14.5 / 20 How we score Cantonese $$ $$ “You can’t help but trust a restaurant filled with Cantonese-speaking patrons,” says Dim Joy House on social media, right under an image of big round tables crowded with people and topped with dumpling steamers. The pride in both their food and culture is palpable.
With so many Cantonese restaurants opening in the past 12 months – Chinatown’s Royal Palace, Double Bay’s Song Bird, Darlinghurst’s Wan’s Cantonese and now, Chatswood’s Dim Joy House – there’s a sense of old traditions being celebrated and handed down. The 160-seater opened inside Chatswood RSL in June this year. Owners Dennis Chair and Carmen Cai were behind Lynn Shanghai Cuisine at the Castlereagh Street RSL until it closed in 2021, and also run Green Sprouts Vegetarian in Neutral Bay.
There are the usual RSL formalities to go through – register your ID at the front counter or sign in, find out who won the Mega Meat Raffle, follow a circuitous route upstairs between fantasy lands of pokies – before you get to sit down in the attractive dining room. Pony Design Co. has fitted out the place with soft, muted tones, bentwood chairs, round tables, draped private rooms, timber panelling and display shelves full of elegant Chinese artefacts.
But the real reason we’re all here is inside the kitchen. The chefs are old-school, and hail from Chinatown’s greats – East Ocean, Emperor’s Garden, Golden Century, Zilver and Marigold. Head chef Ming Biu Tam h.