The Grace’s Cantonese Restaurant

i think the grace’s has closed and will reopen as judy’s sechuan restaurant. i’m saddened.

Well– This is my first Dim Sum in Virginia. Maybe I’m just used to Chinatown Dim Sum in Chicago, but Grace’s is just fine. They have the authentic delicious food that I love. Granted, I only did take out because I was ordering for lunch, but I’d love to dine here and see how service is. I was, however, a little dissapointed that they did not have the BBQ pork turnover. That’s my favorite. All in all, I’ll give it a thumbs up.

Leave it to the Chinese pee-​pole to think of a restaurant name called «The Grace’s Cantonese.» What does that even mean? Are there two Grace’s? In any case, only I can joke like this, because I’m Chinese too. And you know what– the food is good here, authentic, tasty, good price, but cleanliness in the kitchen cannot be guaranteed. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.
Get the kingdom porkchop, the salty squid, any fried rice and yu choy and you’ll be set.

The dim sum is aight. Jade villa tastes better but their food is always cold. My husband and I came (almost regularly) here because jade’s was too crowded on the weekends but stopped because of a rude waitress! Dim sum is ok though, for Virginia beach. I’m from Oakland, where dim sum is like a religion so it wouldnt be fair to be too hard on a place where dim sum is scarce. One more thing, I didn’t like their fried rice.

Really great, authentic Chinese food. The menu is huge and full of genuine dishes you won’t see at PF Chang’s. The food is served traditionally, a generous portion on a platter so that all can share. They come out in waves so don’t eat too much before the next dish comes out shortly after, ideal if you’re with a group and want to try a hodgepoge of flavors. The experience reminded of the time I spent in Singapore. Delicious, fresh, and above all genuine. Can’t wait to come back for the dim sum, which unfortunately is only served 11 to 3.

Very authentic Cantonese Restaurant!
We came out for dim sum and to my surprise, it was served Hong Kong style (with the carts).
Now I wouldn’t say it was the best that I had ever had, but it sure was damn good. They never left us waiting for more food or tea. They had all of my favorites in the carts so I was a happy camper.
The attendants were very mindful about coming by and checking on us. They also had very good English! This helps for those of you that don’t know chinese and can request certain dishes. This is what make dim sum great, point and what looks good (obviously not the chicken feet) and eat it. easy!
To be quite honest because they actually tried to give me chicken feet, they earned a good rating from me because it is tough to find a true authentic dim sum place (like ones from Chinatown Chicago) in a place like Virginia Beach.
Will definitely be back!

This place is horrible. Food is overcooked, fried too long, boiled too long… the only thing that got this one star is the hot and sour soup. Everything else is just plain nasty as hell.

The décor brought be back to any restaurant in Hong Kong or China town. The serving staff was friendly. The dim sum left me wanting. The flavor was lacking. The yang chow fried rice was bland. The peking duck was fair, though. I’ll try once more, this may have been an off day.

Awesome! We came out here with the promise of proper authentic Cantonese food, and they definitely delivered. It’s such a rare find around here, it’s tough to compare it, so let’s just go with «awesome».
We came in at around 2pm for lunch, because we were waiting for someone who never showed up. At 2pm, it was pretty dead, except for a single table full of little old Chinese ladies. It looked like they had one dim sum cart moving, but we ordered from the menu so we can’t comment on the dim sum.
We had a fried rice dish, ma po tofu and some stir fried bok choy. We were both blown away by the tasty awesomeness. They have a large «chef’s specialty» menu, which is worth a look if you’re feeling adventurous. Expect prices higher than your average hole-​in-​the-​wall chinese place, which is pretty typical for proper Chinese food outside of a Chinatown.
The waiters were very attentive, and I got the impression they’d have been happy to make a recommendation. At 2pm, we had basically the only two waiters in the place serving just us, so you can bet that our glasses stayed full. The interior was pretty typical of a midrange Chinese place; everything was clean and the décor was pretty, if nothing all that special. We were there for the food, really.
Like previous reviews mentioned, this place is shoved in the back of a little sketch strip mall with a little sketch bus stop and not much else. It pretty much just looks like a driveway from the street until you’re pretty much past it, so keep an eye out for it.

For dim sum in Virginia Beach, this place is a good fix for my dim sum cravings. It’s definitely not San Francisco or Los Angeles dim sum but it does the job. I like this place for their dim sum better than Jade Villa. The har gow here is definitely better than the har gow at Jade villa. Plus they are larger.
Tried the seafood pan fried noodle and it was a little too fishy for me. Not a big fan. Also I think the dish was like $ 15 dollars.
On a positive note. Service was GREAT! Plus, when I went they had half off dim sum on a Saturday morning.

