Rice & Shine: Yomie's Rice x Yogurt, Haymarket

If you've driven through Haymarket's Chinatown in the last month you may have noticed one rather large queue for Yomie's Rice and Yogurt. Rice - and yogurt together? So what is it like?

As much as possible, I avoid queueing. Life's too short to queue and I'm happy to dine at odd hours to avoid waiting in queue because all I can think about is my long to-do list and how many things I could knock off it while waiting. So we figure the best time to try Yomie's is after dinner with Ivy and Ryan.

Yomie's is on the corner of Thomas and Hay Streets in Chinatown. It's 9:30pm and they close in about 30 minutes. There is a menu board outside and we both take a peek at this. Are they yogurt pots? Drinks? Bubble tea? There are signs inside showing illustrations of pots of yogurt but then we see people carrying bags of drinks. Then I see the sign that says "Drinking yogurt".

After perusing the top 9 list we ask the guy behind the counter what's good. He's friendly and recommends us four items to drink. We pay and take a number and then wait the 10 minutes for our drinks to arrive. I can imagine that if the queue snakes around the corner as it does during the day then the wait can be up to an hour, something that we had read complaints about. 10 minutes is fine though and we watch the LED numbers count up to ours while we study the sign that shows us the working process. Behind the counter, a woman weighs the yogurt in individual serves.

Our number comes up and we grab our drinks that come prebagged and with fat bubble tea straws. We first try the Yomie's Purple Rice Yogurt which is the most popular item. It's a chilled yogurt drink with purple rice in it. It's not overly sweet which we all like and it's very refreshing especially for the hot evening. The yogurt isn't a thick, rich consistency and it's more watery and in line with the texture of milk. Most of the drinks are served cold but three are hot (we didn't try any hot ones). Ryan finds the rice bits of a challenge and he's not a fan (he's new to a lot of Asian food having never tried bubble tea).

Next is the haw purple rice yogurt with a slight sourness from the Chinese Hawthorn fruit. When I was a kid I'd eat haw flakes as a sweet snack and I think that's where I got my love of sour from. Ivy and I like this one the best of all of them as the sourness echoes yogurt's natural sourness and there's a bit more chunky texture in this.

Alas, none of us really like the melon melon. I think it's perhaps the idea of a milky melon drink that doesn't really appeal as much.

The strawberry drink is perhaps the most regular of them all and not surprisingly it's the pick for Ryan. All in all they're interesting drinks and certainly refreshing and inexpensive although none of us are sure if we would line up for an hour for them though given the plethora of choice in the area.

So tell me Dear Reader, have you tried Yomie's and what did you think? Would you like chunks of rice in your drink? Have you ever tried haw?

This meal was independently paid for.

Yomie's Rice X Yogurt

CityMark, building shop g6/683-689 George St, Sydney NSW 2000
Open 7 days 11am–10pm