Joy Luck Restaurant

Just to letting people know, this Joy Luck Restaurant is now closed! It was always great place for Dim Sum! Oooom, hungry! Ooooom, dim sum, be enough to make one hungry!

Love this place. They barely speak English, so if that’s an issue for you, don’t go. Atmosphere is bright with TV that might be on. Tea is great, which is rare. Prices excellent. Dim Sum fun and quite good. Some regular dishes, like Mu Shu Vegetables are fresh and not greasy, which is a pleasure. Dumplings and wontons are good. Most of their food is good, you can get really authentic things and things made for white people.haha. Always satisfied. Not a place for romantic atmosphere, but if you want to feel like you’ve walked into hong kong or something… it’s a gem.

Sunday morning and no waiting! Inexpensive but very good. We had to have what we consider the signature dish (spareribs over fun noodles). With four people we can never crack $ 40! We now have a bet to see who pays — guess the amount of the bill. We ate until we were stuffed for $ 31.50 Har gow, siu mai, and more. Don’t expect the awesomest variety but don’t expect to wait for food either. Again, don’t sweat it if you don’t speak cantonese. This place is very friendly. Might have to order some chow fun or chow mein sometime.

Went here on Christmas was little run down, but was really good food, super cheap. I will be going back.

Good and very well priced (my friend and I dined for about $ 24 plus tip). Paticularly enjoyed the beef with preserved vegetables (much better quality beef than usual, and the preserved vegetables were on the sweet side of pickled).

This place is really cheap, and the there’s never any wait for food. Food is way better than what I pay for. 5 Stars!

Went here while of vacation in SF area. The dim sum was decent and brought a group of 5 adults, a toddler and baby. The food was decent and would go back. though I stuck mainly to the dim sum when we were there. The restaurant is nothing fancy, but family friendly.
Customer service was good. Staff always available to assist and brought orders out quickly. I went with two strollers and they were kind and made room. All staff seemed to love the toddler and baby.

Good place to drop in for a quick bite. Usually busy at anytime, so you may wait a few minutes.
Enjoyed the beef chow fun. That is a personal favorite.
If you are in the area stop by.

Joy Luck, you’re my go to for Dim Sum
You’re cheap, there’s usually seats, and that’s why I come
You have all the tasty things a guy needs
Lotus leaf wrapped sticky rice, shumai, dan tat, and desserts with sesame seeds
You’re a cheap ghetto place in oakland I must admit
But with your food, space, and price, my budget do you fit
OK, so this place is Cheap, Chinese, Dim Sum! Don’t expect something super high quality, but it’s definitely decent. If you got with a lot of people, this place is the place to go. Cheap, decent, and tasty. If you want something more higher end, you’d go down a block to Legendary Palace, but for what you get here, it’s good. Three and a half stars.

Came here once and I’m never coming here again.
My family and I came here on New Year’s day, one to celebrate the new year, and two, because I was back on break from college and I haven’t had the chance to have dim sum with my family. We walked inside and it was packed, like we expected. We stood in line so that the lady could give us a wait number. It took her five minutes to figure out which table was open despite the fact that the restaurant is not that big.
We walked over to the table and it wasn’t even cleaned yet. Rough start. The waitress asked us what type of tea we wanted. My dad chose. It took the waitress 10 minutes to bring tea out. Not only that, but she brought the wrong type of tea.
We waited a long time for the dim sum carts to come our way. From what I saw, there were only two floating around the restaurant. Actually, two might be a bluff. We got our food. The skin of the shrimp dumplings was way too thick and the shrimp inside was dry. They had these meat balls and those were a disappointment. To be honest, there weren’t actually a lot of dim sum to choose from. It wasn’t until we were leaving after sitting in the restaurant for 45 minutes did I see egg tarts and steamed BBQ pork buns.
They had a buy 10 dim sum dish, get one free, and we were finished with our 9^th one so we decided to get two more. We sat there for 15 minutes without any food coming out to us. A guy who I suppose is the manager came over and my dad called out to him and told him to help bring two dishes to us since the carts weren’t coming around. We see him walk to a cart and he is putting food on other peoples’ tables. We waited another 10 minutes before he came back to us and by that time, the cart was already next to our table. No help at all.
We left after paying. What made me even more upset was that the cashier asked my dad to give her more tip after giving an amount of tip which was a lot considering the service and food we got.

My family and I came here since we had just finished paying our respects to our deceased relatives at the cemetary nearby and boy did I regret it. The service was extremely slow, the food carts kept coming out with the same 5 dishes over and over again, AND they tried to tack on $ 24 onto our bill.
When we received the bill, we added up all the dishes and it came out to $ 54.03 including tax, but the bill indicated it was $ 78 that was owed. Luckily, we checked and did the math– and they could not give us a reason as to why magically there was $ 24 added to our actual cost! I will never go here again– shady business practice to try to sneak in the costs thinking we weren’t capable of doing the math ourselves.

While on vacation we were wandering around Chinatown for a place to eat. Previously, we had some dim sum from a take out place that was pretty good, but I really wanted to sit down and relax.
This place is not fancy and in fact it looks a little run down upon entry. However, the food (dim sum) is really good and cheap as hell. My one note is that the restaurant is filled with older generation Chinese people and much of the staff speaks little or no English. Although, I’m very familiar with the vast majority of dim sum dishes, my poor Chinese accent and my limited know vocabulary made it difficult to communicate.
In any case, I would definitely eat here again.

