| Yum Cha Restaurants in Canberra: The Definitive Guide |
| Written by Ben Thomas | |
| Sunday, 18 October 2009 16:46 | |
Look no further, dim sum devotee, the ultimate guide to yum cha in Canberra has been written. This is the only comprehensive list of yum cha restaurants in Canberra on the entire web, with reviews and current information guaranteed to be updated regularly.Canberra CityChina Plate has announced its decision to cease yum cha trade on weekends. China Plate still trades with its regular menu and services on weekends. The owners have tentatively expressed their intention to open a more casual space nearby that will include yum cha service. Keep checking back for updated information. China Plate is located at the Melbourne Building, 41-43 Northbourne Avenue, Canberra City and is open for yum cha lunch Saturday and Sunday. Tel (02) 6162 3838. See detailed listing.
DicksonFour Rivers Sichuan Chinese Restaurant is situated just inside the boundaries of the precinct we locals wryly refer to as "the closest thing Canberra has to a Chinatown". Arriving at 1pm on a Saturday (usually a peak time) to find an almost empty restaurant was a cause for concern. At table, things started to make sense. The service here is frustratingly slow. Friendly enough, but mostly absent. Four Rivers has been running yum cha for several years, so by now they should have either gotten their act together or given up on the idea completely.It took too long for the dim sum to appear, and the solitary waiter bringing out a meagre selection on a tray was routinely pillaged by the table closest to the kitchen. I eventually managed to procure a small assortment of steamed dumplings — the dumpling shells were far too thick and stuck to the bamboo steamers making it impossible to pick one up without eviscerating it, and the blandness of the dough muffled much of the flavour of the fillings. Fried items were better, especially seafood spring rolls — bite-sized egg rolls packed with meaty flavour. Overall it is disappointing that Four Rivers has not attempted to inject any Sichuan influence into the dim sum as their regular menu looks very appealing, but this style of cooking is obviously not their strong suit. Prices range from $3.50 to $8.00 with most items costing $4.50. The restaurant seats 80. Four Rivers Sichuan Chinese Restaurant is located at 68/12 Challis Street, Dickson and is open for yum cha lunch Saturday and Sunday. Tel (02) 6162 0666.
Dickson Dumpling House has a decent dumpling selection on their menu but (as explained here) it is not a yum cha restaurant. BelconnenPrince Palace Chinese Restaurant opened a couple of years back and holds the auspicious position of being my regular yum cha joint since the closing down of New Shanghai in Dickson (which, in its turn, filled the void left by the demolished Superior Peking of yesteryear). The interior is neotraditional Chinese: Subtle creams with chocolate brown timber details, a feature wall of pillowed silk and a pair of oversized Chinese light fittings. The dim sum here is of a high calibre. The standards — siu mai, har gao, et al — are fresh and light with the elements of each distinguishable as much by sight and texture as by flavour. Chicken feet are cooked to perfection – a savoury, adult taste with pungent black bean. So too the pork spare ribs and bean curd rolls. The deep fried wonton shell of the lobster dumpling is crisp, buttery, and the inside packed with meat (albeit prawn, not lobster). Prices range from $3.50 to $9.00 per item (more for special items) with most hovering around the $4.80 to $6.80 mark. Yum cha is available every day for lunch but is particularly popular on weekends, book ahead or expect to wait. The restaurant seats 140 indoors. Prince Palace Chinese Restaurant is located at The Boardwalk, Unit 12, 114 Emu Bank, Belconnen and is open for yum cha lunch 7 days a week. Tel (02) 6251 3838.
Water Margin Restaurant offers what it calls a 'Yum cha buffet' — a set price selection of dim sum available every day for lunch ($16.80 pp) and dinner ($18.80 pp). The dim sum options are available alongside the regular menu. Here's the deal breaker for me: Dim sum is the name of the Chinese cuisine style offering a wide range of light dishes in small portions, usually served with Chinese tea. Yum cha is the term used to describe the experience of eating dim sum in a teahouse or restaurant, with table service by steaming food cart and all the attendant noise and bustle. Water Margin offers self serve dim sum from a bain-marie with a sign asking patrons to take dumplings individually from the bamboo steamers using fork provided. My reasoning may be semantic, but this isn't what I believe the average kwai-lo expects when they see a sign advertising yum cha. The restaurant seats 120 but the buffet area is much smaller with only a handful of tables. Water Margin Restaurant is located at The Boardwalk, Unit 7, 114 Emu Bank, Belconnen and is open for yum cha lunch and dinner Tuesday to Sunday. Tel (02) 6162 4168.
