Little Canton is a Chinese restaurant found in a small shopping complex on Henley Beach Road in Mile End. While the restaurant doesn’t appear to be large from the outside, the venue is deceptively spacious. The interior is basic and well presented, and there is an abundance of natural light that flows through their floor to ceiling windows. The menu is quite extensive with a lot of authentic Chinese dishes. They also do yum cha from 11am to 3pm daily, however, the food is cooked as ordered instead of coming around in a trolley.

For lunch, we ordered a selection of yum cha dishes to share. All the dishes came out at the same time 15 minutes after ordering.

The BBQ Pork Pastry was a nice golden brown and the exterior was nice and flaky. The barbecue pork filling was lean and full of flavour, however, it was lukewarm.

The Salt and Pepper Squid was served up in generous proportions. The coating on the squid was nice and firm, and almost crunchy. This could only mean that the squid was overcooked, and it was.

The King Prawn Balls came with a mayonnaise dipping sauce. The exterior was firm and crunchy, and it reminded me of a dim sim. The filling was soft and moist, and the dipping sauce complimented it well.

The Prawn Puffs were nicely fried in a crunchy noodle batter. The prawn mince filling was juicy and moist, and it really went well with the sweet and sour dipping sauce.

The Spring Rolls were fried until they were nice and crunchy. They used several layers of spring roll skin to emphasise the crunchiness. The filling was soft and moist, and well balanced. This dish also went well with the sweet and sour dipping sauce.

The King Prawn Dumplings were perfectly cooked. The skin was thin and clear, and they didn’t fall apart when you picked them up. The whole pieces of king prawns inside were tender and succulent. The filling was full of flavour and it went really well with the chilli oil dipping sauce.

The Scallop Dumplings were also well cooked. Nice thin and clear translucent dumpling skin that was firm and did not fall apart. There were whole morsels of scallop and king prawns inside which were nice and juicy. Again, this dish worked well with the chilli oil dipping sauce.

Shiu Mai was probably my least favourite. I’m used to the filling being ground up in this dish, but instead there were whole pieces of pork and prawn. The pork was thick and fatty, and it didn’t make it very appetising. The flavours were right and it worked well with the chilli oil dipping sauce.

The staff were friendly and the service was average. Drinks arrived promptly and plates were cleared as we finished, but I found the staff to be inattentive whenever we needed them. The atmosphere was relaxed and the pricing was higher than average. The pricing for the yum cha dishes isn’t indicated anywhere so it was a surprise for us as to the cost of lunch. For the two of us, the total bill was $48 which is a bit more than what I usually pay. The average price for a decent yum cha feed is just under $20 per person. I also thought the dishes were hit and miss. Some were better executed than others.

WHERE: 173 Henley Beach Rd, Mile End