Looking for an old school Cantonese Australian feast? Young's Palace is a new restaurant in Potts Point serving up prawn toast with caviar, honey king prawns and more surprises. Find out more about it here!
It's 8pm and I have just arrived in Kings Cross and am looking for an elusive park. It's late, about 2 hours after I usually like to book a table but there are only two seatings at Young's Palace - 6pm and 8pm and 6pm is too early for Laura to leave work. So at a time I'd like to be ordering dessert I step into Young's Palace.
Young's Palace is located where Silly Tart Kitchen used to sit on the corner of Kellett Street and the space has been transformed. The restaurant is decked out like a cross between a movie set and a classic Australian Chinese restaurant. White tablecloths and a classic blue and white china adorn the tables lit by red lights.
Service is usually perfunctory at Chinese restaurants but here it is really lovely and the menu has a range of Chinese restaurant classics. Despite the menu cover saying "Regional Chinese restaurant" it really does seem like a classic Cantonese menu with prawn toast, spring rolls and beef and black bean sauce.
Chef Sam Young and his partner Grace Chen own the restaurant along with its sister S'more in Castlecrag. Sam built his following during COVID hustling lobsters and caviar to the Eastern Suburbs and the crowd tonight reflects that. Two days prior I had received a text asking if we wanted to preorder any seafood since they don't have a tank but even if you haven't pre-ordered it, this special "Young's Palace Secret Chairman Baller Menu" is available to order on the night.
Laura starts with a mango pancake cocktail that I encouraged her to get because I wanted a sip but not a whole cocktail of. It's made with vodka, mango and citrus and is very drinkable and tastes like the mango pancake dessert.
The first item to arrive is the prawn toast. Here prawn meat is served on a hash brown and deep fried and cut into half with optional caviar. The prawn toast is fantastic, an ode to the bouncy prawn topping and crisp base. It comes with a richly flavoured hot sauce to boost the flavour. Spectacular, give me a dozen.
On paper the menu is well priced which is honestly quite unexpected but once we see the serves we see that they are on the smaller side. Take the XO pippies, it's a smaller serve than what this would buy in Chinatown. The XO sauce is incredibly mild, which is apparent from the colour of the sauce and we don't get much XO flavour at all. The fried bread has a drier texture than usual too.
Likewise the lobster like the pippies would usually be bought by the weight but here it isn't so the lobster while local is on the smaller side. The lobster tail is cut up for easy eating and it is served on wiry egg noodles. I prefer e-fu noodles for lobster and crab as the fatter noodles are better for soaking up the sauce. The garlic butter sauce has a pronounced graininess thanks to the salted egg yolk which isn't mentioned on the menu but plays a large flavour and textural part in the enjoyment of the dish.
Laura has never tried mapo tofu because it usually includes pork but here they have both a chicken and a vegetarian version. There are cubes of silky soft tofu and a rich sauce made with chicken with a slight tang right at the end.
While we found the seafood offerings a touch mid, the classic Cantonese dishes hit the sweet spot. The sweet and sour pork is excellent and satisfying. It's nice that a dish that you've had so many times still manages to satisfy time and time again.
Likewise the honey king prawns are made with enormous prawns, a batter that is crisp on the outside with a spongey softness between prawn and crust and tasty honey glaze. And served with deep fried vermicelli of course. These two dishes and the prawn toast are where we spend most of our time dabbling.
Dessert-wise, well Chinese restaurants aren't really known for their desserts and here there are four: jelly and ice cream, banana rolls, mantou buns with condensed milk and a banana split. We ask about the banana split and it's made old school style with regular supermarket ice cream. We were really hoping for deep fried ice cream because that's the only Chinese restaurant dessert we would go for and seems like a surprising omission if you're going for a Chinese Australian menu. In its place we opt for the banana rolls served with hot chocolate fudge sauce and condensed milk. They're thin rolled filo pastries filled with a little bit of banana that are deep fried.
With the bill comes two fortune cookies. I tear one open and I remove two slips with fortunes:
"Don't worry about money. The best things in life are free."
"Powered by imagination. Fueled by caffeine."
While Laura gets "All things are difficult before they are easy." We both look at each other and exchange a look and a giggle.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you have a favourite Chinese restaurant dish? Do you believe in the fortunes in fortune cookies?
This meal was independently paid for.
Young's Palace
1 Kellett St, Potts Point NSW 2011
Open Tuesday to Saturday 5pm-1pm
Closed Sunday to Monday
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