taste at all like sea water. We liked it here and would probably come back. I don’t know how authentic the food is necessarily but I can say they have a very pleasant staff, the prices are good and the food is good too.

This is literally like three blocks from home, so that’s a star already for location. So I was here for a pre Valentine’s dinner with my parents and boy friend. I have been here countless times for a casual dinner with the family.
Service: Just like any other chinese restaurant, you don’t really expect much from them. We got seated right away since it was a slow night. Once we put in our orders, we got our food every 10 minutes. The waiter was attentive in changing our plates once it got full with bones. They did ask if everything was good with the food.
Food: fish soup — We started off with a fish soup and it was okay tp begin with.
Crispy chicken: the staple to any occasion to have in the chinese culture. It was delicious and cooked nicely.
Lamb with bean curd in a clay pot: this was my favorite of the dishes we had. The lamb was tender and the bean curd was perfectly cooked. The sauce was perfect to put iver my rice. It’s all about the sauce!
Two lobsters for $ 20: Not bad for the price and a bit salty.
If you wanted an alcoholic beverage, I believe that they had chinese beers and hoise wine.
We had some vegs to cleanse our palettes.
To finalize our dinner, they gave us slices. of oranges.
In past dinners, they are known for their whole roasted and crispy pigs dinner menu. I must say it’s a good bang for your money if you want to take your family out.
Ambiance: in the front of the restaurant, they hung their ducks and pigs. The inside was not pleasant to the eye but the food took it away from that.
Overall: This place is not bad for those who want a quick family dinner nearby and pretty affordable.
Cheers!

This is my first Unilocal review ever and I felt compelled to because I’ve eaten Chinese food all my life and this place is by far the worst in terms of both quality and service that I’ve ever experienced.
And let’s not even limit it to Chinese restaurants, this place has no business in good service at all.
While easy to dismiss comments that are overly critical, I ask you to set aside your cynicism for a moment and trust me that you’ll regret you’re decision if you ignore all the negative reviews and decide to eat at this restaurant.

The restaurant is pretty small and the waiter took awhile before he came to take our order. The lobsters taste pretty good but definitely not big enough. The seafood dish taste alright but it is a bit too burnt and salty. The hallow cho is overcooked and a bit spicy. Overall, the food is alright and the service is slow.

Order «Fish Maws Soup With Crabmeat» price of $ 13.95. Now let me start my story. The soup is no taste at all, taste like they doesn’t know what salt is. And the crabmeat in the soup is so interesting that have a mayonnaise taste in there. It look like they use people left over food to put in the soup.

1 Star: Eek! Methinks not.
We had a family dinner here with 3 tables for Chinese New Year, and we all had one of those pre-​set meals that they show on the wall. One of the dishes was roast baby pig, and only 2 tables received edible pork; the third table received a pig that smelled badly and the restaurant give them a hassle about it telling them «you’re just not used to it, this is how it is». Now, all of my in-​laws are Chinese, and many of them above age 45, so I’m pretty sure they know what roast pork is supposed to taste like. After some discussion they removed the cost from the bill, but just their unwillingness to acknowledge an issue with the food makes me rate them lower. Otherwise, no dish was great — they were edible but that’s about it. Many things were under-​seasoned, and others had no appeal. The final straw, the ladies room was gross… I’m not sure it was even cleaned in the last month.
I would never return again unless I had to.
PS: Window says «grade pending».

