Review Joyful Chinese Restaurant - Auckland Central

Had a birthday dinner with 10 friends last night. The food are great. I am from Canton. The Cantonese food here is the one of the best Chinese restaurants in Auckland. The service are very nice and friendly. My husband’s non-Chinese colleagues love the dishes too. The peking duck is so good. I love the sauce so much and no one take photos( lol). Last night the restaurant was full house, so the space was a bit small for a big table. next time I might choose lunch time to come or dinner in weekdays.

Celebrated my friend’s birthday here. Everything was so delicious and service was impeccable!

As a Cantonese, I can assure that this is one of the best Cantonese restaurants you can find in town. Always come back when my stomach is feeling a bit homesick 😋

Prompt service, authentic Chinese decor, friendly staff. My Sizzling Beef in black bean sauce & rice was delicious.

Very reasonable price. We ordered snapper fish and chips. It was big and yum!

Very authentic hongkong style chinese food. Love this place!

Friendly service plus good food

Amazing food, best Chinese restaurant ever!!

Initially I did not like going there due to the sole Cantonese cuisine given that I am from Singapore. However, after going there a couple of times, i realised how niche this outlet is in terms of quality and medium portion Cantonese fare which feature both lunch and dinner menus.

I ordered the sweet and sour fish with rice; yummy dinner. Lovely cozy venue with friendly staff. I would recommend parking in Inverary Ave. Would return again to order more.

Best Chinese restaurant in town! Highly recommended. You can tell from the food that the chef and his team put in a lot of afford to ensure only good food is presented on table for your palate.

Food was delicious but a little pricey. But my family enjoyed all of it. Will be going back. Owner is awesome too.

A good place for dinning, price is reasonable, taste is very good. The only thing that is the owner is a bit too keen with making money, always suggest you to have more expensive dishes.

Overpriced. Food is average. Got served a small amount of spareribs peking style. Felt like it was a rip off. Portion size looks like a $6-8 from night markets. Won’t be back.

We used to come here ALL the time out of convenience. We too have noticed we often got overcharged. Reading other reviews, apparently this happens a lot.<br/><br/>What the hell. My parents may not want to make a fuss but this doesn't sit right with me.<br/><br/>Prices are expensive, food average and I feel ripped off.

Ordered takeaway dinner. It was tasty cause i ordered comfort food. Got overcharged but they made excuses to cover thier tracks. Left feeling ripped. There are better chinese resturants.

The food is average; my family goes a lot coz it's close, but the food is really frigging expensive. The owner sometimes charges a little bit extra and the service is okish.

I'm being generous with a 1.0 rating. This place is terrible - do not eat here. The lady manager is deceitful, rude & dishonest. I know Chinese restaurants aren't known for exemplar service, but this restaurant takes it to a whole other (lower) level.<br/>Be careful, she will try & trick you by giving you the dinner menu when it is lunch time. This means she can charge you an extra $4 per noodle or rice dish. We only noticed this when we saw another table with red coloured menus when ours were yellow. Our lunch took 40mins to come & we had to point out that 2 other tables who arrived and ordered after us, got their meals before us! When we mentioned this, the manager said the kitchen was really busy, but by that stage it was after 2pm & most tables had finished eating. Because I was speaking in English (but understand Chinese) she tried to belittle me by saying I wouldn't understand. This was so offensive. When I told her I understood everything she was saying, she made the excuse that I don't understand how a kitchen is run, ie the number of stoves, ovens & deep fryers required to cook. Look, don't offend people by acting like they've never cooked a meal before or stepped into a kitchen. Plus this is the whole reason she is in this business right? She knows what to do with food in a kitchen - it's a friggen restaurant. Look, I don't need to hear about what goes on in there, but she needs to understand what's going on with her customers in the front of house - particularly if she wants repeat business. She will try any way to make an extra buck off you. She also charged tea money (probably as payback for not succumbing to order off the more expensive dinner menu). Never have I so resentfully handed over money for a meal. She then has the guts to ask that you pay in cash (probably for under the table tax purposes). At a human level I can't believe people will try and treat others in this way just to make money.

Booked downstairs got upstairs...forgotten about and service slack.... eg 1 fork delivered for 4 people. Food nice. But atmosphere lacking. Not a place to return to anytime soon.

A 45 minute wait for simple takeaway food, 16 dollars for a measly amount of dumplings, although the food was delicious the service and price really let this place down. I've eaten here previously and had no problems, until you sort your act out or you have lost a loyal customer!

My friend Alex works here. He's cool. I always come here when I don't feel like driving far and I order peking duck takeaway everytime. Never dissapoints.

Not what I was expecting when we went there with my family for a b'day dinner, the speed was good with the dishes we ordered and service was good.<br/>Big downfall with the peking duck, the 1st part was good however with the 2nd serving of the duck meat they accidentally got the order wrong, it was replaced but when it arrived, there was a lot of duck meat missing. (I'm sure that was not the same duck, well... it can't be if they got the order wrong and cooked it already)<br/>The portion was so tiny it felt like they pulled the meat from a different duck thigh to replace a WHOLE DUCK's worth. They still charged me for the whole duck price which was beyond disappointment as the dish was not cheap and with the amount of missing meat..... =(<br/>(Taste- 3.5/5 Portion 1/5)

crappy congee..... couldn't take it at all.  Wasn't the quality as before!!  wondering if the chief had gone.  wonton noodle was quite good, but again....no longer good as before.  Never come again.

