Royal Palace Seafood Chinese restaurant takes over from where Golden Century reigned for 32 years. This classic Chinese seafood restaurant offers live seafood from the tank or daily yum cha. Come along as we try some of the dim sum and find out what it's like!
I've been trying to start a new food tradition with Mr NQN of yum cha around new years. I would have yum cha every week if I could but I have a tougher time convincing Mr NQN because while he loves the dumplings, he worries about not being able to get his favourite items from the trolleys. But one Friday afternoon during our holiday break we headed to Chinatown to a newish Chinese restaurant. Royal Palace seafood restaurant opened in August 2023 and the owner is Ms Sun Wei who also owns the private dining room Royal Pavilion Chinese restaurant.
We are instructed to go upstairs, past the inexplicable enormous framed picture of Zell Am See, a town in Austria. We are shown to a table right at the entrance. Usually sitting in this no-mans land means that you have to struggle to get the trolleys rolling past but as soon as we sit down, a smiling trolley lady glides over. Before the tea has even arrived we have 6 piping hot steamers plus a promise from her to return with 2 steamers of har gows (Mr NQN's favourite and the item he fears he will miss out on).
All of the dumplings come four to a serve and pretty much all of them fall under the "extra special" category so I know that it won't be cheap (the total bill ends up being $155 for all of this food and tea for 2 which isn't inexpensive). We love the steamed seafood dumplings so we end up with many iterations of these. Most of them have prawns some scallops and all encased in the semi translucent skin in various shapes.
My favourite is the bright green spinach and seafood dumpling. However most of the other ones are also very good.
The only one that I liked less was the steamed dumplings with the chopped mushrooms on top. Not that it wasn't good, just against the uniformly excellent and similar other ones, it was less enjoyable with less filling. Mr NQN also really enjoys the chee cheong fan but I am not as big a fan of the sweet soy sauce on it and I just know those slippery little suckers will end up halfway down my clothes.
The har gow arrive and Mr NQN is very happy. He pops a plump dumpling into the chilli sauce and then the whole thing in his mouth. "How else do you eat it?" he says grinning his mouth full of his favourite food. Service is very friendly, noticeably so. Even Mr NQN remarks on how nice and smiling the usually perfunctory trolley ladies are.
While we tend to go for the steamed options I like to have one deep fried item and usually it's the duck and taro wu gok or the glutinous rice footballs ham sui gok. Then I notice the spring rolls with netting on the outside so I choose that instead with some sweet and sour sauce. Alas they are quite cold without much warmth to them at all and deep fried food generally just isn't as enjoyable cold.
I enjoy the sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves and filled with pork, egg yolks and lup cheong Chinese sausage although it's very filling so I can't finish it with the rest of the dumplings.
The dessert cart woman rolls up with a trolley of jiggling jelly options from red bean jelly, osmanthus jelly, sweet tofu and mango pancakes. Mr NQN loves dessert so we order the mango sago. While it is nice, it is also a little on the tart side with a bit too much pomelo in it for us.
The trolley ladies are back and offer us seconds of the steamed dumplings as well as a new item: siu mai with scallop and tobiko on top. We try one, slippery to procure, and it is very tasty. Of course the scallop on top falls off when I take a bite into it. I watch Mr NQN pop an entire one in his mouth and chew it without dropping a thing. Perhaps he was right, the only way to approach it is wholeheartedly with an open mouth.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you eat dumplings whole or bite into them? And do you feel like Mr NQN does and worry that you'll miss out on something at yum cha because of the trolley service?
This meal was independently paid for.
Royal Palace Seafood Restaurant
393-399 Sussex St, Haymarket NSW 2000
Phone: (02) 9211 8518
Hours: Monday to Wednesday
Thursday 10 am–3 am
Friday & Saturday 9:30 am–3 am
Sunday 9:30 am–11 pm
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