Red Emperor Chinese Restaurant

This is not the first time we’ve been here - our previous visit for a birthday celebration was amazing and we were very keen to return. This time was to celebrate our wedding anniversary - booking online we asked to be seated in the balcony if available. This was ignored, even though there were plenty of free tables on the balcony and being a Monday night it wasn’t particularly busy. When we asked about it afterwards, we were dismissed with “it was wet today” even though there are blinds protecting the area and the rain had cleared by lunchtime, plus other people were sitting out there. The food was as delicious as we remembered, and their ability to cater for gluten free outstanding. The lady who served us was lovely…when she was waiting on us. However the general service was appalling this time around. We waited close to 15 minutes before we were even given a menu. Throughout the evening we witnessed other tables being looked after very well, being served before us, finished their meal before us even though they came in much later than our booking. Our waitress was topping up other tables’ water then not even checking our glasses. Our meals sat on the middle serving table waiting to be dished up for long enough for them to be lukewarm, and our dessert ice cream melting. At the end of our meal we didn’t get any hot towels (every other table we watched did). Overall we felt very invisible and ignored. The table behind us had 4 businessmen who had had far too much to drink, being very loud with extremely inappropriate language - swearing their heads off. Saying quite inappropriate derogatory comments. At the end of our meal (that took 2 hours and 40 minutes to get through because of the lack of service), Simon (we assume the manager) brought over the eftpos machine and almost insisted we give a tip (in Australia a tip is not customary). When we said not today, he appeared annoyed and when we mentioned the behaviour of the table behind us, he was very dismissive and didn’t seem to care. Overall, not a great experience this time and disappointing given our previous experience.

Red Emperor Chinese Restaurant in Southbank are fantastic. Excellent range of Yum Cha, and superb service. My daughter needs gluten free food, and they have range of gluten free options which makes it a great option for me. 5 stars!

Fantastic gluten free offerings no cross contamination. Food is well worth the price. You won't regret going here for a meal.