Oriental Bar & Grill

If you come to this place, do not get the ordinary, like American Chinese cookie cutter menu food or fake Japanese sushi. Get the dim sum or items off the authentic Chinese menu, where items are also written in Chinese characters. These dishes really shine and are worth your dollars.

Could you get ordinary Chinese American food? Sure but you would be missing out on what this place uniquely offers.

I took off a star because staff service is hit or miss sometimes. For example, it may take a while for people to notice your party so that you can be seated, making you feel awkward until approached. Once seated, servers come around slowly. The service is okay but could be improved.

Been here several times now and I think it deserves a solid 3.5 stars. We came here when they first opened years ago for dinner and thought the food was subpar. Since then, we've been here a few times for dim sum as well as dinner and haven't had a bad experience yet. The dim sum is better than the regular dinner but we have enjoyed both. The service is what you expect.. you will need to wave down staff to get things you need. The only time they come by the table is to drop off food or refill tea.

My nieces and nephews love feeding the koi fish out front!

This dim sum place never missed as I have been here for 3 years. Food has been consistent and the service is good.

Came here on friday morning right when they opened! We were seated immediately!
This is a great local restaurant, we were headed to Foxwoods casino, and wanted some dimsum. This place is a solid dim sum restaurant! It definitely can compete with the NY ones! The food was delicious, and much better priced than NY! Very authentic food! Service was great too! You check off what you want on the menu, and they bring it out to you! Food was fresh and came out fast! Will definitely be visiting it again!

My family is Chinese and this is the only restaurant in southeastern CT for authentic Cantonese food. They have a banquet menu (in Chinese) that you should check out!

Was in town visiting some family and stopped in here for some dim sum.

They don't do the push carts like some other dim sum restaurants. They just give you a sheet and you fill it in. I photos on the menu. Most likely it'll be easier if you frequent at dim sum restaurants.

Service wasn't bad--not the friendliest folks but doable.

Food wasn't bad. One of my favorite dim sum items is chicken feet. Unfortunately flavor was a bit lackluster. It was a bit too soggy and flavor was a bit on the blander side. Edible though.

I didn't expect soup dumplings there and they had it--they weren't bad. Enjoyable I thought. Beef lo mein was okay--beef was moist. Shui mai and har gow wasn't bad. Very moist and didn't break apart. Flavorful.

Overall, it was a decent meal. I'd lean more to a 3.5 star for this review.

This place was amazing! Definitely one of the best asian noodle dishes I have had and I think about it on a weekly basis. The appetizer items I got was pretty standard but also yummy.

I would definitely come back again - especially to try their dim sum

We visited this place for dim sum with family and friends on Sunday and it wasn't too busy around 11:00 am.

We ordered a bunch of food. As I sat there I smelled something funky and I kept smelling all the entrées we ordered and couldn't figured out what the smell was. As my friends and family ate the lotus wrapped chicken and rice, they said it tasted weird. I took it and smelled the rice with chicken and could tell immediately that it had gone bad. It smelled sour and rotten. We let the server know and they just brought it back with no apology. Later they offered us to exchange it for another dish. Since we ordered two orders of the dish and one of my friend ate one (she just ate it thinking the dish was fermented) they initially only wanted to exchange for one dish. I told them they should exchange for the other one since it was bad as well. After the server went back to the kitchen she finally allow us to exchange for another dish.

This already left a bad taste in our mouth (literally). After, we left about a 14.9% tip given that the service wasn't really good (took a long time to receive what we asked for and the incident with the lotus wrapped dish) the manager or owner (the lady with short hair) came over and asked for more tip. That was super uncalled for. She asked why we didn't give more tip. We already gave her $30 in tips. We told her the service wasn't good to which she replied that it was busy and then walked away. I was in disbelief. She admitted that the service wasn't good but still asked for more tips and walked away to end the conversation.

We won't be back given the poor quality of food and service.

"You wanna go Fu Xing?" This is what family group chat will say when it's time for another dinner here. (Fu Xing is the Cantonese Chinese name for this restaurant) When everyone's back in Connecticut from wherever they went, my family goes here for dinner. Christmas? Home from college? Parents meeting for the first time? We do it all through an Oriental Bar & Grill dinner. My parents even deemed this the location of my Chinese wedding (June 2022) because they offer quality traditional Chinese Cantonese dishes. This is the place. Heads up I'm going Cantonese for naming these dishes because my sister and I didn't earn the badge of ordering in our native tongue for nothing!

First, let's talk about Dim Sum. Between here and down the street, you can't go wrong with Dim Sum here. Personal favorites are the siu mai (shrimp and pork dumplings), gan chow ngow hau (dry stir fry beef flat noodle), low sah bao (salted duck yolk bun-better tasting than its name I promise!), and the law mei gei (sticky rice with chicken in banana leaf). I also like they have different takes on the famous cha siu bao (pork bun). We have the iconic steamed pork bun, but they also offer it baked and croissant form. Something new! The star at dim sum for my family is the soft shell crab. We may intentionally order 2-3 servings because the whole family (usually a table of 10 of us) can't get enough of it.

Where Oriental Bar & Grill stands out is the dinner menu. With a few family style dishes, we feed the whole family. There was one week our family was so obsessed we ended up driving 50 min each way from Hartford 3 times in with different groups to go eat there. Yes including week days after work. Our favorites include hap toe ha (honey walnut shrimp with Japanese Mayo and broccoli), ban nam bo (clay pot with sole fish and mushroom and cabbage), and guat herng long lei (bone-in fragrant flounder). It's so nice to be able to get traditional Cantonese Chinese dishes less than an hour away from Hartford. You can even get sushi at the bar and all of it has tasted fresh and good!

The dinner dishes hit Asian parent seal of approval. My parents absolutely wanted me to have the Chinese wedding banquet here, which is an honor. Oriental Bar & Grill was able to serve 100+ people. The owner and staff even helped us maximize how many people we wanted (ended up having 140-150 fit in the restaurant with 15 tables of 10). The owner was communicative and present whenever we came in person to meet and plan. They even coordinated with a local business for decorating.

Oriental Bar & Grill is a special place in my family's hearts. It's now got one in mine especially because of my wedding. Order something different and give it a try!

We took two of our elders to this place for them to try dim sum and give them the experience. We knew we ordered a lot of dishes (about 10+), but we also knew we would take the dishes home to the rest of the family waiting at home. I had to self service myself to get my own to go boxes and bags, and there's no one to check up on you unless you flag them down. They just dropped off the food and left. As we paid and left the tip on the table, we were packing our boxes and a worker asked for the check and showed us the recommended tip section and asked for more. I told her I was packing my boxes and I'd do it later. Who comes back and asks for more tip when you barely serviced us?

I then went on Yelp only to find that someone else had a similar experience not only a month ago. Not a shock. I'm all for supporting family owned, but the service today left a sour taste with our family and we won't be coming back. You're better off going to Foxwood 20 minutes down the road to enjoy your day.