Being first through the door at Star Capital Seafood Restaurant saw my table for twelve quickly surrounded by trolleys. Steamer baskets of ha gow ($12.80/4), sui mai ($12.80/4) and steamed spinach ($11.80/3) and garlic and chive dumplings ($11.80/3) all hit the table in rapid succession. Getting detail, like whether the vegetable-based dumplings also contained shellfish (they did), was a bit of a struggle from servers, but they were keen to rapidly get food onto our table. As the large restaurant quickly filled up around us, the pressure to consume eased a bit as servers were shared between more tables. We relaxed into plates of steamed rice noodles wrapped around beef and pork ($11.80/3) and deep-fried Chinese doughnut sticks ($11.80/3) studded with fresh shallots.
With a dedicated barbeque kitchen at the entrance, roast meats were always going to be a highlight. Sadly the barbeque trolley came around quite late, so we only managed to squeeze in one serve of crisp-skinned roast pork ($22.80). In this generously proportioned plate, tidy cubes of beautifully rendered pork with uniform crisp crackling were accompanied by a light, bright mustard-based dressing. The other highlight were steamed BBQ pork buns ($10.80/3) which boasted a particularly good meat-to-bun ratio with plenty of red-tinged char siu.
Puffy, sugar-coated Chinese doughnuts ($9.80) were dissected by servers for ease of sharing as our table of mango pancake obsessives descended into sweet. The youngest member of our party was kept happy with a bigger bowl of rainbow jelly ($8.80) than she could possibly eat. For those, like myself, who were less dessert-focused, steamed Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce ($15.80) was a healthy conclusion to this fast and enjoyable yum cha meal right in the heart of Chatswood. Even with endless pots of Chinese tea ($2.50/person) and all the dumplings we could manage, we paid forty dollars a piece.
