Parkland Chinese Restaurant

Parkland Chinese Restaurant
Shop 38 Sunnypark Shopping Centre, corner Mains Road and McCullough Street, Sunnybank



It doesn't take long for word to spread in Brisbane. I heard from a friend that there was a new yum cha restaurant open in the shopping plaza 'across the road from Market Square'. When we went to explore a couple of weeks back, I noted that it was huge, on par with Landmark. I then found out that it was opened up by the owners of Landmark so all that kinda makes sense.



When grandpa wanted a place to host a celebration dinner party, dad suggested Parkland because we're always curious about new Chinese restaurants in Brisbane. We ended up going last Friday night.


My dad is physically incapable of eating late on a weekday night because he gets too hungry. We were all instructed to meet up at 5:45pm on the dot with the special request of pre-ordering all the food so that dishes would start arriving as soon as he got there.

BBQ meat platter

Grandpa chose the seafood banquet (suggested for 6-8 people), plus an extra plate of BBQ meat for dad to have as an appetizer. The platter consisted of the usual culprits: roast duck, BBQ pork and jellyfish. The meat was quite standard. The jellyfish didn't have the crunch you want from something like jellyfish. It failed in the texture department.

Seafood soup

Our first hot dish was a big bowl of seafood soup. It was a thick, clear broth with prawns, shitake mushroom and eggwhite dropped in. There was a small dish of red vinegar to accompany the soup. Simple as it was, I really liked this soup.

Lobster with shallot and ginger

Next was the main event of the evening: wok-tossed lobster. It had a rich ginger and shallot sauce and was served on a bed of egg noodles. In this style of dish, I love the noodles most because it soaks up all the flavors. The lobster flesh was sweet and succulent.

Deep-fried mud crab

We also had mud crab. Usually when we have mud crab at a restaurant, it's cooked the same way as the lobster. This one was deep-fried with a sate-style sauce of dried shrimp and fried onion. I guess the restaurant was trying to avoid repetition. My dad and grandparents really liked this dish but it was a bit dry for me and I prefer the other method of cooking. It was a gorgeous crab though - nice and fleshy.

Then came the rest of the meat dishes. There was also a steamed live fish but my family chewed it up before I had the chance to take a photo. I do recall it was a nice fish though.

Pig trotters (or knuckles)

There was a weird braised pig trotter dish that was served on a gas stove. I'm not sure why they need the flame to keep the dish warm. We did have a plate of raw veggies though... maybe they were supposed to be added in? No one told us anything though so this is all speculative.

Spicy chicken

One of the dishes was a Sichuan-style spicy chicken. It's lightly fried with a dry batter and tossed with lots of chili. I liked this dish but Byron thought it could do with some sauce element.

Stir-fried beef

We also had a stir-fried beef dish. The beef was extremely tender and had a strong peppercorn flavor. This one goes well with rice.

Green veggies in garlic sauce

To satisfy the bowels, we also had one vegetable dish. I don't know what the leaves were of... Chinese spinach?? It had a nice flavor but the kitchen was a bit rough with the selection. Dad picked out a few stems that were as thick and inedible as bamboo husk.

We finished off with some complimentary dessert (a sweet bean stew) and a plate of melon and oranges. Nothing spectacular there. No one liked the sweet stew except for Byron who had 3 bowls. :)

The service at Parkland was WAAAAYYY better than most other Chinese restaurants I've been to in Australia. I guess a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's new and even at the peak time, wasn't at a full capacity. The food was on the most part quite acceptable. I wouldn't mind going back to check out their yum cha.