Ding Sing

63–65 York Street
dingsing.com.au

This is one of those specialist yum cha restaurants that you know will be good because it's full of Chinese people.

Not now, obviously.

It has the usual mix of steamed and pan-fried dumplings, spring rolls and buns, but the menu leans strongly towards authentic Chinese too; you can get a little adventurous here and be suitably rewarded with some new flavours.

These scallop dumplings were superb, and very filling. Each had a whole scallop inside, with roe intact. Of course, farmed scallops are small by nature, but it's still rather generous serve.

Two of these had disappeared before I remembered to take the photo. They're bean-curd (tofu skin) chicken rolls that had a flavour that was very new to both of us. Not remotely challenging for the Western pallet, just new – and bloody delicious.

By now we'd realised that we'd chosen five of the larger dishes and getting through them all was going to be tricky.

Too slow with the camera once again – this is about 50 per cent of a chicken sate dish. Quite different from south-east Asian sate but bloody good nonetheless, and the chicken was perfectly cooked.

Barbecue pork in a silky skin, which will really test your chopsticks skills and also your laundry stain remover. The flavour of the stuffing was reminiscent of the good old pork bun, but with the skin and the delicious sauce this dish was a beaut.

The pièce de résistance in Jess's view – and something we've tried here before – the radish cakes. Not everyone will like this because the texture is a little unusual. It looks like a fritter but the inside is soft and cake like. But after bite one you'll appreciate how clever this dish is. It's simply terrific and there's no way in the world you could match it in your own kitchen. 

Unlike many yum cha joints in bigger cities, at Ding Sing you order off the card instead of grabbing something from a cart as it comes around. It was a minor oversight that we chose five of the larger serves because each entry on the menu is clearly marked with a size rating of 1 to 5. One the other hand, a stuff-yourself-to-bursting lunch for two plus a delicious peach smoothy and a placcy container with some leftovers to take home cost only $64.

Get here early or make a booking because otherwise Launceston's Chinese community will beat you to it.