@movernie
It’s our university buddy’s birthday and we decided to celebrate his special day at this newly opened Chinese fine dining restaurant called “Luna Private Banquets 金樽覧月”.
This location brought back lots of memories as it’s formerly was Frankie Tomatoes, I grew going there for all-you-can-eat and luv the fried calarmari back then. Quite honestly, if you know, you know about this Frankie Tomatos.
But I am super glad that this space is put into good use for this new restaurant.
Moment we walked into the Luna Private Banquets 金樽覧月, we were immediately greeted by a hostess (wearing some traditional Chinese outfits) standing right at the door to open the door and greeted us. Immediately after, another staff asked for our name and guided us to our private room. My 1st impression? This place is massive. It feels like you are in a maze or an Escape Room! LOL
MoVernie TIP: Make sure you remember the room # or the name of the room so you don’t enter into someone’s else room in case you went outside and coming back, coz this place is huge!
We found our private room a good decent size that could easily sit 12-14 people comfortably. The wall has some nice Chinese artwork, nice dining tables, chairs and has nice decor. Also, there is a private washroom just all to ourselves (now that’s luxury). And notably, this private room has good sound proof, you can’t hear other people from other place. It’s peace and quiet where you can really enjoy and chat with your friends and families.
I decided to take a stroll around this restaurant as I was curious! Most of the dining tables are in a private rooms setup. From a glance standing outside one room, I noticed a massive circular table with a big lazy Susan at the centre.
On the other side of the entrance there are tables for groups of 5 to 6 people. For those sections, the top is open which means you can hear other table conversations, but it’s still nice to have a separation from other people.
In order to have a private room, a minimum charge is $888 CDN + tax for our room, which means it doesn’t matter how many people you have dining in this private room, you have to order $888 or more for the use of dining at the room, which I think it’s fair and reasonable, especially the private room could sit up to 14 people at least.
Before I came, I read on YouTube or Google Reviews that patrons had a hard time flagging down the staff, however, that’s not the case for us as constantly the staff will come into our room to serve us tea or asked if we are ok or have any questions. I do, however, do think they should implement those Korean bell ring system in case when we need assistance or service that it’s much easier for the patrons and staff to provide even more attentive services.
Anyhow, we had 8 people, after reviewing various dinner combos, we opted to order a dinner combo at $388 CDN + tax and decided to order a bunch of high-end a la carte food items to complement our appetite. So, we were well over the $888 CDN minimum spending.
I have to say, we were all very impressed with the taste and quality of the food items as many dishes were something we had never tried before in our lives. So, it’s refreshing to try new Chinese authentic dishes. The use of ingredients and culinary skillz were also top notch and I had never seen it before.
SUGGESTION: Since we ordered 10+ dishes, it would be nice if the kitchen could slow things down, space out the timing of presenting dishes. Coz during that evening, all dishes came out non-stop in such a quick fashion that we couldn’t really enjoy each meal as we were busy trying to find table surface to place the food and we couldn’t keep up indulging the food as they came out too fast. For a high-end luxury restaurant, I would expect food to come out in a timely manner. They should space out the time and coordinate better with their servers and kitchen of when to present the dishes to us. Let the patrons finish some of the appetizers first before serving more dishes to avoid assembly line type of vibe.
From crystal pork jelly pudding to appetizers such as the plum mini tomatoes, they were refreshing to start off the meal.
The braised pork, stir fry sea cucumbers, bacon wrapped sweet & sour pork, fried shrimp with crackers were delicious. The chicken with shrimp paste was also interesting as well (you have to pre-order when you book ahead of time).
The ONLY item that most of us didn’t like and we think it’s a big MISS was the steam orange crab meat. It had a nice plating presentation but it got a weird aroma, it’s a bit mushy with the crab meat and the ginger flavour didn’t execute it for us. Again, this could be the restaurant’s signature dish. Again, everyone’s taste buds are subjective. But this was the ONLY item that we were NOT a fan and can forgone ordering it.
Overall, we really enjoyed our meal here to celebrate a good friend’s birthday. Just as we thought we have tried all the different types of Chinese food that we realize Luna Banquets excites us with unique dishes that bring excitement to our taste buds.
I hope everyone finds my review about our dinner experience helpful as I found most of the Google Reviews by others only focused on the Dim Sum and not much about dinner items.
We will definitely come back again for dinner and also for Dim Sum afternoon experiences in the near future. This new restaurant elevates a high-end, fine dining experience.
Luna Private Banquets 金樽覧月 – Markham, Ontario, Canada
Website
Located in: Chelsea Square
Address: 7225 Woodbine Ave Unit East B, Markham, ON L3R 1A3
Phone: (905) 513-8989
Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/qMLBW3hdpcEgXwmD7
