All-You-Can-Eat Yum Cha for Dinner / Unique Experience in Sydney
Yum Cha is typically considered a lunchtime meal but there is a restaurant in Sydney called Chef's Dynasty Yum Cha that has decided to defy the rules and not just offer Yum Cha for dinner but in an all-you-can-eat format.
Let's Feast!!
First up was the cart that contained what I call the more 'interesting' dishes so chicken's feet, tripe, pork ribs, eggplant / prawn and the less traditional dim sum.
I chose Chicken's Feet, for anyone who doesn't eat a lot of yum cha this is a dish you either love or hate. It's got a lot of tiny little bones and contains mostly skin (no lean meat at all). I love it but actually started to regret ordering it as I had to eat all 6 on my own...(my friend didn't want any).
We also took the liberty of ordering the Stuffed Eggplant - eggplant is one of my FAVOURITE vegetables and I love the way it's so tender in this dish and drenched in that blackbean sauce. Perfect accompaniment to the prawn meat!
To our pleasant surprise they didn't just have dim sum, they also offered a number of dishes that would usually be considered 'special' and charged at a much higher price. One example we chose were the Pippies in XO Sauce. Sauce had great flavour, pippies were a little too room-temperature for me but sometimes that's what you get when it comes to yum cha as the carts are constantly being wheeled around the room.
Next up we had Prawn and Spinach dim sum and the more traditional Prawn dim sum (har gow). We also had Siu Mai but I forgot to take a photo and it was so-so tasting anyway!
We then opted for a plate of the Prawn Rice Noodles (har cheong fun) - the rice noodles were nearly translucent, delicate and perfect texture for me. I really enjoyed this dish and pretty much ate it all by myself ;)
Getting full...but we soldiered on
So after eating multiple plates of the steamed stuff we started to move onto the fried carts...
We ended up choosing some Soft Shell Crab and also some Hom Sui Gok which I always call the "football shaped dumpling" but it's basically a fried thick sweet pastry with some pork mince inside. We also got the prawn sesame dumplings (no photo) and were just about to call it quits.
Until of course we got second wind and started ordering desserts...
Some Egg Tarts and also Fried Taro
Last but not least we finished off with some refreshing Tea-flavoured Jelly
Did we get our money's worth?
Honestly, probably not. We were pushing our limits here and I usually eat less than this at a normal yum cha outing but it was definitely worth the money in terms of the atmosphere, the 'prospect' of being able to eat as much as you can and actually the variety really surprised me.
They've changed the format now so that it's self-serve instead of the carts and it's also 10% more expensive too so I don't think I'll be coming back as that'll be nearly $40AUD/pp which is A LOT to spend on yum cha - unless of course you're a big eater!
Anyway, let me know what you guys thought, what are some of your favourite yum cha dishes?
Bonus points for anyone who can tell me how many dishes we ate ;)
@phamished xx
P.S. Sorry for the horrible quality photos, I just had my phone on me as it was an impromptu trip.
Guangzhou Cuisine？
Umm I am not entirely sure on this! I know it's popular in Cantonese-speaking provinces of China. There definitely are Yum Cha restaurants in Guangzhou but I don't think Yum Cha itself is a Guangzhou cuisine.
yummy its looks delicious
Thanks @wajishah !! It was pretty good and I really enjoyed the variety and quality of the har cheong fun and har gow in particular :)
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I love going for Yum Cha when in Sydney. It’s certainly not cheap and $40/head would be getting out lite from my experience.
We paid $35pp and that was already at the VERY upper limit of what I'd pay for yum cha, but the novelty of all-you-can-eat and being a foodie I had to go and see. My friend and I both agreed however that we'd likely stick to the traditional pay as you go yum cha as we don't ever get near $35pp anyway! Depends what you order though...some people order alcohol etc which really bumps up the price, we stick with tea ;)
Thanks for dropping by and for your comment @stephen-somers :)
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Good quality buffet is the best! Awww I can go for some of Prawn and Spinach dim sum :D
I agree. Usually however I have found that buffets don’t have the best quality food due to the sheer quantity they have to produce and also to be able to make money they often can’t buy the absolute best ingredients either. But honestly for yum cha this wasn’t bad to try :)
Hehe yes prawn and spinach is always a winning combination! Thank you for commenting foodie friend :)
Looks nice. I like also the coated and deep fried stuff. 😊
Haha we were full but still managed to find room for the deep fried trolley ;) as you do...
Looks awesome! I just had dim sum yesterday. It looks like we like a lot of the same dishes. I love all the dumplings, the tripe, and the prawn rice roll. I only get the taro root dish if it is super hot right from the fryer. I hate when that one is cold. That tea jelly looks amazing. I never had that.
Ooh yes it does sound like we have similar tastes, the prawn rice roll is definitely one of my favs. Yeah unfortunately the taro dish was lukewarm so it was a bit oily!! I still ate it all though haha.
Yeah actually I had never seen the tea jelly before either but it was nice and refreshing, I love how I’ve been eating Yum Cha for years and can still discover new dishes!