Great Chinese restaurant in Epsom. While service is a bit of hit and miss (no, you don't go to Asian restaurants for fantabulous customer service), their dishes are tasty.

I enjoyed going to Joyful Chinese Restaurant both for lunch and dinner, but avoiding Saturdays, during the lunar festivals & the few weeks before & after the Lunar New Year, when there are too many customers and the service is slow. Customers are very often recommended over-priced dishes. <br/><br/>For a light lunch, Won-ton soup, Lettuce wrap with duck, smoked fish, pork &jellyfish, together with stir-fried rice noodle with beef, will be enough for a table of 4. For desserts, its deep-fried ice-cream & toffee banana with ice-cream are good.<br/><br/>Today, we had a Tuesday dinner with some friends. We had a cold platter (with smoked fish, boneless duck feet & sesame & chilli hoof), vinegar hock & eggs, spare-ribs with salt & pepper, pork liver with vegetable, and deep-fried egg-plant.<br/><br/> Joyful's food standard is consistent and it's a restaurant I won't feel embarrassed to take friends to when they ask specifically for having Chinese food. (Food - 4/5; Service - 4/5; Ambience - 4/5)

Found a huge piece of plastic inside the soup. There was more than one. Very disappointed. The overall taste was good but expected it to be more clean for A grade hygiene restaurant. We also didn't get anything we asked.

Went with friends on a wet Friday night . Lots of Chinese people there. Had the $38 banquet as couldn't be bothered really choosing . It was very satisfactory - lots of food and good service, Would return again quite soon. The $38 menu includes duck.

This is a lovely restaurant, I have never dined in before but I get take-away from here now and then. The food is yummy, I really love the Lemon Chicken on Rice and recommend this to anyone. The service we get from take-away is good and quick, overall I think the food tastes good and it's not badly priced either.

Great food. Hostess was great. Prices for mains were on average $7.00 higher than those stated above. Our mains were $20 to $25. Bit of a trap for the unwary. Someone needs to update this

Great Authentic Chinese food... Space is definitely an issue. Friendly service

Got a couple of deal vouchers to use in this restaurant. This is the not first time we have patronised this restaurant. First of all, we were charged for the daily soup which is always on the house previously, and we were not even told that this is a chargeable item when it was served. Next, we got charged for tea, which again, is always on the house previously. They have never charged corkage for BYOW but with the voucher, corkage is charged. Well, at least this was mentioned in the voucher but not the soup &amp; tea! Food was ok but cannot say much of the restaurant owner's/manager's attitude. Very grumpy &amp; heaps of limitations as to what can be ordered and not, although it was not stated in the voucher. Did not want to argue with her as we were in her restaurant and God knows what she can do to our food. :( If this is the stance that the restaurant is adopting, i.e. trying to cut corners for these voucher deals, I don't know why they even bother to sign up for the deal...such bad PR!

We had the most terrible experience at this restaurant. We were enjoying our dinner until the restaurant owner/manager accepted a late booking @9.45pm of Chinese people. Boy were they loud, they would not quieten down, told the owner/manager but to no avail. We had to shout to hear ourselves. Complained to the owner/manager about the noise and that we would not return, guess what she said 'bye, bye'. I guess either she does not know customer service or does not care for any custom other than from noisy Chinese clientele. I would not go there again and neither would I give their service any star rating. The food was not that great either, very average. Go there at your own peril and expect a very noisy/ aggravating dining experience. I would not give this restaurant any star rating.

Food so so. But service terrible. We ordered a whole Peking duck, but the size was very small comparing to other chinese restaurant. When we finish and left the restaurant, we were very upset with their service and had a feeling that we were ripped off. We will never go to this restaurant again. If you can not speak chinese, I would not recommend this restaurant. They will rip you off ! (I didn't even give a star to this restaurant.)

Went there to celebrate a birthday. group of about 12 of us. Preordered Peking Duck. Quality was good. Other food also good and quite tasty.<br/><br/>Only downsides:<br/>1) Space. Lots of tables packed into quite a small space. We were at one of the larger tables (upstairs). Not a lot of manoeuvring room. <br/>2) Some of the dishes were a bit over salted or has too much MSG.

Standard Cantonese Chinese fare, nice and authentic, but not outstanding. We went here for Chinese New Year, and thought there was no one else in the restaurant until we later saw people coming down from upstairs. There were also a few people collecting takeaways.<br/><br/>The soup at the beginning contained lotus root, pork tongue and dried oysters, pretty good. There was no dessert soup at the end of the meal. As for the meal itself, you can see a few pictures of the more interesting items at<br/>https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=769493616412626&id=526938997334757