When I heard that the owner of Zilver, Henry Tang, had opened a new restaurant, The Eight, I just had to get there and check it out. The Eight is on the top floor of Market City (on the site which once held Kam Fook). It’s large, holding about 750 people.

We got there to The Eight about 11:30am on a Sunday, and managed to walk right in, and sit down at a table right away. By the time we left there were people queuing up outside.

The size amplifies the hubbub of activity always surrounding yum cha, with a constant stream of carts passing by.

Please forgive me if I don’t use all of the correct names of the dishes (gwei-lo!). We started with the scallop siu mai. Gorgeous.

Followed by vegetable dumplings, with mushroom and corn inside:

Spinach and prawn dumplings:

The char siu bau and other dishes:

The char siu bau was particularly tasty, with a touch of ginger.

Towards the end of the meal, one of the ? managers ? came around, making sure that we had eaten all we wanted, and to tell us about the parking. Most helpful. And that seemed to be unusual in a yum cha place, where the service is usually brusque.

The dumplings which had been fried. Full of flavour.

After we had finished eating, we saw this grill at the side of the room on the way out. Apparently the taro, turnip and chestnut cakes, and the other things here have to be ordered specifically, either by asking a waiter or coming here to order it, rather than choose it from a roving cart:

So I’m still figuring out how it all works. I’ve also heard of some ordering additional dishes from menus with pictures, which would be helpful, but maybe that referred to the evening meal instead of yum cha.

Apparently parking between 11am and 2pm (on a weekend at least), you can pay The Eight $1, and they’ll stamp your parking ticket from the car park downstairs, so you only pay $3 there, making the parking $4 for that whole time. That’s a good deal.

The food we tried in yum cha at The Eight was fresh and delicious, with some new spins to some of the dishes, and good-sized serves. I’ll certainly be back to try it again, especially as I know now about how ordering dishes like the taro cakes separately (i.e. not waiting for a cart to drop by).

Details

Here are the details about The Eight at time of posting. Please check their web site for more current details.

Web site	http://www.theeightrestaurant.com.au
Address	Level 3, Market City, 9 Hay St, Haymarket, NSW, 2000
Phone	(02) 9282 9988
Open	Mon-Fri 10am-3:30pm, 5:30pm-11pm Sat-Sun 9am-4pm, 5:30pm-11pm
Menu	Chinese: yum cha for lunch, a la carte for dinner ($25-35 mains)

Where do you like to go for yum cha?