My colleague went to Eric Clapton’s concert in Sydney last week. After she came back, she spent quite some time bragging about her Yum Cha lunch at Marigold in Sydney Chinatown.

I guess after having been Canberra for five years, we have gotten used to almost everything, such as light traffic, quiet nights, too many kangaroos hopping on roads, lacking of Asian grocery shops and no decent Chinese restaurant…. If there had been one thing I really missed in Sydney, I suppose it would be the sweet deal of Yum-Cha.

As far as I know, we had one in Canberra at New Shanghai in Dickson, but the restaurant closed a couple of years ago. We felt sad, even we didn’t utilised it very much as the food wasn’t that scrumptious. Since then, I had an impression that Canberra doesn’t have a Yum-cha restaurant at all

Things changed yesterday. Our friend Karen told us there IS one in Deakin, $20 per person and you can eat whatever you can. We were thrilled….Couldn’t wait any longer, we rushed to the place today and couldn’t believe that this was happening until we walked out of the door.

There is no point to compare the food here to Sydney’s, but I have to say the food is quite nice and fresh in here. I enjoyed steaming chicken feet as I always do, hubby loved steaming pork chops and his favourite food Custard Tart. Apart from that, we had other 5-10 different things in all sorts of plates or containers. For the first half an hour I was so motivated with eye wide open, then for the second half an hour, I basically just sat there rubbing my stomach and compressed the food which almost got up to my throat.

Then I rang Karen blaming her for not telling us earlier about this and complaining I was too full to move. We made another arrangement to come here together in about 2 weeks time. For the first time in my life in Canberra, I was looking forward to go to a Chinese restaurant.

My husband and I decided that we will only eat kongee and vegetable for the most of the week and save the stomach for every weekend. We are a couple of sad people, are we?

Anyway, here the information about this Yum-Cha place if you’d like to try. The price is really attractive, I have never seen any Chinese Yum-Cha restaurant having the pricing like this one.

XY & 2 Dim Sim House (Yum Cha)
Address: 2 Grose Street, Deakin. Upstairs of Deakin Football Club.

Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday 11am to 3pm. $15.80 per adult;
Monday to Friday 5pm to 9pm. $16.80 per adult;
Saturday and Sunday 11am to 3pm and 5pm to 9pm, $17.80 per adult;
Tea: $1.50 per person.

You need to join the membership of Football club to get entry. It costs $5.00 per person. You will get a card for a whole year entry.

The staff said there is another one at 45 West Row in City Plaza. But I am not sure if they have the same pricing.