Came here with my family because they only eat Chinese food. Their food was way too salty. Price was mediocre for a Chinese restaurant. I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back to this restaurant.
I don’t know why my Dad’s friend recommended this place to us…

Came here for their lobster dinner special and ordered a few other dishes to accompany it, pork spare ribs, chinese style fried chicken, ong choy, fish, and tofu. Although I recall being specifically very hungry, nothing really stood out or was that memorable, even the lobster which is what I live for, surprisingly enough. Therefore, the name is misleading.
I didnt find the «Yummy» part in Dai Wah Yummy City. Definitely not a place that I would think to go out of my way for if I didnt live in the area, but being that they’re the only restaurant available that caters to the older generation, I can see the need for it, for accessibility reasons. Hard to imagine, but our soup wasnt the first thing that come out. Isnt that odd? That’s what dropped the 3 to a 2 star. Otherwise, the staff were attentive to ensured that we had tea… and drink tea, we did. Aside from that, I would come only for take-​out, and only if that were necessary or the only place I could get to. They do reservations on weekend nights so be sure to plan ahead, otherwise you could be left standing for quite awhile.

i feel really bad giving this place 1 star because i’m chinese and i feel i’m going against my people if that makes any sense. the restaurant is a small mom & pop’s restaurant that caters to the chinese community around bensonhurst, more specifically the 18^th ave area. this restaurant exists to give the elderly people around the area food that reminds them of home and not for rave reviews on Unilocal.heck, i could probably bet you $ 100 that this restaurant doesn’t even know Unilocal exists and this review won’t be read by many or help anyone. anyway, please forgive me for the 1 star and bad review i am about to write. if i could give it no stars, i’d give it no stars because that’s just how bad this place was.
sidenote — i just ate some of the leftovers and i am fighting off my stomach ache that is probably from the food. good lord why did i eat it =(
anyway, we came here for a family dinner, on recommendation from another family member that came here. we got there around 6pm and we had a party of 12. upon entering, you see a really tacky sign that says dai wah yummy city in bright yellow. if you are familiar with chinese restaurants, looking at the sign immediately will let you know if the place is ghetto or not. needless to say, before i even walked in, i knew i wasn’t going to have a good experience.
the restaurant is really cramped and tight and basically really ghetto looking. it is a typical looking chinese restaurant, but something about this restaurant made it appear more ghetto. sorry, i can’t think of a better way to describe the place.
so we pre-​ordered the $ 328 package special which included the pig that the restaurant is supposedly known for. the pig is basically a baby pig that is grilled/​fried, not sure what the correct terminology is, and is a whole pig that comes out. it is a chinese tradition. this dish is supposed to be an appetizer and the first thing you eat in the course, but the restaurant was so packed and we didn’t get ours til much later. we started off with other dishes. a lot of other tables also ordered the package bc every other table seemed to have one.
1. shrimp with mayo & broccoli — tasted just okay. i didn’t have any complaints, but it’s not on par with other places.
2. shark fin soup — tasted just okay. no complaints either.
3. pig — tasted surprisingly good and the skin was really crispy. never had pig like this before so maybe that’s why i liked it since i have nothing to compare it to!
4. abalone with mushrooms + bok choy — the abalone/​mushrooms were okay, but the boy choy was horrible. it was really old and it had a lot of sand in it which meant it wasn’t washed. yuck.
5. lobster — disgusting. i’m a huge lobster fan and the lobster here was gross. the lobster was obviously not cleaned bc it still had all its green guck inside. i took out my piece from the shell and seeing all the greek guck disgusted me. i didn’t eat it.
6. raisin/​dried shrimp fried rice — yuck. this dish was disgusting. the combination of the raisins/​dried shrimp were horrible. do not order this. i think this is why i have a stomach ache since that was my left over and i wanted to give it a 2^nd chance since i am not a food waster =(
7. crispy skin chicken — decent enough.
8. steamed fish — fish tasted really rubbery which isn’t a good sign. i didn’t eat anymore after my first bite.
9. fried tofu + string beans & other misc items — i love fried tofu and the tofu was decent. the strings beans + misc items were surprisingly good so this was my favorite dish. not sure if i will order this again though bc some of the misc items were questionable.
10. longevity noodles — i love these noodles and they were descent as well, but still not on par with other places.
11. red bean soup — i love this soup and i only to eat it when it is really sweet and no red beans and just the soup part. this is how the restaurant made it, which is the stingy and cheap way. the real way to make it is not to overload it with sugar and also to include actual read beans in it. needless to say, the elders did not approve of this dish.
12. oranges — did not try this, but some of the comments were that the oranges were sour
overall — most of the dishes were okay. it’s just that the combination of the ghettoness (yes i know this isn’t a word), tackiness, and cramped set up of the restaurant with some of the non-​kosher traditional chinese dishes really disappointed me. we paid $ 328 and that’s a lot of money for something of this quality. $ 328 can get you really good food at a nice chinese restaurant and it was a waste of money to spend that here. note — like the poster below, the place was super cramped and you could hardly walk anywhere. the bathroom was surprisingly relatively clean so thank god for that. i feel bad saying don’t come here bc that means the restaurant will shut down and i don’t want them to, but maybe the owners will read this and revamp the menu.

