Oriental Teahouse South Yarra — Restaurant in Melbourne

we were expecting standard, but our expectations were exceeded! honestly, everything was so tasty….like tempted to put down my chopsticks and down everything with a spoon tasty. every dish was popping with flavour, and each of them different! no flavour fatigue here! our favourites included the sweet sweet bbq pork - fantastic glaze and pork perfectly balanced between chewy and tender. LOVED the crispy nori prawn too! these were unassuming but quite moreish and the prawn was PLUMP! the dumpling skins were slightly thick, but filled quite generously and juicy. we also loved their “cockteas,” super refreshing, light and generously portioned (not sure how strong in alc tho lol). also portioned well were the mains, these were $25 each! a main serve of protein goes for at least $35+ these days so this was such a treat. every dish was piping hot, this won me over! waitstaff were repeatedly apologetic for delays as they had a huge function upstairs but tbh in great company and yummy food, we didnt notice a delay at all! trends are cool, but sometimes there’s just...

I’ve been to the Oriental Tea House South Yarra branch many times but I never got a chance to take pics! Finally this time I did it 😅

I was out with friends this time when I got:

🥩 Pan Fried Eye-Fillet Steak with Honey Pepper sauce - Perfectly cooked steak, nicely seasoned and who doesn’t like honey pepper sauce?! Its one of my fave 😍

🥟 Roast Duck Dumplings with Peking Sauce - such a nice filling, not too over the top with the flavors so just enough hint of the peking sauce. Looks cute too doesnt it!

NOT PICTURED BUT I 100% RECOMMEND:

🥟 Ginger Prawn Dumplings - Love that ginger kick that you can easily tell from the first bite.

🥟 XO Scallop & Prawn Dumplings - I like the texture of the fillings, XO sauce is just so good.

🥟 Chili Wagyu Beef Dumplings - This is a must try! Not too spicy but they deliver on that nice spice kick.

Don’t forget to order rice though, I mean nothing is perfect until you add rice to it right?! Or is it just me 😂

Also, I just realised they have a branch in Lt Collins?! Need to check...

We booked this place for anniversary dinner on a Saturday night. We were warmly welcomed and seated, the ambiance was great and we were left to our menus after placing drink orders. We opted for a variety of dumplings (which honestly all were of high quality and tasted great) although we found some to be luke warm and not as steamy as we normally come to expect from freshly cooked dumplings, it did make us think if they had been cooked prior, we found these particularly with the pan fried dumplings. We then ordered the pork belly on cucumber salad, which honestly was the highlight of the night and would strongly recommend to order after a dumpling feasting session! The stir fried egg noodles however was the biggest let down of the evening, we think maybe it should have come out prior to the pork belly, as it was lacking any real taste and after the amazing pork dish, it was hard to top.

All in all, a great evening, good food, great attentive service and will be back to sample the rest...