Most people would know by now, I am an undeniably proud HongKonger, and despite my obsession with sushi and love of burgers, there is little doubt that I am most intimately familiar with Yum Cha after eating it at least once a week with my family for as long as I can remember. With this in mind, I was fairly intrigued when I heard that Phoenix from Sydney had come and opened in Brisbane. After considerable prompting from some readers who were keen to hear about my opinions on the food here, I made a lunch date with my most respected yum cha expert (who also still makes my dinner each night and packs my lunch every other day;).
Arriving at 11.30am, it wasn't particularly busy, but there were a few tables here on business luncheons. Service was fast and attentive. Opening the menu, we noted that there were a selection of steamed, fried and baked dim sim. Compared to our usuals at Sunnybank and Runcorn, only half of our usual dishes were available. Quite a few favourites like congee, steamed bean curd rolls, pan fried turnip cake and beef offal were notably absent. Price point was around 2 to 3 times the regular southside prices.
Seating was dim but lighting was sharp. The contrast wasn't particularly comfortable and my mother noted that it felt like she was eating in the dark as she was seated in a particularly shady corner.
Selecting our usual TieGuanYin, tea was charged at $3.50 per head. Almost double Sunnybank prices and almost the price for a barista made coffee. The tea itself was fairly strong but not overly fragrant. After a couple of refills the flavour had long gone.
Leaving our order with the friendly waiter, our baked goods were the first to arrive. I could understand the reason behind this as they were probably the already cooked and warmed to serve, however the fact that our dessert dish of egg custard tart came out first was highly unusual.
Starting off with the Baked BBQ Pork Pastry, this was the highlight of our meal. The pastry was light, well layered and flaky. The fillings were warm and wholesome, the pork very meaty and the BBQ sauce had a good balance of sweet and saltiness amongst the delicious honey glaze.
I was very conflicted about eating this custard tart. Served warm, it would have been enticing to eat at the start, but as a fairly regimented person, I do not enjoy having dessert at the start of a meal. Nevertheless, I did, because I didn't particularly feel like eating it after it had been left to cool. Like the BBQ Pork Pastry, it was flaky and light. The filling was smooth, creamy and delectable. I just wish that it was served at the end of the meal.
After a brief interlude, our steamed dishes started to arrive. First up of course was the iconic King Prawn and Bamboo Shoot Dumpling. At double regular prices and with one less piece than we were used to, we had high hopes for the quality. Unfortunately the wrapping was a bit of a let down. Thick and overcooked, it stuck to the steaming paper. There was a generous amount of prawn inside, but overcooking didn't help with the texture too much either.
Second most famous of all the dim sim dishes, we opted for the more premium Scallop and Caviar Shumai. Compared to the prawn dumpling, this was a little better in terms of the steamed dishes. You could tell that the scallop and caviar was added to each dumpling after steaming so as to ensure they weren't overcooked, I liked the contrasting textures in the dumplings and the generous amount of prawns inside.
Though not as iconic, my favourite dish in a yum cha restaurant has to be the XiaoLongBao. As readers will know, having gone to the original flagship of DinTaiFung in Taipei, I often use that as a benchmark for comparison of quality. Unfortunately, Brisbane quality still falls short. I had high hopes for Phoenix with photos online looking quite promising, but sadly this wasn't the case. The skin was fairly thick and doughy without too much elasticity to the point of soup leaking out onto the steaming paper. There was minimal soup in each dumpling due to it having been leaked onto the paper and for some reason the soup was murky and floury unlike the clear meat broths that I am often used to. The meat filling itself wasn't as mincey as I prefer, and was a fairly firm lump. Guess I'll have to stick with the offerings at New Shanghai down in Queens Plaza instead.
My mother's family favourite is the rice paper rolls, and there is hardly anything as irresistible as a well pulled freshly steamed rice paper roll. In this instance, she opted for the pan fried variety with dried shrimp and chives. The pastry may have been pulled to a thin texture, but it was fried to a point where the layers started melting into each other and it resulted in a block of plasticky dough.
Last dish for lunch was the Shanghai Pan Fried Pork Dumplings. Also a standard dish for us, these were undeniably crispy but the batter was thick and doughy almost halfway to the point of being a pork bao. There were no apparent meat juices in it and the fillings tasted fairly standard and weren't outstanding.
All in all, we had a fairly mixed experience with the dishes. There were some highlights and some letdowns. There is definitely potential for an up market yum cha venue in Brisbane, but improvements definitely have to be made to justify the cost when a lunch for two is more than a meal for four.
Taste: 5/10
Value: 3/10
Service: 7/10
Environment: 6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment