We only had half an hour before the performance at the Sydney Opera House and I still needed to pick up our tickets from the box office. We needed food now, right now! We headed straight for the Opera Kitchen at the lower concourse of the iconic concert hall.
The Kitchen serves a variety of food and cuisines including seafood, burgers, Japanese and… Is that Asian dumplings on the menu? Yes! Dumplings! One of my favourite foods! We ordered, sat near the water outside the cover and waited for our food. The view wasn’t as nice as it would have been because it’s been gloomy and slightly rainy the whole day, reminiscent of our first date at the Opera House. Our food arrived very quickly.
I didn’t mention how much food we ordered despite being short on time, did I? The server with our order walked by us the first time, doubtful that this amount of food could possibly only be for two, and our tower of bamboo steamer baskets attracted attention from diners nearby. Oh you amateurs. tongue Well, there were only three dumplings in each so it’s not really a lot of food. Not even for the fact that I ate two dumplings for every one Richard ate. Nope.
But, the food! We worked our way down the tower. First layer, steamed barbecue duck buns ($5 each)!
The steamed buns were as big as the bamboo basket! I couldn’t tell that it was in fact duck because it tasted just like the typical barbecue pork bun, but I still enjoyed it. Next!
Prawn dumplings ($12 for 3 pieces), also known as har gow, also big! I loved the chopped up prawn filling and thought the wrappers were very decent. Next!
Pork dumplings ($12 for 3 pieces), shaped similarly to a xiao long bao but without the soup inside. Just yum and nothing too out of the ordinary. Next!
Scallop and prawn dumplings ($12.50 for 3 pieces). The chunks of scallops and prawns made the perfect pairing as a dumpling filling. This was Richard’s favourite; it’s a toss-up between this or the prawn alone for me.
In addition to the extra little takeaway containers of sauce and chilli they gave us, all the dumplings came with a little soy sauce at the bottom that leaked through the baskets when we took them off one by one. It didn’t bother me as much tonight because the table was already wet from the rain.
If the performance wasn’t starting soon, I could have eaten another round or two of these expensive little bundles of deliciousness that always make me thirsty after. The total came out to a pricey $93 for our tower of food plus one drink. I hope it’s not raining the next time we’re in the area!
Leave a Reply