Beijing House

Beijing House
1/45 Queen St, Brisbane CBD



I never really notice the Chinese restaurants in Brisbane CBD. Regional logic tells you that if it's authentic Asian you're after, you'll be better off in Sunnybank or the Valley. If anyone had asked me, I would have vaguely described one or two that I had seen along Queen St Mall.



Beijing House is one of those restaurants. It was quite random really; I was walking past with my friend and we were on our way to Cafe 21 in the casino when he got distracted by the lunch special signs at Beijing House. So, we decided to try that instead.





To complicate things, I was on my vegetarian diet at the time.

Prawn toast and spring rolls - entree for lunch special

Honey chicken lunch special

Vegetable and cashew stir-fry lunch special

I didn't get a really good impression of Beijing House at the time. The food was pretty mediocre though on the plus side it was inexpensive.


More recently, I returned to Beijing House with my family to have yum cha. It was an informal moon festival celebration. My grandma had eaten yum cha there with some of her casino buddies and claimed it wasn't bad so we decided to give it a go as an alternative to always heading to Landmark.

This time, Beijing House was much busier. They have this deal where all yum cha items are $3.80 which saves you thinking about whether it's a 'big', 'medium' or 'small' plate.

We chose a few yum cha dishes...

Tripe

Little dragon buns

Braised chicken feet

Steamed veggie dumplings

Pork and black bean

Prawn dumplings

Crispy glutinous rice balls with meat filling

BBQ pork ho fun rolls

Fried savory taro cake

Liu Sha Bao

Inside of Liu Sha Bao

The food standards were quite good. They tasted fresh as opposed to lukewarm and 'from yesterday'. The one that stood out for me was the yellow buns that had this filling... I think it was a mix of egg yolk and possibly a bean paste but overall, it was sweet with an interesting grainy texture. I've never had that in any other yum cha place before and it was really nice.

On top of the yum cha food, we also ordered a braised pork shoulder and some hand-made dumplings.

Waitress carving the pork

Braised pork shoulder all carved up

The pork shoulder looked lovely - shiny, fatty and succulent. Unfortunately, the flavor was a bit underwhelming (not sweet enough for our liking) and also didn't penetrate the meat. In other words, the meat was a bit bland.

Pork and cabbage dumplings with vinegar dipping sauce

The dumplings were quite good. They were rustic in appearance but had a bit of soup inside when you burst them open. The filling is mostly meat with a tiny bit of Chinese cabbage.

All in all, Beijing House provides decent yum cha. If you're in the city and need the fix, it's just as good as those Sunnybank restaurants that offer the same thing. I just wouldn't get their lunch specials again.