Mr. Wong — Restaurant in Sydney

(Last visited May 8, 2023.) As a newlywed (4/27/23) my wife and I chose to honeymoon in Australia, first going to Hayman Island for a week then exploring Sydney for another week! Well, fresh off of the plane from the northeast of the down under we chose Mr. Wong because we heard some AMAZING things from the locals who were vacationing at the same resort we were! Here's how it went...

Atmosphere/Appearance: This place was actually a little difficult to find given it's tucked away location downtown, but eventually we found the gorgeous brick archway which leads you into the first floor of the gigantic restaurant. This place felt so spacious and open. It was super busy, yet it still felt incredibly intimate. I loved the dimly lit lights and low-playing music. We sat on the first floor off to the right near the kitchen. The manager at the time let us walk around and check out the aging Peking duck and the basement downstairs where SO MUCH wine is kept.

Service: I can't remember our server's name or even the manager's and I feel awful about it because they were so awesome! Regardless we wanted for nothing and felt well taken care of.

Food: This restaurant offers over 80 dishes so it could be very difficult to choose what to eat! We tried a variety of dim sum ranging from their Lobster & Scallop, to Duck & Chives, Pork & Bamboo Shoots and numerous others. The quality of everything was off of chain and it was hard to put in words. It's a shame that Chinese food in America gets such a bad rep for being cheap, greasy and fast because when you have Chinese food that is cooked with love, passion, skill and vigor it's SO MUCH BETTER. Like, really off the charts! Next up we had the King Crab Fried Rice which was delicious, but in my opinion, could've used more crab. The rice was soft, tender, flavorful and bold. I just wanted more crab. Lol. Who wouldn't? Last, but not least... we HAD to have the Peking Duck Pancakes. These sound strange, but they're not like what you're thinking. They're just like... crepes that you built yourself with the most delicious, succulent, perfectly cooked duck, crispy, fresh sprouts and hoisin sauce. These were AMAZING because they were so simple. You don't need 25 ingredients to make something fantastic. This is what the place is known for right here.

Value: So remember all of that dim sum we had? You can order 8 assorted steamed or fried pieces for $54.00 AUD ($32.50 USD) and that was totally worth it. The King Crab Fried Rice was $53.00 AUD ($32.00) for the large portion and $44.00 AUD ($26.50 USD) for the small. Lastly, the Peking Duck Pancakes were $64.00 AUD ($38.50 USD) and 8 pancakes and $120.00 AUD ($72.00) for 16. We only needed the smaller portion since we had so much other food. Lol.

In conclusion, I absolutely loved my experience here at Mr. Wong and HIGHLY recommend this place to anyone visiting the area! You won't regret it. This place fired on all cylinders for every aspect of what makes a...

So when we arrived, the very stylish dressed and coiffured host was playing the boring old Sydney hospitality game, of ‘I hold the power attitude’ so completely ignored us for five minutes despite us being the only people waiting in front of her. I thought that rubbish had died years ago but sadly not. We were seated and the space is really nice although when you head to the bathrooms you can see it is starting to show the signs of wear and tear. It is crazy busy so you can understand why. The service on the floor was warm and friendly and pretty efficient on the whole. There were a couple of things that did let the service down a bit. One the waiter spilt my cocktail down the side of the glass and egg white foam all over the stem and base. He acknowledged he did it by instead of sitting out out just put it on the table so we had sticky drink on the table after that. The other was one of the waiters put our dish on another table and walked away. The people at the table realized, then told her and she then brought it to us after working out her mistake. Maybe I’m picky but she had no idea it they had sneezed on it, touched the food etc.

The cocktails were brilliant, but the food was the biggest disappointment. And some dishes were sold out. We wanted the crunchy pork belly, and I know it said on the menu they have limited supply but to be sold out when you are at the beginning of the second sitting is not great. If you like this I guess you need to be in the first sitting.

The steamed dumplings were great and we thought we were in for a great treat with the rest of the food. Sadly it wasn’t to be. Then the duck pancakes came, which were missing a pancake. We only had seven in the steamer and not eight (but hey accidents happen and they would be hard to count) but the duck was so bland and dry. It looked great and the skin had good crunch, but it had none of the splendid taste and succulent mouthfeel you expect from Chinese duck. It was so disappointing.

The pork knuckle in sweet and sour sauce was interesting and done as a pressed meat. It was fairly tasty on the whole. But the sauce was gluggy and a very one-dimensional in flavour profile.

The crab fried rice was overdone with the typhoon shelter crumb topping and overwhelmed the crab flavour. All I could seem to taste was the topping because they had put on way too much, and if I hadn’t ordered crab I wouldn’t know it was there.

Sadly I have to say Mr Wong didn’t live up to the expectation from the ‘hype’ or the experience you’d expect from a Merivale venue, and honestly for the price I would expect food that was better executed. If you want good Cantonese food from a Merivale venue, go to Queen Chow in Newtown. I think the Mr Wong crew need to head to their sister restaurant and see how it’s done. Or better still, for similar price on a menu they should send someone to Me Wah in Hobart to see what a similar price delivers in execution. We won’t be...

Nice and chill ambience with some cosy restaurant noise. I’m personally happy with it.

Overpriced food. Really enjoy their dimsim and roasted duck. Not the duck you can find in a Chinese/ Cantonese BBQ restaurant but it is absolutely amazing. Juicy and flavourful yet delicate. Avoid their king crab fried rice and fried ice cream at all cost. The fired rice is salty but bland. The fried ice cream is the cheap one that most Viet restaurants have. Mr Wong just double the price and serve it with a ridiculous amount of an overly sweet caramel sauce. I get it - it’s caramel sauce. What I’m saying is I can drench myself in that sauce.

Confusing service. They got our order wrong (wrong fried rice - yep) - it was still fine at this point. FOUR different waiters checked on us - we appreciated that. However, the whole thing felt really pretentious. None of them came back to explain anything. None of them ever said if the fried rice was being cooked or held back or on its way. They came - “sure I’ll check” - and never returned to our table. The fried rice got to our table TWENTY NINE MINS later. Things started getting off-putting at this point. We wanted to order more food and drinks but couldn’t be bothered after all the wait plus disappointment. We asked for our bill TWICE (yep - TWO different waiters - AGAIN) and got it after ONLY TWENTY - TWENTY FIVE MINS waiting. I literally asked to my friends how long more it would take us. At this point I just wanted to get out of there.

The total dining time was solid 2 hours but most of the time we were waiting, waiting, and waiting. NO APOLOGIES RECEIVED.

The girl with red nail polish was the only one who genuinely cared and felt sorry.

My 2c is they should divide their dining area into sections delegated to 1-2 particular waiters each section. Their waiters should communicate with each other AND actually care about customer’s needs and expectations. More training is also a MUST.

Am I returning?...