Kam Fook

LEVEL 6 SHOP 600 WESTFIELD SHOPPING TOWN CHATSWOOD
Phone 94139388

Review originally posted the 7th of January 2003


Two visits to Newtown last week included some research for yet another pithy review:

"Frenetically paced urban ecosystem located next to a university with blow-in youth who fallaciously presume eternal uniqueness."

But generally, one can find this same streetscape anywhere. The laughs double already. Bloody students eh?

However, in silence comes God's meaning to the heart. So the smouldering tyre-rubber, burnt cooking oil and stale vomit remain the only facts checked with any thoroughness.

Kam Fook Shark Fin, on level 6 of Westfield Chatswood, soothes the shopping mall angst. This hayloft of a place serves yum cha daily and dinner at night. It's usually necessary to bivouac around the entrance after announcing your own arrival, but only briefly. Then the clever staff will allow you to hover over a table like a trainee waiter while the-soon-to-be-previous occupants settle-up. Inside there's tables of elderly Chinese, all sentient calmness. And suited senior waiters are all maximum correctness. Some thrillingly pleasurable offerings roll-by aboard the dim sum trolley. And the bloke who looks like a dish-pig (but is probably one of the owners) industriously re-fills the tea pots. All this is interspersed by tables of visiting western chefs trying to surpass each other in knowledge of the cuisine, or discussing the latest exchange of pornographic videos.

I embrace yum cha often. I once earned wages in Chinatown for a year. Plus I lived with a Chinese girl for six. I disclaim any conclusive comprehension of Chinese culture. And view skeptically any non-Chinese who do so.

Baby calamari was cautiously poached, and prawn and vegetable har gau were in gummy rice flour skins. Some braised tripe tasted gelatinously sticky and the pork-filled northern dumplings were harmoniously honorable.

All the egg tarts had vanished before we could have a crack at them. But an offer to prepare more showed remarkable willing.

Twenty-five bucks included the customary Go Bo tea. Bargain!