this place is FREAKING SMALL. we sat at the large table by the door on a busy weekend night and boy was it cramped. i honestly have never felt more uncomfortable! its even more cramped than when you are unlucky on the train and sit between two hippos! and since we were the lucky ones sitting near the entrance, every time a family walked by our group had to scoot for them. they decided to then change some of our chair so it would fit more comfortably around the table. wth? shouldnt you have done this earlier especially since we had reserved it in advanced and told you how many ppl were coming???
the food was GREASEEEEYYY. and really tasteless. and very corn starchy! out of the set menu that we ordered from (posted on the wall) the best thing was… nothing. nothing is memorable in a good way and it was not even cheap! take your money/​family elsewhere and somewhere more comfortable! they seem to be known for suckling pigs and every table including ours had one. but to me the taste was MEH. reminded me more of the regular crispy pig.

I live 5 minutes away from the restaurant. I go here to order a take out entrée to bring home to eat once in a while. I go here occasionally when there is a good reason to eat out, or when some company is over.
Just because I’ve come back here often, does not mean I like the place. It’s location is extremely convenient for my family to go to for a Chinese dinner. The food is alright, nothing special. I do think that some of their foods are a little salty. Their fried pork is never that great.
I can’t name all the foods and times I’ve eaten hear, but I just got to say it’s ehhh… there’s definitely better, but we’re too lazy to go anywhere else. The place fits our needs. It’s not all bad I guess… just not my first choice.
I think it’s a cheap place to go to for dinner. Decent portions.
Décor sucks… but it’s just a local Chinese restaurant.
Service is alright. I don’t think they know much English though.

I wrote a comprehensive-​ish review while eating this food so all of you fellow Unilocalers can get a more descriptive review of the food eaten here.
Here are all the dishes I ate in order.
Jellyfish– jellyfish not as fresh but the flavor was amazing– really fresh and tangy with a bit of spice
Fish broth– very clear and refreshing with a hint of spice. Clearly sweet Ground pepper is evident.
Fish tofu– Didn’t try it but the grown ups loved it. it was devoured by the middle of dinner
Seafood dish– snap Peas aren’t that fresh but the fish was tender. The sauce was really thick though.
Lamb — gooey with sauce. Didn’t really like it. I don’t like lamb prepared in a pot anyway.
Mayo shrimp– standard. Not enough cashews the broccoli was crunchy though!
Standard veggies — not much to say about this, it’s boiled veggies.
Taro seafood bowl– lacked flavor and burnt– not delicious.
Steak on platter-​not fresh and lacked flavor. It didn’t come out piping hot either.
Garlic pork– salty — no flavor
Lobster– standard Asian lobster covered in a gluttonous sauce. It was just ‘alright’
Bad service! the servers are not attentive at all!
Really crowded and loud at dinner time. They refilled the tea but it had no tea leaves. It was boiling water– so WTF. lol.
No desert soup but they gave us these cute little buns filled with red bean and oranges.
total came out to be $ 170.55.
So my final review of this place? bland but extremely SALTY FOOD WHICH sucked. I don’t think i’ll be back here again…