" Brunch Not Quite Up To Par "

Value for money		Suitable for...
The food		.. a date
The service		.. business dinner
The decor		.. with friends

We went to EEST a couple weeks back on the recommendation of a friend. The 88rmb/person price is probably the biggest draw here, however the food, service and setting were overall pretty mediocre.

First of all, its a "seated" buffet, which means you tick boxes of dishes you want and hand it over to a waiter. Food comes quickly in mini sizes which you'll probably finish really quickly. Chinese food consisted of shao mai, pork buns, and traditional dim sum fare which were all very average. Japanese dishes had fried chicken, noodles, etc. which were also flavorless and quite dull. Thai dishes seemed to be EEST's forte. Thai fried rice, cucumber salad and crystal noodles were well done, however we discovered this towards the end of our meal. The service seemed haphazard with some dishes "disappearing" off our ticked menu and staff rushing around in a disorderly manner. The setting was also a bit odd. Seemed like a converted hotel breakfast area made into a dim sum lunch area. A bunch of fake trees and tacky wicker furniture. I'd definitely recommend the first floor "The Stage" buffet if you have the budget instead.

" Yum Yum Dim Sum! "

Value for money		Suitable for...
The food		.. a date
The service		.. business dinner
The decor		.. with friends

Today I ventured to Eest for the all you can eat dim sum and I absolutely loved it!

The restaurant is a really nice place, light and airy, and you can actually here the orchestra, piano, and opera singers et al from downstairs at the fancy a million kuai pp buffet or whatever it is, so it has a really nice ambience.

The staff were surprisingly good for an all you can eat, some of my expereiences so far have included waiters reluctant to take your next order when it's not a buffet, but here it was no problem. They were also very attentive, filling up water and tea without being asked, offering cutlery when they saw one of my friends struggling etc...you know the little touches you expect back home that seem to get lost sometimes here!!

On the menu there were about 30 - 40 different dishes from Japan, Thailand and Japan inlcuding soups and desserts. It's not like the typical dim sum i've had in Hong Kong where it's all dumplings in steam baskets, there's a lot of appetizers such as Thai fish cakes, spring rolls, sushi, spare ribs etc etc as well as the traditional Cantonese offerings.

We stayed the full duration from 11 - 2 as it wasn't busy and it was a really relaxed atmosphere. No on was pushing for us to leave or slamming the bill down in a hint to get us to go!

Some of the portions were small, for example only one piece of chicken tempura came out, beautifully presented mind you, or the salmon maki was two tiny pieces, but that's the beauty of an all you can eat....just order more!

Drinks aren't included in that, but they aren't over priced either, we stuck with soft drinks at 15rmb each, and kept getting refills and were only charged once which is a nice touch.

I would say this place is more like Thai, Chinese and Japanese tapas than dim sum in the way the dishes are brought out and presented, but for 98rmb I think it was a great bargain considering how much we ate, and would recommend it to anyone, especially if you have friends or family visiting.