"My family and I had an early dinner at Hong Kong Islander for Lunar New Year. In lieu of their normal menu, they had several special menus which had ala cart items as well as family set menus (ranging from $338 to $668, for up to 10 people). The dining room is really large and sometimes parking in the front/back lots can be challenging when they're particularly busy. I fully expected the restaurant to be packed so we arrived around 4:30 pm to beat the crowd but it never got busy. Service was not attentive and our 8 dishes came out slowly, one after the other. We ended up staying over 2 hours due to the pace of the food arriving which was not ideal. We ordered the following: Orange Chicken, BBQ Pork Fried Rice, Salt and Pepper Squid, Beef Brisket with Clear Broth, Braised Lamb with Dried Bean Curd, Sautéed String Beans with Garlic, Steamed Black Bass, and Yee Mein with Chives. Overall, the dishes were good but only two items stood out as being really tasty. The beef brisket entree great flavor, the broth was outstanding, and chili on the side was a fantastic addition. Our final dish, the yee mein, was seasoned well and the noodles had a nice, balanced texture. Unfortunately, the green beans were overcooked and the fish wasn't cleaned thoroughly as I found scales plus the seasoning was lacking. While we weren't in a hurry, it was off putting to take care of customer service things for ourselves because we didn't have a waiter or waitress take care of our table. The manager took our order at the beginning and didn't come back until we flagged him. We had to get our own take out boxes; trying to flag down one of the waiters who was taking care of the two tables next to us was fruitless and it was almost as if he purposely walked faster to avoid our table. A waitress finally dropped off our bill along with orange slices for dessert but we had to flag her down to give her our credit card. Then, my husband had to go to the front of the restaurant to close out our bill and get his credit card back because we had been ready to leave for a while. The most off putting thing about our dinner experience was the added 18% service charge that was not indicated on any of their menus. I don't mind policies that include an added service charge. I do mind when that policy is not clearly stated on their menus. *That* plus lack of attentive service and higher than expected prices likely explains why more than half of the tables remained empty on a special occasion that usually causes 1 2 hr waits."
