Gold Leaf Burwood - Yum cha

Hello Fellow Nom Seekers!

I'm sure if you are Melbourne base, you would have dined at one of the many Gold Leafs dotted around town.  My closest is Burwood and I recently lunched there after a long hiatus and was pleasantly surprised at how good their yum cha was.  I was expecting to be rushed and having to 'fight' for my food.  You know what I mean?  Fighting as in fighting off the hungry hordes of co-diners also making a lunge at the passing trolley.  But it was a peaceful, well paced and well laden trolley - plenty to go around without feeling rushed.

Here's what we ordered:

Seafood dumpling - plenty of seafood.  Mainly prawn but me no complain.

OMG! You have to try these.  I have no idea what they are called but they consist of a base of pork mince, then minced prawn then topped with a large prawn and then a quail egg.  I mean is that a mouthful or what?

Turnip cake or loh ba gao.  Stock standard.  Tasted fine but nothing exceptional.

Prawn dumplings - noice!  They had plenty of prawns within.  Love - could have had a dozen.

Shark fin dumplings.  Stock standard.  Tasted fine.

A fairly generous serving of fried calamari.  There is nothing to fault about fried anything let alone fried calamari.  Not too greasy.  Lulled me into eating more.

The suckling pig platter was a bit of a disappointment.  The crackling looked wonderful but it was cold and under seasoned.  The pork meat underneath was cold which just accentuated its fattiness.  The jellyfish was nice but at $18 for the plate - it was the most expensive item we had that day and the most disappointing.

The yum cha meal of the above set us back by $68 which fed three adults and one child.  Which is pretty much what you expect to pay for a standard yum cha without going overboard with face-stuffing.

I would like try out other Gold Leaf restaurants around town just to see whether the quality is consistent - call it a Tour of Duty, if you will.



Until next time :)