Tai Lake

Solid place for Chinese Food in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. We had the lobster with sticky rice and seafood in a bird’s nest and both were very good. We were disappointed in the snail dish only because they were a lot of work to fish out and eat. Service was much better than I would have expected. We had two and they were both very attentive, recommend dishes, and made sure that we were comfortable throughout our meal (new/clean dishes, consistent refills and regularly checked in on us).

We ordered the lobster with sticky rice and it was delicious! I would definitely come back. The salt pepper shrimp was the best ... Just the right amount of saltiness and really delicious. Their seafood is super fresh here. The chef is really good at what he does. We also had the shrimp fried rice which was good and typical. They gave us complimentary mung bean dessert with tapioca pearl. Service was quick. They are no fuss here. Typical Chinese restaurant.... order quickly, get your food quickly and get out. I ordered a margarita in a Chinese restaurant and to my surprise, it was delicious and for the price it was a steal!

Came here for dinner while spending time in Chinatown. It's a Cantonese style restaurant focused on seafood, but also serve all the traditional dishes. As soon as you walk in, you'll see several types of fresh seafood waiting to be prepared. There's only about 8 tables inside, but was seated within 10 minutes. Service was extremely prompt. Waiter came by immediately upon sitting down to take the drink and appetizers order. Throughout the meal, he constantly stopped by to check on the meal and refill the drinks. Started off with the Crispy Spring Rolls and the Hot & Sour Soup. Both were good, but I preferred the Hot & Sour Soup. For the meal, ordered the Pan Fried Noodles with Seafood and Sautéed Jumbo Shrimp and Scallop with Hot Garlic Sauce. Both of them came out together in about 10 minutes. Both were freshly hot off the stove and looked great. As everything is family style, both dishes were very large. Both dishes were amazing. The Pan Fried Noodles were perfectly crisp that slowly softened when mixed. All the ingredients and seafood were very fresh, flavorful, and plated nicely. The Shrimp & Scallop dish was equally good in terms of ingredients and presentation. Over the meal, had a few teapots of the hot tea that was really good. Overall, very authentic Cantonese style restaurant serving up fresh, flavorful dishes. If it wasn't so much food, I would've loved to try more dishes. Great food and outstanding service.

Food wise there are no concerns. But the main reason for my 3 star rating is: 1. Waiters are not friendly 2. Always standing by the side of our table and watching us made very uncomfortable 3. Even though they were watching us the whole time, no help offered while we were struggling with our lobster dish. 4. They were very keen on tip and forcing us to leave 15% of tip.. I am not a kid and i know the tipping etiquette..but pls correct your mistakes and provide comfortable service if you want better tips... Dishes we had: ginger and scallion lobster, shrimp dumpling and shrimp fried rice. Everything was OK and tasted fresh and clean

Went there for lunch for the 1st time. Variety of seafood options and other meat dishes. I order my usual favorite that I get from other places. This place was nicely fried salted shrimps without the shell. It can use more salt I ask waiter to bring me oil hot pepper and he also got slice green pepper in soy sauce. It was nice clean place. Staffs are helpful.

We enjoyed our dining experiences here! The service was really good, and the environment was also very bright and relaxing. Each of these dishes was authentic and incredible good ! Will definitely come back in the future!

Tried this place for the first time a few weeks back, it was pretty good! General Tsao chicken had nice flavor, I also enjoyed the tea served with the dinner. The tables are large as well as the servings so I definitely think this is a good place if you have a big party of people.

Been to this restaurant since I was a kid, the freshest shrimp (must-order dish, it’s steamed and comes with a side soy sauce for dipping the shrimp once you’ve peeled it, you’ve never tasted shrimp so fresh and sweet before!) Also my favorite (for like 20 years now) is the crispy fried stuffed tofu dish, the tofu is stuffed with shrimp as well, gotta have it with white rice. Vegetable, seafood dishes are fresh and flavorful… basically, you can’t go wrong with any dish. Attentive and nice staff. Good atmosphere, whenever I go for dinner it’s usually nearly full of diners.