At a little before midday yesterday (Sunday) some good friends and I gathered down at the Docks. And no, we weren’t sailors looking for a good time, drug smugglers, or angry dockworkers staging a protest. We were dressed in our Sunday best, hungry, excited and waiting for the Floating Yum Cha boat to arrive.
As a part of the Asian Food Festival, Floating Yum Cha is a once a year event, where a couple of hundred patrons clambour on board a two storey, ferry-style boat, which putts around Port Phillip Bay for three hours while they all dine on dumplings, fried wontons and other dim sum treats.
The day began humourously as, laughing on the dock, we watched the boat attempt to moor three times before crunching into the concrete pylons and throwing down the gang-plank. We joked that perhaps the captain was as hungover as a few of us were – after spending much of the afternoon and evening the day before drinking together.
But our excitement and longing to eat copious dumplings overrode any fears we had for our safety, we filed on board and were taken to our little table. The six of us crowded around our little rectangle of formica. We were disappointed to have a table without a window, so despite enduring the sensation of the floating, we didn’t actually have a view of the Bay. We were in good spirits though, and put the thought out of our minds, getting on with the more important task of going to the bar.
Once we had procured beer and wine, the Yum Cha commenced. I think I had imagined it would be a slightly classier affair. Or perhaps more traditional – waiters floating gracefully past with trays laden with amazing Chinese delicacies. Instead the set up was a buffet, which we were instructed to “be courteous” and approach table by table. We were given small plates, and knives and forks instead of chopsticks. The streamed dumplings were in fact quite tasty, but there was a paucity of fried options – which my hungover body was desiring above all. However, the har gau (traditional prawn dumplings), steamed bbq pork buns, shanghai dumplings, and sesame red bean balls were all top notch. I was a little thrown by the sweet and sour looking sauce, which in fact turned out to be really spicy and I had put all over my fried wontons – but when were invited to make our trip to the buffet for seconds, I did not make the same mistake again!
The eating completed, we were free to enjoy the remaining hour or so, chatting, drinking, laughing at the pasty white man in the terrible rastafarian shirt, singing the odd sea shanty, and wondering who on our neighbouring table had the smelly shoes on. We occasionally popped out onto the deck to get a look at the not so scenic Bay (Melbourne has a lot of world class drawcards, but a beautiful harbour is not really one of them!), but we sailed past Williamstown, and across to St Kilda, and it was definitely a novelty, and a fun way to spend a Sunday.
Photo by Craig Burke.
Once we had docked again, this time more successfully, we walked into the city and drank the afternoon/evening away at the Charles Dickens Tavern – notable mostly for it’s excellent collection of Samuel Smiths beers in a bottle, for being amazingly vigilant on the glass clearing front, and well, for putting up with us for about 5 hours!
So all in all it was a fabulous day. Thanks to Bethy for organising it, and to all my mates for being such funny punk weasels.
Photo by Craig Burke.
