Golden Dragon Palace
Yum cha in the grand manner survives out in Templestowe Lower, in a banquet hall done up with dragon statues, carved timber and high-backed chairs, the full palatial theatre, sat incongruously beside a McDonald's on Manningham Road. On weekends the trolleys do their rounds of a two-hundred-seat room, and the draw is not novelty but standard: har gau and siu mai made with care, alongside the rarer, more delicate parcels that reward diners who arrive knowing what to ask for. It runs a touch dearer than the average suburban trolley service, and earns it with calmer floors, well-drilled staff and a sense of occasion the format has mostly lost elsewhere. This is the Cantonese banquet as weekend ritual, extended families around big round tables, the steam baskets stacking up, tea topped and topped again. Come for the classic dim sum canon done properly rather than for reinvention, and come early on a Saturday or Sunday, when the trolleys are fullest and the kitchen at its most generous. Booking ahead is wise; the room fills quickly once the weekend service begins.