Hong Kong Flower Lounge

Pros: I agree that the food here was excellent and the decor was very nice. We had 200 people at our wedding so we got to have the entire 2nd floor to ourselves. They had recently remodeled so everything was in top shape. All the chairs were brand new and didn't even need chair covers. The service was good and we got tons of raves from our family and friends.

Cons: Two minor things - We asked for red table linens and was told "ok". A week before my wedding I was told there was an additional charge to red linens. Why would they disclose something like that AFTER we put in the deposit? We were told we can get a discount if we paid with cash or a cashiers check. When we paid with a cashiers check at the end of the night we were told we couldn't get the discount because we had made the initial deposit with a credit card. We fought with them and did not get charged for the red linens and did get the discount at the end. But it was such a hassel.

Overall, we had a good experience and would recommend them.

HKFL turned out to be a fantastic place for our Chinese wedding banquet. The managers, Albert and (especially) Eric, were extremely accommodating during the planning process and the banquet itself. Because my husband and I are both Chinese, it was very important to us to have a Chinese banquet for our reception (particularly because we both think Chinese banquet food is awesome), but we really wanted to avoid the cheesiness of the traditional wedding banquet. It was also important to our parents that we not receive typical Chinese restaurant service - which is to say, terrible service. (Chinese restaurants are notorious for bad service haha.) HKFL let us bring in our own linens, drapery, and lighting so that we could totally transform the space - the reception space actually looked fantastic for the big day (courtesy of our coordinator Crystal Lequang and florist Nicole Ha). We were absolutely breathless. The restaurant also accommodated our wish to get rid of the traditional lazy susans and actually individually served each guest, which is totally unheard of. Eric helped us with the layout of the banquet and provided many helpful suggestions that we actually followed. The night of the event, each of the courses came out on time and was served promptly - no small task for individual service of over 160 guests. Our guests raved about how delicious the banquet food was and, to our great pleasure, about how terrific the service was.

HKFL also provided some unexpected, truly thoughtful services that helped make the evening run perfectly. First, right as we were about to start the traditional tea ceremony, my mother-in-law realized that she hadn’t thought about the logistics of how we would pour tea for each guest - out of nowhere, three waitresses materialized to pour tea and provide the cups for us to serve to our relatives. Second, as we visited the various tables during the banquet, a waiter materialized to help us guide us to the next table to visit so that our entourage could proceed smoothly through the restaurant. As a general matter, the staff - and again, especially Eric, the manager - were very kind and helpful throughout the entire event and during the planning process.

As a logistical note, we ended up having one long head table of 10 people, 17 guest tables of 10 people each, a DJ booth, and a cake table, and found that everything fit very comfortably.

The Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Millbrae was recently taken over by the Mayflower Restaurant group, and that was the reason we decided to hold our banquet reception there. The food and service are excellent. Our guests LOVED the food, and the restaurant staff took really good care of us all. Highly recommend.

Really 3.5 stars.

I had my Chinese reception at HKFL in June 2007. From the beginning, this was something my parents were hosting so they had their own decisions about everything. We looked at several restaurants before choosing HKFL, but they had chosen it for price, quality, and location.

I always make fun of my dad for having so many connections with people in different fields, but it did pay off this time. The catering manager is a good friend of my dad's business partner, so my parents were able to negotiate a whole bunch on their contract. For example, it costs $25 per table if you want to serve your own drinks ($5 per liter of Coke, are you kidding me?), but that was something my dad negotiated away. The mom's sisters (all seven of them!) all came a few hours before the start of the banquet and helped us with decorations, putting out bottles of apple cider, etc.

They were going through some construction on the outside of their restaurant, and you could see some of those construction ladders from the windows! But they covered the windows by our table with nice red curtains so I didn't mind. They have a very small changing room next to their bathroom, so we had to divert several people way looking for the toilet. The one big flub was that they didn't set up space for our karaoke singing troupe (yes, it was my parents idea). It was a mad dash one hour before the start of our reception that the staff had to move a few banquet tables around. What really impressed me was the food. WOW! I usually come to HKFL for dim sum and really haven't had a "WOW" moment so I wasn't expecting that much. So, it really surprised me that the food was absolutely delicious. The servers were quick and the host made sure that we were on our time line.

What I really didn't like is the space. We reserved the 2nd floor because the 1st floor has these huge pillars that block the view. The 2nd floor isn't that much better because they have huge DOORS that block the view from the main table. But again, it was always decided that this was my parent's hosting, so I literally had no say in the entire thing.

At the end, it cost about 14K for 22-25 tables (I wasn't kidding when I said this was my parent's thing, I didn't recognize almost 1/3 of the people there), but as with many Chinese banquets, we came out over that amount in red envelope.

Each of the ten courses was EXCEPTIONAL. We had the real Iron Chef Chinese! (Really, he was winning quite a few awards on the Chinese culinary scene in the bay area.)P.S. Corkage was very reasonable.