A hidden gem outside of MQ centre is this YumCha styled restaurant which has beautiful decor and not very busy for a lunch date. I really enjoyed the dumplings from the dim sim selection as they were beautifully crafted and made to order.
I particularly liked the lucky bag dumplings (x4 for $12.80) though on a pricer side of Yum Cha restaurants it was totally worth it!
Overall i would give:
atmosphere 5/5
Food 5/5
Price 3/5
Haven’t been He Tai until late last year. The food quality surprises us.
In short, they got one of the best dim sums in Sydney. Steam Prawn dumping steals the light!
Turnip cake is probably the best in town ( comparable to Tim Ho Wan) .
Their customer service however is terrible. Staff are untrained and not sure what to do.
Good quality food with nice taste.
Service need to be improved.
Location’s obviously to see from the road, but hard to walk in from the Macquarie shopping center.
Btw it has its own car park space.
Initial service was a little slow with the wait staff not exactly sure who was suppose to attend to our table but the place is certainly spacious compared to some other Dim Sum joints. Prices are equivalent to comparable restaurants but the food is surprisingly delicious. I particularly liked the 'snow skin' buns and the custard was soft, gooey and flowing out. You can really state the pieces of pork in the Siu Mai as well.
Been here a couple of times for yum cha. Really nicely decorated - the modern twist to Chinese restaurants is refreshing. The yum cha items have some unique twist to it as well like jade green prawn dumplings, fried milk and snow pork bun.
Really enjoyed the food, service could have been more attentive but overall a pleasant experience. Would definitely come back.
Why the low rating??? The food is of high quality, i enjoy it everytime I went. But I've only been there for lunch, so i am not sure about dinner quality.
Foods are delicious and yummy. The ideas of the foods are also creative! I would recommend this restaurant and I will definitely go there again.
Go here quite regularly with colleagues, mainly because wait time is usually quite short. Pretty good spot to satisfy your Yum Chai cravings! Food is good, especially their steamed dumplings selection... however service could definitely improve.
Great food!!!! Not your average yum cha. The service is willing but inexperienced but the food makes up for it. Be patient and allow yourself to enjoy the food. You will taste something you'll come back for.
Really cool restaurant in the Macquarie shopping centre. Their dumplings are very yummy, especially the jade prawn and crab meat dumplings. Their mains are good too, the signature iced sweet and sour pork with lychee are amazing. Staff are friendly as well. I will definitely come back!
find a good restaurant here! location is not optimal, no easy internal access from shopping center, but it worth to find! Great decor, delicious food, cooked and served direct from the open kitchen , just like the name. good menu and a nice atmosphere,would definitely return.
Very good restaurant, food is nice, service is good. I really enjoyed the atmosphere as well. We went back many times now.
We tried yum cha in the morning as lunch and also dinner. Love it.
I love yum cha, but I hate that it's not an all day thing. Well it is here! They don't have the usual ladies with the trolleys, instead, you order from the menu and they have all your yum cha faves.
Great place to have a family dinner,
They serve Chinese food, mostly dim sum. Now night time yum cha is available
The xiao long bao and snow mountain BBQ pork bun were nice ! Cocktails is a plus.
The service is great and the people are really friendly. Thank you! I will come back!
Great view of the open kitchen. Once food ordered, arrived quickly. It's a bit hard to find if you don't know the areaYou have to go out of the shopping centre, through the car park and enter via Talavera Rd. Loved the food! Been here a few times both lunch and dinner. Food is good, fresh and well cooked and well presented．
Hidden gem in Macquarie shopping centre. I'v been seeing the picture of cute "Crab Meat" dumplings that I really wanted so went to find this place. My favourite was the "Crab Meat" dumplings, and also the Jade Prawn dumplings, its the best one l've had. Good service even they are busy with large groups. The food was amazing, its worth it. Will be back!!!
Had a great Yum Char there on Sunday. Food was delicious (you must order the pork buns) and staff were lovely. Very reasonably priced too. A little confusing to find the entrance but worth the search. I suspect this will become one of my locals it was so good!
One of the few yumcha restaurants that I think has great food in sydney. Hetai is like a chinese fusion restaurant, without always following the traditions which is good. I like the dumpings, the vermicelli rolls was good too, especially the soy sauce😂A good soy sauce is really important!!! But the beef stripe is too hard (chewy) to eat, and I dont get the mango coconut milk & sago soup, it's so dofferent to the ones I had in hongkong, which was a bit disappointed. I wish there are more mangoes in there, and it's like the traditional ones I had in Hongkong. Overall, it was a good experience, just hope that it also opens in city so it'll be nearer for us to travel there.😎
Great modern decor and the service was quick and polite, which you generally don't get at other yum cha restaurants. My favourite was the sui mai dumplings, it's probably the best one i've had. A big plus for me was that i didn't get a headache/become super thirsty after eating here which is generally what i get when i eat at other yum cha places as they use too much MSG. Overall, really enjoyed this place and will be back!
Sir And Mlady Dine Out
+3.5
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.
