We recently tried yum cha at Quan’s Kitchen, located at the Kippax shops. I’ve been meaning to try it out for years but it’s quite far for us to travel. Located just a few doors down from Bunny Beans, yum cha is available daily at lunch time.
There are no trolleys but the yum cha menu has most of the staples. We sat down without a booking on a Sunday, and were given a sheet of paper listing all the yum cha dishes to order and tick our picks. There were no prices against the dishes so I had no idea how expensive it would be until we paid our bill. Something to note for next time is that the takeaway menu lists the yum cha prices. The menu is split into steamed, deep fried, stir fried, pan fried, and dessert with prices starting from $4.80 – $16.80.
The har gao prawn dumplings ($7.80 for 4 pieces) are a good size but seemed a little bland. There was no soy sauce and vinegar on the table, and I forgot to ask one of the staff to bring it out. I could taste a hint of celery in the scallop dumplings ($7.80) but thought these were rather plain. They seemed to have been over-steamed with the skin coming apart at the opening.
The lobster dumplings ($7.80) were delicious. Although I can never taste a lot of lobster, this one is stuffed with large chunks of prawns (which are very noticeable). Meaty, juicy, crispy on the outside, and perfect with mayo on the side.
Siu mai ($7.30 for 4 pieces) was meaty and juicy. This was the favourite of all the dumpling dishes we tried and yes we would order this again. I love my sticky rice ($6.80 for two) and although these are a good size at Quan’s Kitchen, it lacked flavour and seasoning. There was plenty of pork mince, lap cheong, and diced mushrooms, but it needed perhaps a bit more saltiness. I felt that even the lap cheong wasn’t salty enough.
The deep fried squid tentacles ($12.80) was, in our opinion, the most disappointing dish. Although crunchy, we found it overly battered (the batter to squid ratio was significantly large) and extremely oily. We ended up breaking up the batter to pull out the tiny tentacles to eat on its own. We’ve definitely had better squid elsewhere. We gave feedback about this to one of the staff who said he would pass it onto the chef.
The prawn rice noodles ($8.80 for three rolls) came with two large prawns per roll. I found the rice noodle to prawn ratio to be a little off too – a lot of thick rice noodle double wrapped. Or perhaps by this stage I was pretty full, so I didn’t end up eating all the rice noodle.
I was after a mango or coconut pudding to finish but these sadly aren’t on the menu. Dessert includes egg tarts, custard buns, Malay cakes, sesame balls and a chestnut pancake. There are other dishes I want to try like the radish cakes, congee, roast duck, taro dumplings and stuffed mushrooms but it will have to wait for another time.
There are other yum cha places such as Ginseng at the Hellenic Club in Woden, and Yumcha CBD in Civic that are much closer to me, so I will be frequenting those more often than Quan’s Kitchen. I’m not aware of many yum cha spots north-side, but Quan’s Kitchen is an option.
Quan’s Kitchen
122/68 Hardwick Crescent, Holt, ACT
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