Review Sea Treasure - Crows Nest

Overall a great yum cha experience. Traditional yum cha served in the traditional manner (so don't be put off if service is a little abrupt) The dumplings are fantastic, but it's best to go a little early, somewhere between 10am-11am, because the food is the freshest then (and therefore the best). Located in the heart of Crows Nest, the restaurant is really close to public transport (bus stops) and to multiple parking garages (if you want to drive there)... Overall a good yum cha experience and pretty fairly priced... Be sure to try the crab, the salt and pepper octopus and the custard tarts for desert (all my favourites).

It used to be a good Chinese restaurant in the lower north shore. I haven't been to the restaurant since 8/16 and visited with my family (2 adults and 2 kids under age of 4) last Saturday. I was very disappointed. So, what went wrong ... 1) Overpriced - the damage was $89. What?! for 2 adults and my kids 4 dumplings between them. Their yum cha is around $9 per dish for yum cha on average.... I paid $95 at Chatwood's Fook Yuen for 4 hungry hungry adults a month ago ... enough said. 2) Lack of choice and poor food quality - there were a endless stream of dumplings, and that about it. Quality was bad, tasted like from frozen package. 3) What's up with the Blue ceiling light?! it is a bloody a restaurant not karaoke bar! 4) Service was fair - never expected much from Chinese restaurants Will never go there again ;(

Used to be good with great food, one of the best Chinese restaurants in the lower north shore. New owners and chef produce terrible food, simple example is the seafood and bean curd hotpot cooked with poor quality seafood (mostly frozen seafood variety), with a strange sour taste. Avoid.

It uses to be good. But ever since the change of management, the service is extremely poor, over priced food, and it's gone down hill from there. Total lack of care and respect for customers, what they request. Same unenthusiastic wait staff. Very poor back of house and almost report them fto Food authority. Being Chinese, I love my yumcha and I really adore this place. But it's not the same any more.

Visited for yum cha on a Friday. No wait, and immediately upon being seated we were served a huge array of yum cha dishes. All delicious and finished with strawberry pancakes that I had never seen before (only mango pancakes at every other yum cha restaurant I've been to).

Don't be fooled --- while one wall is covered with good food guide awards from mid 1990's to 2006, the food and service definitely doesn't merit the accolades. Whoever rates this restaurant above 2 stars probably has no clue that Chinese food can be so much better than the stuff served here. We dropped by on Jan 2, 2014 for some takeaway as we were craving some Chinese chow, but unfortunately our fave joint and go-to place, Lees Fortuna Court on Falcon Street was on holiday (well-deserved as they are always buzzing with happy and satisfied clientele). Anyway, first thing you notice about the place is how run-down it looked. The aquariums in the front of the restaurant, housing an assortment of unhappy looking crabs, lobsters, abalone, fish and eel were filled with pretty cloudy looking water. We were greeted by an annoyed- looking female front of house staff. we dropped by at 5.30 --- which I don't think is too early for dinner-time service. My husband asked for the takeaway menu for us to review, and immediately after she handed him the menu, asked me "are you ordering now?". I don't know if she assumed I would know a Chinese takeaway menu by heart as I am Asian myself, but I politely told her I needed a sec as I haven't even seen the stuff they had on offer. We ordered the special fried rice, barbecue pork, beef stir fry, chilli salt tofu and some prawn chips for takeaway, which, despite only having 6 other customers in the restaurant (2 ladies catching up, and a family of 4 with 2 adults and 2 young kids), still took 30 minutes to be ready. You'd think after waiting longer than usual (lee's only takes 15-20 mins for similar items) that the food would be so scrumptious they were worth the wait, but NOoooo, the food was a horrible let down. The special fried rice was nothing special at all. It just had a bit of prawn, egg, carrots and shallots with a bit of calamari to take it a step above your normal food court fried rice. No meat or even peas, and they have the gall to charge $17 for it. Instead of barbecue pork, they gave us sweet and sour pork. Surly miss front of house was probably not paying attention when she took our order... Again, nothing special. I can go to a food court tomorrow and find the exact same one. The beef stir fry was a bit better. Nothing special but at least the Chinese broccoli that came with it was still crunchy. The chilli salt tofu was inconsistent. Some pieces were tasty, while others were so bland I was tempted to put more table salt on them. All pieces were sooo oily too, that It wasn't too long before I felt sick. And the prawn chips... You'd think they could at least get that right. But no... They were stale. I wonder if we got last night's leftovers. Needless to say, we are definitely coming back. How this place has survived for so long, and to be the recipient of so many good food guide plaques when there seem to be better Chinese restaurants in its vicinity is beyond me. If you're looking for a Chinese restaurant in Crows Nest, skip this and head over to Lee's Fortuna Court instead (great food, excellent service, child/ family-friendly. Don't forget to book on Fridays and the weekends as they get really busy--- for good reason! Ps --- I'm not an employee or have any affiliation with Lee's. I'm just one of their very happy and satisfied customers!)

