Fortune Palace — Restaurant in Sydney

We have been coming here on and off for the past 2 decades, and whilst before Fortune Palace seemed unassuming, our recent revisits have made me appreciate this place much more.

In the past few years, a lot of yum cha places around Sydney have slowly deteriorated in quality or jumped up their prices excessively. Fortune Palace, tucked away in the heart of Carlingford Village, a shopping centre which seems to be a time capsule from the early to mid 2000s, provides much needed yum cha relief in today's inflation-ridden pressures.

Whilst the restaurant looks pretty average at a glance, it retains a lot of the soul and nostalgic value of a more traditional yumcha experience. You may find some dishes here that other yumcha chefs in newer restaurants will no longer make, for example "ma lai goh" (steamed cake).

As it has a lower price point, you'll find the place much more packed than other yumcha restaurants nowadays, and for the most part the range of dishes taste amazing and are great value. Do keep in mind some you may have to order for it to be made, like the pan fried rice rolls/radish cakes or rib rice pots.

Honestly I just felt compelled to leave a recommendation for this place as a lot of the newer restaurants, whilst appearing more modern, have lost the charm and soul of yumcha especially in the past few years. They're too focused on chasing trends and instagram fame, whilst charging exorbitant prices and have lost touch with reality. Fortune Palace, however feels like a refuge against the changing times and provides some nostalgic comfort in the...

Dined here for dinner. We ordered off the menu where there were plenty of options to choose from.

We made a booking im advance to make sure we were able to get a large table.

There a bit of a queue to get in but as we had made our booking we did not have to wait long.

Once seated we were given time to order so no rush which was nice.

Entrance was clean and signage as you would normally expect and see from similar descent restaurants in the area.

We ordered quite a number of dishes to make sure we were well fed, and the service was as we always expected very good.

As we ordered a fair few dishes we had to wait a bit, but that was ok, we were not in any rush and as mentioned we did order quite a few dishes off the menu.

The experience I had and the food were very very good and much better than the others in the area.

The tables inside were all very clean and ready prepared for us to eat at.

After waiting about 5 minutes for our order, we were very happy with our meals to see if everything was well prepared, tasty and none of us had any complaints.

Everything we ordered was generous on portion size and served hot ( or cold depending on the dish ).

Overall, the food was well priced for the quality and quantity we were served.

The service was as you would expect quick, efficient, accurate for us and served as you would expect from a quality restaurant...

We went as a group of 5 on Sunday and arrived around 11 for brunch. They were very busy and by 11.30 queues start to form, front desk was stressed and abrupt and we were glad that we got there right before the rush. The place could do with a bit of a clean and same with utensils. The ladies on the trolleys were friendly and helpful. The food was hit and miss, some dishes were warm, well made and flavourful. Others cold and/ or lacked a seasoning - one order of ribs was good and the other lacklustre. The one star review was for difficulty in getting service (for drinks order and hot water top up) and for front desk. We couldn’t get anyone so tried to help ourselves to fill up water and got told off by the cranky lady at the front desk. Chastised like little kids we sat back down and waited for 10 minutes before someone came to provide top up. The front desk at first told us the full amount to pay, we asked for a receipt and she was really cranky, slammed the receipt down and walked away. Despite ordering different dishes marked as S, M and L, and XL, she charged all of the dishes $7.80 with no explanation. Maybe this is a new thing with yum cha places now? If flat price why bother marking the dishes provided as S, M and L? We felt a little taken aback as most of our dishes were M and S, paid and left-...