golden times chinese restaurant, ashfield

Since starting university, it's been super rare to have a meal with my whole family seated at the table. Either I'm at work, my brother's at uni or my dad's at work - one of us is always missing! Today my dad wasn't feeling too well so he took a day off work so we took this rare opportunity to have yum cha at West Ashfield Leagues' Golden Times Chinese Restaurant. My mum's cousin introduced this place to us earlier this year and ever since then we've been finding excuses to have yum cha here.

golden times chinese restaurant:

our table:

I think it has three branches. Although all three have different English names, (Golden Treasures Seafood Restaurant at Granville RSL and Golden Palace Seafood restaurant in Cabramatta) they are all titled 天天漁村 in Chinese.

ngau yuk cheong fun (special):

Rice noodle wrap with tender beef filling.

siu mai (large):

steamed dim sums with pork filling.

steamed prawn dumplings (large):

Steamed dumpling with prawn filling. Our family has pretty high standards for har gow. The skin must be somewhat thin and transparent so you can see the juicy red pinkish tinge of the prawns. Even though they don't appear in the photo, I can assure you it did in real life. It has to look like its about to burst with the generous filling inside and the skin can't be soggy at all. For the filling, the prawn must be succulent and "bouncy". All of us complimented the dumplings after our first bite into it.

chicken feet (medium):

Chicken feet in a black bean sauce. We order two bamboo steamers worth of these goodies. All my aunts in Hong Kong use to order bowls and bowls of these chicken feet and make us eat it. Actually they didn't have to make us. We loved these so much, it was pretty much all we ate. They kept reminding us that it was good for our skin and it would make us look young.

 san juk ngau yook (medium):

Minced beef ball with bean curd. I usually stay away from this but this tasted so nice!

mushroom with seafood fill (special):

Scallop on prawn and fish filling served on shiitake mushroom. Today we try something new and it ended up being a really good choice. The whole thing was super chewy and succulent. From the scallop to the mushroom.

woo kwok (medium):

Deep fried taro dumplings. Our family also has high standards for this as well. We just can't get enough of the melt-in-your mouth, lacy, light and crispy exterior. Unfortunately, the feelings did not meet our target requirements. I think there was too much taro which over powered the inner pork filling.

 jar leung (large):

Deep fried Chinese donut wrapped in a silk rice noodle sheet. I loved the addition of the little specs of dried har mai shrimp every scattered in the rice noodle sheet.

ngau jaap (deluxe):

A mixture of cow innards - another yum cha favourite. Some may find this even more disgusting than that chicken feet and those people are missing out! My favourite are the tendons and stomach parts.

But this place still does not beat good old Vinh Phat in Cabramatta. May be it ranks second on my 'Favourite Yum Cha Places' list. Sad thing was we were so full we couldn't get dishes like the pan fried rice noodle rolls and mango pudding.

The food was great (minus the taro dumpling), the service was great and the atmosphere was also great. Medium dishes cost $5.50 each, large dishes cost $6.60, specials cost $7.30 and deluxe dishes cost $7.90. Since we were a member of the club, we received a 10% discount which came to a total of $67.87 between 4 people. Can't wait to come back when I'm in the area.

golden times chinese restaurant
115 liverpool road
ashfield NSW 2131
f: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wests-Ashfield-Leagues-Club/122703427783572
t: (02) 8752 2000
w: http://www.westsashfield.com.au/