Rhodes Phoenix

Service is everything, I’ve been to 3 Pheonix restaurants, the Rhodes one I would avoid, yum Cha the food is good and also the a la cart dinner is good but the staff are not friendly at all.

The yum Cha place gets fairly busy, so get there early if you are not prepared to wait.
Service: ⁵⁄₁₀ staff are more concerned with herding people in and out as quick as possible.
Food: ⁵⁄₁₀ quality of food is fairly average, some of the dumplings ordered seemed over-​cooked as they broke easily. Poor variety offered on the carts.
Value for money: ⁴⁄₁₀ expensive Yum Cha for the quality of food.
I have been to this place several times over the last 3 years and have found that the quality of food has definitely dropped.
Tip: if paying by credit card, you are asked to queue twice, first to tally up your order and be given a receipt from one register, then to process your payment at the second register! You would think that a large restaurant like this would have more than 1 register to process credit card payments.

We ordered spring rolls & curry puffs to start. The spring rolls were probably the worst I’ve ever had they were like flat pillows without hardly any filling. The curry puffs were exceptable.
The mains weren’t much better. We ordered king prawns with garlic sauce this had no taste. Then Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce this tasted very bitter with no flavour. The other dishes of crispy skin chicken & Singapore noodles were a little tastier. The kicker was the price which was very expensive for the quality. There must be better around?

They started off great with awesome service, fresh foods and atmosphere but more of late (over the last 8months) everything has gone down hill. Staff is rude and inefficient. You have to pay $ 6 for tea per person. They refuse to give you extra chilli sauce so 4 – 5 people normally share 1 small saucers worth. Food is cold and carts do not have a clear route, and go wherever the person pushing it feels like. A lot of their carpets is dirty as well (food stuck to it, soup still on it, lipstick) and when raised it up with the manager, they just chucked a tantrum (everyone was watching him) and left without fixing the problem.

This is the Crème de la Crème of Yum Cha, with price tags to go with it but it’s worth it! My absolute favourite establishment for Yum Cha and I’ve had my fair share of Yum Cha around the world! Why is it my favourite? For a variety of reasons…
— consistency
— variety
— service
— ambience
— parking
This place dishes out the best Chicken Feet, if you still haven’t made the daring plunge, this is THE place to do it… I assure you won’t be disappointed (just don’t think of the chicken running around and you’ll get through it). But if it ain’t your cuppa tea there’s plenty on the carts to tantalise those Sunday hangover taste buds like the prawn rice rolls; perfectly delicate thin rice folded with prawns in a light sweet soy or the taro prawn and pork mince ‘footballs’, try the classic pork and prawn dim sims or the variety of delicious dumplings available. It’s ALL good.
Whatever you do don’t pike of dessert. The staple are the warm flaky creamy egg tarts or the mango pudding… Say yes to the milk on top!
«Easy like a Sunday morning!»

came here for yum cha. lots of fried food, not much variety. service was ok. probably won’t come back again.

For a yum cha place that’s out west, this is a great place to go.
Usually we go and eat a lot of food which ends up costing us at most $ 25 per head.
We went here for a workmates celebrations on his engagement and we were waiting for 2 other colleagues to arrive before ordering. A lady came by with a trolley and tried to give us food, when we said no we were waiting for other people first she actually glared at us before moving on.
And later when we were eating, she came around again and literally threw all these dishes on the table that we didn’t really want and wasn’t listening to a thing we said.
This is the only reason I’ve given this place 4 stars instead of five.
The food is lovely, all the other people working there are quite lovely and it has 3 hours free parking!
Just try to dodge lil miss sour puss up there and you should have a lovely time!

Food is average but not great anymore. This use to be the better Yum Cha Places around. In the last few years it has dropped in flavour. Most food that come to you is cold. THe prices are very expensive.
The service of waiters and waitress are appaling. Care factor to customer is zero. I am not sure why so many people go to this restaurant. Maybe it’s because no other places around. I never saw one waiter or waitress smile at the you. When you are for something like, tea, chili, soy sauce. The look they give you is like, «How Dare you ask for something».It’s just plan rude as customer service.
When Rhodes Phoenix was atarting it was a great place. Now it has been open for a few year it has dropped in taste and service. In a scale of 1 — 10. 1 = Bad & 10 = fantastic. I give this please a rating 2.