This place is for Chinese people and those that enjoy authentic Chinese food.
My Mom and her friends frequent this restaurant often and have started coming here much more often than Jade Villa. The prices are good and so is the food. They have unique and tasty Cantonese style dishes and also have a lobster special once a week!
I have had both dinner and dim sum here and like both.
I’m not sure why anyone would expect to have dim sum for dinner. The fact that they don’t have dim sum available for dinner means they don’t serve frozen dim sum/​dim sum that’s been prepared long ago and is still sitting around waiting to be served. They keep it fresh. I like fresh.
I can’t speak for items on the menu that are specialized for American diners. Perhaps they are just as confused about how to cook for Americans as some patrons may be confused about authentic style Chinese cuisine? :-/​
Anyways, I hope more people come and check this place out at least once. It’s delicious, well-​priced, and is a mom-​and-​pop type place and I’m all for mom-​and-​pop joints!

Our goal in coming here was to try some of their Dim Sum but since we were here for dinner, they would not serve any to us. I should have taken that as a warning of how this evening was going to go (NOTE: Jade Villa will serve you Dim Sum for dinner. They just don’t offer cart service). Another ominous sign was the lack of movement in the lobster tank. It made me wonder how long those unfortunate crustaceans had been sitting there.
We were here with another couple so we ordered several dishes so we could try as much of their menu as possible. The stir-​fried conch was way overcooked and rubbery. Avoid with extreme predjudice. The fried Chilean Sea Bass was decent enough as were the Singapore noodles. Those plates went back empty so I can’t complain.
However, the Fujian fried rice was disgusting. It was basically plain fried rice smothered in chunks of various (overcooked) seafood, all drowning in some kind of rancid, mucilaginous sauce. It was so vile that I actually had to gargle when I got home just to get the taste out of my mouth. The gallon of Tsing Tao I drank in the restaurant didn’t cut through it at all.
Carbo-​kid did like her Peking duck so I will give them kudos for that. I tried it and it was delicious. Also, we did like our waitress. She was very pleasant and patient with us as we asked questions about the menu. She did screw up the split checks but quickly fixed the problem when we showed it to her.
If I was in a more generous mood I would say I would be willing to come back and try the dim sum. But based on this experience I think I will stick to Jade Villa or Forbidden City for my dim sum needs. I can’t imagine ever coming back here.

So we finally got around to trying their dim sum. Unfortunately, we’re still relegated to getting our dim sum on when we’re in DC. Booooo.
We tried a bunch of dishes. None which really blew our minds. I think the dish that was almost the stand out was the fried shrimp dumplings… but they were a bit too generous with the white pepper. The siu mai was decent… but one bite sent a copious amount of oil oozing from the bottom. The egg custards were a good size, but the burnt bottoms were off-​putting.
I’ll give them this, the quality was better than Jade Villa. The times we’ve given JV a chance to redeem themselves with the abysmal dim sum reputation we’ve held them too… they’ve failed. Everytime it’s overcooked and blah… total waste of money. The Graces quality was fresher and more made to order (again, JV has such a high supply and demand that quality sometimes suffers to keep up with the business)…but still the flavors were lacking and/​or were off. The egg custard bun seemed to be overcooked as the custard was curdled.
I did get water spilled on me and there were profuse apologies. Still… after getting drenched, maybe trying to make an additional appeasement would’ve been good. Still, it’s a Chinese restaurant, and I know the more authentic ones wouldn’t rank too high in the customer service departments. As long as the food is authentic… and good, I don’t care.
For now, I think we may still stick to JV… albeit not for dim sum.

I have been to Jade Villa numerous times to feast on their dim sum and late night menu. This is the only place I can compare The Grace Cantonese restaurant to due to my lack of dim sum travels. I like jade villa, but I don’t love it. I like Grace Cantonese, but I don’t love it either. I will say that Grace’s food is not as heavy and/​or oily asJades, for example, the pot beef stew. My parents had chicken feet, spare ribs, sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf, and some other stuff. I really enjoyed the Siopao, the dough was excellent quality! The service was decent, except it was hard to communicate with some of the cart pushers to ask about the choices on their cart. Oops! Forgot to mention the free refills on hot tea! Oolong tea was nice! The prices of dim sum ranged from $ 2.50-$ 4.95. Be careful, they add up!
Yes I would go back to try their main dishes!

I love dimsum. Best dimsum in virginia beach! Better than jade villa and forbidden city. It’s a must try and we will definitely be back.