Tai Pan Restaurant

Tai Pan Restaurant
239 Blackburn Rd, Doncaster East

This week we all decided to try out our new local Yum Cha restaurant, and Melinda heard through a friend that the Tai Pan in Doncaster East was the place for it. The Tai Pan serves over one thousand people every Sunday, with sittings at 11:00, 12:15 and 1:30. If you are not familiar with the workings of Yum Cha, you sit at your table and waiters bring trolleys around for you to choose from. We are all used to the friendly service and vibrant food at the Regal in Sydney, so we had high expectations this week.

We were all very hungry, so we didn’t “hold back” this week and ordered a respectable 16 dishes. Here is a sample….

Pan fried noodles with tahina and hoi sin sauce.
This dish was delicious and the noodles were perfectly cooked, with both the sauces going well with them.

Deep fried calamari.
The calamari was a bit oily but still tasty, even though it was the tiniest bit rubbery. There was a hint of Chinese five spice.

Steam Dumplings.
The steam Dumplings were mediocre, a bit dry.

Pork Dumplings.
Well cooked pork and crispy pastry, a good dish.

Deep fried spring rolls.
Small but tasty spring rolls, another good dish.

Jelly cubes and Mango custard.
The jelly and mango custard are two separate dishes, but they were both delicious. The mango custard was the perfect consistency and the jelly was too sweet (almost).

Overall this restaurant was just too bland with small differences that added up to an experience that didn’t compare with the Regals buzz. Instead of chandeliers there was a disco ball, the staff were not friendly and the food just wasn’t anything special.


Rating -- 6/10