I REALLY wanted to give this place a 5 star review because the food is delicious. My daughter and I stumbled onto this restaurant after the Dim Sum place we were headed to was closed.
They cook it order and it is always fresh. We returned immediately and still drop in from time to time. Minus one star because «once» I found a hair in my Honey Walnut Shrimp :-(It was a to-​go order so the added ingredient was not discovered until I was home.
I would have called or mentioned it the next time, but they speak little to no English and we have to use the «point» system as it is when we order. You have to «point» to what you want on the menu which is why calling in an order is out. Sadly, minus one more star.
Still, they are friendly and reasonable. Everyone deserves a chance to make things right.

Having varied seafood here in this clean large restaurant. The staff are friendly and courteous. The menu is extensive !

Definitely went back several times–
This is my favorite spot in Oakland for Chinese Food… maybe overall even.
You get the same level of awesomeness on the grub, every single time.
What’s not to love? I LOVE YOU.
Thanks for being here for us.

This place was bad. I tried to give this place the benefit of the doubt, but there is no doubt about it. It’s just bad. Its probably the cheapest in chinatown, but it’s not worth the 5−10% savings over something you can actually eat.
ordered a couple of things:
1) wonton soup — this was the worst, the wontons were old and you could taste it. the broth was some sort of milky white thing (not chicken broth). bok choy was rubbery (which means it was overcooked and/​or old). Got the waitress to replace it and this time, the wontons were not old, but they had no flavor. Bascially, they skimped on the shrimp in the filling.
2) pan friend noodles — the pan fried noodles themselves were ok, but the topping was bad. the pork they used was old, and the vegetables were old.
3) the pork buns were ok, filling was a light, but this was passable. but there are many other better options.
4) beef rice rolls — greasy and overcooked
Sad to see so many people in there (chinese and caucasians alike).

This place is hella cheap! My friends and I came here for our recovery meal after NYE. For a group of 12 of us it took about 20 minutes for us to get seated. The service was okay, not great but not terrible. We ordered the seafood fried rice and beef chow fun. The fried rice was kinda bland and didn’t have a whole lot of seafood in it. I didn’t have any of the noodles so I can’t really comment on those. From the carts we got the har gow, BBQ pork bun, shrimp in rice roll, siu mai, and a few others I don’t remember xD all of it tasted good though!
In the end, it only cost each person $ 5 after tax and tip! And we were all pretty full too: D Definitely come here if you want some cheap dim sum!

3.5 rating, rounded up because of extended hours.
ATMOSPHERE: To be honest, it’s ghetto. Lol, it’s a decent size place and can hold a good amount of people. It’s not fancy or anything…
SERVICE: Not that great. The lady owner seems super indifferent… and gives off a «I don’t care vibe.»
Why I’m even giving it four stars?
Because I feel that the quality of their dim sum is fair for the price they are asking for.
Their dim sum is not bad at all! The portions are big and usually really filling. It’s not expensive AND their dim sum time is longer than other dim sum places around Chinatown. Most dim sum places close at 1PM, I think this place is still open until 3PM!
So yeah, the atmosphere and service isn’t that great, but the prices and quality of the time along with extended open hours for dim sum, in my opinion is totally worth it. At least I’m not paying overpriced dim sum for OK dim sum.
It’s really a trade off in in good atmosphere and good dim sum in Chinatown… there isn’t really both a good atmosphere and good dim sum. It really depends on your preference and which is more important. I personally am very picky with my dim sum, so I’d choose this place over the other fancy dim sum places.

I’ve been coming to this hole-​in-​the wall place for years…4 stars for the inexpensive, tasty dim sum! Love the standard offerings:
* sui mai (pork dumpling)
* har gow (shrimp)
* roasted pork
* steamed black bean spareribs
* taro ball with ground pork inside
* baked pork bun
* eggplant stuffed with shrimp
All the above for $ 21…can’t beat the price! Don’t be surprised if you’re asked to share a table… this is typical when it gets busy!

Our family has been going to Joy Luck as far back as I can recall, back in the 90s… for various festivities and celebrations. Good location and low prices.
Zero wait as there were a bunch of free tables in the main room. You get to seat yourself. Dimsum was okay. We had the meatballs, beef wrapped in rice roll, shrimp wrapped in sticky rice (my first time seeing this), spare rib rice rolls, chicken feet, chive dumplings (of course! My fave). I liked the shrimp and sticky rice and the chive dumplings. Meatball wasn’t bad either. Skip on the spare rib rice rolls (didn’t go well together and was rather bland) and the beef wrapped in rice roll (undercooked rice roll). Usually two carts going around. The restaurant isn’t that big. The price is extremely affordable. The grand total for 6 dishes were $ 16 plus change including tax. Not bad for 3 people with leftovers. Maybe we’re just light eaters.
I’m not a fan of drafty restaurants. Dunno who is though. It makes you want to bundle up in your coat while you eat, making the experience rather uncomfortable.