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.
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 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.
Feng You Dim Sim 逢友点心 is pretty good. It is a small dim sum restaurant in Hurstville with both indoors and outdoors seating, where you order at the table by drawing ticks or circles on a paper menu. The obvious benefit of this system is that you don’t have to worry about having to catch the eye of roaming aunties with trolleys and hoping that you’re in a good table position to get the prime items before they run out. There is also a full colour menu with prices and item names in English, taking away another part of the mystery of ordering, making it all very accessible to non-Chinese reading or speaking folks.
This is the Meat Roll ($8.30), a name which doesn’t really express that it is wrapped in a sheet of bean curd. The bean curd sheet was a bit harder than expected, which gave it better structural integrity at the cost of more pleasant mouthfeel. This was prawnless, which seems to be a deviation from the standard, but my partner thought that this made it friendlier to a broader audience.
The steam pork ribs with black bean sauce ($8.30) were not bad, though it was odd tos ee it come with taro (is it usually like that?) as well as green chilli, which was not what was pictured on the photo menu. I can only assume it’s a seasonal thing?
The chicken feet with black bean sauce ($8.30) were solid, though again with green chilli. Please note that while this photo only depicts three feet, it came with four. My dining partner could not wait to sink her teeth in.
The chicken feet came with peanuts? How odd.
I’m not usually a lover of radish cakes, but the combination fried cakes ($8.30) with a selection of radish, taro (too starchy), and water chestnut (too sweet with a weird gelatinous texture) made me appreciate the radish one, which was honestly not too bad and quite umami.
The mushroom & chinese broccoli rice noodle wrap ($10.80) I could’ve lived without, especially as the prawn ones are the same price.
The chives and prawn dumpling ($8.30) were wow. The best I’ve had in a long time. Extremely fragrant, fresh and tasty chives and a good filling of prawn also. It would be worth going back just for this.
The chew chow style dumpling ($8.30) were fine. They kind of came 15 minutes after the previous dish, by which point we were pretty full. I suspect they were forgotten, and will note that they did forget some of the dishes for some of the other customers.
OVERALL
A solid yum cha experience, super accessible to non-Chinese readers and speakers, with killer jiu cai jiao. Worth coming back just for those alone.
Feng You Dim Sim 逢友点心 7/11 The Avenue, Hurstville NSW 2220 (02) 9580 2251
