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When people from South West Sydney crave “a succulent Chinese meal” (IYKYK!), they head to Beverly Hills and take their pick from the many Cantonese places dotting both sides of busy King Georges Road.
It’s 6pm on a Sunday and we’re shown to our reserved table at Yummy Seafood Chinese Restaurant. But not before we take a peek at tank upon tank of lobsters, crabs, fish and abalone that might soon be dinner. Right from the get-go you realise that it’s a local favourite, with Chinese families soon filling up the spacious restaurant. Lazy Susans laden with crab in garlic butter, steamed whole fish, oodles of noodles and stir-fried Asian greens are spinning around in anticipation.
The jasmine tea, piping hot and fragrant, is served with complimentary salted peanuts that we nibble on while we peruse the menus. Yes, plural. There’s a seasonal menu with chef suggestions ranging from pigeon to Peking duck, the regular menu with all your old-school Chinese favourites, and, we find out later, a separate Cantonese-only menu with offal, dried seafood and fermented foods.
Chopsticks at the ready, we dig into the first dish: pipis in XO sauce, which can be ordered by weight. Our waiter suggests we order a serve of fried noodles to go with it and we agree. A Hong Kong creation, XO sauce is made from dried prawns, scallops and cured ham simmered in Shaoxing cooking wine, along with chillies, garlic, shallots, sugar and soy sauce. The result? A savoury-spicy-sweet-garlicky condiment that’s a true flavour bomb. Yummy Seafood Chinese’s XO sauce could do with more of a chilli kick, but the pipis are tender and the sauce seeps into the noodles over time, taking it from crunchy to, well, yummy. The serving is so generous, we struggle to polish it off.
Next is the har gow, and these plump prawn dumplings disappear in a flash. The wasabi beef is also a hit. Chunks of beef are velveted to give you melt-in-your-mouth softness and the wasabi sauce has got the zing thing. We gobble it up with a serve of fried rice, which is your stock-standard variety, and a plate of deep-fried king prawns in honey sauce. The latter, which we expected to be a crowd-pleaser, has too much batter and is a tad too sweet for our liking.
The table next to us has gone for the mud crab. The staff has scooped one from the tank and brought it to their table for inspection. It gets the all-clear and is whisked away to be cooked. Live seafood, especially the crustacean kind, is exxy, so make sure to check the price and seasonality. Note: congee is served after 9pm (yes, the restaurant is open until 1.30am every day), but not for lunch.
Service is a standout: quick, helpful and courteous without being overbearing. Portions are humongous, so come with a hearty appetite. By now, we’re stuffed to the gills – but still have room for some complimentary fortune cookies. Mine reads: Luck is blowing your way. Indeed.
As Shakespeare asked in Romeo and Juliet, ‘What’s in a name?’ Luckily, for Yummy Seafood Chinese Restaurant, it lives up to its moniker. Yummy? Tick. Seafood? Tick! Chinese? Tick!!
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