For my first ever yum char experience this was an incredible let down. Was seated straight away in a fairly full restaurant but that was pretty much the highlight as it went downhill at a rapid rate from there. We waited for a lengthy period for the first dishes to be brought to us only for the waiters to blurt out in a manner I couldn’t understand what they were offering. Every time I had to ask for them to repeat it which by the looks on their faces it was a real struggle for them. Time and time again this happened and time and time again whatever dish we chose to try, the quality was so poor. The roast pork while sizeable was just all fat and solid chunks of bone. The final straw came when I attempted the good old spring roll, never in a restaurant had I tried something that wanted me to throw up immediately but this place managed it. We left straight away with the only other highlight being the mints which we took after settling the bill, they were more than necessary to settle the stomach. If this site were able to give half stars or even no stars then that would be a fairer more accurate description than the one star given. Steer clear.

Terrible service, the old lady at reception with short hair should be fired or at least given some customer service training. This is the second time she has been rude to us, and we definitely won’t be coming back a third time. The food there is nothing special either, and I agree with the post below – they should get rid of the “Chinese vegetables” – or at least make it clear on the menu it is just bok choy.

May we start with everyone here whose put 2 or less stars, we completely agree and when reading your comments felt a strong sense of deja vu. And to anyone thinking about dining here – go to DRAGON down the road!!!

We arrived at Grand Century for yum-cha (or should I say “yuck-cha”) yesterday at 2pm, thinking we would be allowing plenty of time for a quick bite as it finishes at 2:30. When we arrived the lady (who I presume is the manager) snuffed her face at us as if we were a huge inconvenience to them and told one of the workers to set up a table. The waitress brought us the menu and we realised that we weren’t going to get the normal yum-cha experience and would have to order off the menu, which was fine as we knew there was only half an hour to go.

While walking to our table we noticed how dirty the restaurant was with cobwebs and the fishtank looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years.

Anyway, I asked the waitress what vege dish she recommends and she suggested the chinese veges for $9 which sounded divine – turns out it was just a whole heap of bok choy and nothing else. She brought over our pork filled pastries which were dry and had obviously been sitting there a while as they were barely even warm. The coconut buns and steamed prawn & chives dumplings were better, mainly to the fact that they were hot and freshly made, as they should be. At this point of the meal (around 2:20pm), we were the last customers left and all the staff sat down and started their lunch, we noticed them looking at us and talking/smirking which was very rude. We had finished and were ready to go, and no-one came over as they were all busy eating.

Eventually, the manager came to the till and we said we want a doggy bag for the $10 bok choy and coconut bun (to give to our dog). She snuffed her face up and gave us a plastic container to put the leftovers in. Never in a restaurant have I had to do this myself aMorend feel so unwelcomed – they definitely don’t go the extra mile for service here.

We feel like we wasted our hard earned money here and our words to the world is Do not go there!!!!

Went there today for lunch (22ND May) second time Ive been there and both times were excellent, great fast friendly service.
Even got ask what we would like after trying a few and brought that out within minutes highly recommend
Definitely go back there!

Diner for six yesterday evening (Monday 6th Febr. 2012).
Starting from being welcomed by the Manager on entering the restaurant to placing our order after deliberating for 15 minutes and being offered assistance by our waitress and the Manager, right up to the quality of the food delivered, the wide choice of Sauvignon Blanc on offer and the polite & courteous service in the interim, the evening became an experience I would like to enjoy again soon!
Well done Grand Century,
Nik Z.

Had lunch there a while ago. It might have been partly my own fault because Yum Char is designed to be shared and not for single dinners, but the staff made me feel really unwelcome and misplaced. As I tried to ask the waitress if there will be some crispy pork as an option, she turned around and brought me a fairly large portion of pork belly from the kitchen of which she charged me $20 for. There were no sides or vegetable with it and therefor a very boring meal. Leaving almost have of it behind I went to the counter to pay for my lunch. The women there (maybe the manager) was talking to someone on the phone but did not bother to pause the call to take my money. She punched a few numbers into the till and pointed to the display to show me how much I had to pay. This was the worst restaurant experience I had in Wellington. I will never ever go there again.

