Jin Yan - Castle Hill

I recently returned to yum after being away for a while and have visited twice in the past two months. The major change is that, post-covid, there is no longer a card order system; instead, you can tick items on a sheet and the food is brought to your table. This setup takes away from the traditional yum cha experience we are accustomed to. The food is still good, but with the increase in prices, dining here has become slightly more expensive. The service is good and the yum cha is of high quality. There are many families dining here, and the staff are able to seat guests quickly, reducing wait times.

This restaurant, like many others that have come and gone in the RSL, is disappointing. My party of nine (6 adults and 2 children under 5) arrived on 21/8 at 6:30 pm. The service was slow and it took a long time for our drinks to arrive. The portions were much smaller than in the past, with one of the dishes barely enough to feed one person. The sweet and sour pork was the worst I've had in years, with too much pineapple and sauce and not enough meat. The honey chicken was also lacking in quantity and quality. We had to order another dish because we were still hungry. I have been coming to this restaurant for the last 14 years and have never been so disappointed. The prices have gone up, but the portions have shrunk. I am willing to pay more for good food, but this was a letdown.

We began ordering takeout from this restaurant in 2020 during lockdown. We always enjoyed the food, but when we tried to place an order tonight, we were shocked to see that the prices have now increased by over $10 per dish (for example, a dish we used to order for $15 now costs $27). The prices are now the same as when dining in the restaurant. Unfortunately, this price hike means we will no longer be ordering from this place.

So. waking yus cha, when they come here, expect regular yum cha experience (as we have done) then they will be dissatisfied. with regular trolleys they have always arranged a lot of different that they cannot. instead, it is expected that they will put their yum cha out of a paper menu at the arrival that is then taken away from them, force them to try a waiter to give another if they want to order more. I can understand from the view of restaurants why they want to do this, but it does not really work for the customer. some of the dishes we ordered arrived quickly, but were not where near hot obvious they were in the kitchen waiting for some time to go. other dishes, including all fried, crispy things that like children, took an old to arrive as I imagine they were fried to order. the result was that the children had nothing to eat at the table while they saw the adult who were forced to eat the only lukewarm dishes that had already arrived before they were steinkälte. So, no great experience. will not be back.

We used to love going to this restaurant but absolutely never again. The food was almost inedible. Ordered Singapore chilli prawns and ended up with a bowl of soup with pineapple and prawns in it. No chilli. When I queried it I was abruptly told...that this was an authentic dish and it was meant to swim in a sweet chilli sauce I don’t think so. The prawn dumplings were totally tasteless may as well have eaten clag. We asked for an entrée of salt and pepper calamari which ended up being a main instead and once again chewy and tasteless. Sorry but there are better places to eat in Castle Hill.