Apr 13 2009
[Yum Cha]China, City
Although a little expensive and not exactly the best tasting yum-cha in town, it’s the closest yum-cha experience available to students studying at the University of Auckland! It’s situated at the bottom of Anzac ave, right next to Downtown Foodtown, a mere 10 minute downhill walk from University of Auckland. One unique thing about China Chinese Restaurant is that it’s the only place in Auckland, to the extent of my knowledge, that offers all-day yum-cha. Now that may not surprise anyone living in Asia but here in New Zealand, all-day yum-cha is unheard of! It’s quite cool to be able to devour chicken feet at lunch AND night… don’t you think? OK, maybe egg tarts is a better dish to use in the example… but I’m sure you get what I’m hinting at!
[From top: Prawn dumplings, Chive dumplings, Seaweed salad with chili and sesame seed]
Since one of my friend was a vegetarian, we did our best to accommodate her by ordering the veggie dishes… Sadly she could only eat the seaweed salad! Thankfully the dish was suitably sweet and crisp… to the detriment of my friend as we too started attacking it! The prawn dumplings were OK but the prawns within was on the small side, with the pastry skin being a little bit thin. The same could be said for the chive dumplings which had both chives and pork mince balls, which also had an average taste.
[Dry four season pan fried beans]
Usually you’d order this dish at a Chinese restaurant, so I was a little bit surprised to see the dry pan fried beans doing the rounds on the Yum Cha trolley. It didn’t taste as good as most eateries do them, probably because it wasn’t straight from the wok. The beans were a bit soggy from being out in the open for a while so unless it came straight out from the kitchen, I wouldn’t recommend anyone ordering this.
[Vietnamese spring roll]
We were quite curious as to what these long sticks were - turns out they were spring rolls done in the Vietnamese style, which somehow meant the inclusion of prawns, spring onions and other stuff inside a deep fried pastry, sitting in a pool of sweet chili sauce (with the absence of chili). While nice, again this dish had been out in the open too long so the spring rolls were a little bit soggy too! Otherwise, it was an interesting snack.
[China special tofu]
This tofu was anything but special, sadly. As a tofu lover, I’ve had better dishes and sadly China’s special tofu did was not in this category. The regular appearance of sweet chili sauce is starting to get to me at this point, as everything is starting to taste extremely sweet and similar in taste when paired with the sauce! Just by serving a bed of fried tofu and sprinkling some cucumbers, peanuts, and sweet chili sauce does not make it special in my books. However my vegetarian friend seemed OK with it… so it could just be my obsession with good tofu dishes!
[Chicken feet / Phoenix feet]
I felt extremely relieved to finally bite into a dish that could be discussed in a positive light. Although the skin weren’t steamed to the softness that I’ve experienced at other eateries, the sauce coupled well with the chicken feet and the tendons were nice too. I particularly liked the spices and capsicum taste they put into the sauce, which prevented the sauce from being too heavy on the palette.
Overall as a Yum cha joint, I’d avoid it if I had my car and time available to go to a decent joint somewhere else. But as the closest Yum cha joint to University of Auckland that offers Yum cha at night, it’s definitely a strong contender for my hard earned $$ if I ever had the desire to have chicken feet at random times of the day. Apparently China also offers formal dining (i.e. ordering separate dishes) but judging from the quality of their Yum cha offerings, I’m slightly hesitant at finding out how well they compare to other eateries in that department. Do let me know if anyone does manage to try out this aspect of China!
Contact details:
Ground Floor, 2 Beach Rd
City
Auckland
(09) 309 4808
Hours:
7 days, 12pm - 10pm
