The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally. All meals are independently paid for - the author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
My parents have been going to Golden Sands for yum cha for just over ten years now, which corresponds loosely to around the time they made their way out of the West (where my heart still lives).
I find it generally hard to review yum cha restaurants because you always eat so many different things, and for the most part it’s hard to tell good quality from quality that simply isn’t terrible. Through all of my visits I’ve never had a bad meal, which I guess is saying something.
Please enjoy the following as photographic evidence I’ve attended
Prawn and Chive dumplings 韭菜饺 – my go to at any yum cha restaurant that has them available (serious red X next to Vinh Phat Cabramatta). Pretty good, good chive flavour.
These egg tarts 蛋挞 were sadly missable. We ordered them (not off the cart) and yet they still came lukewarm.
These shao mai 烧卖 were fine. I wouldn’t even know an English name for them.
These steamed pork ribs in black bean sauce 豉汁蒸排骨 I actually didn’t enjoy either. I guess thinking back on this meal there was more to discuss and complain about than I had imagined. I thought that these pork ribs were too fatty, too ‘porky’ in flavour, and did not have as much black bean to them. I’m not looking for saltiness – just the black bean flavour itself.
The sticky rice chicken 糯米鸡 was great. Always something I enjoy.
My wife has absolutely ruined me, because once upon a time I definitely would’ve had some of the mixed beef offal 牛杂, but having been with her for over ten years my culinary landscape has contracted.
The century egg and lean pork congee 皮蛋瘦肉粥 was ok, at least that’s what I think it was. I can’t really see any century egg in the photos and my memory fails me. Kind of an unusual thing for yum cha but we had like 10+ people.
The fried dough sticks / you tiao / 油条 were actually excellent. Amazing. So fresh and crispy. So savoury. We got a second order.
The BBQ pork puff pastry 叉烧酥, again not something we normally have, was not too sweet. A bit cool though.
After having the world’s best chang fen 肠粉 at Traditional Cantonese Taste I can’t take any yum cha chang fen seriously any more. I think this was beef?
The braised chicken feet 凤爪 never miss. A true cultural export.
The fried dough sticks wrapped in rice noodle 炸两 is something my wife’s family usually gets at yum cha, not mine. We enjoyed it – more opportunities to enjoy Golden Sands’ fried dough crullers is always welcome.
More chang fen? Why?
DINNER VISIT It’s hard for me to present too many views when I’m not the one ordering or paying for dinner. Thanks mum and dad.
This abalone/shark fin soup was nothing special. The price to enjoyment ratio just isn’t there.
The lobster with e-fu noodles. No complaints.
This char siu was really good! The roast goose was too.
The beef in this was pretty tender. Nice.
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I did not enjoy this fried rice. I agree that there was good separation between grains, but thought that overall it was too dry. Definitely not a special special fried rice.
Thoughts Overall good, but not the best.
Golden Sands 金沙酒楼 Hurstville Times Plaza, Level 2/127-141 Forest Rd, Hurstville NSW 2220
Cha Dim House 一厘棧 was the first of three Burwood restaurants we ate on a single day, and the first of two of which made up my post-night breakfast with my partner. This particular location was chosen by her in part to help me with my post-night shift decision fatigue.
We had this five spice pork and taro roll 芋絲五香豬肉捲 ($3.80) which was fried, crispy on the outside and tasty, though a little bit salty on the inside. Not bad.
The pork siu mai 猪肉烧卖 (4 for $8.50) was quite well structured, with meat and large prawns however, very very salty, too salty for enjoyment and thus cannot be recommended by me.
The radish cake 蘿葡糕 ($2.30) was pretty good, and not a large price to pay for one variety of food.
The puff pastry egg tarts 酥皮蛋挞, which were $3.50 each were pretty good.
And finally, the steamed pork ribs with black bean sauce 豉汁蒸排骨($10.50) I wouldn’t recommend, given the price, as well as the fact that I’ve easily had better steamed from a frozen pack from one of my preferred frozen dim sum purveyors.
THOUGHTS Despite variable quality of its offerings, this kind of restaurant is a particularly good place where a solo eater could get a number of different things for a relatively small price. For that reason, it’s not neccessarily a pass.