Had yum cha on 29 Jul. Service was a under par. Got a shock when the 'live' pipies turn up at $35 per plate (small). They should list the prices on the table. How do we know it's live? And come on, live pipies for yum cha!! - maybe for dinner?

How this place keeps getting hatted is a mystery to us. Although it was OK when we started going there four years ago, the service and food has tailed off to mediocre and just plain bad. Staff are outright rude and neglectful. We've never had even the simplest order fufilled accurately. The prices have doubled. Really, this is a place with delusions of mediocrity. Best to avoid.

Look, food was okay. Nothing to complain about service. Absolute rip off though, $3 for a tiny bowl of rice? $34 for some okay beef? If the prices were half it would have been okay. This is mediocre chinese at a premium price. Would not recommend.

This review is for yum cha in April 2017.<br/><br/>You can order a la carte or all you can eat. On weekdays, all you can eat is $35 per head, it's a bit more on weekends.<br/><br/>I think the prices turn out to be about the same with either option, if you eat below average amounts, definitely a la carte is better.<br/><br/>Service was polite.<br/>Char siu was good.<br/>Deep fried dim sim items (sesame seafood roll, prawn wonton, squid) were good.<br/>Chinese broccoli a bit overcooked.<br/>Rice noodle rolls okay.<br/>BBQ pork bun good.<br/>Glutinous rice in lotus leaf - almost no filling in this! Ordered extra pork ribs to supplement, these were okay.<br/>Cannot comment on steamed dumplings.<br/><br/>Mango pudding, mango pancakes, egg tarts all okay. I wish egg tart had more filling and less pastry.<br/><br/>Overall, average yum cha. Quality on the lower north shore is similar everywhere.

S E A ☆ T R E A S U R E<br/>Yum charin' at this very decent place. But still can't beat Cabramatta!<br/>Service is ok, but we always had a delay it receiving our food when we order off the menu.<br/>Good place to take large groups. ✌@foodiesguidetosydney

Seafood Hot Pot Buffet is their popular item. Most people are coming for this. The food was fresh. However, it was so many additional sub-charged, like garlic, oil, sauce and even the popular mango pancake...🙄😔

Bad tasteless food, awful service, waste of money! Definitely not going back. Had to repeat the order 4 times and the dish still came out wrong and no apologies

The food and service was great and very accommodating for children but why oh why do you need to add so much MSG? I felt awful afterwards, we won't be coming back sorry :(

With an abundant amount of eateries in Crows Nest, Sea Treasure has been around for many years and still attracts a decent crowd of hungry yum cha lovers in the area. Sea Treasure is a relatively small restaurant with fish tanks to the side and white table cloths. I have been coming to Sea Treasure for a number of years with people I know from the area in the North Shore. Sometimes it can take a little bit of time to be seated when it's busy and food can be scarce. On a good day, you are seated quite quickly and there is plentiful trays/trolley of food.

We were at this restaurant last night to celebrate mine and my twins birthday ; NEVER AGAIN . We were seated at a squashed table  and were told it was a busy night. We sat down and from then on were totally ignored. We asked if it was BYO and was told there was a $10 corkage fee per bottle!! That is outrageous they didn't even open our bottles or even poured our drinks. I had to practically stand infront of a waiter/ress to get some service and when we did they couldn't understand English. We felt totally discriminated against as other patrons were being given top service, the customers that were  celebrating Chinese New Year. We waited nearly 2 hours and when our mains did not arrive we left. Very poor service, over rated and would not recommend this restaurant at all.  And yes the fish tanks do smell and the fish, lobsters etc. do not look fresh at all.

Came at lunch there was not much to choose from, lack of variation so lunch was not filling at all and the food was not fresh. All the food came out pretty cold. Don't think i would come back again.

