All things considered…

After our visit to the Farmers’ Market at Parnell in Auckland, New Zealand, my friend and her family took us for dim sum or what they call yum char there, at this very posh and expensive-looking Chinese restaurant…

…at Alexandra Park there.

Let us look at the things that we had and we have here, like the char siew pao (barbecued meat steamed buns), for instance…

Theirs were very nice and I loved the filling…

…but they were very small – maybe half the size of what we have here…or three-quarters, give and take a little. We also shared the porridge and I would say that it was really very nice as well.

The siew mai (meat dumplings) were very good too…

…but I had better har kau (prawn dumplings) elsewhere…

One thing I noticed when I was in New Zealand was that they had awesome crayfish and scallops and mussels and everything but their prawns were not as nice as the ones we have at home, or not the regular ordinary ones, at least.

Their chee cheong fan was great too…

…and the skin of the yam puffs…

…was excellently done. Melissa and my missus loved them a lot but I was not too crazy about the filling – I think I am more accustomed to the char siew filling in our yam puffs here, the one they have in their char siew pao.

This was their fried fish balls in curry…

The balls were fine – very firm and springy, no fishy smell but when it comes to curry, I guess the Chinese would have to take a back seat – definitely nowhere near my friend’s nyonya chicken curry that we had the day before when we arrived in Auckland.

These were tofu slices with fish paste toppings…

…if I’m not mistaken and they had brinjal…

…too and something wrapped in bean curd skin…

Those reminded me of yong tofu, the dry version.

These would have been really nice – prawns on toast…

…had the prawns been as sweet and succulent as the ones we have here and I think I had better beef balls…

…before when the Shanghai chef was still in town at the dim sum place here.

Everybody enjoyed these sotong (squid) sticks…

…and the roast pork belly…

…was simply out of this world! Yum! Yum!

I’ve never been a fan of these…

…but theirs were pretty good.

Hmmmm…I can’t seem to remember what these were…

…or what they tasted like. Looks like I will have to go to Auckland and my friend will have to take me here again! Hehehehehe!!!!

The lau sar pao…

…were, at best, just ok. They were not so generous with the filling which was not as goo-ey as elsewhere so much so that I had to press the bun a bit to get it to flow out…

…but I loved this a lot! It is something that I have not seen anywhere else (…not that I’ve been to a lot of dim sum places! Wink! Wink!). It is yew char koi wrapped with chee cheong fan skin and served with a special chocolaty sauce…

Not exactly sweet, great fusion between the east and the west.

I came across this webpage and it seems that the restaurant has been getting not-very-flattering reviews from diners who have been there before. I would agree with those who said that the people were very rude – I thought the older (Chinese) ones were definitely no Miss Congeniality, like the people in Hongkong when we went there in the 80’s. The younger ones were very nice and friendly though – probably part-timers, university students working on weekends to earn a bit of pocket money.

I must say, however, that it is somewhat true what one said that one should “bring someone who speaks Chinese if you want to find out what you are eating”. We had a bit of difficulty describing what we wanted to the older lot – things that  my friend and her family had before and would like us to try. The younger ones weren’t so much of a problem. I did not know of any time limit given and the only hitch we had was that we arrived before the carts came out at 10.30 and the old waitress insisted that we should order from the menu and did not look too pleased when we insisted on waiting.

Personally, I would not think it was as bad as how some of those people put it in their comments. I guess those of us over here who are more accustomed to such rowdy or  boisterous, eat-and-run dining conditions would not feel ill at ease at places like this. I don’t know how much all that cost though – my friend and her hubby would not let me pay for anything no matter how bad I felt about them footing the bill ALL the time…but I am pretty sure that it cost a bomb!

Thank you so much, nonetheless, for the yum char feast! All things considered, it definitely was a great brunch and we enjoyed it very much. Thank you…thank you…thank you!