Peony Seafood Restaurant in Oakland

I visited Peony Seafood Restaurant for dim sum, and while the experience had its positives, there were a few aspects that tempered my overall impression.The wait time for a table was a bit longer than expected, but we were eventually seated in the quieter tea lounge section of the restaurant. This area was conducive to a more peaceful dining experience, and the server did inform us upfront about the tea charge, which was appreciated. If youre seeking a serene space to enjoy your dim sum, the tea lounge section is worth considering.As for the food, there were no major complaints. The dim sum offerings tasted good and satisfied my craving. However, while the flavors were enjoyable, there was nothing particularly remarkable that stood out.

My favorite DimSum place.Love to dine at Tea Lounge section, now we get to use Open Table to reserve a table.Tea Lounge section has better tea and great service using iPad to order from the menu.Compares to SF price, Peony is inexpensive & delicious.

Good restaurant for special occasions. It’s more worth it if you have a large group for celebrations and such because of the price. They have lots of seating but it can get noisy.Pros: Vegetarian dumpling, shrimp dumpling, and coconut bunny were tasty. They have a fairly good selection of menu items (although it would be nicer to include a couple more poultry entree options).Cons: We got the lemon chicken and the texture was okay, but the sauce was very thick, like a jam, and the chicken itself was very very thin (mostly fried batter). Prices are fairly high, which is why it’s good for special occasions. Service was a little slow and they forgot to bring certain items to us.

Growing up Ive been to many of the dim sum places in Oakland Chinatown, and theyre one of the few that has stayed around even though it has changed owners a couple of times from my understanding.walking in you still has the classic feel of what dim sum used to be like the interior is a bit more old school and not much has really changed physically. but the small details like ordering your food through the iPad have been modernized and what I do appreciate about the spot would be the minor details like having an extra water jug to refill our tea kettle (which saves sooo much time with waiting on refills and etc - super convenient)however, the reason why I say that they got the rating is due to the food quality and the service itself. for $7.20 the porridge was barely the size of my hand and we had asked the server for 4 bowls to share amongst our party - they gave us attitude (which i feel can be typical at an Asian hole in the wall) but even when we had asked nicely they questioned why we needed the extra bowl/made it feel like it was a really hard ask. for the noodles-wrapped donut - the donut was super stale and had a weird taste intermixed. i feel like the dish sizes were misleading from the menu. for example, the porridge was listed as large but as mentioned before it was only the size of my hand.i dont really recommend this spot as the ambiance, food, and service werent the best but at the same time it might be worth visiting as it truly has been a huge part of the history within oakland chinatown!

This afternoon turned out to be quite disappointing, thanks to some mix-ups with reservations and less-than-impressive food. If youre looking for a Cantonese restaurant, you might want to consider another option next time. A heads up: dont bother booking online because, apparently, they wont actually save your table.We had a large party, so we gave them a call to reserve. However, we were swiftly redirected to make 2 table reservations online, just use the same name. After confirming with an employee about making multiple reservations under the same name, we showed up only to find no tables saved for us. Their excuse? We didnt know it was the same person, but it felt more like they forgot about all the tables we had booked. No apologies, just attitude. The management didnt leave a good impression, adding fuel to the rumors about this place going downhill.The staff, from waitresses to the manager, werent exactly friendly when we inquired about our reserved table. Asking for an extra chair turned into a bit of a snappy response from the waitress, saying, 你自己唔識攞咩？(Translation: You dont know how to get it yourself?) Yeah, I know, a rude waitress taking out her frustration on us for their planning failure.The food took its sweet time, with the main dish finally arriving right after we requested the bill, after about 1.5 hours of waiting. We had to scratch a few additional items off our order since they never showed up. The management blamed us for ordering late, but who could have predicted it would take that long? The manager even insisted we couldnt cancel after ordering, even though we hadnt eaten the items we crossed off.服務好屎，企台唔單止冇禮貌，仲好串。明明佢哋搞錯晒啲booking又話係我哋嘅錯。Manager都好衰。總之，揸遠啲去美食坊 就算。

The service and cooking is a bit slow but the food is a die for it. I recommend eating the beef bao.

We went on a Sunday afternoon, just when they open at 5pm so we didnt have any wait time. We had mostly dim sum, veggies and some cute bunny coconaut cakes that it was the best!Food was same as in many places, nothing extraordinary.I did notice they have a special menu for dinner that it must be good if you are in a big group but we didnt do that.The restaurant was hot and has no windows so I really didnt like that vibe, it looks like a wedding venue. Other than that, it looked clean and service was efficient. If I go back, it would be only with a big group to try the special dishes. For a simple and casual dinner, this aint the place.

First time here. My good friend invited me to try this place out. Very friendly staff, quick to bring out food and reasonable price for the quality. The dim sum is very good quality here. They have a big seating area and they follow covid protocol doing temperature checks at check in. Great experience overall!

Very nice restaurant with reasonable prices. Authentic cantanes dim sum dishes. There is underground parking, we paid $3. Four of us ordered 11 dishes (cost $85) and we were full and content.

Overall, I had a very nice time at Peony Seafood Restaurant. The food awakened my inner Chinese self. The rice jook was rich and creamy, filled with chunks of pork and aged eggs. The chicken feet were difficult to eat and pick up. I preferred the warm chicken feet to the cold, slimy ones. I liked the veggies topped in tofu skin. My favorite dish was the roast pork.