Worst Chinese restaurant ever! Possibly worst restaurant ever. Normally no matter the quality of Chinese food, it still has taste. The chef at this chew and spew apparently has no master stock, salt or even light soy sauce. The steamed gow gees were encased in a thick gluggy dough. The short soup came out not as a stock but Instead it was just wontons in water. I suspect that the wonton I got that had what looked like a bite out of it, belonged to a customer before me. Someone clearly attempted to heat up our not so freshly made Shan dong chicken but even failed with the microwave. STILL COLD!!!<br/>I have never before, walked out of a restaurant without eating my meal until tonight. Inedible

We to the sea treasure on the weekend this use to be our favourite yum Cha place must have changed hands food we all fried not gong back

Sea Treasure is the place to go for yum cha on the lower north shore.  It's slightly pricey because of the lack of competition and some people may prefer to head into the city or go to Chatswood but I think Sea Treasure hits that yum cha spot. The venue is small and there aren't as many dishes but there's sufficient yummy dumplings for me and enough variety to keep tables happy. Dumplings baby! Prawn se

It was a rather different sight for me to enter a Chinese restaurants to see mainly white people instead of Chinese. It’s amazing how food brings different culture together, isn’t it? We found our table within minutes and managed to get piping hot dishes presented in bamboo baskets. The most impressive dish I found was the Har Kau or Shrimp dumplings. They were gigantic and filled with plenty of plump and succulent prawns. The thin and translucent skin was wrapped around the shrimps perfectly without any flaws. Such a fine dish, it was.<br/>

Located in Crows Nest, Sea Treasure Restaurant is opened by Tong Lau, who also coincidently opened Golden Century in 1986. Unfortunately the yumcha at Sea Treasure was a bit of a hit and miss, with some dishes being quite good, with others venturing on the disastrous side. Probably because of the small walking spaces available between the tables, there are no trolleys for yumcha here, and instead the waitresses carry the dishes around on a board.

The man behind Sea Treasure is Tong Lau, who opened Golden Century in the city in 1986 and ran East Ocean in Chinatown from 1981 to 1991.... I definitely loved the xo sauce king crab, it was excellent.

Disgusting. NYE and my wife and I decided on a quiet night. Arrived at 7.20pm, the restaurant was not fully booked. I ordered the steamed oysters on arrival but after enquiring 3 times why they did not arrive I cancelled in angry disappointment 45 minutes later! Ordered the mixed BBQ platter of duck, crispy pork belly, BBQ pork and crispy chicken. When the dish arrived-no duck no pork belly just an overload of red pork and some chicken bones with little meat. The waitress explained that the menu was outdated with no further comment. I continued to complain to no avail. Started to feel quite ill as did my wife -MSG? I left abruptly leaving my wife to settle the bill but declaring it was the worst meal I have ever been presented matched by the worst service. Under new management?? Cancelled further plans for the night to return home feeling worse.

This used to be my family favourite go-to- chinese seafood joint. However all standards have gone out of the windows under the current management. Even with a distinct mainland chinese accent that could be heard in the resturant, we had the worst stirred fried vegetables. Our fish was way overcooked and had a texture so tough and chewy. Seriously we had better chinese food at the local Westfield mall food court. Personally, I do not recommend going back to this resturant under the new management running this place.

Absolutely horrible service. Booked a table for 4 at 7pm and we left with nothing on our table almost 90 minutes later. Waiter just told us to keep waiting.

Busy Mothers Day. After reading recent average reviews we were pleased with our Mother's Day lunch at the SeaTreasure. The restaurant was packed. We arrived at 1 pm. had to wait a bit for the table to be set, the place was buzzing. All the usual Yum cha food was excellent. We loved the mango pancakes.

This used to be my favourite chinese restaurant. NOT ANYMORE. thanks to the new management and chef which stuffed up everything. The service and the food quality. We had to ask for the soup and the fruit. The food was bland. They put through a wrong order and overcharged us in the final bill. Extremely disappointed and will not return. You can't expect the customers to stay if you can't even get the basics right.

Yum Cha with no dumplings. We have been here for Yum Cha a few times before. The first time was great. The second time was still OK, but the food was very slow and sparse in coming out of the kitchen. The third (and last) time we came we were sat at the table and waited about 10 minutes with no food coming past our table. Eventually we got some spring rolls and noodles to tide us over until the good stuff came. After about 15-20 minutes with a very conspicuous lack of anything other than spring rolls, rice, noodles and Chinese broccoli coming out of the kitchen we asked if there were any dumplings coming out at any stage. We were told that they have run out...of pretty much everything. This was at 2pm. I don't understand why they would offer us a table when they knew perfectly well that they had little to serve us. Nor did they seem to care very much when we complained about it and said that we would not be back.

Changing and changed. Apparently the chef had changed. We had the impression right after the first course. The Lobster and Abalone tasted even more differently. The Abalone chewed also not as nice as before.<br/>After the meal, waiters told us the ownership change and the top chef changed too. Well, my friends, do expect some unexpected if you going back.

