193-195 Exhibition Street (cnr Little Bourke St/Chinatown), Melbourne
Phone (03) 9662 9668
Time for another one of those token yum cha posts (Fatty McBeanpole - I must confess I have done this a fair bit on my blog 
). Alas, this time I’m sharing my visit to Yum Cha Cafe, a new modern eatery in Melbourne’s China Town.
Yum Cha Cafe is more Ay Oriental Tea House than Shark Fin House, if you get my drift. There are no steamer carts or rattly trolleys; instead, waiters roam around with trays of food, which makes for an anxious pause as you watch them balance the food and try to stamp/write on your invoice.
The fit out is rather cool – highlights of imperial red with a generally black interior. Makes the white plates and food visually pop out from your table. They’re also rather into their tea, which I’ve noticed to be de rigueur of late.
Deep fried taro dumplings came out first, which are one of my all time favourites. I just love the whole experience of chomping down on the bubbly, crunchy exterior, which yields to softly mashed taro and peppery pork mince. These were a damn fine example too.
Next up, some XLB’s, which I would have thought were good had I not been to HuTong, which forever impressed the standard of such delicate, infinately folded, thin skinned xiao long bao. Now I would rate them as just okay.
I’d never seen dumplings like this before…they look rather ugly, huh? But I must confess they were surprisingly good – chock full of a decent sized prawn and sweet (fresh) corn kernals. Chopped chives added a little bit of visual green.
Oh yeah…pan fried radish cake…one of Dan’s favourites. Smeared with a little bit of chilli paste and a quick dip in some soy, and we were both in heaven. Radish cake is a popular dim sum dish, and is often eaten during Chinese New Year. Check out a great recipe here.
The sui mai were also quite impressive, more so because they were actually half prawn (and a whole one at that), and half pork mince. These too are one of Dan’s favourites, and his marker for good dim sum. If they can’t get these right, then the place you’re eating at is probably shite.
I’d never had this one at yum cha before – small puff pastries filled with roast BBQ pork. I’m not such a huge fan of BBQ pork, but ordered these as I know Dan loves them. But to be honest I was so impressed with them, I fought him for the second one!
For some sweetness at the end of the meal we ordered the Mango Pudding, and were surprised to see it actually had bits of mango flesh in it. Mucho impressed!
I must tell you that Yum Cha Cafe is a little pricier than others, but to be honest, it was worth it for the quality of dim sum. Staffing seemed a little weird – I don’t think they quite had the ratios right when we visited. But as its new, it takes time to work these things out, and at the end of the day, everyone was wonderfully polite and attentive.
How does this compare to the yumcha at Golden Dragon Palace? (which I deem to be the best among Melbourne yumcha outlets)
I went to this place on December with friends and it was so good!
I’ve been meaning to go to yum cha for ages, and now with your post I can not wait any longer. Its time for a trip to china town!
Hi elle – to be perfectly honest, neither of us have had yum cha at Golden Dragon (although we’ve been a few times for dinner and loved it). But that doesn’t help with a comparison
. They don’t have some of the traditionals, such as cheong fun, but they did have chickens feet etc.
Hiya Jutapha – I’m looking forward to going back to try them out again. Dan and I were on our lunch break from work, so we did have to eat quickly and we missed a few dishes (not that we could fit them in!).
Hey Maria – do you really need an excuse?!? Just go forth and eat!
I heard that the yumcha fare offered at Yum Cha cafe were mostly of the steamed variety, not much fried food. Which would be quite a courageous decision i.m.o. – since most Aussies prefer the latter.
Blog about Golden Dragon’s yumcha when you’ve been there =) This place doesn’t get enough recognition. I’ve heard that the dim sum si-fu was from Flower Drum – and boy, the dim sum is very refined; extremely exquisite and dainty. Almost as good as the best in HK i.m.o., except that there isn’t much variety. They’ve got more dishes on weekends, but weekdays are slightly cheaper (if I recall correctly).