I have only been to Rhodes Phoenix for Yum Cha and the main problem is the inconsistency. There are days of solid Yum Cha goodness and some with utter disaster, one thing is for sure is its never fantastic.
On my last visit the absolute stand out were the dumplings. My recommendation is the Spinach and Prawn dumplings or the Mushroom and Prawn dumplings. The steamed bean curd rolls were also quite tasty and extra juicy. Everything else however was a little bland and cold.
The worst part about this restaurant is the service. The waiters are extremely rude and have no problem looking directly into your face as you call them over and walk away with no acknowledgement only to return 10 minutes later. They also stuck us on a table right in the corner so trying to grab a trolley lady was like trying to catch a fly with chopsticks!
Yum Cha that hits the spot… just.

Wedding bells are a ringing yet again!
FOOD
Standard banquet. Food was good but not great.
SERVICE
Food was brought out one after the other with no room to breathe in between. I liked that thought as I was starving by 8.30. Interesting to compare this with Sky Phoenix as we weren’t served individually but rather individual bowls were left on the lazy susan for us to take ourselves.
A few annoyances with the service on the night.
1) My friend’s wine glass got taken away from her twice instead of being re-​filled. I joked that she must look underage.
2) The maid of honour ordered 4 Hennessy’s for our table and the waitress came out with 4 forks. She came out and didn’t know what the do with the forks. Massive fail. We then tried to order Hennessy another 3 times but never got served. When the maid of honour came back to find us empty handed she had to go to the other side of the room to ask why people weren’t being served. Self service prevailed as she brought back an unopened bottle
3) When I asked for a glass of water around 11.30pm the waitress pointed to ask the other guy next to me. I asked him and he told me there was plenty of water by the bar and to go help myself. Ehhh what? Water has become self service now?
4) As soon as the formalities were over the staff did not waste a second to start packing up. I understand they all want to go home and they need to clean and set up new tables for Sunday’s yum cha but it just made it such an odd scene when you have half the room dancing and enjoying a wedding and half the room running around clearing plates and taking off chair covers. All of my table had gotten up to dance or mingle but I was still sitting down and the waiter came over and took my table away. I was left sitting alone in a circle of chairs. Should have really taken a photo of such a sad sight.
OVERALL
If you don’t mind the switched off nature of staff and the cleaning up commotion from 11pm onwards then by all means have your wedding here. If you do mind then I’d seriously reconsider holding it on a Saturday night. I’ve heard from friends it’s not so bad on a Sunday night. Probably because Monday yum cha session isn’t as Sundays.

Being Cantonese and having had Yum Cha and cantonese cuisine for pretty much my entire life, I’m jaded about Phoenix’s recent aggressive expansion around Sydney… not that I really rated the original Sky Phoenix that highly, anyway (the competing Palace Chinese Restaurant in Piccadilly was always my pick for Cantonese food and Yum Cha in the CBD).
What annoys me is that the Phoenix Group never appeared to be that interested about the food in the first place… it was always second to making the restaurant appear modern and contemporary so that it gave them an excuse to put a premium price for what is pretty standard-​fare dim sum and cantonese dishes.
Rhodes Phoenix fits this formula to a T– the food is ok but it won’t blow anyone’s mind and it is overpriced.
To their credit, it’s a formula that has worked well for them, judging by how many Phoenix’s are popping up around Sydney. But it is growing increasingly tired and predictable… which is unfortunately how I feel about Yum Cha in Sydney in general as looking back in the last 15 years of Yum Cha, the only great ‘innovation’ was the invention of the Mango Pancake.
Anyway back to Rhodes Phoenix — sure it is the best yum cha you can get around the Homebush/​Rhodes area and it is certainly a decent place for a group lunch but only because it is the *only* yum cha place in the area.

Have you ever had Yum Cha before? It is not a cuisine but more a style of serving I think. Yum cha used to mean Drink Tea. These days, it has expanded to include enjoying morning tea /​lunch by choosing food from a trolley.
The first time I tried Yum Cha, I didn’t know what to expect. Being a vegetarian I knew Chinese cuisine would have its own limitations. But the one thing I didn’t expect was to have a new dining experience.
Unlike other restaurants, where you sit down and order from a menu, and wait for the food to arrive, having food Yum Cha style meant as soon as I was seated, the food would come in trolleys where you could pick whatever you wanted and have it immediately served. Then, they would proceed to Stamp a sheet of paper, which you carry to the Billing counter after you’ve eaten to pay for your meal.
Phoenix at Rhodes in located on the mezzanine level above the food court. The style is bold and the the place is huge. It can easily seat 100+ people. The food is served a la carte or yum cha style. The service is very quick. The trolleys come by so quickly. And each trolley is different from the one before. You can request for some dishes, but its best to wait and watch, what comes around and pick from it.
I loved the Mango Pudding and wished it would come by more often. Alas, the dim sums seemed to be a more regular theme. The spring rolls are vegetarian and quite good too.

Used to frequent this restaurant for dim sum. Food is good, quite a good variety of dim sum. Service was prompt.