Marigold | George Street, Sydney | 6.5

In our world which is Brisbane, we can heap our food scene with much praise, and rightly so. In the last few years cuisine options have expanded, and Melbourne-esque laneway bars have emerged. However, when compared with our southern brethren, Brisbane is still a long-way off. Perhaps it was precisely for these very reasons that despite my recent whirlwind trip to Sydney, I still feel that I packed on kilos. Or perhaps, it is the family phenomenon where we seem to most often bond over food.

One obligatory meal commitment is the lunch time yum cha. The only problem is that this is a somewhat ubiquitous tradition! Sydney Chinese restaurateurs have cottoned onto this, and as a testament to their entrepreneurship, supply satisfies demand. Marigold Chinese Restaurant was cavernous, and sprawled over two stories. Here, finding a table for ten was no problem. The issue was logistical - getting up to the restaurant via three small elevators!

Was the dim sum worth the rigmarole? In the opinion of the author, there are a few benchmarks for judging yum cha:

(1) Was there a constant flow of food?
(2) Was there a wide variety of dim sum?
(3) Was the food hot?

Even though we were seated in a room on the side off the main dining area, we were still frequented by ladies peddling their wares. This was a definite plus, for there is nothing worse at yum cha than seeing trolleys dribble through.

Marigold also satisfied when it came to variety. The yum cha staples all satisfied, especially the steamed barbecue pork buns.

Steamed BBQ Pork Buns- I picked this straight from the basket. Note the lack of escaping steam.

Baked BBQ Pork Buns and “Pao Lau Bau” (Custard-filled, pineapple topped buns)

We didn’t try to many deep fried items, but how could one look past salt and pepper squid? A good indicator of a salt-and-pepper dish is when all the nublets of flavoursome goodness scattered around the protein disappear. In this case, not even the chilli remained on the plate when we had finished.

The spread included some dishes I hadn't come across at yum cha before, such as the water dumplings. They seemed to work well.

Water dumplings. Not often seen at yum cha, but this had a delightfully thin and slippery skin

As tasty as the food was, we did notice that everything was very sweet. While I did not have any qualms with such flavours, yum cha purists may find that this is contrary to the Chinese belief of balancing sweet and savoury flavours. I know The Drunkard wouldn't have been terribly impressed.

While it would be a pleasure to report that Marigold made the perfect trifecta, the food did not make the third benchmark. A tepid dumpling is not a good dumpling, and when the dishes were constantly presented lukewarm, it really detracted from the quality of the food.

Dim sum is literally translated as “touching the heart.” While Marigold had tasty dishes, the lukewarm food did not impress. There are plenty of other yum cha restaurants in Sydney to try for gastronomic romance. And don't think I'm hard to please; I, like most, want my hot food hot.

Marigold Chinese Restaurant
Levels 4 & 5, 683-689 George Street, Sydney
www.marigold.com.au