Cha Dim House 一厘棧 Murray Arcade (Burwood Chinatown), Shop 7, 127/135 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
New Shanghai Night 新夜上海 is the third in a line of consecutive Shanghainese restaurants running from West to East on Liverpool Rd and in our opinion the best. Though other sources will provide the rich history of these three related restaurants, I have not done any original research on this matter and to be truthful the lore does not interest me as much as the food, which was good, and better than the rest.
We started with these deep fried bean curd in salt chilli & pepper 椒盐豆腐 ($15.80). They were not bad, with only a light starched batter, true to our preference.
They were, however, served in this basket, which if you look closely at it and think about it makes you wonder how often it is cleaned. For this reason, I would not order these tofus again, and I would aim to avoid anything served in this kind of kitchenware.
The Pork with Chives Garlic in Dumpling 韭菜猪肉水饺 ($13.80 for 12, steamed) were really good. They had a green filling with a good density of chives and a high degree of fragrance and sweetness. I don’t know if the sweetness was the natural sweetness of the vegetables, or from added sugar into either the filling or the flour, but nonetheless the taste was good.
These dumplings are also available pan-fried (more expensive), or to take home frozen, and are some of the best I’ve had. There’s no option that combines pork, prawn, and chives, or pork, egg, and chives in a 三馅 style as apparently these are not Shanghainese in tradition, and though many dumpling would’ve suffered from the absence of a third ingredient, the cleanness of this two-ingredient combination was a winner for me.
The Pan Fried Pork Bun with Shallots 生煎包 (10 for $13.80) was another winner.
The dough was soft and airy but not too thick, and with perfectly fried bottoms.
The filling was moist, flavourful, and a little bit but not too soupy. Again I thought these shen jian bao had a bit of a sweet taste to them – possibly a house characteristic of either their filling or dough – but not problematically so. Absolutely elite tier.
Chilli oil you must ask for.
I think the tea was pu’er which is not my favourite but what can you do?
Other The staff speak very good English and also seemingly no Mandarin, which I guess makes sense since they are a Shanghainese restaurant, despite general Mandarin hegemony. They were confused and unable to produce a tax invoice when requested. Service was generally good and nicer than at New Shanghai .
Overall the best Shanghainese restaurant in Ashfield. It is a wonder how the other two even have customers, let alone lines outside New Shanghai whilst there are still tables free at New Shanghai Night.
This is a cat we saw on our walk to the restaurant. Hopefully we can go for more walks to this restaurant in 2026.
UPDATE MARCH 2026 We went back today, for lunch rather than dinner. Perhaps this was our big mistake, as the restaurant is not called New Shanghai Day. The meal was not as good as last time, and if this had been our initial experience we wouldn’t have come back a second time. The staff also spoke to us in Mandarin. Is there a separate crew for the day shift?
First, the pork ribs in black bean sauce on rice豉椒肉排飯 ($15.80). My wife had not gotten the memo to not order generic Chinese food from a regional Chinese restaurant, but mostly because I hadn’t communicated this strategy. These weren’t what we expected (from only the English title) – we were more expecting yum cha style steamed pork ribs.
The flavour was OK even thought it was not what we wanted, but the pork was randomly battered and deep fried for seemingly no reason – something another online commenter had mentioned about another dish. A reasonable portion size, but it almost seemed like a meal designed for someone not Chinese?
I will take credit for choosing the steamed Shanghai style mini pork & crab bun xiaolongbao 南翔小籠包 ($12.80), which at least are regional Shanghainese cuisine. These weren’t terrible, but did not stand out like the shen jian bao had on our first visit.
I didn’t think they were better than frozen supermarket XLBs, and I couldn’t appreciate the crabbiness of these allegedly crabby bao.
My order of pork with coriander in dumpling香菜豬肉水餃 ($13.80 for 12, steamed) was another attempt to replicate our previous success, which again didn’t go that well. They were nothing to really write home about, and led me to wonder if as an adult one could suddenly go from someone who enjoyed coriander to someone who doesn’t like coriander.
Comments 2.0 Perhaps I had betrayed us by making us get things outside of what we’d already had and knew we enjoyed. Perhaps it was the B ‘day team’ at a ‘night restaurant’. All I know is we weren’t particularly happy with our meal.
