Rhodes Phoenix — Restaurant in Sydney

What to order when you're here:

Prawn dumplings Char Siu Sou (Char siu buns baked) Char Siu Pau (Char siu buns steamed) Vinegar Pork (鎮江焗肉排 - zhen kong gok yuk pai) Ham Sui Gok (Fried glutinous rice egg shapes with minced pork centre) Steamed Gai Lan with oyster sauce Prawn and scallop dumpling Fish congee (or seafood congee if they've got it) Egg Tarts Mango Pudding Tau Foo Faa (tofu curd with sugar syrup)

We've been here for about 10 years. Dining here about 3 or 4 times a year.

Not everything is the same quality but in our opinion; however, the list above is almost always delicous, fresh and very well seasoned.

Reflections on Rhodes and Dim Sum (Yum Cha):

A lot of work goes into great dim sum and when I come here I appreciate the effort it takes to pull this off.

There are many who come to dim sum (yum cha) expecting to be served like it's a normal restaurant. Since I don't ever consider this experience remotely 'normal'... I extend the most patience I have for the people who work here.

I try to notice everything around me.

I see how stressed everyone is with their their carts. The women who push those carts are doing it tirelessly. Going round and round until they've sold off their current food.

The kitchen must be behind the scenes doing their best to predict what dishes are going to sell off quicker.

Sometimes they underestimate a batch and there are people who are impatient for another batch of this dish.

I see people simply absently eating paying no mind to the choreography that needs to occur for this circus called 'dim sum' to be a success.

I get it... if you want to be a dim sum restaurant... then you should get your act together.

I'm afraid this type of restaurant will never be an easy balancing act. Often the aspects that get thrown out in the chaos and buzzing madness is docorum. People who work here end up simply responding to the most direct of orders because so much needs to occur.

We may be seated in comfort to be fed. But we are surrounded by staff who are under constant scrutiny. It's like both we the diner and the dining cart people are working to please the owners of this place.

To make matters worse, I recently tried to find out more about the Hong Kong person. Are they rude only just to strangers? As it turns out, there are lots of people who have discovered people from Hong Kong to be emotionally cold, loud, judgemental and even nasty.

While I don't know if this is what I experienced at Rhodes Phoenix, I can see that there are a lot of Cantonese speakers in my life I would classify as not very nice to be around. So who knows? Maybe that's what you're at the blunt end of when you've been here.

This shouldn't take away from the food, if you're a real foodie. I think the food here is worth the trip here and the questionable level of service. I myself have never felt disrespected overtly. I would agree that many here are curt. Not really here to make conversation or be particularly friendly.

I can only add that my own family are Cantonese and I don't speak with them much either anymore. Probably because I don't know how to relate to them even at the best of times. They can be emotionally distant and loud and dismissive. So... the fact that they can do the same thing to you in a restaurant they work in... is frankly par for the course when you're dealing with Cantonese folk.

That said, I've gotten to know perhaps one or two friendly people who speak Cantonese. They are special... and if you ever get to know some of them... savour them. They are unique and should be cherished. There are a few of these people at Rhodes too, as a matter of fact. You just need to notice them and give them the respect they...

Generally don't like leaving negative reviews but I think this has to be done so hopefully Rhodes Phoenix management will see this and realise they need to do better - much, much better.

Visited Rhodes Phoenix today (21.11.2021) at around 11:30am and waited around 2 hours to be seated at a table (yes, TWO hours).

My family and I don't live in the area but whenever we come to the Rhodes IKEA, we'll stop by Rhodes Phoenix (we've probably been to this restaurant 10+ times in the past).

In the past, our experience has generally been decent - food tastes good and service is fairly fast. Wait times are always to be expected given how busy the place is, but generally we averaged reasonable wait times of 30-40 minutes.

But today's experience was beyond frustrating. Firstly, the 2 hour wait time, in my opinion, is simply unacceptable. I think there may well have been other customers in our position. Rhodes Phoenix - I think you understand by now just how popular your restaurant is and just how many customers will flock to your restaurant for yum cha on weekends. If you now have less tables available because you're following COVID guidelines, that is completely fine. However, if you want to run your business properly, please don't just assume all your customers will be okay with wait times averaging 1.5 hours+. If anything, you could impose a time limit for tables (e.g. 1 hr), so you maintain reasonable wait times.

Once seated at the table, service was incredibly slow. You were able to tell right away that there simply weren't enough food trolleys available for the amount of patrons in the restaurant. Although the taste was decent, quite a few of the dishes we received were cold. There are a few dishes we regularly get when we visit Rhodes Phoenix, but they never appeared. We waited around for ages for these - only to be thoroughly disappointed. We left frustrated (and still hungry), with a total bill of $98 for around 8-9 dishes and tea charged at $3/pp.

Despite this having been one of our favourite establishments for yum cha in Sydney, my family and I will not be returning. For anyone reading this - your time and hard-earned money are better...

This was our first visit to this restaurant. Despite it being very busy for a Sunday morning, which was expected given its location, our experience was disappointing.

• Service: Most of the staff were friendly, and the front desk lady worked hard. The tea was refilled quickly, although sometimes so quick that hot water was spilled around the tea pot and wet the table (luckily no one was injured). However, one trolley-pushing lady was strangely rude and forceful. When we asked what she had on her trolley, she immediately grabbed a dish and shoved it onto our table, saying dismissively, “Lobster, you want it?” Before we could respond, she marked the dish on our bill and walked away. When we asked if she could take the dish back, as we hadn't decided yet, she just left. We chose not to make a big deal about it to avoid ruining our Sunday morning.

• Food: The quality did not match the prices. For standard prices we expected standard quality. However, some meat was improperly flavored, and some dishes weren't as advertised.

(1) Har Gow (Prawn Dumplings): The dumpling wrapping was too hard and didn’t complement the filling well. The technique and proportions of ingredients seemed off, suggesting they were either rushed or pre-made and reheated. It felt similar to supermarket quality.

(2) Yuzu Mango Sago: This was particularly disappointing. It was just a bowl of sago with barely any juice. Despite being introduced as mango sago, there was no yuzu in it and the mango was replaced with crunchy melon (the colour was so similar to mango’s)! Feeling deceived, we went elsewhere later that day to get real yuzu mango sago.

Weren’t in the mood for photos after all that. We will...