Zilver restaurant, Haymarket

Our little FOFO group decided to go and check out the Young Blood Designers Market at Powerhouse Museum. But to tell you the truth, it was all just another excuse to get together for some hot steamy dumplings at Zilver restaurant.

Usually yum cha places do not take bookings, always a first come first served basis. Arrive early, or take a number and join the queue. But they may make exceptions for big group booking (or if you can speak cantonese when calling! LOL). I called them up anyway and let them know we are a school of whales, 12 to be exact, and we are extremely hungry and dying for some dim sims. She symphatised us and jotted down my name for a table of 12, 11.30am. Success!!!

Last time when I had yum cha there was a couple of years back and they used to be called Silver Spring. The food back then wasn’t really something to brag about. I could sense they were struggling with the business when they even started offering a “All you can eat” Dim Sim buffet at $28.80. So I am quite excited to visit Zilver again after reading some good reviews about the new management.

We arrived at 11.30am, that place is already packed with yum cha goers. A waitress came over to attend us, I gave my name, she checked the book, only found that my name wasn’t on the booking list. Fortunately there is one last large table for us. But soon we found out it can only sit 11 people, and right at the same time, my phone buzzed and we ended up with 15 people squeezed in one tight corner!

L to R, clockwise: fish roe prawn & pork dumplings, the dim sim goes down well with TsingTao beer, nice fresh ChoySum with oyster sauce

While we were still trying to sort out our seating arrangement, the trolly-ladies already mobbed us with their steamy carts, shouting all the dim sim names. It was a chaos, and we didn’t even have a chance to decide, the table already full of dim sims within seconds!

At the table, it was almost like a Union congress, with representatives from Malaysia, UK, Hong Kong, Australia, Ireland and Serbia! The diversity of the group makes the dim sims ordering quite fascinating. Among all the usual “must have” dim sims like Ha Gao (Prawn Dumplings), and Siew Mai (Pork Dumpling), there were also a lot of other dim sims that normally I would say no, but turns out to be quite tasty.

Good to see the new management at Zilver has polished their gears up and makes a good come back. The dim sims at Zilver overall are quite tasty and delicious compare to most popular yum cha places around Sydney. I love the attention to details on the dim sims, as simple as adding fish roe on top of the Siew Mai makes it a lot more elegant and tastier.

We finally finished off with some sweet desserts: mango pudding, mango pancakes and of course some egg custard tarts. The whole experience was overwhelming, chaotic and somewhat satisfied only because an upset waitress came over and confronted us due to some ordering mistunderstanding.

The order docket is well filled with red stamps all over when we handed it over. The damage for 15 is about $480. We slowly wobbled our way out among the crowd, and the whole restaurant seems a lot more cramp and smaller. Perhaps is our expanded waistline playing tricks on us.

Zilver Restaurant
Level 1, 477 Pitt Street (corner of Hay Street)
Haymarket Chinatown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 2232

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