Dumpling Inn Peking Restaurant hides at the back of a dilapidated industrial block adjacent to the Jamison Shopping Centre. Inside, the atmosphere is appealing: noisy and vibrant, as it should be. The wait-staff are very friendly and good humoured. All are helpful and efficient — no effete students here. The dim sum is well made. Not as elegant as Ginseng or Prince Palace but not lacking in flavour or texture. Standouts are garlic dumplings — translucent sticky rice casings filled with prawn mince, shallots and whole garlic cloves, the gentle steaming tempering the garlic, giving it a mild tang similar to horseradish — and shallot cakes — the shallots are tart and salty and encased in a short pastry comparable to an Indian samosa. A real treat is crisply steamed Gai lan (Chinese broccoli) in oyster sauce at a realistic $6.50. Many places charge upwards of $11.00 for this side vegetable. Overall, the yum cha experience at Dumpling Inn is a pleasant one. Comfortable and satisfying and potentially the best value for money. Prices range from $3.30 to $6.50 with most items $4.50 to $5.50. Some specials, like roast duck ($8.50), cost a little more. The restaurant seats 100. Dumpling Inn Peking Restaurant is located at Unit 1, 1 Lawry Place, Macquarie and is open for yum cha lunch Saturday and Sunday. Tel (02) 6253 2268.
UPDATE XY Dim Sim Dumpling House sits at the top of Cohen Street, flanked by car yards and appliance warehouses in the industrial quarter of the Belconnen CBD. The restaurant itself faces the street on the ground floor of the brutally white cube that is the Sportsmans Warehouse building. The fit out is tired and daggy, though a pair over oversized columns adorned with red and gold dragon designs give it kitsch. Owned by the same troupe that runs the XY at the Deakin Football Club, it is a better operation by far. There appears to be a wider selection of dim sum here and it is of a higher quality overall compared to its southside cousin, though still not ideal. Pan-fried gyoza are distinctly Japanese in flavour, but fit well into the context of yum cha. Combination dumplings have a mild sweetness and the rice flour dough is sticky on the inside and crispy outside. Fried items in general taste fresh, with no hint of the stale oil evident at Deakin. Steamed dumplings are good in general with a few exceptions: Shanghainese xiaolong bao are bland — their signature liquid burst coming off as water-logged rather than juicy; siu mai are characterless, forcemeat wrapped in wonton; and beef balls lack the citrus zest that gives them their unique, worcestershire-like flavour. Service is brusque but efficient and the restaurant appears to be a popular local secret, I couldn't find any information online or in print about this place, so kudos go to Francoise Berlandier for the email tip. If you live on the northside XY is a safe bet for cheap eats, but if you live elsewhere make the trip for Prince Palace or Dumpling Inn instead. Yum cha is an all-you-can-eat set price of $16.80 for weekday lunch, $18.80 for dinner and all day weekends and public holidays. The restaurant looks to seat about 90. XY Dim Sim Dumpling House is located at 2 Cohen Street, Belconnen and is open for yum cha lunch and dinner 7 days a week. Tel (02) 6251 7318.
Inner SouthTim's Chinese Restaurant offers reasonable yum cha at the Italo-Australian Club. Though the space is small and the décor patently down-market, the service here is quick and efficient: You are seated, drinks ordered, and selecting from the dumpling cart within a minute. The quality of the dim sum is up and down, some good, some pedestrian. The sharkfin dumpling in particular had me enquiring whether everything is made fresh on-premises. It is — but I needed to ask. On a positive note, there are some interesting items such as pork and peanut dumpling (reminiscent of a savoury mochi ball in its opaque, white casing), and crab dumplings with pungent, bonito-like flakes scattered on top. There is a slight imbalance in favour of steamed dim sum. This wasn't necessarily a problem for me but a member of my party was a noob who preferred fried and crispy over soft and glutinous. The fried items that are available are good: combination dumpling, lobster dumpling, squid. But what are noticeably absent here are savoury pastries and the staple roast duck and char siu (barbecue pork). Unexpectedly, Tim's serve possibly the most flavoursome chicken feet — rich and caramel, and worthy of recommendation and a return visit. Prices range from $4.30 to $8.30 with most items $5.30 or $6.20. The restaurant seats 90. Tim's Chinese Restaurant is located on the first floor inside the Italo-Australian Club on the corner of Franklin Street and National Circuit, Forrest and is open for yum cha lunch Friday to Sunday. You must be a member of the club or be signed in by a member to eat at the restaurant. The membership fee is nominal. Tel (02) 6295 1588 (club reception), or (02) 6239 4223 (restaurant).
