Note: I wrote the review below on February 1, 2009. However, when I drove by the restaurant on February 15, 2010, I noticed they had changed their sign. It is now called “New Port” instead of “Heaven Star.”
My wife Beth and I visited the long-awaited Heaven Star twice in their first week. Though things were shaky both times, we’ll be back.
The first visit was on Wednesday January 21, the day after they opened. We went in the evening, when they’re serving dinner from a menu. To get dim sum, you must visit during lunch, between 11 AM and 3 PM. The dinner menu was extensive, and included favorites of Americanized Chinese food (sesame chicken, for instance) as well as things that I can only assume are authentic (various tripe dishes).
We ordered scallops with vegetables and sesame beef. I wanted some hot and sour soup, so I ordered a cup of that. We also ordered a pot of tea. The server asked what kind, and they serve three different types, but I can’t remember what they all were. All I remember was they didn’t have chrysanthemum tea (which I like from King’s Land in Denver) and so I ordered jasmine tea. I wanted steamed rice, but Beth wanted fried rice. The server said that would be no problem. But it turned out to be.
The hot and sour soup was fine, but nothing out of the ordinary. I could’ve been from any Chinese restaurant in Broomfield. They brought the scallops and vegetables out first, and at first I waited for a bit for the other entree to arrive before digging in. But after a few minutes, it was clear the beef wasn’t following right behind so I started serving up the scallops. About five minutes later the beef finally arrived, and kept right on going. Apparently, the person running plates to the dining room didn’t know that plate was supposed to stop at our table, so Beth had to go flag her down. When Beth asked where the fried rice was, she got a blank stare – the universal sign of “I don’t speak English.” So Beth grabbed another server who came by to refill our water glasses and asked for the fried rice. Another five minutes went by and some fried rice appeared. So, we did eventually get all the food we asked for, but it was a confusing mess. Negative points for service.
The food itself was very tasty, though. Both entrees were nice. The fried rice was pretty boring, however, and made us wonder if it was really worth the trouble of having to order it twice.
On this visit, it was pretty clear the restaurant opened about a week before it should have. Many of the interior decorations were just sitting on the floor in the lobby, the walkway from the parking lot to the door wasn’t finished, and the servers were poorly prepared.
Our second visit was Sunday morning, just four days later. We went for dim sum at 11 AM with some friends. In just those four days, they finished the interior decorations. We were able to get a table with only about a 5 minute wait, but I’m glad we arrived when we did. By the time we finished and were on our way out, there were people crammed into every nook and cranny in the lobby, and it was almost impossible to move through the crowd waiting to be seated.
Beth wanted to order “something new” in addition to our usual dim sum favorites. One of our friends had eaten dim sum before and the other was a total newbie. So we had three different opinions on what we wanted. All I can say is the quality was good; to me, it’s about the same quality as King’s Land, which is my favorite. But this restaurant is only 3 miles from our house, instead of 30, which is nice. The service didn’t seem as random as our dinner trip, maybe because dim sum served from carts is always a little chaotic. I definitely got my fill, and we had most of my favorites, so I left happy.
Oh, as an aside, I did make my treacherous way through the mob in the lobby to use the rest room once. I think Heaven Star has the nicest rest rooms of any Chinese restaurant I’ve seen, and definitely the fanciest of any dim sum restaurant. We’ll see how long they stay that nice.
Overall, I’d give Heaven Star a thumbs up for both dinner and lunch. I can’t wait to go back, in fact! I just worry that with a dim sum restaurant so close to home, it may not seem so special to me any more. But until then, more dumplings!
Heaven Star
6700 W 120th Ave
Broomfield, CO 80020
(303) 635-1688
By the way, there are a few early comments about Heaven Star over here on my post about the fact that it’s coming soon. I also see that Yelp already has 6 reviews of the restaurant, located here. But I haven’t seen any reviews by Westword or the other newspapers yet.
Some anonymous coward tried posting a comment here using a false identity. The comment was a copy-and-paste from a news article about Dan Tang. In case you haven’t heard, he’s the owner of Heaven Dragon and an investor in Heaven Star, and he’s also just been arrested money laundering. Here’s a link to the Broomfield Enterprise article:
http://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/news/2009/jun/18/restaurant-owner-charged-laundering-drug-money/
Heaven Star is definitely one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in the Denver-Metro area. And I agree, it definitely beats having to drive to 30 miles to King’s Land or Super Star. I never went there when it just opened. I thought it was just some new Chinese fusion restaurant (that’s usually too Americanized – making it extremely unattractive to Asians). My wife and I eventually succumbed to our curiosity and tried it in March and ended up going there every week for 5 weeks. We found the quality of the food above par and the service great! Let me qualify. I apologize in advance for not remembering the names of the dishes.
