Yum Cha Bar, Northpark Shopping Centre

A shopping centre seems like a curious place to go for yum cha but Yum Cha Bar in the Northpark Shopping Centre seems to think its a good idea. I'm not as convinced.

The yum cha here is pretty decent - plump, juicy dim sims; tofu skin rolls stuffed with roast pork; and sticky lotus leaf rice flecked with generous amounts of chicken, shiitake mushroom and Chinese sausage.



As a veteran of many yum cha meals I had two problems when I ate here - 1) many of their items had sold out despite my being there early in the day and 2) the staff were really REALLY pushy and kept trying to sell me meals I didn't want.

If you work near Northpark Yum Cha Bar will make a nice treat for lunch but the limited menu, pushy service and sterile dining room means its probably not worth making a special trip if you don't.

Wong Kee Daily Yum Cha, China Town Food Court

When you can't decide what you want for lunch yum cha is the way go - although the sheer amount of choice could exacerbate the problem. Regardless, today was yum cha lunch with a mate who didn't know what he wanted. 

We ordered 5 dishes - savoury dumplings, fried squid, BBQ pork buns, sesame balls and a fifth secret dish (the highlight of the meal) to be revealed in the fullness of time (... later in this blog post).



The only weak joint in today's lunch was the fried squid tentacles (...which don't actually have any joints...) that had obliviously been sitting under the heat lamp for too long and had lost all it's crunch and gone lukewarm. The rest of the yum cha was delightful. In particular, the savoury dumplings and sesame balls were surprisingly good. A textural delight of (unidentifiable) mince wrapped in glutenous rice batter and deep fried - the savoury dumplings were crunchy, chewy and salty.



Made from the same batter as the dumplings, the sesame balls were instead filled sweet red bean paste and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Light, fluffy, sweet rice dough filled with tender BBQ pork - these buns disappeared without any of the cloying stogyness often associated with poorly executed yum cha buns.

By far the stand out dish was the misleadingly named savoury doughnut.



Looks closer - see how it glistens with promise...



Essentially, the savoury doughnut is not round fried bread, wrapped in rice noodle and sprinkled with shallots. This seemingly simple combination creates a delicious and texturally complex dish. The bread is crunchy, chewy and slightly greasy. The rice is it textural opposite - smooth and slippery - while the sprinkle of shallots adds a slight fresh snap that helps cut through the grease. This dish alone is worth returning to Wong Kee Daily Yum Cha for.

5 dishes cost us $24 which is a little more expensive than you'd normally pay for lunch at the markets but the bamboo steamers are always full so you very rarely need to wait (except for the savoury doughnut which was made to order) and the food is pretty decent.