Rainbow Yumcha Buffet

Last week Gaz and I were in the city and decided to test our stomach capacity by going for an all you can eat yumcha session at Rainbow Restaurant. The restaurant is located in a relatively newly refurbished building on Bourke St. Rainbow is a pretty different name for a restaurant, in my opinion, but I suppose it also had to make the name work for a karaoke lounge and entertainment facility, which is located on level two of the building. The restaurant is located at the top most floor. To get there, one takes the escalator up, and it almost feels like the stairway to heaven because of the massive skylight which provides most of the light in the building.

We saw a couple of familiar faces in the restaurant, and not among the patrons but from the pool of waitstaff always patiently waiting for us to be done with our dishes so they can take the bamboo steamers back to the kitchen. They were from the restaurants we frequent in the Eastern suburbs. There is such thing as a brain drain in the profession too. These waitstaff are very experienced and efficient so are in demand in newer restaurants where they are likely to experience staffing problems.

The food was good and was not lacking in variety. We had prawn dumplings, shark fin dumpling, pork dumpling, eggplant stuffed with prawn paste, dumplings shaped like goldfish, three kinds of desserts and more dumplings! There were a very good selection of non steamed items too, like spring rolls, fried crab claws, fried paper wrapped prawn roll, taro puff, sweet and sour pork knuckle. I wasn't too sure about the last dish... The restaurant looked clean and there was a food cart pushed around to us almost every five to ten minutes, we were so spoilt for choice!

It's interesting how the waitstaff would push the carts around and to the non asians the food is described as either 'pork dumplings, prawn dumplings''. Because there is so much more to that generic description, there was one which had lotus root in it, one with coriander, one with chives and so on. I suppose they learn that to say 'crystal skin dumplings with prawn, pork, coriander and lotus root bits, deep fried then braised chicken feet with black bean sauce, beancurd skin roll with taro and chicken, lightly fried then steamed wonton skin dumplings with prawn, ginger and spring onions' over and over again for 30 tables is just a little bit too much! Besides, deacriptions don't matter when the deal is sealed with the appearance of the dish - 'eek, this dumpling look like a wrinkled old man's skin, no go for me!'

As usual, we ate a little too much and had to go for a long walk in DFO to burn off the fat.

Update: This restaurant has since closed.