Golden Times Chinese Restaurant

Golden Times Chinese Restaurant

Wests Ashfield Leagues, 115 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield

Dad loves seafood especially lobster. Last time he came to Sydney he found an ad in the Chinese newspaper about lobster special at this restaurant and had tried it and thought it was delicious and well worth the money. So this time he decided to bring us here again.

The restaurant is at the Wests Ashfield League Club - it's the most lavish and fancy sports club I've ever been too. Massive building, 2 stories high, chandeliers and all. All guests must become temporary members to go inside for the restaurants or pokies or whatever. Dad said last time they came they had to manually write their name, address etc onto a form, but this time, there are 6 computers in place each with a mini scanner which scans your drivers licence and gets all the information and prints it out onto a slip for you. Out of the 5 of us, only mine had the spelling of the name and address 100% correct - they all had either wrongly spelt names or addresses =P Guess the machine's pretty new still needs some tweaking =P

We told the waiter we wanted a lobster and a coral trout but unfortunately on this day, the coral trouts were very small and since they're priced per fish not by weight, it wasn't worth it. So we decided to try a Parrot fish - never had it before but was recommended to us so we gave it a go. Also got a pot of double boiled soup - more like the waiter made us get it but anyway =P

But it was really delicious - full of flavour! I think I had about 4 bowls - love Chinese soup =)

We got the lobster cooked 2 ways - sashimi for half of it, and fried with stock with underlying egg noodles.

How fantastic does this look! =) This is one of the only places we've been to who will do lobster sashimi - it comes served with ice overlying and amongst the lobster. Guess it tastes best icy cold =) The pieces are like little globules, not like salmon sashimi which can be cut nicely into slices. We initially had some without soy sauce first, and to be honest, it wasn't that special. Just tastes like something from the sea but didn't have much flavour and was a bit chewy. When we dipped it into the soy sauce the soy brings out the flavour of the lobster more, but I gotta say, I think I'm not a fan of raw lobster.

The next lobster dish came and my! THIS was delicious! Cooking it just brings out the lobster flavour so well - and it wasn't cooked in rich flavours like garlic or pepper which would have drowned out the lobster taste. Bouncy meat that can be pulled into strips, and I love the layer of skin which tastes like roe lining the inside of the shell =) Look at my perfectly de-shelled lobster leg ^____^

Next came the Parrot fish - it got deconstructed by the waiter before I could take a photo of it. A very meaty fish - very tasty, if it was overcooked would have been tough since there's not much fat but it was perfectly cooked. P didn't like this though - he said he'd rather have barramundi and he likes my soy better - this soy is not as sweet but it brings out the flavour of the fish.

The only dish we ordered from the menu was the Preserved Egg and Salted Egg with Baby Spinach in Premium Soup $22.80

Very fresh and cleansing - love preserved egg and salted egg! We were soo full by then we had to fill our tummy with the expensive lobster and fish didn't have much room for this =(

Food~
7/10 - I would not normally order such expensive seafood myself but my Dad loves it and yes, was very delicious =)

Atmosphere~
3/5 - quite pleasant on this weeknight in a very spacious restaurant

Service~
4/5 - very good service, but then again, we're paying for it =P

C.
xo