This place was one that our family seem to always go to, I like the environment for a Chinese Restaurant.

It’s very spacious, and the food has never been bad when I’ve gone, we’ve mostly always ordered from a menu here, and food was reasonably prompt. Good things Take Time, and I find a lot of the time at Chinese Restaurants, this is the case, no exception with the Grand Century.

Food was nice, and environment is nice.

easily one of my preferences for Chinese, and Easily one of my more preferred options for Quality Chinese.

OK, but not the best Yum Char I’ve had

went for yum cha on sunday morning adnd was pleasently surprised to find a seat with only 10 mins of waiting

waiters were not very pleasent, infact I recall a waitress who was laying out the cutlery almost throwing the plates while setting up our table..I understand sundays are rushed for them and did not mind it so much

Food was all good…lot of good variety…we tried almost 80% of thier yum cha serves and cant complain anyone was bad..not much for my my vegeterian friend though but then we almost expected it

I personnaly feel that price was a bit on the higher side

Had dinner here as my 11 year old daughter chose this as her “birthday dinner” location. There were 3 adults and 2 children.

We were served promptly and the entrees started to arrive shortly after. The quality was excellent delivered all within the perfect time-frame for finishing one dish and being ready for the next.

The mains came out hot-and-tasty and without any kind of delay.

The waitress, once she discovered it was my daughter’s birthday, made a nice effort and spent time chatting with her and making her feel special.

We ordered 8 entrees, 3 mains, 2 deserts and several non-alcoholic drinks with the bill coming to a shade over $150. The amount of food delivered could easily accommodated and extra 1-2 adults.

I had yum cha at this place, service was in this place was very disappointing.

I asked for water more than 4 times and everyone just ignored me (in stead of getting water for me, staff members started their lunch) Finally I got water but no glass to drink with!!

They also brought tea which I don’t drink, never asked if I wanted them and they just charged it.

Foods tasted not too bad but not good enough for price I was paying.
Never go there again.

In planning a meal for my 50th birthday I went to several places to check out menues and prices. The Grand Century in Tory went straight to the top of the list. On Saturday 29th Jan 2011, my party of 12 enjoyed a wonderful evening. The staff were friendly and responded to the growing numbers with calmness and ease, the food was both high quality and high quantity and the atmoshere was conducive to just chilling out and relaxing. Some of my guests had never been to the GC before, but they all said they would be going back!

I will not recommend Yam Char at Grand Century because the dim sum are just alright from scale 0-5 i give only 2stars. but dinner at GC is not bad – food is good plus this restaurant is best place to have dinner in big group of people because they have big table that can fit more than 10 persons.

Awful. I went for yum cha on a Sunday morning and it was inedible. A lot of food comes around but you can’t understand what it is because the rude waiters just shriek out something completely indecipherable.

I had pork which looked like human flesh and tasted awful. A plate of vegetables is just bok choy with nothing else and costs $10 alone!

The service was the worst part. When my friends and I went to pay, the cashier got extremely annoyed because we were all paying separately for separate food items rather than splitting the bill. She acted as though this was some kind of huge inconvenience to her. I felt like saying “you should be happy we are paying for this disgusting horrible food AT ALL”. We actually got in a bit of a loud argument with her and warned others on the way out the door. Not a great way to treat paying customers! Perhaps they should set up a better billing system. Or have a cashier who can, ya no, add numbers? And not be a completely rude cow?

Will persist in warning people away from this hideous restaurant. Yech!!

Very good food. Loved it. Service was average.

Grand Century is one of the largest, better-known, and more-entrenched yum cha restaurants in Wellington, and though generally popular for a reason, this restaurant is a bit of a mixed bag, really.

