Joyful Garden - Watertown

Stand alone Chinese restaurant outside of Boston China town. Their dim sum dishes were very good quite authentic considering being on another side of the pacific from the birth place of dim sum. My favorite are shumai, chicken feet, and turnip cake. The restaurant is pretty large with plenty of seating, staff are friendly and helpful. They still push dim sum trollies around for you to choose the dishes, pretty cool.

Delicious dim sum and desserts. Affordable prices. Nice ambiance. Everything was piping hot and tasted really fresh. The staff and servers were attentive and brought the dim sum dishes around often. It reminded me of going to dim sum restaurants in Malaysia. The food was great. Definitely try the sesame balls and egg tarts for dessert!

Hidden gem. The food is all the things you love about Chinese food and missing all the things you don’t like. Food was fresh, not oily, not over sauced, not too salty, and served high quality meats and seafood. Great spot for large groups and has giant TVs on one wall so you can still watch the game from your table. We forgot to take a picture before we started eating. The supreme seafood in XO sauce that our waitress recommended was delish and served on a unique and tasty deep fried mashed potato ring (sounds odd describing it but it was good and had nice presentation). Chicken and asparagus was also delicious.

I am a bit surprised that Joyful Garden only has a 4.1 rating. I highly recommend trying the DEEP FRIED TWIN LOBSTER, which can be made mild or spicy. It is delicious. It seems like not many people are aware that it is on the menu, as I could only find it listed on the in-house menu when dining in, not on the online menu. The tofu dishes are also fantastic and I frequently order them. My family and I all enjoy this restaurant. The dim sum is both fun and tasty, but the regular dinner menu is also excellent. The service is attentive and of high quality.

I had an amazing experience at this restaurant. The spring rolls and vegetarian duck were both cooked to perfection with a great balance of vegetables and seasoning. The tofu in the vegetarian duck was excellent, although it did not taste like duck. For dinner, I tried the bean curd in chili sauce and the Buddhist delight pan fried noodles, both of which were delicious. The silken tofu in the chili sauce was unique and the ma/la flavor was perfect. The noodles in the Buddhist delight dish were thinner than usual but still tasty, served with well-seasoned vegetables like bok choy, carrots, mushrooms, and firm tofu. I highly recommend this restaurant. Just remember, they have desserts available but it isn't on the regular menu, so don't forget to ask for the dessert menu if you're interested.