Smart — Restaurant in Sydney

Extremely rude, if you don’t order seafood expect to never get your food. Would give zero stars if I could. The service here is always terrible (long wait, indifferent attitude) but lunch experience on 8 Feb was beyond acceptability. Started with the lady in charge arguing with our order - half the lunch menu wasn’t available, and she criticises our choice from what was left. Apparently not acceptable to order two noodle dishes. Clearly they had no interest in serving our small order, because we then waited for half an hour and got nothing while dish after dish came out to the other tables who ordered fish and lobster. We were one of only four tables at this point. When we got up to leave at that point (late for our appointment) they’d obviously not even started cooking our order. If you don’t have any interest in serving order, tell us at the start, don’t just chuck our order at the end of the queue and make us sit for half an hour (or more if we hadn’t left). Were we being punished for not ordering what she told us to order? Food quality is fine, but really not worth the absolutely atrocious attitude. And we were ordering in Cantonese - I can only imagine how much worse your experience would be if you spoke in English. You seem to only get service if you belong to the core customer base of elderly Cantonese retirees who come here every day for lunch. If you are young or not Chinese, you...

I'm going to be honest with you here,

Don't bother coming here if you aren't ready to wait and don't speak Cantonese. Show up before they open at 11 or don't show up at all

Rocked up at 11 (when they open) today, to see a line of at least a dozen people waiting to go in, apparently this is the norm for them. I put in the first order of the day for 3 dishes and still ended up waiting 40 minutes for the first two dishes, then a further 45 minutes for the final dish. When inquiring about the final dish, I was informed they hadn't even started making it, so was a little cheesed off at that, but it was expected based on reviews (re: long waiting time)

Despite this, food quality was reasonably good - tastes just like traditional Hong Kong food cooked in a kitchen straight out of Hong Kong (hyigene standards and all), portion size was massive (think 2-3x the size of your normal Chinese restaurant portion) and value for money was quite good. I managed to turn my 3-dish lunch into lunch for myself, dinner for 2 families for rather humble 62 dollarydoos. Where else can you do that?

so here's the skinny: pros Peng (cheap) Leng (nice) Jeng (good)

cons Dung hou loi (had to wait for ages) Yau see hou maan (sometimes, very slow) Yiu gong zhong maan (must speak chinese)

I hope you find this review helpful. If in doubt read the...

Hidden gem. No frills on the deco and service. Good food! Good value! Great place for people who want good Cantonese food without the restaurant service mark-ups. Good proportions and they never skimp on the vegetables either.

Go to for me are live lobster and the congee (lunch only)

Reminds me of the good hidden places you'd need to be a local to go find in HK. The type you don't go there for the service (and you won't expect it at this price point), but just regular food cooked well and with good value.

Service is slow sometimes - it is a family run business with 1-2 in the kitchen, so you do get 1.5h waits during peak. If you don't want to wait, I'd recommend going as soon as they open, or ordering takeaway in advance.

Get your orders in when you arrive! I've seen people who get a table, take another half an hour to order...by then later arriving tables have ordered already. Those seem to be the ones who get annoyed about the long wait and having to join the end of the queue.

Owners are nice people. Unlike what some of the other reviews said, I don't think they prioritise when your food comes out based on how much you've ordered. I've ordered just congee and noodles, and my order came out before the large table of 12 who ordered seafood since my...