Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Yum Cha @ Zilver Seafood Restaurant, Haymarket Sydney

We must have been driving and driving for countless of hours, that night before. We left Gold Coast after visiting Q1, and Surfer's Paradise beach. No dinner, that night, just some yucky cinnamon scones, kraft cheese and Apple Juice to get us by for the journey.

So reached our hotel at about 5am, and slept like logs until about 12. The first thing on the agenda was to get some real food into our stomaches. Our cousin brought us to this "famous" place called Zilver for YUM CHA...


When we arrived at the place , Haymarket, we found out that it was actually an office tower with a shopping complex kinda layout on the lower floors. It was a Saturday afternoon , and the place was virtually desserted except for the people heading towards Zilver.

When we arrived there, we had to get our number and wait for a table. Really HK style, and not something we see in KL. When a table that can the number of people is available, they will call your number and lead you to your seat.


We were lucky, as this place was packed. Our number got called about 15 minutes later (not bad) and we got a place. This place was FULL. The interior was fully carpeted, abit like our own Tai Thong style restaurants, the only difference is that, the lighting is dimmer here.

The service is quick, but (un)usually rude. They throw their plates to you from across the table. Fling those chopsticks on the table. I mean, its okay if you do it in Hong Kong, but to do the same in Sydney... these flers never change wan...

The first plate of dim sum we could get our hands on were these long beans. It tasted like Long Beans fried with Garlic. Quite nice.


*just edited*
Thats a Char Leung, yau char kwai wrapped in Chee Cheong Fun skin. Really something different. And now I remember, their HK CCF does look the same as ours, the only difference is that this place they don't do mix char siu / prawns. They just serve prawn CCF or char siu CCF only.



Then we of course had to try out a variety of their different stuff. Generally, I gotta say, they do have quality in terms of food served. And I was told that instead of 3 portions normally served in a dim sum platter, Zinger gives you 4. Har Gau and Siu Mai usually comes in 3 portions in a basket right ? They serve you 4 at the same price as in other cities like Melbourne... value for money..


Okay they also serve egg tarts here. Its not yucky, but next time I come here I will not really bother ordering them again. I prefer Tong Kee's egg tarts anytime... but still, I thought in general the dim sum here is about the same standard as those you find in Mandarin Oriental, if not better.

Generally I still am abit amazed as to how this restaurant survives on such a level of service in Australia. The bad service begins from the entrance, no smiles, no greetings, just how many persons ? Its like you are begging them to pay them to eat their food. When you are finally allocated a table, they will throw plates/saucers, chopsticks & utensils across the table. WTF ?

You can see those cart pushing ladies running around, so we'd asked Can you please give me more Chili ? They will return with a killer glare and exclaim, " This requests you ask the waiters !!!". They have a shortage of waiters there, so you just have to sit and wait, and watch the cart pushers walk by. Ask to add water also same.

For one, when you come to KL, you won't get that shit. Unless, you dine at places like Teochew Restaurant, Jalan Ipoh dim sums, etc. But you definitely won't get shit service in a place like Mandarin Oriental.

FOOD is good, but they give you F^&Ked UP Service
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Zilver

  • Level 1
    477 Pitt St
    Sydney 2000 NSW
  • Phone: (02) 9211 2232
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Their Website

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3 Comments:

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

char leung!!! thats the yau char kuey wrapped with chee cheong fun..i miss it so much..

had fun in sydney..i want to go there n work now..sigh..

Bernsy said...

damn it, you're right... thats called the char leung.. better go n edit it...

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