Land­mark Restau­rant — Sunnybank

If Land­mark Chi­nese Restau­rant is not the biggest place in Bris­bane to have Yum Cha, it most cer­tainly is the most well known. Land­mark has been a Bris­bane Yum Cha insti­tu­tion for sev­eral decades. It has under­gone a series of trans­for­ma­tions and whilst many a food blog­ger has writ­ten about it already, I will instead attempt to make this expe­ri­ence a lit­tle more per­sonal for you today.

Both my par­ents are from Hong Kong and had set­tled, some thirty odd years ago, in a place that was (in those days) four hours drive away from Bris­bane so you can imag­ine the yearn­ing for foods that were famil­iar to them.

I remem­ber my mother attempt­ing to repli­cate some of the dishes that you would find in the Hong Kong Yum Cha expe­ri­ence; how­ever, much to her cha­grin my father and my brother would crouch behind her and devour each morsel as they became ready for con­sump­tion. To add insult to injury, she found that by the time she had com­pleted the last piece she only got to eat that one piece and she declared, “never again!” It was a sad day for the boys.

The long sojourn to Bris­bane for the annual Yum Cha pil­grim­age was, there­fore, one that would be entered with great antic­i­pa­tion. I have been going to Land­mark for so many years and it holds a spe­cial place for me in some respects; less so for the food than for a some of the mem­o­ries it holds; includ­ing a few fam­i­lies dra­mas, which I will leave for another day.

The atmos­phere is usu­ally chaotic with wait staff zip­ping all over the place, trol­leys dri­ven by (pre­dom­i­nantly) young Chi­nese ladies that are gen­er­ally unaware of their sur­round­ings and the chat­ter of dozens of peo­ple meet­ing to drink tea, gos­sip and gnaw on their favorite tid­bits. I was no excep­tion: guilty as charged.

In its cur­rent incar­na­tion (it had a total ren­o­va­tion approx­i­mately two years ago – I think?), Land­mark has left behind the kitschy Hong Kong din­ing hall style restau­rant décor of the past and opted for a slightly more con­tem­po­rary feel, although still a lit­tle on the gar­ish side (keep an eye out for the giant fake chan­de­liers!). Nowa­days it sports soft neu­tral col­ors and a much more relaxed restau­rant atmos­phere (by way of décor).

My visit on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing in May was not crowded at all and we were able to get a table as soon as we arrived (on account of us arriv­ing at 11:00 am). Do be warned that the atmos­phere can get pretty rowdy after noon and be pre­pared to expect long queues, espe­cially on a Sunday.

I par­tic­u­larly like that you can choose some of the ready made dishes at a stand off to the side of the din­ing room, known in Hong Kong dim sum places as ‘dai pai dong’ or 大牌檔. Here you sim­ply ten­der your order slip and point to all the dumplings that you desire and trun­dle back to your table with them on a tray: instant gratification.

On this occa­sion we had only dim sum (click here for more about dim sum) in the near vicin­ity (deliv­ered by passer-by trol­ley). The bill (for two peo­ple) came to only $44 and we were ade­quately sated.

What we liked

Har gaow – these are prawn dumplings that have been wrapped in a translu­cent (rice based) pas­try and then steamed; it’s a clas­sic sta­ple that you should be able to find at any Yum Cha place and often a good lit­mus test to ascer­tain how the restau­rant com­pares to oth­ers of the same genre. The one we had ticked all the boxes; a good har gaow should have a slight pop as you bite into (dis­plays fresh­ness of the prawn), have nat­ural prawn fla­vor (the dif­fer­ence between qual­ity ocean prawns as opposed to schooled prawns with MSG added), and also a slightly firm (not-squishy) and thin pastry.

Che­ung fun (w/ BBQ pork fill­ing). Che­ung – Can­tonese for intestine/sausage; fun – noo­dle. Soft, slip­pery and sup­ple; delectable!

Prawn & spinach pan­cake dumpling – deli­cious firm prawn fill­ing dot­ted with Chi­nese spinach, which was then sand­wiched into a moon-shaped with a flour based pas­try and then pan grilled.

Braised duck with taro – this was quite a del­i­cate dish, the duck had been stewed till ten­der along with sev­eral pieces of fra­grant taro. My only crit­i­cisms would be that the dish was under­sea­sonsed and may have con­tained a sprin­kle of ‘gourmet pow­der’ (MSG).

Our Score

What we think

I was left feel­ing rel­a­tively pos­i­tive fol­low­ing my last visit to Land­mark. I’ve had mixed expe­ri­ences on past vis­its and I was pleased to see a marked improve­ment in the exe­cu­tion of their dumplings. Value for money is quite good and (if you are some­one that doesn’t like exces­sive noise) pro­vided you go for brunch, avoid­ing peak times, you can have quite a pleas­ant experience!

Author: Ian Ho

Pho­tog­ra­phy: Ken­neth Au (Canon 5D Mk ii)

 The Details

Land­mark Chi­nese Restaurant

Shop 101, Sun­ny­bank Plaza, Cnr Mains Rd & McCul­lough St, Sun­ny­bank
3344 3288

Open: Brunch & Din­ner daily
(no offi­cial website)

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