New Shanghai Night 新夜上海 267B Liverpool Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131
KINX was one of our favourite vaguely local cafes when we lived in the Canterbury-Bankstown area, and we were sad to hear of it changing hands at the start of this year.
I started seeing teasers of KINX ex-owners Duc and Tina’s new venture, Saigon Things, on social media a couple of weeks ago, but it was only when someone let slip an external shot with a photo of the phone number of the massage parlour next door that I was able to pinpoint the (conveniently very local) location and imbibe in a soft-opening feast.
First things first, that it was a soft opening can’t be stated enough. Apart from a couple of social media posts not mentioning the location, there was really not much to go on to know what to expect. There was no menu online, and not even a Google Maps entry for the business – how exciting.
The restaurant was a short walk from free parking in Strathfield Plaza, through a street lined with very active and bustling Korean and Vietnamese restaurants, that on any other day would’ve tempted us away from an as-yet unproven Saigon Things, but we had a destination and a plan and would not be swayed. We pushed through a door sign in Korean, a remnant from the restaurant’s previous tenants, into a restaurant with only one other group seated, but we given KINX’s track record, we knew that this was just due to it being undiscovered, rather than unpopular.
The first thing that we were told when we sat down was that no less than five of the menu options were unavailable that night. Such soft opening vibes! As we made our orders, we were told that one of the components of one of the dishes that was available was not available and would have to be substituted. Unpreparedness! Soft opening!
Our drink came rapidly, but food seemed to come table by table – the other table present had three or four things served by the time we had our first, but we’re going to take that as yet another soft opening thing. The yakult mocktail ($11), which I will attempt to describe without a copy of the drinks menu on hand (something I expect won’t be available online for some time), was good in some way but could’ve been better in others. First things first, it was very sweet, full of tropical flavours, strong on the pineapple and with hints of some mango as well. An element of interest were these salty (preserved?) white flowers, that were crunchy and provided a welcome and interesting contrast to the too-sweet drink. Given it was my wife’s order, I didn’t actually know it was meant to be yakult based, and could not pick this as a flavour or component that was meant to be presented – I think it would’ve been better described as a pineapple tropical mocktail.
After what felt like a considerable wait (though as evidenced by timestamps really only 14 minutes from drink to food service), we received our first food item, the Bamboo Platter/ Cham Cuon – Bánh Ướt Chả & Thịt Nướng/beef, pork, noodle sheet ($50.80). The idea was to roll our own rice paper rolls, with the variety of ingredients presented – grilled Angus intercostal, steamed pork sausage, rice noodle sheets, rice noodle rolls, fresh and pickled vegetables, herbs, and toppings. The rice noodle rolls that we were told they had run out of (at 6PM – the restaurant’s opening time) made a miraculous appearance. Did having to go get these from a nearby Asian grocer delay service? Or did they just manage to find them in the fridge? Either way the whole concept of having rice within rice reminded me of that Xzibit meme – yo dawg, I heard you like rice so we put rice in your rice.
Some other guy’s wife made him a very beautiful looking roll, but mine neglected to, and this is the best that we got. Our complete inability to roll any semblance of a rice paper roll aside, this was a really good tasting dish. I’m one to load my pho up with all of the Vietnamese basil available, and have never said no to pickle carrots, so the variety of fresh and pickled flavours was excellent for me, though I thought the half full little bowl of chilli and garlic was a bit of a let down (was more on offer if we had asked?). The beef , though having some sinewy bits, was grilled to a good level of smokiness, though I thought that the steam pork roll could’ve been greater in quantity to match that of the beef.
This Cơm Chiên / Saigon Fried Rice ($22) is the second best fried rice I’ve had in the five years I’ve been writing this blog (the first goes to a great fried rice at Peko Peko in South Melbourne that you are likely to hear about next month.
