The Century at Sydney’s Star casino: quality Cantonese for all
The Golden Century is a Sydney institution where you can drop $100 on a single fish. Here’s how to do it on the cheap.
The Golden Century is a Sydney institution where you can drop $100 on a single fish. Here’s how to do it on the cheap.
The pitch. White linen, muzak, waiters in black-and-white uniforms and a menu the size of a music book … hello, we must be in a Chinese restaurant, and that’s even before you note that most other diners in this glossy 200-plus-seater at Sydney’s Star casino complex are Asian. The Century is a spin-off from the long-running Golden Century in Sydney’s Chinatown. While the 1986 original has a reputation as a rambunctious barn where you can pop in for supper at 11pm and drop $100 on a coral trout without realising, its four-year-old sibling is rather more sedate, expensively fitted out and well-mannered. But you can still pop in late and drop $100 on a coral trout, having eyed off your prey in the flash fish tanks that line the entrance.
The reality. Truth is, if you play your cards right, you can eat well here at reasonable prices. Look closely at the menu (and wine list). It’s two-speed. So yes, while you can go all high-roller with bird’s nest soup with crabmeat for $86 and abalone seven ways (market price, of course, and with eight private dining rooms you can bet the restaurant sells abalone by the tonne), you also confidently can bring the kids here for what amounts to much better than average Cantonese — and the comfy banquettes at some tables are a bonus for young sleepyheads. The polite waiters seem pretty good at calibrating their attention to families and big-spenders as required.
The cuisine. Can’t recall the last time prawn dumplings were this good at this price: they’re fat, fresh, steaming hot and springy, and $7.70 for four. Other standards also impress: a seafood fried rice is excellent, its ratio of prawns, scallops and calamari to rice justifying the $28 price tag; crispy skin chook is ridiculously good value at $20.90. Ironically, it’s only the splurge dish that disappoints: crabmeat with broccoli is more like broccoli with crabmeat, and the flavour is nothing special either. It’s $30.80.
Drinks. Steer clear of those Grange verticals and there are plenty of affordable, acceptable contemporary Australian offerings. Our 2014 Duck Point Pinot from Central Otago was perfectly pleasant ($14 a glass), though it was a shame we didn’t get to see the bottle.
Highlights. The thoroughly professional approach, from cooking to service to presentation, leaves you with the impression that — provided you resist the lobster lure — you’ve cracked a code: that of finding very nice Chinese food in civilised surrounds for about the same price as your average overlit, frenzied suburban diner.
Lowlights. Well, some will object to dining in a casino complex per se, even if it is streetside and well away from the gaming action. No excuses, though, for opening our wine away from the table and not showing us the bottle. Would they do that if it were Hill of Grace?
Will I need a food dictionary? Unlikely. If you’re planning to hit the big end of the menu, you are more likely to need a calculator.
The damage. For the low-luxe menu, very reasonable. For the anything-goes, someone-else’s-expense-account version, you’ll need to ask someone else.
Summary. Big or little night out? Spin the wheel …
The Century at The Star: 80 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont, NSW.Phone: (02) 9566 2328.Score: 3.5 out of 5. thecentury.com .au
