King Chef Chinese Restaurant 14/10/07 - 38%

74 Railway Parade Kogarah

Lunch Sunday 14 October 2007

Where to start? Well, it is a small place near the train station at Kogarah - that should give you an idea of the place. And it wasn't overly busy at 1.20pm on a Sunday. The food was very disappointing - the prawn dumplings were ok, the scallops so-so, enjoyable - but so far below the competition.

Clockwise from top left, these are Shanghai style pork dumplings - and they were terrible. No soup, the pork was bland and terrible texture.

Honestly, I have microwaved frozen dumplings from Woolworths that tasted better and fresher than these.

The sui mai were also really boring. The prawn dumplings were ok, but had obviously been on the steamer trolley for a long time as the rice wrapper was falling apart.Scallop and vegetarian. The scallop was average - Kate thought it was the best of what we had today. The vege for me was well below standard (compared to Regal for eg), but our vegetarian diner gave her approval.
Chicken feet... crap. The sauce was ok but the feet were poor quality. That may sound crazy if you find the idea of eating chicken feet disgusting anyway, but there is of course varying standards. These were poor in my opinion.
The saam sik goh was fine - but a bit oily.
Guest reviewers Kir and Joe.

It came to $51.10 for 4 people (less that $13pp). But that's because we only took 9 dishes.

And now, the verdict (will the cuisine reign supreme?):

Kir
Food: 11 out of 20
Service & Setting: 1.5 out of 5
Value: 2.5 out of 5.
TOTAL: 15 from 30
"I was liked the vegetarian dumplings and the stir fried rice rolls - but it wasn't very good value."

Joe
Food: 9 out of 20
Service & Setting: 3.5 out of 5
Value: 3 out of 5
TOTAL: 15.5 from 30
"It was ok, but I like it when the trolleys are coming around with loads of choices - not just people carrying one or two dishes on a tray.."

Kate
Food: 8.5 out of 20
Service & Setting: 2.5 out of 5
Value: 2.25 out of 5
TOTAL: 13.25 from 30
"Ng... nothing special laaaa."

Matt
Food: 7.5 out of 20
Service & Setting: 2 out of 5 (service ok, crap ambiance)
Value: 2 out of 5. (it was cheap per person, but only because we didn't eat/want much).
TOTAL: 11.5 from 30
"Maybe we came too late - there wasn't much choice, it wasn't fresh and there was nothing even close to average in any respect."