Fundraiser At TGI Friday

I went to TGI Friday in Rowland Heights, CA for lunch yesterday. My friend's friend's son was diagnosed with Leukemia in May 2011 and he is six years old now. For every customer who showed a "Benefit" flyer to their server(s), 20% of the check was donated to the family and the child's treatment. I printed out the flyer from the family's website, but the family also spent many hours outside the restaurant for the diners that didn't know about the fundraiser. While the child has his moments with pain and feeling nauseous, he is doing good and making improvements overall.

I can't remember if I came to this particular TGI Friday before. It wasn't very memorable if I did and I also wasn't into food photography or general photography at the time anyway. At this recent visit, I came with another person. We didn't get greeted by a host right away so it took us awhile to get seated. We almost wanted to pick up the menus and seat ourselves. It wasn't busy at all either. The customer service was generally good and our server made sure our drinks were filled while making sure we were doing okay.

 Shrimp Cocktail

 Petite Sirloin

 Peppercorn Crusted Pork Chop
 Oreo Madness

Hong Kong Palace

In Rowland Heights, CA, there are a plethora of Chinese and Korean resturants to choose from. Hong Kong Palace is a Chinese restuarant. They serve Dim Sum during the daytime and family style dishes for dinner. It is one of the few resturants that have people pushing carts with dim sum items around during dim sum/lunch/brunch hours while many other dim sum places have started using menus to serve dim sum items.

I used to come here for dim sum many years ago, but stopped for who knows why. I wasn't into food photography at the time either. I hadn't been here in such a long time that I didn't know this place got burned down a few times! I don't remember coming here for dinner before, but I came here last month for the dinner service as my cousin made reservations to host his baby shower here. So I can only tell my experiences on the recent visits that I made here.

There wasn't a separate room for parties, so the wait staff closed off a small section and put up dividers for my cousin's baby shower. We reserved four tables with ten seats. The wait staff was friendly and the food came out quickly. The place looked generally clean and the staff cleared off the emty plates at a reasonable time. I don't know the Chinese or English names to some of these dishes.

Shrimp
Shallots with mixed vegetables
Mushroom on bed of vegetables
Steamed Fish
Lobster
Fried Rice
Mango Pudding

I also recently came here for Dim Sum with some friends. I didn't realize how "crowded" and close the tables were until I came here for lunch. It was almost like you were sharing a table with a group of strangers. The aisles were a bit "crowded" too, so the carts would run into the back of people's chairs or run over someone's toes rounding the corner. The customer service was typical for a Chinese restaurant. The servers looked unhappy to be there, but they were generally ok. They seemed ok with one friend who was opening the lids to see what was being served at each cart. While they were pretty good at refilling the tea, they kept forgetting to refill our water, even after we asked for it.

Beef Meatballs
Shu Mai (pork dumpling)Shrimp and Chives Dumplings
Har Gao (shrimp dumpling)
Flat Noodle With Shrimp
Steam Pork Bun
Fried Shrimp & Chives Dumplings
Shrimp & Fish Stuffed Bean Curd
Chinese Broccoli
Egg Tarts