Ocean Palace

This place has become the only place I’ll order Chinese food from. I’m hooked! The owner and staff are very friendly and know me & my order, and they never mess it up. I love the duck lo mein, the chinese dumplings, their chicken and veggie fried rice, won ton soup. you really can’t go wrong. I like that it isn’t too salty :)

On our way from lake George we had plans to stop at another restaurant on Memorial Day but not a single restaurant was open but for the exception of a few Chinese restaurant. Ocean palace being one of them. It was a surprise to see a take out Chinese restaurant with dim sum which sparked my interest. The wifey and I ordered the salt and pepper squid and oh my goodness, it was absolutely delicious. Reminded us very much of a squid dish we had in Vietnam a few months ago. I would give the squid a 5 star. Wifey was in the mood for an order of General tsao chicken. So we also ordered that as well, this is a healthy version of what we are use to in NYC. Without asking, we were given white meat which is standard for their General Tsao Chiken. I would give that item a 4 star. Now to the dim sum the chicken feet –2 star, the shrimp rice roll — 4 stars, pork bun 3 star, dim sum ribs — 2 stars, tripe — 3 star. All in all a good experience in a nice family owned and operated Chinese takeout with dim sum…

I’m a regular at Ocean Palace, so when a Unilocal group decided to hold an Unofficial Unilocal Event there, I was hoping they would be able to show off their stuff. Steve N. organized a dim sum event because he had never tried it before. We needed a place that serves dim sum in the evening and Ocean Palace seemed to fit the bill. Once Steve discovered that Ocean Palace does not serve beer or wine, he dashed across Central Avenue to get some beers — this was the perfect complement to our sumptuous feast.
There were five of us and it seemed like we ordered half the dim sum menu, but no, not quite:
Bean curd skin roll with pork
Chicken feet
Shiu Mei
Shrimp Rice Roll
Spare Ribs w. Black Bean Sauce
Tripe w. Ginger and scallion
Turnip Cake
Squid with salt and hot pepper (jalapenos)
Young Chow Fried Rice
Fish preserved egg congee
Fried sweet rice with pork
Sesame Balls
Choy sum with oyster sauce
Steamed Scallop Dumpling
Stuffed vegetable bean curd roll (special)
Mini bun with pork
Steamed pork bun
The squid with salt and hot pepper rang the bell for many different reasons, one being that the squid was perfect. The accompanying veggies and jalapenos were grilled to perfection with just a kiss of sear. It came together as a beautiful combination of salty, spicey, smokey wonderfulness. The Young Chow Fried Rice was from the regular menu, but after trying it and enjoying it immensely at Ala Shang Hai I had to see how the Ocean Palace version held up. Let’s just say it wasn’t served until about the middle of this huge list of dishes and there was none left about 20 minutes later. Steve wants to go back for more. Me too!
Steve got a proper initiation to the art of a dim sum party, and the rest of us chowed down with great relish on our favorites, happy that our Albany pal discovered some new dishes.
Afterwards the suggested walk down Lark Street was greeted with enthusiasm as we sloshed our way into the night.

First, a big THANK YOU to Steve N. for organizing an evening of delightful Dim Sum.
We tried maybe 15 different items from the Dim Sum menu. While some items were more preferred over others, there was nothing that wasn’t full of flavor. Every dish was freshly prepared in the kitchen and delivered in stages to our special table with a lazy susan top making it super easy for five of us to share.
Service was excellent and efficient. It is fantastic to know that such tasty Dim Sum can be ordered any hour that they are open, any day they are open.

This is by far the best Chinese food I have ever had. I ordered my normal Chinese dish (Sesame Chicken w/​veggie fried rice) and I was thoroughly impressed, more liked shocked that Chinese food could taste as good as it did at this restaurant. I highly recommend this place to anyone visiting the area.

The most amazing authentic Chinese food this side of NYC !!! Owned and operated by a family that truly knows the quality of fresh. Hot and sour soup was amazing better than I’ve had in Chinatown, lunch special’s are of the highest quality and come with soup. An amazing Dr I worked for took me here Dim sum amazing lunch for two with tea and dim sum $ 17.23 amazing this now my to top spot just delicious the roast all there own meats and use the bones to make the stock for the soup very high quality Outstanding service

Fantastic take out chinese food. Looking forward to trying their other stuff.