The rice presents with a low to medium degree of wok hei scent, which could’ve been stronger but is still near the top of its class. Each individual grain of rice was coated in oil and well separated, evidence of a good quality stir frying technique. The chilli crisp added nice crunch but not much spice to the dish, and inspired us to get some non-lao gan ma chilli crisp from an Asian grocer (bridging the gap hopefully between a $4 jar and a $20 made in Australia jar) on the way home. Perhaps the best part was the little pieces of deep fried pork lard, crispy and melty, something that’s previously made an appearance in Hokkien Kia’s exemplary char kway teow, but not something I had seen elsewhere apart from that. The lap cheong was a little different to what I’ve had before, larger in diameter and sweeter than the usual, but different in a pleasant way that distinguished itself from being a stock standard Chinese fried rice. The pickled mustard greens mentioned on the menu were not identifiable, but there was the surprise inclusion of corn kernels, which did not detract from the experience.
I was getting quite full by the time the Sườn Heo Nướng Mắm Ruốc/ Fermented Shrimp Pork Ribs ($48), but managed to happily enjoy them. The flavour was prawny and interesting, though what separated this dish from the others was that I didn’t feel like it was miles ahead of what my wife makes at home on a regular basis. I would have significant difficulty trying to replicate the rice paper platter or even the perfection of the fried rice in my home kitchen, but my wife has gotten very good at putting pork ribs in the oven over the past few years, and I can imagine a world in which we’d get probably 80% of the way there with the cooking of the pork, and 70% of the way there with the fermented prawn flavour.
What I don’t think we could accomplish at home, however, was actually the salad that was served with the ribs. The julienned pieces of carrot, apple and onion were so bright and crunchy, with extra crunch from the peanut and fried shallot toppers, that I feel like the salad was more special than the pork itself. The acidity of the apple and the dressing cut through the (slight) fattiness of the pork ribs very well, and made for an excellent pairing overall.
Other thoughts Wow! Soft opening! We saw the owner hand beers to and hug a couple of of different people they knew throughout the night, and though they still have some kinx to iron out, it really did feel like we were experiencing the start of something special, for friends and family and random guys off the street who googled the number of the massage parlour next door.
I saw one such random guy eat a very tasty looking pho so that will be on my mind next time.
Saigon Things REDUX, MAY 2026
I was surprised to see Saigon Things pop up on one of those time-limited discounted dining apps for struggling restaurants I’ve been trying recently, as our memory from our visit eight months ago during their soft opening was overwhelmingly positive. Even though the discount was only about 20%, it didn’t make sense to us that SGT would need such a promotion to drive in customers – but both as a sucker for a discount and a sucker for pho we figured we’d check it out.
The place has changed a little in the eight months since their soft opening. The menu’s been focused down significantly, and neither the fried rice nor the pork ribs are available any more. Instead, in addition to the DIY rice paper roll platters, they remain focused on pho and other noodle soups (BBH, banh canh cua), vermicelli salads, and broken rice.
Both pleasingly and unpleasantly we found ourselves waiting about 25 minutes for a table at 2PM on Sunday . Pleasingly – because I enjoy their food and want them to succeed as a restaurant – any fears of their lack of success by the simple presence on the discounted meals app evaporated when we were faced with a piece of paper with 5 names ahead of us – and unpleasantly because my wife was quite hungry.
We had a combination beef pho /Phở Thập Cẩm ($23.80) with angus topside, brisket, tendon, beef ball, and bible tripe – the Đặc Biệt title reserved for their special combination including beef marrow – a $38.80 bowl which we could not justify, even with a small discount.
This bowl of pho was positively huge, with a gigantic serving of soup providing a large thermal mass for the heating of all of the bean sprouts, which went in immediately at the start. The serving of rice noodles and beef and beef bits was actually a little bit more modest in relation to the size of the bowl, but still adequate for the enjoyment of our marriage.
The noodles in particular were bouncy, and not formidable in their quantity. I sometimes find myself working on eating the noodles of a bowl of pho as if it is my job rather than it is for enjoyment, and I actually enjoyed the noodle-light ratio of this bowl.
The soup was light and umami, avoiding being too oily or cloying. There was a stronger flavour of star anise than the pho most recent in my memory at Pho Song Huong – enjoyable and in no way a complaint, and it was similarly less sweet than their faraway competitor (also a good thing).
The ingredients were all of high quality – the rare beef, the particularly tasty, tender and juicy brisket, and the tripe, which is sadly rare to see, even in some Asian predominant suburbs of Sydney.
