~ Curious Charlie ~

Yum Cha @ Oriental Teahouse, Chapel St @ Saturday, January 30, 2016

Tuesday 29th December

This week's adventure was a trip to Oriental Teahouse on Chapel St, for their all-you-can-eat yum cha at $30pp. Add $5/10 to your expected spend for a drink of tea or two.

In September on a Wednesday we went to the Chadstone branch, which you can read all about here and now we're back for round two!

Chapel St. 8pm on a Tuesday night in that period between Christmas and New Years', where everyone's on break and no one really knows what day it is, was packed. I'd say sold out. We were lucky to secure a booking earlier that afternoon.

Being daylight savings and summer, the light lasted longer and we got a pretty good spot, being the second table from the window. Chapel St only has indoor seatings for yum cha, while Chadstone offers both.

Drink orders were taken, though did not arrive till an hour later. Plates were replace, as two of our plates were dirty and stuck together with a red sauce. Well done guys, you really need to check that everything is clean before setting up the table.

Three sauce plates were on the table: sweet & sour with the consistency of almost water (watered down?), pure chili aka sinacha, and soy sauce, but a house blend with chili in it. That or someone cross contaminated it.

Let the feast for two invisible friends and me commence! Lola was stuck in traffic, with trams down, while jas was just, well, jas.

Prawn & Pork Puff

Starting the evening was an interesting surprise package, a sweet meat in a donuty ball. Lola could taste the msg, which heightened the pork and prawn filling. Though this could be a double edged sword, as while some people like it others mightn't. It could be like the other day when I thought what I put in my mouth was chocolate but turned out to be danish smoked cheese!

Raspberry Lime Iced Tea - Chili Pork Dumpling

Prawn Cigar Spring Rolls - Vegetarian Fried Rice - Vegetarian Spring Roll

Pure Prawn Cigar Spring Roll - Just a prawn in a long roll, plain and simple, add dipping sauce and we have a favourite.

San Choi Bao (Chicken)

Peking Duck

Needs more sauce, and the sauce was a bit chewy in one. Doesn't taste good cold said Lola, who had so much to catch up with that she couldn't eat everything before it got cold.

Fried Noodles - Plain and oily as expected. A filler. Needs chicken and sesame.

Lamb Dumplings - Beef Dumpling with Chili & Pepper

Prawn Toast - The concept is exciting, but we need sauce, and there was the squech and flood of fishy oil as you bit into it!

Pork Buns - A classic, one that I was surprized was't served earlier on.

Steamed Dumplings - There was about three varieties, going around on a tray, we tried all but one. Har Gaw aka pure prawn was a favourite.

New smaller plates were set for dessert, and plates were cleared.

Egg Tarts - A classic with very pale and flaky pastry case and an eggy custard filling that was so not sweet that it was almost savory. We need sugar!!

White Chocolate Dumplings - Stuffed w white choc, topped off with peanut parline. With lots of coconut. All we need is a salted caramel sauce. :P

Custard Bun - I love buns!! With the custard filling being the consistence of a paste, think red bean paste, and more sugar then egg tarts this was a hit! Served warm it was beautiful. I'd love to have this while camping, by the fire.

Like at Chadstone dishes were bought around on trays and you could select one of each per person, each tray came around once, though a couple were offered twice. Due to our seatings (not being where the rounds start) we missed out on a few things, like the stir fry and wonka aka choc dumplings, which I saw others have. Seems to us like they under catered a few things, though we all booked.

With Lola & Jas completing our "if it's an all you can eat, we'll be here till closing" team, we ate everything that was offered! Consuming our money's worth for sure.

Chapel didn't have tofu, vegetables, there were less deep fried things and steamed dumplings. And they ran out of some dishes before getting to us in the corner.

So which branch would we recommend?

I felt that service was better at Chapel St, which had younger Australian staff, as oppose to 'you'll get better service if you speak our language' staff at Chadstone. For atmosphere I'd pick Chapel St, for parking Chadstone. Though there's plenty of trams that go to Chapel St.

Depends which night you're free. Tuesdays on Chapel St, or Wednesdays at Chadstone. Always pick the later session, as you don't want to have the staff ushering you out to reset for the second session.

Differences
Chapel St vs Chadstone
Seating - Indoor/Both
Parking - Far/Plenty
How to get there? - Tram/Drive

Have you been to Yum Cha at Oriental Teahouse?