Great high quality and authentic food! They do delivery, and their food is always delicious!

Pretty solid Chinese takeout. Will definitely order from here again. Particularly enjoyed the pork dumplings and General Tso’ chicken.

As a 15-​year Albany native this is the best Chinese food you’re gonna get in the area. No argument.

First time giving a review but I have to say the food here was really good. The price is regular and the serving size was good. Clean and easy to find.

Dear customers, this place, as tiny as it is, is AMAZING!!! I’m personally giving 6 starts to the cook for his great pepper chicken stir fry and blue crab from the special menu! My boyfriend comes here from time to time and it’s been always so tasty! If you’d like to have some good Chinese, please choose this place! It’s also reasonably priced. My blue crab dish was outstanding!!! Thank you so much!:)))

This place is absolutely fantastic. The owner is the chef and personally recommends dishes based on your tastes. The hongkong style blue crab is out of this world.
Do not miss this gem if you are in the area.

Cheap food, fast service, excellent service. For a displaced Californian from the Bay Area, this felt like home.

Food is amazing traditional taste!!! It’s the Top 1 Cantonese Cuisine place in downtown Albany. I’m here for the Exam for a week. And I’ve been here three times. Definitely will come before I left.

This food was amazing!!! Hong Kong Egg Roll, chicken, pork fried rice, dumplings life changing! Delicious, I am willing to make the 2 hour drive back here.

Ocean Palace is consistently great! We haven’t ordered anything that we didn’t enjoy. Most recently we got the Peach General Tso Shrimp (not on the menu — it’s on the special board by the register) and it was fantastic! Lightly battered shrimp with onion, pepper, broccoli and slices of peaches in a slightly sweeter general tso sauce. In general, the food is much less oily or greasy as some of the other Chinese food restaurants in the area. Definitely our favorite Chinese food joint in the area!

Best take out in Albany. My humble opinon. If you’re looking to go home and pig out on Chinese food this is probably the best place to stop and pick up food. I believe they are only doing dine in and and take out right now. But it’s right on Central so it’s pretty convenient.

Hands Down best Chinese «Take-​Out» in the city. Hands down.
Even though I probably wont ever come here for a sit down meal (it just doesn’t have the same atmosphere as Shining Rainbow or Ala Shanghai) doesn’t mean this place doesn’t have a permanent place in my heart. Everything I have had here from vegetables to chicken to fish has been prepared flawlessly.
They have all the classic takeout options and have eccentric specials daily; all reasonably priced.
The staff is the friendliest I’ve encountered in a take-​out restaurant and I wish the whole family all the success they deserve.
***Take special note Wonton Soup lovers, they are prepared correctly here, and not giant mouthfuls of soggy dough.***

Peter from CCK has resurfaced in this tiny place, which mainly does takeout but has a couple of tables if you want to enjoy your dishes piping hot out of the kitchen. It’s in the same location as Manhattan Fish Fry which I never tried; it served a limited menu including a lot of non-​Chinese dishes I understand. Now Peter has switched the name (Ocean Palace was a legendary place that closed just about the time I arrived in the CD 5 years ago) and brought back the full menu from CCK.
I went there for lunch today and had the Kung Pao Shrimp lunch special, a bargain with soup and rice at $ 5.95. Also had tripe from the dim sum menu. The flavors were a bit subdued for my palate but the prep was excellent and the ingredients were fresh and first-​rate.
Also took home two bags of take-​out which I’ll comment on at a later time. If I lived within 20 miles of this place it would become my go-​to for Chinese to go. Welcome back Peter!
UPDATE: I dug into my takeout bags which included three very generous trays of sauteed eggplant with garlic, chow fun with black bean sauce and beef and ma po tofu (each currently $ 8.95), a quart of hot and sour soup (a bargain $ 3.95) and two dim sum items, baked pork buns and sticky rice.
Same verdict as the sit-​down meal: good ingredients, well prepared, but a little tame on the flavoring, especially as I’d tended toward the «spicy» items. The chashu bao were small and didn’t have enough filling. The sticky rice was good but light on the sausage.
I didn’t mention it before but it took quite a while to get my orders in the restaurant; I’m willing to wait for quality but hate to think what it’s like at busy times. (I was there in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.) Solution: phone in your order; don’t just go in and wait.
It’s still not possible to give Peter less than 4 stars, but I see room for improvement and I hope it comes.