Chef Tony Dim Sum

This is a nice looking restaurant with a nice interior and beautiful chandeliers. But I’m afraid that’s my most positive observation. The service leaves something to be desired. Our server said no rice noodle rolls were available then ran away with our order without giving us a chance to look at the menu again. There goes two of our orders. The seafood soup was hot but was pretty bland. The steamed dumplings were not as flavorful as other places. The highlights of our meal were the lava salted egg containing bun and rice ball. I’m not sure this place is worth trying again.

I came pretty hungry, so ordered more than I was able to eat. It was around 4pm, so few people were at the restaurant. I received the dishes very fast, and each one was tasty. Especially liked beef, but dim sum did not disappoint. The service was nice and quick. The restaurant is clean and nice. It was pretty quiet, though not clear how it feels when it is full. Generally I liked this experience.

Chef Tony in Pasadena is an upscale take on dim sum style dishes and authentic Chinese cuisine. The restaurant's modern and elegant decor creates a welcoming atmosphere. The menu might be a little overwhelming for people who aren't familiar with classic Chinese dishes, nevertheless this place offers something for everyone. The presentation of some of the dishes like the the Bunny Coconut Pudding and the Lava Egg Yolk Bun are worth trying if you want something new. Overall, this place is good enough if the wait isn't too long. There is also a location in Arcadia that we go to all the time.

Lunch hour is busy, understandable but when you’ve been standing at the door waiting for the host/hostess to sit you & no one comes, it’s frustrating. We had to call them on the phone to respond. I’ve been to the one in Sing & Manila, the quality is good but when they serve your order in a weird sync, it’s bothersome (the soup came in the middle after the siomai, chicken feet & fried string beans & the sweet balls meant for dessert come before the beef noodles & the rice then you’re really off. Service could have been better. Maybe next time ?

Everything tasted pretty good, but most was sweeter than I expected. Menu comes with a paper and pen so you can fill out how much of everything you want, they leave it at the table so they can reference if needed, which it was! Both of the buns that I ordered an individual of, they served as a set and it had to be corrected (they took what they brought, I had to wait for a new individual order to be brought out). After they take your order, they leave a receipt paper on top of the menu paper so they can cross it out as it's served, but that one doesn't say individual vs set. They also took a while to come back with the check after taking my card even though there were only 5 other tables seated at the time. I ordered: 1 chrysanthemum tea: very good - $2.80 charged per person not by table 2-set juicy pork dumpling: standard soup dumpling - $3.60, but was free as part of grand opening deal 2-set shrimp/pork dumpling with black truffle sauce: good but didn't take a pic - $4 3-set baked BBQ pork bun French-style: very thin layer of filling, very sweet crispy topping - $7.80 4-set wonton in special house sauce (spicy shrimp): not spicy, more like sweet/sour sauce - $8.80 1 deep-fried steamed bun: came with a sweet dipping sauce, basically a donut hole they cut in half; good but I didn't realize it was a dessert, was listed with steamed foods - $1.80 1 steamed lava salty egg yolk dessert bun: very good, runnier yolk than I expected but I haven't had this type before - $2.80

I don’t need to lie. This dim sum place restaurant is the best in Pasadena even though it is in soft opening phase. I don’t know why everyone is giving this restaurant a low rating (3 stars only). I feel these people don’t really know dim sum. In my opinion, their dim sum is in par with the good dim sums in HK. Since we want to try out their dim sum and give our friends who are exciting about this new dim sum addition to old town Pasadena some feedbacks. We did ordered a lot this time for two of us. The good thing is that unlike other dim sum outfits. this restaurant offers individual order for dim sum rather a set of 3 or 4 for each order. So two of us, this is perfect. We ordered two dim sums per item. The Chao shao Baos were very fluffy for both bake and the steam ones. The bake one was a bit stingy on the Chao shao fillings. For the turnip cake, I tasted real turnip and some fried shrimps, again very authentic Cantonese style. I also noticed that they make the usual shao mai and Shrimp dumpling with truffles which added great flavor to the dim sum. For my favorite dim sum, glutinous rice tamale, they disappointed me as the rice was not mushy and hard to eat. Maybe was just his batch tasted bad. For dessert, chef Tony got creative. He make a very cute and plump bunny with the otherwise boring coconut jello dessert. Every one was ordering their cute coconut jello bunny. So we ordered two bunnies as well and they do taste very good. We were going to order their egg tart but we were so full and had to reserve the order for our next visit. We will be back to try more of their dishes. They open from 11pm to midnight for all day dim sum. For parking, we parked at the parking garage in Raymond and Green. First 90 minutes is free.

First time visiting this place and here’s what I can say. Their menu selection is not bad. Not as many Dimsum choices as that from an actual Dimsum restaurant in SGV but what they offered was still not bad. I liked the fact that they had squid ink dishes (didn’t get a chance to try the squid ink pasta though, that’s for our next visit). And they had my favorite: steamed lava salted egg yolk bun. Not a common dish found in your regular Dimsum place. All the dishes we ordered were very tasty and very well made. I’m giving only 4 stars because of the following: 1) because this is a restaurant where you “order” your dishes and not pick them from a Dimsum cart, be prepared to wait for your dishes to be delivered to your table. From the time they took our drink order, we waited for more than 10 mins for our tea to be served. Then after the first Dimsum plate was served, the rest of the plates arrived one after another 10-15 mins apart. 2) we also noticed that the servers did not consistently check the order receipt to see which dishes were ordered and which ones have been delivered. By the time we’re done eating, we ended up taking one missed Dimsum plate to-go because it never arrived. Other than that, I would still recommend this place and will also come back because the food is definitely worth it.

Walked by from our hotel and saw several tables eating good looking food. Stopped in to check it out. We sat at a high-top in the bar area (brighter and more casual). We ordered pork bun, a noodles dish and the rice noodles with veggies. All were delicious and generous portions. The only negative - we waited for our bill, in fact after sitting for about 15mins after our table was cleared we had to ask.