Yum Cha @ Marigold

How could anyone not love yum cha? Steamed dumplings, savoury dishes and desserts paraded in trolleys weaving around a busy, noisy and packed restaurant. Yum cha dishes are normally strongly flavoured, served in bite-size portions (similar to that of hors d'oeuvres) in metal or bamboo steamers and complemented with chinese tea. Due to the variety of dishes, everyone can enjoy assorted food with different ingredients, flavour and taste in one meal.

FFL are such devotees of yum cha that we decided to forego the GFM Sydney Food & Wine Fair and headed to the hustle & bustle of Chinatown for a Saturday brunch at Marigold instead. We rate Marigold as our Yum Cha restaurant of choice in terms of quality and price. As we patiently stood and waited in the cramped little lift to Level 5, we started salavating at the enticing smell of the familiar classic dishes such as har gow & fung jao, to more intriguing dishes like clams with black beans. We were surprisingly seated almost immediately and therefore, did not have to endure the agonising wait for other patrons to leave quickly!

(Note: when heading to Marigold, avoid being seated on Level 4, Level 5 is where the action is! On Level 5, it is seriously about a minute's lapse between the time your morsel of choice leaves the steamer, the sauté pan or the deep fryer and the moment it lands on your table and inevitably, in your mouth)

As we sat there sipping jasmine tea, we started excitedly waving down passing trolleys and loading our table with crowd favourites like:

Cha siu bao (BBQ pork buns), Gai lan (chinese broccoli in oyster sauce), squid and Fung jao (chicken's feet)

Fung Jao (literally "Phoenix claws" but we call them chicken's feet)

Fried rice noodle with hoi sin and peanut sauce

Sticky rice with chicken

Har Gow (Prawn dumplings) and spinach dumplings

Fish balls

Mango pancakes aka mango weiss bars!

Other than the weirdo salty sauce for the fishballs, everything was delicious. The fung jao and har gow were of exceptional standard (those are my staples for measuring quality of yum cha). Marigold offers a wide selection of dishes, the food is incredibly tasty & satisfying, and the service is good (well about as good as it can get for yum cha!).