Landmark Chinese YumCha Restaurant at Chermside — Restaurant in Brisbane City

I was in Brisbane this weekend visiting my daughters and my parents so we thought on Saturday night we'd try our luck, not make a booking, and rock up at the restaurant just after 6 pm. We didn't have Ms17 because she was at a party but we did have Ms23's BF with us.

When we arrived we could see the restaurant was busy. We were offered a table on a balcony outside or a booth inside opposite. The booth had a setting for four and we were six so two extra places were added and we sat nice and cosy.

I'm grateful we agreed on the booth inside because the lighting was much better inside than outside and I had iPhone photography on my mind. Always the food photographer here!

Service

The service was relatively fast and positive. After being shown our booth we were offered Chinese tea while we interrogated the menu.

It was suggested we should make up our minds quickly because larger tables were getting ready to order and if our order came in after the larger tables we could be left waiting an extended time.

Once we figured out what we wanted we were able to order the dishes we wanted. The wait for our entrée wasn't long.

Entrée

We asked for three serves of the mixed deep fried spring rolls, dumplings, and curry puffs.

The entrée came with some chilli sauce which was pretty mild. If I was on my own, I'd ask for something with a little more kick.

Main meal

There were six of us so we asked for six dishes.

Tender beef and stir fried vegetables

A standard Chinese dish with lots of flavour. The beef was tender and could be broken down with chopsticks. The vegetables were cooked but still crunchy. The sauce was thick but not stodgy.

Sizzling Mongolian lamb

Another classic of Australian Chinese cuisine. I have no idea of people in Mongolia do this.

A smoking hot metal plate was wheeled to the table on a trolley and the meat and vegetables were added, sizzled, and cooked on the table.

The lamb was as tender as the beef and the sauce was delicious with steamed rice.

Honey chicken

The chicken was tender and the honey sauce wasn't overly sweet. The coating had a nice crispiness.

Salt and pepper prawns

The prawns were well cooked and not over cooked. My only concern was the lack of seasoning on the prawns. The was nicely covered in fried onions and hot chillies. This was the best part of the dish. I was fortunate, no one else really wanted any of it so I got to stir it into my steamed rice.

Roast duck

Gee I love roast duck. This dish was a half duck. The skin was good but unfortunately not crispy. The flesh was tender and had that smooth mouth feel that is typical of Australian Chinese restaurant cuisine.

I really liked this dish.

Roast belly pork

Okay, who doesn't like pork belly? If you don't like pork belly, I like you because that means there's more pork belly for me.

The muscle to fat ratio was great. Lots of fat. The fat had nice flavour. The skin was crisp but not really crackly crunchy. The best thing was, even though it was salty, it wasn't overly salty like some roast pork is in restaurants.

Dessert

We didn't get dessert, although we were tempted by deep fried banana and ice cream. An Australian Chinese restaurant favourite and something Mum made for dessert when I was growing up.

Fortune cookies

As I was paying the bill, Ms23's BF hovered hoping for some fortunate cookies. Sadly, no fortunate cookies.

While Ms23 and her BF took Mum and Dad home, Ms21 and I went to Coles and bought a box of fortune cookies and some Streets classic...

After family had dined at your establishment previously, and had nothing but praise, we were very excited to have my husbands first Father’s Day celebration alongside our family for dinner. 6:30pm was our reservation, and things were looking good. The restaurant, albeit a bit busy, held many smiling faces and a nice atmosphere. Keen to order, we picked our dishes and waited for someone to come take our order. 7:20pm arrived and we were still waiting to be waited on, despite acknowledgment from several wait staff that someone would be around to order. Finally someone came around and jotted down our meals and drinks. 8:00pm arrived, however, and all we had been served was a cold plate of fried rice. Yes, we ordered quite a few dishes, so we were expecting to wait a while, but we were starting to get hungry, and tables who had been seated after us, were starting to get their many plates served. We mentioned to a wait staff member that our fried rice was cold, and that we were waiting for more food. So off she went with the fried rice and took it back to the kitchen. And our hot dish was then served to a different table! Then, a cold honey chicken arrived, and one serve of spring rolls made their appearance (without sauce may I add) with absolutely no serving utensils. Long story short, out of the 16 plates of food we ordered over two tables, we only received 4 dishes in a few short 2 and a half hours (note the sarcasm). At this point we had asked numerous times about our food however no one seemed to be in a rush to accommodate a table of 16. (Note, their website states they can accommodate for functions, and I had made a booking). It was at 9:00pm when we decided that we had had enough and that we would like to cancel the rest of the 12 dishes we were waiting on. When I spoke to the manager, all he could muster was that it wasn’t his fault, and that he needed to talk to the kitchen staff about the ridiculous delay in our dishes. I could see from the copious amounts of ‘write off’ receipts sitting next to the pos, that perhaps we weren’t the only people who had been waiting over two hours for some omlette and fried veggies. After going back and fourth, he ended up removing the dishes we hadn’t received and gave us a whopping 15% discount for the inconvenience. So, off we went, with grumbling tummies and our Father’s Day dinner in a somber mood. I would not recommend this restaurant if you desire to have your food and drinks served in an...

Upon arrival we were presented with three menus - 1) regular menu; 2) yum cha menu; 3) chef’s special menu. We ordered a few dishes from all three.

In the Chef’s special menu, all dishes were priced at $28.50 with one complimentary bowl of rice and Chinese tea. At the top section of THIS MENU, it was written in Chinese: CASH ONLY. We ordered only one dish (Shandong Chicken) from this menu, for $28.50.

When we were at the counter paying the bill, the drama began. Our total bill was $98.50 as we ordered a few things from the other two menus. I only had $50 in cash and asked if I can give them the $50 note and settle the rest by card (happy to pay surcharge). The $50 cash is more than enough to cover my bill from their “cash only” menu.

Surprisingly, the female manager rudely rejected my request by saying “if you order one dish from the cash only menu, the whole bill needs to be paid by cash”. Actually there was no sign anywhere mentioning that. I then told her I didn’t have enough cash, and she said “ok, then we will charge you the full price of the Shandong Chicken dish from the special menu, as everything on that menu were discounted”. I wasn’t happy but still accepted and asked her to proceed. She grabbed the regular menu and looked for the full price of that dish, and only found out the full price of the “discounted” $28.50 dish was only $27.50!

With 5 seconds of short embarrassment, she resumed her momentum by saying: “ok we will now charge you the complimentary rice for $3.50!”

I was frustrated and asked if I can split the bill by paying the cash only item in cash, and the rest on card. Also being rejected immediately by her: “No splitting bills!”

Finally I compromised and asked to pay whatever she wanted, by card. We have been to this restaurant many times in the past years, but this will be our last visit. I told the female manager that we will not be back. She replied:” up to you.”

On a separate note, the complimentary Chinese tea has never arrived. Their food quality has significantly deteriorated and only received poker face style...