The variety of food at Heaven Star is wide and compares to other authentic Chinese restaurants. I especially like the ones that say “Heaven Star Special XXXX” such as the Heaven Star Special Beef Stew (or something to that effect). I don’t think you can go wrong choosing any of these “specials”. Don’t order the Yang Chao Fried Rice (the most common fried rice), instead go the Chicken and Salted Fish fried rice or some other as those have way better flavor. I will never go back to Yang Chao.
I’m a creature of habit so I tend to stick with my favorites. Wanting to break this habit, I asked the waitress (the waiters speak English – the auxiliary servers for water and stuff don’t) for her recommendations. She was spot on and we’ve always asked for and ordered their recommendations since. I had a negative experience once when I ordered the Dim Sum sampler for dinner time, which came out kinda dry. I ate most of it anyway. When the waitress asked if everything was okay, I told her about it. She apologized and promptly ordered a new batch cooked. The servers at Heaven Star have so far been friendly to me and my wife. In most authentic Chinese restaurants, I don’t expect everybody to speak English so I don’t get disappointed when they don’t. I do, however, expect the person taking my order to speak English.
As for the price, I would say it is reasonable given the food, place (yes, it’s clean all around and has really nice restrooms), and the service. We always end up leaving nice tips. But that’s just us, you’re mileage may vary.
Todd, it would be really interesting if you could visit it again and write a review. Thanks!
PS: 2 weeks ago, our server suggested (the younger chubby one) recommended us to have their lobster, which was on a buy 1 get the other 1 free promo for 19.99. She suggested that we had it cooked with ginger and scallions. Boy, that was Excellent! It had great flavors at a great price! I initially thought that the lobsters would be small but I was wrong. We even had left overs. That promotion may be over now but boy… that was good when it lasted.
Thanks for the blog, Todd. I’m glad somebody is paying attention to our neck of the woods. I’ll definitely try the other places you reviewed.
In response to Isaac’s suggestion to visit again and write a review…
I’ve actually been back to Heaven Star several times since I wrote this original review. I haven’t visited again for supper, but have been there for dim sum lunch probably 6 or 8 times now.
I’ve had better service lately. I think the staff got over their initial learning curve, which is nice. I’ve also found that if you want something that the dim sum carts haven’t been pre-loaded with, you just have to ask and they’ll be glad to go make some for you.
For example, they have turnip cakes on the grill cart all the time, but I’m often in the mood for taro cakes instead. When I mentioned that to the lady, she went back and had the kitchen make some for me. About 15 minutes later, the taro cakes arrived.
The only negative thing I have to say about Heaven Star is that they still haven’t done any landscaping. So the area in front of the restaurant is still just a bunch of dirt, rocks, and chunks of broken concrete. It seems like by now they’ve had plenty of time to put in some plants or grass or something.
I was also very excited that there would be an authentic Chinese and Dim Sum place to go to that is only 3 miles away from home. I have been there about 10 times (1 dinner, 9 lunch) since they have opened. Also want to mention that I am American-Chinese and grew up in Hawaii with tons of authentic Chinese restaurants. In my honest opinion Heavan Star has done really well with the renovations but I am not excited about their dim sum. They don’t have quite the variety, flavor, and a little too greasy. I would also mention that the prices add up to be quite expensive for lunch compared to the Denver dim sum places.
I do have a suggestion for you to try. Although it is not in Broomfield, I think Star Kitchen on Federal and Mississippi has the best Dim Sum in the Metro Denver area for now. I have heard that the Chef from Super Star left them to open up Star Kitchen. Since I have found Star Kitchen, I have only been back to Heaven Star once and regreted that I did not just drive 20 more mins.
I disagree about the prices comment from Jessica. They recently lowered their prices, and we spend less money whenever we go out for dim sum at Heaven Star than when we go to any other dim sum restaurant in the area. However, I haven’t tried Star Kitchen yet. Having a decent dim sum place right in my suburb is just too convenient for me to want to drive 20 to 30 minutes each way just for lunch.
Ooh dang i just typed a big comment and as soon as i hit reply it come up blank! Please please tell me it worked right? I do not want to sumit it again if i dont have to! Either the blog glitced out or i am an idiot, the second option doesnt surprise me lol.
Hello just thought i would let you know that i also had a problem with your blog appearing frozen also. Might be monkeys in the page.
Do not eat here. they serve sharks fin soup. this is a despicable dish to serve with the promotion of a possible genocide of a species. ban this restaurant from your lists of places to eat until they remove dishes like this.