Chef Tony

A good place to meet with old friends and not your traditional dim sum place. It does not have an extensive menu but plenty of new dishes to try. Though the price per dish is higher then most but worth the try.

The service was fast and courteous. But the seating is not the best.

FYI Chef Tony was the former head chef at the popular dim sum restaurant Sea Harbor, who branched out on his own. Chef Tony has two locations (Pasadena & Arcadia), and this is the review for the Arcadia location. Funny that I didn't notice this location was the old DTF, and when I walked in and got seated, I was like I think I've been here before. Lol. Anyway, here are the pros and cons comparison.

Pros:
1. The wait time was much more reasonable, and you don't even need to wait to be seated.
2. A few of the items that are always unavailable at Sea Harbor, can be found there! And they were yum!

Cons:
1. Some must-have dim sum dishes were not as good as we expected. The most disappointing dish was the Sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf. It was kinda flavorless and not sticky enough
2. We noticed that it was a little pricier than Sea Harbor.

Okay, let me put it this way. If SH is the standard, you might be a bit disappointed in this place. Nevertheless, if you treat it as a new dim sum restaurant to replace the old DTF, I think Chef Tony dim sum is a good addition to Arcadia.

My dad has always taught me if you want to not wait for dim sum to get there early. We arrived roughly 45 minutes after they opened on a Saturday and immediately got seated. My group and I marked the paper menu of the items we wanted to try and the food arrived rather quickly. The highlights were definitely the rice noodle rolls, the squid ink dumplings, the savory deep fried Chinese donut (try it with their congee as well), and obviously their bunny coconut jellies. Overall, some items were contemporary and some were staple dim sum food and I loved the mix between the two.

This a very good restaurant. Service is very good and the food is not just good is an experience. Some dishes better than others. Shrimp dumplings were excellent, chicken bao had too much ginger, hot and sour soup no very conventional bit excellent, the radish cakes were very good. The chicken casserole had too many tiny pieces of bones but good flavor. I highly recomend this restaurant