By Dennis Chu on June 19, 2011 • ( Leave a comment )

CROWN PALACE

Address: 1283 State Route 35, Middletown, NJ 07748

Crown Palace is a Chinese restaurant that my family has been going to for years. I still remember when I was really little that I used to leave our table to go admire their tropical fish tank that they have in the middle of the restaurant. We’ve had lunches here, family banquet meals, as well as dim sum, and it’s always been very good. On Friday night, we came here after my brother’s graduation to celebrate, where we ordered up a ton of food.

A lot of Crown Palace’s Chinese dishes are Cantonese-style, and in my opinion, the ones that we have tried are done very well. That night, we ordered fried rice, walnut shrimp, a beef steak dish, fried fish, fried tofu, and noodles with chicken. I am more privy towards fried rice (and always have been growing up) so I had quite a few bowls of that myself. I found that everything was seasoned really well and had a richness to the flavors. I ate a ton of food that night, and then they brought out a plate full of ice cream. My brain was happy, but my stomach frowned at the thought of more food. Needless to say, I was still able to happily enjoy a bit of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream.

The dim sum is another thing that one should certainly try out. It is sometimes pretty crowded when they have the dim sum service on the weekends, but many of those dishes are made really nicely as well. We come to Crown Palace for dim sum on occasion as well as for lunch service sometimes during the week. I have found that the quality of the food has been consistent for the past 10+ years I’ve been coming here, so it’s definitely worth checking out.

Here are my rankings for Crown Palace:

Food: 4.5 / 5
A lot of authentic Cantonese dishes on their menu, many of them really tasty and flavorful.

Atmosphere: 4.5 / 5
The dining room is really nicely decorated, with the large glass windows offering a lot of natural light to come into the restaurant. The interior has a slightly elegant feel to it.

Service: 4 / 5
Our waiter was very polite and the servers were attentive to refill our drinks throughout the meal.

Price: 4 / 5
The dishes do range on the more expensive side, so do come with more people to split the bill. I’ve found that their lunch menu pricing is pretty reasonable though.

Overall: 17 / 20 (85%)