Yum Cha Restaurant 饮茶酒楼

Went there for ala carte dinner awhile ago.

Food was alright, but for the price tag it came with, it's not worth it.

Service was exceptionally bad. Slow service, missed orders, and the worse of all, shouting out the total bill across the whole table. Totally not acceptable.

Food

The dimsum we ordered were quite generic.  We had xiaolongbaos, char siew baos, siew mai, har gao and etc.  My friend ordered a plate of seafood horfun (dry), but the seafood in it were super pathetic.  I especially liked their Banana & Red Bean Paste Wafer 三味香酥饼 and Char Siew Baos 蚝皇叉烧包 which cost $3.50 and $2.50 respectively.  The har gao was slightly dry and the other dishes we ordered tasted normal as well.

Service

It was very difficult to get their attention to place orders and they are very unfriendly.  There was this auntie though, who was the only one who was polite and attentive. 

All in all, I think there are plenty of other options for dimsum in Singapore which can easily triumph Yum Cha. 

XOXO, Z (zilintan.wordpress.com)

I like going to Yum Cha at Chinatown for a good session of non stop dim sum but they only offer the high tea buffet in the afternoon from 3-6pm and it's only available on weekdays (excluding PH) so if you work office hours you might have to apply leave in order to enjoy their dim sum buffet. It can get pretty hectic and noisy when crowded and based on my experience visiting Yum Cha, it's common to wait wait and wait for your food. The ladies have to push the trolley to each table and if you are unlucky, when the trolley reach you, you might just have to wait for the next batch for certain items. Their staff can appear as rather unfriendly and slow in service. Plus if you have a growling stomach, waiting is a game you wish they don't play with you.

There are many dim sum restaurants and stalls that I haven't had a chance to visit and dine at yet but it can be a pretty big turn off for me if the prawns used are little/small/floury and hidden or mashed up in some sort of a meat paste. Which is why... I love love love that Yum Cha is so generous with the prawns they buy and use in their siew mai and har gao! Words cannot describe how much I love prawns and theirs is crunchy and plenty in each bite! *dreams*

To read the rest of my review at Yum Cha, do click here.

Ambience: Extremely poor. The restaurant is not air-conditioned and considering that it is fully enclosed with sealed windows, that is extremely hot. I feel that they have given up physical comfort for the sake of saving electricity.

Food: Poor. There are many low quality items, although even the acceptable items are pretty low-end. Frankly, you can get vastly superior items elsewhere. And it is not as if they are so good on the other aspects that you can readily overlook this. List of acceptable items in my view is paper chicken wings, century porridge, siew mai, prawn and meat dumpling in sauce, fried shrimp dumpling, double-boiled soup (1 serving only), fried chicken in thai sauce, prawn and mango fritters, Chinese herbal jelly (slightly bitter, more so than the norm) and lemongrass jelly. List of poor quality items is spring roll, steamed prawn dumpling, crystal mushroom dumpling, chilled mango pudding. List of extremely poor items (you will regret it like hell) is crispy sliver fish and soft shell crab (no crab, just shell effectively).

Value: Very poor. No air-con, food and service are so so. Some more not cheap.

Service: Poor. They were a bit abrupt in informing me that I may not be seated until 1500. But still I can accept this since they are not done with the non-buffet crowd. And in their defence, I arrived at 1435 (bus was early). Though the tone could be better. I am still paying money, you know. Just not so much. Don’t like that lah. They don’t refill water unless asked and the water is room temperature water, not ice water. Needing to keep an eye out for the carts of dim sum is a bit stressful since they prefer not to have you order from the menu.

Overall: Extremely poor. This is essentially a tourist trap. While it is not that terrible, if you are a local who knows the ground, you should avoid this place.

Went here for an afternoon tea/early dinner for dim-sum on a sunday evening with 2 other couples. there were 6 of us, and we had some dim-sum dishes. unfortunate for my friend and fortunate for us, she lost her appetite and she prefers to be a vegan for the evening.. :p

overall ambience was nice, there were plenty of waitresses. But I must say that their service can be improved. I guess the waitresses were not very motivated in serving us that evening. everyone seemed to be.. looking busy..

food was not bad. it's not spectacular, but it's not inedible too.

price was a little on the high. looking at the menu and the way it's set, i feel that Yum Cha is catered more for tourists wanting a first-time experience of a 'yum-cha' or 'dim-sum'.

overall, I feel that the experience was decent, price was a little of the premium and food was ok. i would recommend to come here if you want a clean-cool-decent place in this area of town.

I really like this restaurant but I recommend to go for dinner. At lunch time it's packed and the staff can not give attention to all tables. It's not their fault, of course.

At dinner it's more peacefull and the service get's way better. Nice traditional chinese food. I'm always bringing people to try it

I was near the area, stuck in a jam and wanted to find somewhere with air-con that I could sit and wait for the jam to be over.

The ala carte dinner pricing was shockingly expensive. I don't know why. Aren't they a dim sum restaurant? I don't trust their "zi char" standard. Didn't bother to order either. Too overpriced.

Ordered a few of the dim sum dishes. Nothing fantastic. The prawn/mango fritter with sesame seeds was a novelty though. Not bad.

Service was prompt and servers were helpfully responding to our multiple requests.

I'm not a dim sum fan and I don't know where to find great dim sum. This place is just famous and convenient with edible dim sum at okay-prices. Seriously if you have other choices... go elsewhere. This place is more for tourists.

A good place to choose if you have cravings for DIM SUM !!! It's also a very nice place for the whole family to come or having high tea with your friends. Food taste as good as before but have to wait quite a while for the food to arrive. Overall it's value for $$$ though after 1 hr my family and i surrender to the food.

Service wise the staff can try to put more smile on their face and not showing customer grumpy face. They will always say "hang on" or "Wait for a while" before they come and serve you. The space between 2 tables is quite near so abit squeezy.

But nevertheless will still go back to this place when i have cravings for Dim Sum.

The dim sum was pretty good, but expensive. Warning: you will be charged for peanuts and wetnaps which are provided without request.

as usual, it's packed on a sun morning.

met up with my primary sch friends for a dim sum session.

the place's ambience is not too bad. food is def gd as well.

love the chee cheong fun. and the ha gao. and the xiao long pao. the soup scalded my tongue while i was eating that.

the big chicken pao looks gd too. it's really BIG. jus that my stomach was too full to eat that.