Open Kitchen He Tai Yum ChaLevel 3 Macquarie Centre (outside the centre)
Cnr Herring and Waterloo Rds
Macquarie Park, North Ryde, Sydney
Even though Open Kitchen is described in it's name as a yum cha restaurant, they have a far more expansive menu.
They do of course offer yum cha during the day and are at their busiest on weekends where there is often a queue at peak times.
It's a little hard to find because it's listed as being on level 3 of Macquarie Centre but it's actually part of but outside the centre. Ask if you're not sure because it's worth finding. We started with some green tea while we looked at the menu.
We started with a serving of sesame prawn rolls - plump prawn pieces inside crispy fried thin pastry covered in a generous coating of crunchy sesame seeds. They arrived hot in a serving of three and were certainly tasty. We also had some lovely BBQ pork pastries - crisp pastries filled with a rich mix of tangy pork.
Prawn dumplings are a favourite of ours for most yum cha sessions - especially steamed ones - and a serving of four meant we didn't have to fight over an odd number or cut one in half! The same applied to the tasty English spinach dumplings - which were actually prawn and spinach.
Finally it was on to their xiao lung bao - four steamed thin pastry pods filled with a delicious light soup. These were really good. We also finished with some steamed pork and prawn shumai. These were packed and a more substantial and filling dumpling - going perfectly with the small dipping bowl of chilli sauce.
We enjoyed the food at Open Kitchen. It was fresh, tasty and arrived quickly. Service was efficient and the place is big but nicely set out. Ordering is from the menu rather than from passing trolleys, so it's a bit different - but it still works and it certainly seemed popular with a queue to prove it.
