It’s a girly afternoon that brings my friend Gina, Teena and I to Sky Phoenix. We’ve left the boys behind and are going to Yum Cha, shopping and the latest Sex and The City movie. The boys don’t mind, they’re more than grateful that they don’t have to sit through the movie which for a straight man is as bewildering and foreign as washing the dishes or the world of shoe shopping. The only part that the boys would miss is the Yum Cha. We usually go to Sky Phoenix as a) it looks chic inside b) we never have to wait and c) the food is good and the trolley ladies always stop and explain to us what they have in English. Having waited once for a table for 2 hours at Yum Cha (Kam Fook), I’ve been permanently scarred by the experience and we’ve also had trolley ladies whiz past us not willing to stop (Marigold Citymark) where I also saw Adman Siimon Reynolds get just as frustrated at the trolleys flying past and not stopping for him either (I guess they really didn’t know who he was ).

Pork with honey and black pepper sauce $9.80

We want to sit near the window but they won’t let us, despite the fact that the two areas are empty and remain so even after we leave. Many trolleys stop by and we take advantage of this and crowd our table with dishes so that we can talk without being interrupted. The first dish we select happens to be a “kitchen special” ($9.80), a small square plate of pork pieces coated in a honey and black pepper sauce. The pork is crispy and fattily delicious and the sauce deliciously sweet with a hint of hotness. I don’t know if the small serving necessarily warrants the price tag but it’s delicious nevertheless.

Scallop dumplings

The scallop dumplings are next, plump with seafood with the delicate translucent skin, although it could be prawns as well as the prized scallops for all we can discern.

Spinach and Seafood dumplings

The spinach and seafood dumplings are next, one of my firm favourites. They’re delicious and flavoursome with crunchy pockets of water chestnuts and all at the table murmur our agreement at its goodness. And having so much spinach in them can only attest to how healthy they are, right?

Yam dumplings

One of my favourite yum cha dishes is next, the yam dumplings. Although I prefer the steamed dumplings, I can never go past these dumplings. Coated in a fine lacey golden deep fried outer that crumbles and collapses in the mouth to reveal a gooey yam mash centre with mung beans and pork. I love dipping this in sweet and sour sauce and reveling in it’s soft and crispy textures.

Prawn Har Gow

The Har Gow is a favourite of mine and my husband’s and we’ve been known to order 4 of these at a Yum Cha seating. These are 4 plump prawn filled dumplings. There are two kinds of Yum Cha restaurants, ones that will serve piddly little Har Gow with tiny minced up prawns or the ones that serve these big plump dumplings with whole or halved prawns. Thankfully most good ones will have these although when I do come across one of the smaller ones I’m not happy. It’s also handy as it’s the only Chinese Yum Cha item that I know how to say in Chinese without eliciting a puzzled expression.

Ham sui gok

The Ham Sui gok (ok this is a second item I can vaguely pronounce), a pale, deep fried football of goodness, has crispy, sticky outer courtesy of the rice flour that sticks to your teeth. It’s filled with a delicious minced pork and dried prawn interior. And despite my rather poor explanation, they are better than they sound.

Custard dumplings

We’re done with our savouries now and going onto the sweets. We’ve spotted a cute pumpkin shaped fried dumpling and we’re told it has not pumpkin, but custard inside. The pumpkin stem is actually the top of a bird’s eye chili. As Gina points out, it’s someone’s job to put the little details on these things and one of them being putting the chili stem onto these dumplings. The blistered pale deep fried surface is similar to the Ham Sui Gok and hides a delicious thick custard inside. It’s like a tastier, cuter custard puff.

Black sesame and mango dessert

Our last dish is the one chosen simply because it looked like sushi and we had never seen it before. It has a black sesame jelly outer and a mango pudding filling. Black sesame can either be gorgeous in desserts or jarring and in this case it is jarring with a smokey, savoury sesame oil flavour to it. We peel off the outer jelly and eat the delicious mango pudding jelly inside.

We’re full and ready for a spot of shopping and the movie to end all girly movies. And the total damage? $56.10. More money for Manolos which would make Carrie proud.

Sky Phoenix

Level 3, Skygarden
77 Castlereagh Street Sydney NSW 2000
Open 7 days
Also a location at Manly, Rhodes and Castle Hill
http://www.phoenixrestaurants.com.au/

“Whaaat cuisine?” My friends ask when I tell them of our next proposed eating adventure. I’m talking to Queen Viv and Miss America and telling them about the restaurant I’ve pegged for our next outing. They’ve never heard of it and to be honest I hardly knew about it, which only added to it its allure. We’re told that stuffed lungs and tongue are on the menu so on that tenuous basis, we book. We also have Michael and Terri along for the ride. Michael is excited about the idea of trying lung, Terri decidedly less so.

We’re booked in for 7pm this Saturday night and the place is packed. There is a table of 6 next to us that fits on a table of 4. A man at the table is wearing a patterned jumper in a most …unusual pattern, which catches Queen Viv’s eye. “Look at his jumper!” she whispers. Yes it is indeed an eyesore. The restaurant has the requisite grapevines with bunches of grapes on the ceiling as well as tapestries on the walls and pictures of people that we’re not sure the identity of.

Prune drink $2.50

There’s a self serve fridge where Michael brings back a bottle of Coke for Terri and a Prune drink for himself, not for any dietary need but because the bottle looked so interesting. It’s not like a typical prune juice, the scent of sweet Osmanthus giving it a peachy or apricoty scent.

We’re searching the huge double sided menu for the lungs and there don’t seem to be any. We’re out of luck apparently, it’s not on the menu anymore so we order what seems to be a lot of dishes but we’re fascinated by so many of them and the kitchen delivers these literally within minutes.

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There was a whisper, no more a shout, that world famous Taiwanese Dumpling chain, Din Tai Fung, the one said to have queues day and night, had just opened in Sydney. It’s pretty much brand spanking new, opened only 2 weeks ago and already attracting a crowd. The reason? Xiao Long Bao, the soup dumplings that are so loved by so many, taking over as the popular alternative to Shao Mai or Gow Gees. Apparently, it started many years ago as a shop that sold oil with the owner Bingyi Yang selling dumplings on the side, these becoming so popular that a chain was spawned across the seas and accolades from the New York Times declaring it one of the Top 10 places to eat were bestowed. Sure it was about 10 years ago that they declared it that but given the queues, no-one seems to care.

We had just finished seeing a movie at the Academy Twin Paddington and were starving as it was late for us to eat (we always eat early, like pensioners at 6pm) .

We arrive at World Square at 8.30pm and go up to Level 1, where we’ve never been before and where there doesn’t look to be much. Outside there are two girls with earphones. I tense immediately, it’s like those stony faced Yum Cha women who give you a number and tell you that they’ll “call your number soon” before turning away to give the next customer their ticket stub only to summon you 1 long hour later. However I am greeted with a wide smile and a singsong friendly voice asks me if I have a reservation. I say no and she asks me if I mind sharing a table as that will be quicker. That’s fine by us but after a little flurry and some talking on the earpiece and it seems like they have a table just for us and she giggles “Lucky, you came at the right time, good timing!”. I find myself looking back bewilderedly, was that just friendly service at a Chinese restaurant? How very strange.

Sitting down at our table in theright most section of the restaurant, it certainly looks stylised and sleek. Adorned with displays of repeated white chinese soup spoons, small bowls and a wall full of different sized steamer trays. It is a weeknight and the crowd is almost exclusively Asian and mostly young types in suits and corporate clothes.

Menu: Large enough to hide behind should you require some stealth action

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