The food is among the best yum cha food in the city, infact, they do some stuff better than other places, and they have a massive seating capacity (though you’re still likely to have to wait for a table on sundays.

Anyway, for the quality food in this place, there are numerous pitfalls. As standard with many asian restaurants, the service can often be rude and informal – that’s certainly the case here – sometimes the server girls will even be snappy, and sometimes seem greatly inconvienced by your asking of simple questions. An all too common trait of yum cha restaurants, sadly.

Anyway, this restaurant’s success is perhaps its biggest pitfall – on busy days it seems to take forever for servers to come round with food, especially dishes you really want. In addition, the place can be very busy, and tends to attract families, some of which choose not to control their kids. On weekdays, they don’t offer a full menu, and many of the better dishes aren’t avaible, making for a lame experience, and on Sundays, don’t bother trying to book, as that doesn’t help things – they simply seat you and make you wait like everyone else for a table. As per yum cha standards, the communication skills of the servers is poor, and it is essentially pointless to ask questions, or try and communicate with them at all, unless you’re prepared for a drawn out, clumsy, awkward back and forth.

In summation, great food (when they’re serving it) in a busy restaurant that has it’s fair share of downsides. Some visits are pleasant and smooth, while others are a disaster. Prices are about standard for cha, with $30 being pretty regular for two diners, same as other places really.

We eat there a yum cha on Sunday 18 July 2010 with my wife and my twin daughter. food is not that good. but surprise me when I got the bill is $77 I think there is something is not ok in the cashier. my wife and my two 8yrs old girls don’t eat much. inside is not really clean as we notice a cob wed in the ceiling might fall to your plate.

We had a large group dinner of about 18 people. They don’t really have tables made for large groups – so we had two lazy susan tables thrown together. Not ideal, but a bonus was being able to keep myself away from people I didn’t want a lot to do with for the evening.

We decided upon the $30pp set menu which turned out to be pretty good value. There were some issues with segregating the vegetarians amongst us, the staff of the restaurant wanting the tree-chewers to sit at one end so that those eating from the set-menu could be easily identified. With all the fuss it would have been far easier just branding the leaf-lovers with an iron.

A lot of food in the set menu, far too much to go into the individual merits of the food, suffice to say the food was very good. I especially enjoyed the Chicken & Corn soup which had a spice to it. The fried rice was a bit bland perhaps indicating mass-cooking of large quantities – but the rest was enjoyed by all.

Service throughout the night was generally pretty good and the staff were helpful (other than the discriminatory action against the cabbage-crunchers). I would have gone for a 3.5 rating, because I didn’t think it quite achieved a 4 – but seeing as I can’t do that, 3 stars from me.

We always go here with friends on Sundays & am generally happy with everything – however was fairly disappointed when some lady claiming to be the person who does their PR work pushes in & demands a table & gets a table before those who have waited in line for over 10mins – come on! I think they need to sort out the long wait for those coming in & those waiting to pay.

Busy much of the time, especially on weekends. Easier to get a seat during a weekday for lunch. Why is it so popular? Because the food is good, the place is light and spacious, service is fine, and their is sufficient variety to keep you happy. An alternative to the Regal.

Grand Century is a modern chinese restaurant located on Tory Street. The interior is nice as it was modernised and that is about where it stops.

The service is terrible, it takes forever to get seating even when it’s not busy and for some reason, they seem to give preferential treatment to other people even if you were in line to be seated first!

I used to go there for yum cha as I do admit their food is nice however due to their ongoing bad service I have stopped giving them my business. Does it hurt so much to smile at your customers and greet them?

Another thing to be careful of especially during yum cha, make sure you check your bill. On several occasions my bill is always higher than expected, and this has not only happened to me, it’s happened to my friends and even my mom’s friends! So just watch out for how they “bill” you.

A group of us went for yum cha this morning. There was a huge range of food – something for everyone, including those who preferred vegetarian-styled food, and some yum cha newbies! Very reasonably priced when dividing the bill between a large group.