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The Yum Cha dishes are are simply spot on! I have been to Hong Kong many times and coming back to Sydney, Yum Cha is hit and miss. He Tai would have to be the most accurate interpretation of dim sum and desserts found in good Yum Cha institutions in Hong Kong.
The Har Gau is the benchmark where all dishes are measured when it comes to YC but with fresh rough chopped prawns and translucent pastry, it is the closest thing you will find to the real thing.
The Wok tossed beef with Hor Fun (flat rice noodles) is another Hong Kong classic and here represented nicely being dry tossed where the bean sprouts retain their texture and the noodles cooked slightly charred with a 'wok flavour' thats very important to the dish. A measure of a good Beef Hor Fun is how all elements are combined and here, the noodles, beef and sprouts all marry together perfectly and cooked with less oil than most places.
For anyone who wants a genuine Yum Cha experience, this is definitely the place to visit. The service may be a little lacklustre but the food is excellent!
Have been twice for dinner. The dishes are more expensive than your run of the mill chinese restaurants but they are flavoursome and well-executed. Vegetable dishes start from $15 and seafood dishes (excluding live seafood) can go up to $36, but there are plenty of options in the twenties. Value is a subjective thing, but personally I find the more refined quality of food and better ambience is worth the extra cost.
this restaurant is located outside the shopping mall near the orange car park at level 3.
Good thing about this place is the service. Very professional unlike ordinary yum cha place. The staff is polite. The ambience is high end traditional Chinese restaurant. Food is nice and the winner is Jade dumplings. The dumpling skin is very thin, prawn is juicy and tasty. The sticky rice in the lotus leaf comes in complete package - salty egg yolk, chicken, pork, mushrooms, chestnut and Chinese sausage. Xiao long bao (soup dumpling) skin is very thin and juicy (almost like Din tai fung). Vermicelli roll is also delicious but lack of sauce and the portion is smaller than expected. For desserts we tried the Goji Osmanthus cake (jelly) and Mango pomelo sago. It's unique.
Bottom line: Great food. Great service. A bit pricey for the quantity and the quality.
fresh a la Carte yum Cha, best I had so far! especially the sweet black sesame balls, Sui mai and salty egg yolk bun, will visit again! I have to declare open kitchen yum cha as one of my favourite restaurant!
Great food! I had a great time and enjoy every dish. Food was much nicer than I expected based on previous review. The atmosphere was lovely !
This is a new third way in Chinese food. It's a step above your usual Chinese dim sum place but not quite Mr Wong's. The food is very good, especially the Shanghai soup dumplings, but probably not as much variety to make a true go to place.
If you want a nice relaxed yum cha in a convivial atmosphere then Open Kitchen is a place to put on the list. Just a word of warning it can be a little difficult to find once you've parked the car.
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He Tai Open Kitchen is another new generation yum cha restaurant and by that I mean it's got fancy schmanzy tables, chairs, wood-carved screen doors, teapots that don't work properly (because the spout sucks and drips tea all over the fancy wood table) and toilet doors that are a pain in the ass to shut because it's actually two doors and you have to fiddle and fiddle and fiddle before the little lock goes 'click.' Ah. Just in time before a bladder explosion. Stupid door.
That being said, the food's not bad at all. I enjoyed all of the dim sum we ordered (off a sheet with tick boxes). Siu mai (pork and prawn), har gau (prawn), mushroom and okra dim sum were all delivered piping hot. I was impressed with the deep fried items because they were fresh out of the frier. The garlic chicken was hot and crunchy and so was the dessert sesame ball (crunchy on the outside and oozing sweet smooth sesame sauce on the inside).
He Tai Open Kitchen is a new joint so there are still a few kinks for management to work out.
Firstly, stinginess. I thought the rice noodle wrapped crunchy roll was nice but there wasn't much on the plate...yum cha restaurants around Sydney usually load it on and I don't think Chinese people are fooled by the 'less is more' approach to yum cha food. Less is NOT more when it comes to this kind of food. MORE IS MORE. Ming bak mei? You understand?
Secondly, a limited menu. Savouries options are okay but only two dessert items? Who are you trying to fool? Where's the obligatory classic egg tarts? Lei yul mo gau chor ar? From one Chinese person to the next, you're going to lose business fast if you don't fix that one! Expand the menu ASAP. Fai sau fai geuk FAI FAI FAI NOW!!! Fai dee gau deem la!
Overall He Tai isn't bad except for the stinginess and the missing menu items. And the toilet doors that don't work. And the 'pissing' teapots. Service is...Chinese and meets no expectations because there are none. Dim sum good.
I have visited for both yum cha and dinner service and its very pleasant. The decor is very modern and very relaxing. I like how you can see the chefs cooking as per the name of the restaurant. They also have some nice private rooms which are good for large groups and families. Its fine dining chinese so dont come here if hoping for a cheap meal. The customer service is a little inexperienced but hopefully will improve as time goes by. The food is great so order anything and you will be satisfied.
Open Kitchen offered a different yum cha experience. The interior decor was refreshing, and ordering was done through the ticking of boxes on a paper menu, as opposed to physically selecting dishes from a cart. This ensured all dishes were freshly prepared, and the food came out quickly too, which was great. The dumpling menu was quite limited compared to other restaurants, but the ones we did order were good. The har gow and siu mai were delicious, and the prawn rice noodle rolls were very soft but held together. All in all it was a good dining experience, and I recommend it if you are looking for good Chinese food in the area.
