From Time Out Dubai Eating Out 2008

The Capitol Hotel is popular among Dubai’s Chinese visitors, but the restaurant is tatty and seems happy to feed a captive market complacently. Even on first impressions it’s shockingly clear that wowing diners isn’t one of Imperial Garden’s priorities.

The room is fiercely over-lit, there’s often no music, piles of clutter fill the edges of the restaurant, and the decor is unpleasant – plastic grapes hang from a strange green trellis on the ceiling. And the food does little to spare its blushes. Steamed seafood dumplings are bland and arrive on a bed of lacklustre lettuce, the beef with broccoli and black mushrooms is dull and comes in a watery sauce, while the stir-fried vegetables are, quite simply, boring.

The Peking duck is pretty dire too – a small portion of dry and fatty meat sits atop pieces of prawn crackers and comes with lukewarm pancakes. We can recommend one thing, however: a change of heart if you find yourself near here craving a delicious dim sum.