Great place for yum cha and dinner. The Peking duck is great and dim sums are as fresh as like in china. Top off the meal the mango are to die for . For best Chinese in Sydney this is the place

Great food but known as the westerners yum cha! As far as yum cha goes very very expensive

BAD Service! Never come back!!!. The waitress asked us how many people we've got but she didnt put our names down and didnt bother looked for a table for us!! There was an empty table but no one went and set up table for anyone who are queuing for a table. We wait for half an hour and no one bothered serve us! BAD service and we won't ever come back!

Far King Shi. Walking into a Chinese restaurant that is filled with caucasians gave me a chilling and death like warning sign that, in my opinion, would not be unlike the equvilent to a code red on a Russian nuclear submarine being persued by the Americans with a firm and effective missile lock on.<br/>Now with hand on heart I am confident in saying that I am an absolute Yum Cha or Dim Sum expert! I have tried every Chinatown on the planet and have had some outstanding experiences however this place that they refer to as Sea Treasure offers absolutely NOTHING that closely resembles anything to do with treasure. <br/>I usually lean towards the steaming way of life, however it is not uncommon for me to branch out and tackle the fried world, but the challenge I found in attempting to eat and digest both styles of this so called treasure brought a new level to sub par cuisine.<br/>The steamed dumplings were so bland that I started to think that maybe even the MSG was off. The noodle like membrane could not hold the orgy of interesting smelling sea matter together and resembled some sort of cosmic plasma that is definately not fit for human consumption.<br/>A personal favourite of mine has always been the steamed sticky rice in lotus leaf. What a pleasure this is to eat!<br/>It's like a huge dance party where the glutinous rice is the DJ and all the other components are engaged in a rythmic custodial celebration. I would like to welcome to the dance floor Mr duck, Mrs mushroom, Sir soy and of course Lord lup cheong. Unfortunately the sticky rice from Sea Tresure was nothing like the explained dance party. This was more like line dancing at Lithgow Workers club on a Monday night to a remix of Kenny Rodgers 'Goin' Back To Alabama' - most displeasing!!!<br/>Everything single dish I tried was of extreme dissatisfaction. As I sat, I invisaged what it would look like in the kitchen - every member of staff being of Indian decent, bare foot with one dude in the corner playing the sitar with a huge hash joint that required ashing several drags ago.<br/>At this stage I was ready to question this diabolic and horrendous situation I was caught in however what was this really going to achieve? my waiters name was Gary, dispite his lack of English and the fact that I had doubts that this name appears on his birth certificate, he wasn't going to care... I wave the white flag. This place has beaten me...<br/>PS. Avoid this place at all cost, it has just broken the WORLD RECORD for the worst Yum Cha in the history of mankind and I have no doubt it will hold this title to eternity...

It was OK. Had a work lunch at Sea Treasure, it was OK. Service was good, they kept the Tsingtao's flowing which was welcome! The food.. I found a bit bland. None of it was bad, but it was all a bit generic with a bit too much of the thick, sweet sauces. Can't comment on value since I wasn't paying.

Great for Lunch. Love going to this place! Its the only place I know that serves Peking Duck in yum cha without having to buy the whole duck! Always busy too so good turnover of food and always fresh.

Very Disappointing. We arrived without a booking and were quickly seated for Yum Cha on a Sunday afternoon. Some of the dishes were good, but the lobster was grossly overpriced ($42 for a few small pieces), and service was sub-standard: Our waitress had offensive BO (probably not her fault, who knows where she was expected to live?) and could not speak English. But worse, the "manager" refused to allow us to return a dish that was not as requested or described. It seemed silly on their part to cause ill will for a trifling $7. We left early, regretted paying the full whack, and vowed never to return. Overall it left a very bad impression and spoiled what was shaping up to be a nice afternoon. "See treasure" is more about their business plan and Mercedes payments than about the fruits of the ocean.

Average yumcha. Had a mixed yumcha experience here.<br/><br/>The good: no queue (even at 12pm!); delicious char siew paus, spinach dumplings, mango pancakes and egg tarts<br/><br/>The bad: limited variety (way too many fried items); really bad chee cheong fun (steamed rice paper sheets); pricey relative to other yumcha places<br/><br/>Sea Treasure is a reasonable yumcha option if you don't want to queue but I'd go back to Rhodes Phoenix for the good stuff.

I went with work for yum cha lunch it had to of been the worst yum cha's I have ever had. Bad service bad tasting food. Won't be going back

I have been dining at sea teasure for almost 7 years and have never had a bad meal, watch for the soft drink expenses but otherwise it is very reasonably priced. Perfect for yum cha, effecient staff and a satisfying meal.