Sir And Mlady Dine Out
+3.5
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.
Sir And Mlady Dine Out
+3.5
Nice yum cha here even though a little bit more limited in range compared to many places. They don't use trolleys either - you order on a card and the food arrives at the table - pretty quickly too. The food was good - looked good and had nice flavours. It's hard to find this place but worth looking and it adds extra eating options to Macquarie - especially the yum cha options!
Impressed with the xiao long bao (pork dumplings) and the har gao (prawn dumplings) - the skin is super thin and not gluggy, and the salted egg custard buns were good. The siew mai was not very good as it was very dense and floury. The service is good however the menu is limited for yum cha - you select it from a menu and, and it's very pricey. Though the up side is that it's freshly made and piping hot when it's served.
Chopinand Mysaucepan
+3.5
Beautiful wok technique and homemade XO sauce give due justice to these king prawns.The bonus is tangy finger lime popping in my mouth. ~~~~~~~~O~~~~~~~~. Sydney’s dining scene has never been so vibrant and competitive in recent years. Each week, new restaurants, cafes and bars are sprouting all over the city like wild mushrooms. Boisterous fanfare and promo by a well-oiled PR machinery is the preferred mode of entry for many restarants, let alone the legion of food lovers spreading the gossip via social media.
Very spacious and well decorated interior. Price is on the high side but food tasted very fresh and delicious. Food comes out hot. Most dumplings were amazing except their special cuttlefish dumplings which were great but not overly impressive. Didn't have to make a booking as we went early on a weekday, and parking at macq shopping centre is easy.
Overall, the food is good, but nothing mindblowing. I gave them a higher star as the service was great and efficient even though they are busy.
The fried stuff was probably the one I was disappointed. The fried prawn dumplings were served a bit cold so it's not made to order but been cooked for a while. Also explains why it arrived first. Fried shrimp balls, fried dough and taro puff were just good, but nothing great. Durian puff was surprisingly good though.
Steamed dishes were a tad better except for the xiao long bao. The XLB wrapper is so thick and the soup is lacking flavour. Dipping sauce has no ginger too. At least the har gow and scallop dumplings were great. Surprisingly best wrapper I've tasted and the filling is quite flavourful.
Overall, it's an ok lunch. A tad expensive, but it's overcome by decent food, nice interior and excellent service. Like I never have to ask my tea to get refilled as they keep refilling it.
Sarah charles (Thewhereto)
+5
We visited The Panda Yum Cha, located at the entrance to Macquarie Shopping Centre Sydney, and tried out their Cantonese Dim Sum and Chinese Cuisine. We dined leisurely in the elegant space, complete with beautiful tiled floors, handing pendants and giant television screens showcasing their offerings.
The Panda Yum Cha is on a grand scale so could certainly accomodate functions. They even have private dining rooms for smaller events.
The restaurant offers ala carte and yum cha. We are there for the weekend yum cha. We try a range of delicious dumplings including pork and prawn siu mai, vegetarian, scallop, cuttlefish, as well as Chinese broccoli and steamed beef ribs with black pepper sauce meatballs. Can’t forget a few bbq pork buns. The little guy even enjoyed these.
We enjoyed the food and appreciated the kind hospitality at The panda yum cha.
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My family went to The Panda Yum Cha recently with a group of friends for dinner. The place is spacious and service was great and efficient even though they are busy..
I would recommend Braised Pork Belly 招牌秘制東坡肉 which is very good. It is a must try dish. Other good dishes included Lobster with Garlic Butter sause and Noodle 龍蝦蒜子牛油生面底，Live Pipi in XO Sause XO醬炒蜆，Fruity Sweet and Sour Pork 果香咕嚕肉，and Thai Style Roast Prok 泰式燒豬頸肉.
We also had Steamed Egg White Tofu 海棠豆腐，Stir-fried Gai Lan with Ginger 姜汁炒芥蘭，Stir-fried Water Spinach with Fermented Bean Curd 椒絲腐乳通菜，and Chinese Mango Pancake 芒果班戟.
However Roasted Pigeon 紅燒乳鴿 is not as tasteful as I expected. The skin of the Crispy Fried Squid 七味椒鹽鮮魷 was a bit dull. You might need to add some spicy salt to it which was not provided. The look and the taste of Mango Sago with Pamelo & Coconut Jelly 楊枝甘露 was different to what I normally had in other shops.
Overall, I would rate it above average. Price was reasonable, foods were decent, and service was excellent.
Awesome yum cha spot, lovely interior, great selection of food on a Sunday, best tofu pudding. Came to a hefty bill, but you pay for better quality items that are handmade.
Bit hard to find as there's no entry from inside of Macquarie centre (only street or carpark entrance). Service was okay, had to ask for tea three times and sauce twice as they kept forgetting.
It was hard to find. We needed to walk about 150m through the car park to find the entrance. Took us a while to find the place. Signage is poor. Food was nice service was slow. Recommend it if you can find it 😃
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