Chefs Gallery, Sydney CBD

Hi everyone!

One more week until Christmas ~ who's excited? :D

Anyway, this week's post will be about our dining experience at Chefs Gallery, a Chinese restaurant located along Bathurst Street, Sydney.

Buzzing with office workers and furnished with wooden tables and chairs, ample natural light comes in through the glass wall facing the street. A large open kitchen encourages diners to view the chefs hard at work making noodles, dumplings and whatnot. Perhaps this is where the name Chefs Gallery comes from—the chefs themselves being on display J

An interesting thing about Chefs Gallery is the concept of Day Yum Cha and Night Yum Cha (because yum cha is normally reserved for breakfast and lunch only). However, this meant that only the first half of the menu was available when we went there for lunch, and we were unable to try dishes in the latter half of the menu—no matter how tempting they looked L.

Oh well, now onto the food! :D

The first dish to arrive was the spinach noodles wok fried with seafood. A vivid green colour (hopefully with natural food colouring), the silky handmade noodles was served with a generous amount of squid, prawn, mushroom etc. Although I couldn’t really sense the “spinach-ness” in the noodles, it still tasted quite distinct from ordinary egg noodles, but its exact flavour is hard to describe in words.
Oops! we started digging in as soon as the food arrived – photos later, hunger comes first!!! :X

Next were the calamari wontons with seaweed, served with spicy dressing. The deep fried pastry was hot and crispy, while the dried seaweed strips complemented well with the calamari filling and sauce. 

Ahhh, what is yum cha without prawn dumplings? We ordered two baskets of this classic dim sum, with the succulent prawns tentatively wrapped in the soft pastry. 

As har gow and shiu mai form an inseparable pair, we chose the chicken and mushroom shiu mai which was bursting with juicy meat flavour upon each mouthful. (Again, we were too busy eating and forgot to grab our cameras, so you just gotta imagine what it looked like! Teehee ^^”)

A batch of vegetable dumplings was also ordered (to satisfy our future nutritionist, Miss Eat-Your-Vegies!). This was a colourful array of spinach, carrot, corn and mushrooms encased in clear pastry and steamed to healthy goodness. 

Aside from traditional Chinese cuisine, Chefs Gallery also develop their own dishes which provide a modern twist to common ingredients. An example is the mixed seafood and Tako fritters served with creamy wasabi sauce. The chefs take you tiao (deep fried bread sticks), put in seafood and octopus filling, and top it off with a tangy wasabi dressing.

And now, the most memorable dish (to me, anyway :P)! These super cute “piggy faced” buns came in pairs—a boy and a girl. I was so hesitant to eat them and when I finally did, I ate their butts first in order to preserve their adorable faces for as long as possible (gee, I’m such a sucker for cute things :3). Taste-wise, these soft and cushiony steamed buns with sesame paste filling were sweet and satisfying despite tasting a bit ordinary. 

In summary, I would say that Chefs Gallery was a delightful restaurant, with a comprehensive offering of traditional Chinese and fusion dishes. We had a yumcha newbie lunching with us, and although there was no trolley lady and the place had a distinct modern feel, I believe it was still a good introduction to the yumcha dining experience.

Chefs Gallery offer quite a few interesting dishes, and if I’m ever in the city at night and craving dim sum, I’d probably pop by this place again to try out their Night Yum Cha menu. 

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Chefs Gallery
Shop 12 (facing Bathurst Street), Ground Level Regent Place Shopping Centre
501 George Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Ph: (02) 9267 8877
Website: http://www.chefsgallery.com.au/