Yeah, and dinner is awesome too – though the last time we were there it was an epic failure, which leads me to suspect they only assign you the better chefs if you’re willing to splurge.
re: golden dragon – watch out for the scallop siew-mais, and deep fried taro dumplings =)
I have been to Shark fin Inn and House and was not that impress, so this will probably be next in my list the next time I have Yum Cha craving! Thanks for sharing
No worries Hungry Hamster (hey…great to see you around again!). I look forward to your blog post
Yes! Sorry for being MIA for a long time! Will be back with my blogging soon! My blog is collecting a thick pile of dust!
Look forward to it HH!
Oh, those deep fried taro dumplings make me envious. They are my favourite and I missed out last time I went to yum cha, and it seems that I may have to wait another six months for it again.
Hrmph.
Food envy is not becoming of me.
I went to this place last night and the service was not very good.
The waiters seeemed a bit lost at what a yum cha actually entitled. i must admit it was a little strange having yum cha at night (but we were starving). They did not have a lot of variety (or it had all been eaten at lunch) and we were left sitting at our tables feeling awkward with menus which were surprisingly thin waiting for a waiter with a tray/trolley to come by us. And when they did, they were a bit rude, not waiting for us to decide whether we wanted a dish or not but simply walking away to the next table.
It wasn’t a particularly busy night, but we expected better service.
The prices were indeed pricey (especially for the tea)…not like your regular yum cha prices that’s for sure. The dumplings were average and not exactly worth the talk of the town.
There are much better places for yum cha in the city..ones with more variety and more attentive and QUICK waiters.
Hi Brittany – there are certainly much better yum cha places in the city, but Yum Cha Cafe seemed to be alright for us at lunch. The quality was really good, and the service was pretty quick.
I often wondered how it would fare at night when things weren’t so busy. I guess your comment answers that!
I went to this place today and was not very impressed at all. The quality of the food was OK but not for the price tag. I felt a bit ripped off. The service was very slow and the waiters were not much help. If I had my time again, I would have gone somewhere else.
This was probably the best restaurant ive been to
we went there after seeing Mamma Mia and we were delighted about it the food was the best Chinese food my mum has ever had
A little disappointed with the waiting staff though they seemed a little grumpy (especially the women) and we could not understand what they were saying.
Overall it was a fabulous experience i would recommend it to anyone.
Sounds good, I have walked past Yumcha Cafe several times but have never ventured in, I will give them a try next time. I have tried having Yumcha in the city but have never been satisfied by the quality and price. Dragon Boat does not have my vote, I will talk anyone out of going there. Shark Fin House is very good but very crowded, I know yumcha is meant to have that atmosphere, I do find SFH on the pricy side especially when we never ordered any “special dishes”, it was $30 pp. I am a Golden Dragon Palace fan, I will recommend all my friends to go there. I live in the west but I will make a special journey just to go to bushy Templestowe. They are on average $20 – 25pp, the more people you have the cheaper it works out to be when it comes to Yumcha.
Okay, I have finally paid YC Cafe a visit I was disappointed. Food wise they are very ordinary. Service was good and fast. I am afraid I have not been to a good yumcha restaurant that can beat Golden Dragon Palace for best price and superior quality dim sum. We tried the sui mai, sharkfin dumpling (they are gigantic but too much pork), ginger prawn dumpling (looks good on the outside sauce tasted good but the bits of prawns were extremely small), dp taro dumpling, haam sue gok, sticky rice suimai (very tasteless), congee (it was ok) and egg tart. We had 2 people and our table was very small, I guess they are just a cafe and not a proper yumcha restaurant. We have only ordered 2 “large” dimsum and it was $52 including tea, it is on the pricy side for what we ordered. I think I would have preferred paying a little more and go to Shark Fin House around the corner. I will probably recommend this to those who need a quick and very desperate yumcha fix, if you want to experience the real mccoy I urge anyone to try Golden Dragon Palace in Templestowe. And no, I neither work for nor have any vested interest in GDP; simply a fan.
Recently ate at Yum Cha Cafe and found the food to be second rate and felt ill in the stomach afterwards. Poor ingredients and flavour.
Mellie:
You mentioned that there are certainly better yum cha joints in the city? which ones??
I did my 2nd visit to Yum cha cafe over the weekend, and found it excellent (and easily better than Red Emperor, Shark fin house, Dragon boat, etc).
Hi Harsha – well, I still find Shark Fin House to be a good ol’ reliable, old school yum cha place, as is Gold Leaf down in Docklands.