The Imperial Chinese Restaurant requires a booking ahead of time. It’s usually very packed and the sessions usually only last about an hour or two. During the lunch lessons on weekends, it serves typical Cantonese yum cha and at night it’s menu changes to a la carte or banquets. (Unfortunately, the car parking is very limited and hard to get around.)
The choice of dishes is pretty standard across yum cha restaurants. You can find most things here like har gow (steamed prawn dumplings), rolled noodles with prawns and sweet soy sauce, fried football dumplings, steamed pork, deep fried white bait and of course chicken feet.
At yum cha restaurants, you sit at your table and as trolleys come to the table you can select whatever dishes you want. Typically you won’t know how much things cost, but they are all graded at this restaurant as follows:
- small dim sim – $7.20
- medium dim sim – $8.90
- large dim sim – $10.20
- premium dim sim – $11.80
- supreme dim sim – $13.80
If you order har gow, you can expect to pay $7.20 because it is a small dim sum, and if you order a plate of deep fried calamari, you can expect to pay $13.80 because it is a premium dim sum.
You can also expect a lot of dishes to have pork and prawns.
If there are certain dishes you want to order and can’t see, most yum cha restaurants allow you to order them by asking one of the waiters.
When I visited the Imperial Chinese Restaurant, I ordered Chinese jasmine tea for the table which was $2 per head. In the end, the cost came to around $160 for four people and we ordered 15 dishes. As usual, we asked the waiters to bring chili sauce and chili oil.
I recommend their rolled noodles with prawns and sweet soy sauce and their caramel sponge. I also liked their prawn dumpling with fish roe on top, which was really succulent.
Although the venue is really shabby and decrepit, it still holds on. (Though I am not sure how you get into the restaurant if you use a wheelchair, because I only noticed stairs into the restaurant.) I’d say don’t judge by it’s look, but by the fact that so many people visit this restaurant.
Imperial Chinese Restaurant is located at 546 Waverley Road, Glen Waverley VIC 3150:
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