Readers might remember that my local favourite for yumcha is Haoke, which has been closed since the start of the year. Ever since, I have been on the hunt for second best in town, to no luck. So of course my interest gets piqued when RuYi Dim Sim opened across the road at Calamvale Central at their new foodie laneway. Having held back long enough to see some preliminary mixed reviews, I jumped at the chance to visit with Brisvegustation and family last weekend.
Service was a bit of a hit and miss, like most places, they appeared to be fairly short staffed. We weren't shown to a table and there appeared to be people queueing to order, so we found a booth and sat down. There was a QR code on the table to allow for ordering, so in hindsight, counter ordering is probably for those who are not as tech savvy. The selections on the menu didn't have as much variety as other places and the prices were definitely steep, especially when portions weren't big.
Tea was $2.50 per person, it was adequate, not too weak but not particularly strong either.
First to arrive was the BBQ pork puffs. For $6 a dish, these were definitely a disappointment. The pieces were small, but worst of all they were served cold. In hindsight I probably should have waived down a waiter to ask that they be reheated, but staff were so hard to get a hold of, it would have been hard to do so. The pastry itself was flaky and the char siu was flavoursome, but no one likes a stale pastry.
Next up was the pork and century egg congee. This was served steaming hot, a marked improvement on our last dish. Again it was expensive and the serving wasn't too big. The rice texture was a little underdone in my opinion, and I could do better at home. On the upside, the deep fried dough sticks were crunchy and fresh.
Some fresh steamed dishes came next, my favourite steamed bean curd rolls and the yumcha crowd pleaser siu mai. Both were really hot. Again portions were small, each dish having one less piece than the standards at other restaurants. I liked how saucy the bean curd rolls were but found the mince filling to be fairly ordinary. The same can be said for the siu mai, whilst fresh, it wasn't out of the ordinary and was definitely not worth $7 for three.
We also had some custard buns, these were black and had gold spots on them just for appearance, they tasted largely the same as the standard white ones. The bun was fluffy and the filling was not very sweet but not runny either.
Given the price of the dim sims, we also had a larger dish to share, this was the stir fried beef with flat rice noodles. It was done quite well and the price was reasonable for what you got. The beef was fairly tender and the ratio with noodles was quite fair, my only criticism was that it was extremely oily, otherwise it was done fairly well.
I find it hard to have yumcha without some rice noodle rolls. This time we had it with deep fried dough sticks, which is always a crowd pleaser. Unfortunately this one was really quite disappointing. Portion size was of course an issue, but this was minor compared to the fact that the dough sticks were soggy and stale, which was quite surprising given the ones we had in the congee were fine.
Our last dish was the deep fried glutinous dumplings. Ordinarily they would come shaped a bit like a football but these looked like pears and were fairly adorable. Freshly fried, the dough was crispy outside and chewy inside with a flavoursome meaty mince filling. It was probably the best executed of the dishes we had, but still not worth the price.
Overall we had a decent time at Ru Yi, if nothing but to satisfy our curiosity. The dishes weren't bad, but honestly they were nothing special. The prices were expensive, but that seems to be the case for most yumchas in Brisbane these days. Unless they change their menu a bit, I don't think I will have any rush to go back.
Value: 5/10
Service: 6/10
Environment: 8/10
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