Yum Cha Dragon

Score: 12.5/20

YUM CHA, like firecrackers and pasta making, is one of those great Chinese activities that translated very well to the West. And possibly nowhere more so than Melbourne.
This is a city of yum cha nuts, even if so many Australians take the occasion as an excuse to open a bottle of wine, which usually seems so wrong to me, largely because it's often not that long since I've put one down, tired and emotional at the end of a happy Saturday night.

Were it not for the rather calamitous effect of millions of prawn har gao on my cholesterol, I'd do it more often (go to yum cha, that is). I love the food, for both its flavours and textures; love the way you pick and choose from a trolley in such a matter-of-fact manner; love the ad hoc nature of the decision-making, the antithesis of the menu scouring that is part of regular dining. I love the social nature of the meal and the feeling I'm in Hong Kong for an hour, which, depending on the weather, might just be long enough in the real Hong Kong. I love the get-em-in-get-em-out value-for-money.

And, like many I know, I love the way it makes me feel on a delicate Sunday morning when the previous night's dinner has ended with Averna and Spandau Ballet.

Despite the name, Yum Cha Dragon is not what I'd call a yum cha place - a Cantonese restaurant that does dim sum from 11am. The title's a misnomer.

Yum Cha Dragon is a modern Asian restaurant with some traditional yum cha items on its lengthy food list, alongside a stack of more contemporary dishes with an Asian spine created by consultant chef James Tan, formerly of Magic City. Yum Cha Dragon is part of the Rivers Group, restaurateur Lou Jovanovski's diverse vehicle that includes Bellissimo, Saganaki, BlueFire steakhouse, Fish and Hot Chocolate, among others.

On a miserable Tuesday, Mr Jovanovski may have had more restaurants than he had lunch customers at Docklands; the precinct was frozen solid. It made YCD a welcoming place to be: a corner site at the base of one of those apartment towers on the water.

The place has been given a curious makeover, combining smart contemporary furniture, colours and fittings, and some modern design touches referencing China, with more traditional stuff, such as a jade-like marble table, tassled lanterns and a huge, white marble water feature complete with dry ice and a carved timber dragon.

It's a pleasant space with tables set nicely: good linen, decent wine glasses, black chopsticks and the white crockery you'd expect.

Angela, our Chinese host, made a huge effort to introduce herself, discover our names and generally fuss, and that was before the chef clocked us and advised her to ramp up the special treatment accordingly. She couldn't have tried any harder.

But unlike a real yum cha joint, you will be forced to struggle with a somewhat confounding menu format, compounded by the typically Chinese choice. It starts with "Entrees, Small Dishes and Soups", a 16-item list that offers starter-size versions of several, but not all, dishes on the "Yum Cha" list that follows later - a 36-item spiel. Some items on both seem identical, except that if you order "freshly shucked oysters with chilli lime dressing" ($3.50 each) from the first list, the minimum is six; order from the "Yum Cha" list and it's three.

Go figure. Between these lists is "Chinese BBQ and Grill", "Platters to share", "From the Wok" and "Side Dishes". Later on come desserts and a rather sensible selection of cheeses. Some of the dishes on the yum cha list are repeated in other sections too. There were other surprises in store. What didn't come as a surprise was the quality of the food; Tan knows how to put things together and given a budget to buy good produce and the required time to do things properly, there's no reason why the food should not be very enjoyable. Those familiar with his last effort in Camberwell, Magic City, will find common ground here.

Those oysters ($14 for four) were first class: opened to order, "feet" still attached, lively of flavour and texture. With lemon, the dressing was redundant.

Other things from the yum cha list included a portion of good salt and pepper calamari with a tangy, vibrant dipping sauce ($11); sugar-cured salmon (it was meant to be tuna) which came with a salad of julienne beetroot, red onion, spring onion, red pepper and some soft, green baby shoots (and a good dipping sauce, $12.50); three Vietnam-inspired vegetable-only rice paper rolls (excellent) with pickled ginger and a good chilli-spiked sweet red sauce ($8.50); tasty and nicely cooked fish and prawn cakes served with a sweet-sour fruit chutney ($9.50); three absolutely superb har gau - steamed prawn dumplings in a translucent pastry ($7.50); and a steamed sticky rice parcel with minced pork and assorted Chinese mushrooms ($12.50).

From the "entrees" list, the super-thin crepes of the "crispy duck pancake with sweet and sour vegetable, $18" fell apart in my hands, and why you'd put the hoisin on the outside of something to eat with your fingers is anybody's guess. In either case, at $9 each, notwithstanding the crunchy little vegetable side salad, they were stratospherically priced.

Pleasant slices of crisp-rind suckling pig - about the size of match boxes - were served with a garnish of delicious pineapple chutney and lemon ($16).

Still hungry, we plunged into the "BBQ" section for calamari marinated in soy, chilli and honey. It comes with a rudely fresh and crisp salad of various julienne vegetables. It is $32. You can eat main courses at Rockpool for not much more.

A slice of passionfruit curd tart is lively, and served with yellowish ice-cream, the flavour of which I couldn't determine ($14.50). The "tofu custard with ginger, rock sugar and pandan leaves" ($14.50) is bland beyond belief, merely like wafers of fresh tofu in a sugar syrup with some longan fruit and mint garnish.

It may sound like a lot of food; it really wasn't. And the biggest surprise, the bill, without wine, came to $198 (and if we'd been there on a weekend or public holiday, a surcharge would have made it $217.80, an insidious Sydney trend that's creeping south like cane toads). Reaching for the credit card, the receipt from that previous Sunday's yum cha at Ripples, Malvern, fell from my wallet: eight dim sum dishes and tea for two: $44.

In a city with great, authentic Cantonese yum cha and, therefore, many aficionados, Yum Cha Dragon will have trouble convincing the cognoscenti. The name is the stumbling point. I guess "Progressive Pan-Asian Confusing Menu Dragon" just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Guide to score: 1-9: Unacceptable. 10-11: Just OK, some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: Outstanding. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.