Asian Wok Yum Cha (Henderson, Waitakere, New Zealand)

Isn’t it nice when you discover something new that you like? Asian Wok Yum Cha was one of those discoveries and it happened to be just an accident. We were actually planning to dine in on Shanghai Street but as we were looking for a parking spot, we realized there was a Yum Cha place at their back, so we drifted out of our plan and had yum cha instead.

We haven’t had a yum cha for a while, the last one that I remembered was in Din Tai Fung in Hong Kong and that was more than a year ago, so this yum cha is well past its due date. We came in here minutes just before noon time, it was busy, so we were 7th on the queue. It was a large straightforward place, not much of a decor, just tables and chairs on a warehouse like place. The queue that we are in was quite fast moving as there were many diners that were already finished with their yum cha and the bottle neck was as the table cleaning and preparation.

Minutes later we were seated, tables was clean, the place was clean. The yum cha carts were fast as well, so in a matter of minutes we are on our way eating.

First up was the Barbecue Pork Buns and the first thing we noticed is that it’s not round but rather shaped like a three-petal flower. It was light and airy but still dense, buns was so soft and slightly sweet which is perfect with that sweet and savoury barbecue pork filling.

Next was the Har Gow, it was nicely pleated, semi translucent and filled with very tasty roughly chopped prawns. It was really good but it’s much better if you dip them on chilli oil.

We also grabbed some steamed Gailan with oyster sauce just to balance things out as yum cha is quite meat heavy. Again another good choice, it was mildly bitter, perfectly blanched and it was still crisp to the bite.

Of course yum cha for us will not be complete without these deep-fried squid tentacles. This is a no brainer; all squid tentacles taste similar on every Chinese restaurant we had been through.

Then we grabbed some beef tendons, this was our favourite of the bunch. Very tender, melt in your mouth tendons, the texture along with its flavour is quite addictive.

Shu mai was next and this was our least favourite, it’s not bad, it’s just OK, I felt like it was under seasoned, can’t also taste the prawns that much compared to other places. What’s good on their one is that it is larger than some shu mai from other places, so just four of these is quite filling.

Finally we had this steamed honeycomb rice cake, another mainstay when we have yum cha as we feel it’s like similar to the puto that is sold by walking street vendors back in the Philippines. It was sweet, sticky with a slight sourness from the fermentation process.

Overall we had fun, service was really quick, place was clean, food was great apart from that shu mai. Price is average, it was not expensive at all, so if you consider all of that then I guess this place is a good value for your money.

Asian Wok
Address: 130 Lincoln Road, Henderson, Auckland 0610, New Zealand
Website: asianwok-online.co.nz
Phone: +649 836 6888