Parts of the tendon still had pieces close to the muscle, providing an enjoyable difference in texture, with no unusual aftertaste. It was overall an excellent bowl of pho, that I would enjoy having again in the future.
The pork tomahawk (350g) & fried egg broken rice Cơm Tấm Sườn Heo Tomahawk và Trứng ($26.80) was a slight upgrade over the standard grilled pork chop broken rice, and again, a huge serving. All of the components of this dish were good, ranging from the moist broken rice, the pickled julienned carrots, to the perfectly runny sunny side up fried egg, whose yolk, once broken, permeated the rice with golden richness.
SGT’s broken rice also featured the pieces of deep fried pork lard previously seen in their fried rice (RIP), which were again crispy, melty, and moreish, and not something I’ve had before with a broken rice.
The tomahawk pork chop, which we cut into little bite sized pieces with scissors (a hack that is new to us, something we learned by watching the woman on the table next to us. Every day at SGT is a school day), was perfectly juicy – both in the lean pieces and the pieces with some fat attached, with a slightly sweet taste of marinade and some charred flavour from the grill.
Finally came the cheesy salted plum sweet potato fries / Khoai Lang Lắc Phô Mai Xí Muội ($13.80). This main-sized entrée snack was ordered really as a hedge following a long wait outside for a table, and a hungry-on-her-way-to-hangry wife. The fact that our pho came about 2 minutes after we sat down and ordered was enough to satisfy us and tell me that we really didn’t need to order this entrée on top of our two mains, which actually both arrived before it.
As far as the actual food goes, I didn’t love it as much as some other online commentators. Many of the major textural components were good – the sweet potato was soft and moist, and the batter was light and crispy – but the flavouring was where it fell short for us. The sweet potato fries were dusted in two powders – a plum dust, and a snow cheese dust. Whilst we enjoyed the plum dust (which kind of reminded me of duck sauce), neither my wife nor I could particularly get around the snow cheese, which we referred to during our meal as cheeto dust. To be fair, we also don’t enjoy snow cheese when it comes atop Korean fried chicken, which is the only other place we’ve ever come across it. Is it Vietnamese?
Overall my second visit to Saigon Things, trying their staples pho and broken rice, was excellent. Whilst I would avoid the sweet potato fries (as cheese dust is not to our taste) in the future, I cannot hesitate to recommend a visit to this restaurant.
Saigon Things 28/45-47 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW 2135
This place was really hard to find, owing to the fact that their Google Maps location points to a different and completely unrelated dumpling restaurant, whose staff were at least gracious enough to point us in vaguely the right direction.
We started with some soy/tea eggs ($2 each), for which unfortunately the marinade had not penetrated into the yolk, leaving a tasty white with a boring hardboiled centre.
The Shepherd’s Purse & Pork Wonton Soup ($12.80) had a nice filling (though not particuarly better than the frozen dumplings I’ve been getting from the grocery store lately) as well as a nice wamrth and lightly salty umami flavour to the soup, but suffered from an unusual and unpleasant thickness in the wonton skin, making it more of a meal and a chore to eat this meal than a wonton soup should be.
Though I failed to capture a photo of the Dumplings of Pork & Chive ($12.80) apart from a single cross sectional shot, I much preferred these to the wontons. They had a strong chive flavour to them, which is really what you want and often can’t be replicated by the frozen stuff. The skin was again a bit thicker than ideal, but this was not as problematic as it was for the wontons.
I did not think I would enjoy the Steamed Pork and Sticky Rice Dumplings ($9.80), but they came out first after the eggs, and I guess I was hungry. I’m glad the sticky rice wasn’t too densely packed, because it was a real I heard you like carbs in your carbs so I put carbs in your carbs so you can carb while you carb moment.
The Honeyed Pork Ribs ($12.80) were good, meaty, tender and juicy, but very sweet and sticky.
Overall thoughts The price to performance ratio at JML Dumplings in Wolli Creek was good. I am a highly predictable rater, and any half decent pork and chive dumpling at a restaurant that offers them boiled will score high marks from me. Their menu is diverse, however, so even if you don’t like anything featured here there is probably something for you.