XY Dim Sim Dumpling House inside the Deakin Football Club offers set price yum cha every day, $15.80 for lunch, a bit more for dinner or public holidays. I had eaten here twice previously and been thoroughly underwhelmed both times. I arrived this time with low expectations but determined to be objective. The club reception is permanently unattended so I walked upstairs, unchallenged, to the restaurant. I was seated and ordered tea, then prepared for a long wait. Almost immediately a young waitress, obeisant and cute as a button, arrived with tray, then trolley, filling my table with fried and steamed dim sum. The service at least has gotten better. As for the food, it is all a little inexpertly prepared. Certain things were underdone — not uncooked, but not fall-apart tender as they should have been. The fried scallop dumpling smelled like scallop, but looked like prawn and tasted like seafood extender. I found myself dipping just about everything into chilli sauce to try to coax out some flavour. Fried items hinted of stale oil and had a sugary note that I recognised but couldn't place for a minute, but the burning sensation that rose in my chest revealed what my palate could not: chicken salt. Taken for what it is, this place could be popular for the kind of patron who measures value for money quantitively. There is a joke that goes: Two people eat at a restaurant. The first says to the second "This food tastes terrible". The second replies "Yes, and the servings are so small!" If you sympathise with the second diner, XY is probably the place for you. The restaurant looks to seat about 200. You are supposed to be a member of the club or be signed in by a member to eat at the restaurant. Membership fee and conditions unknown. XY Dim Sim Dumpling House is located inside the Deakin Football Club, 2 Grose Street, Deakin and is open for yum cha lunch and dinner 7 days a week. Tel (02) 6281 1688.
Woden ValleyNoble Palace Chinese Seafood Restaurant is serious about yum cha. The biggest space by far, this restaurant is filled at weekends with a line often trailing out the door. The floor is split level with two main areas plus a smaller, private, mezzanine. The fit-out is function-room nondescript with the odd Chinese motif here and there. The dim sum is of a high standard and the constant turnover of diners keeps the kitchen pumping out fresh morsels to meet the demand. More common dim sum are invigorated with simple variation. Scallop dumplings are decoratively open, flower-like. Chicken feet are cooked in a char siu marinade rather than the standard black bean, giving them a very appealing, deep red colour. Special items routinely appear, reminding one how exciting Yum cha should be. Most hit (salt and pepper soft shell crab, mussells in X.O. sauce) some miss (deep fried eggplant in sweet and sour sauce). There is a wide variety of dim sum overall and the inclusion of seafood and savoury pastries adds interest to the otherwise binary choice of steamed or fried. Worthy of particular mention are the egg tarts — a subtly sweet, creamy yolk in a light and flaky pastry to die for. You will pay more for dim sum, or more accurately, you will find less in a bamboo steamer here than elsewhere, but Noble Palace is unmatched for the combination of quality, variety and atmosphere. Prices range from $4.20 to $7.80 with most between $4.20 and $6.60. Special items cost more. The restaurant seats 300 but is very popular, so booking ahead is recommended. Noble Palace Chinese Seafood Restaurant is located at 28-30 Corinna Street, Phillip and is open for yum cha Saturday, Sunday and public holidays. Tel (02) 6282 8915 or (02) 6282 8916.
Ginseng@Hellenic Club. Much is made of the incongruity of going to a Greek club to eat Chinese food, but Rockie Cheung was invited to open a kitchen at the Hellenic due to the reputation he gained at his restaurant/trophy cabinet, Ginseng in Manuka. The club setting works and affords a large space conducive to the yum cha experience. Rockie is a good operator and his chefs are the real deal, flown in from China especially for their dim sum expertise. The open kitchen produces a sizeable range of dim sum, a few of which I haven't seen available elsewhere and too many to try in one sitting, even for a group. There can be a tendency, in a lesser restaurant, for the flavours of a dish to amalgamate, rendering individual flavour profiles indistinguishable from the whole. It is a real pleasure, then, to tear open a humble barbecue pork bun here and smell, then taste, shaoxing wine and say wow, I've never noticed that before, and be educated about how a dish is built. Also worth a mention is the attention given to the tea. Yum cha literally translates as 'drinking tea' and ginseng offers a choice of jasmine or chrysanthemum, the teapot brimming with aromatic flowers. There are four price categories ranging from $4.00 to $7.50 with most dishes costing either $5.50 or $6.50. The restaurant seats about 200. You must be a member of the club or be signed in by a member to eat at the restaurant. The membership fee is nominal. Ginseng@Hellenic Club is located on the first floor inside the Hellenic Club Canberra, Matilda Street, Woden and is open for yum cha lunch every Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Tel (02) 6282 9866.
Dearly departedGreat Wall Chinese Restaurant on Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra City was a popular yum cha destination but is no longer trading.
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 04 May 2010 14:38 ) |