302 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
After reading the blog ‘stuff white people like in Melbourne’ (stuffwhitepeoplelikeinmelbourne.blogspot.com – it’s very funny, you should check it out), I became very ashamed of the frequency of my visits to Shanghai Dumpling House. So I decided that I should get out there and try some other dumpling places. A girlfriend recommended it to me, so my friend D and I went to check it out one Friday night after work.
So, the first thing that had to be said is when we walked in to the restaurant, the waiter asked us if we wanted forks. Now, as someone from the northern suburbs of Adelaide who didn’t pick up her first set of chopsticks until the age of 18, and who has managed to overcome the adversity of her bogan heritage and fashion herself into a worldly, urban professional (although will exploit her bogan cred where appropriate/advantageous), OF COURSE I DON’T WANT A FUCKING FORK!! Of course, the waiter didn’t know my life story, however, if he had a clue he would know that any self-respecting white Melbournian wants to show how highly developed their chopstick-wielding skills are. Asking for a fork is like saying “I am a huge bogan and I have no idea about ethnic cuisine and yes some lemon chicken would be great thanks.”
So, forkless, we sat down and ordered some dumplings and a side serve of vegetables. I asked the waiter for a beer – the waiter (for whom English was a second language) didn’t understand what I said and asked me to repeat what I wanted. After saying “Beer” a few different ways (BEE-er, Bay-er, Be-EER) and gesturing desperately at the beer fridge, he went away, but instead of returning with an icy cold beer what does he bring me?? A FUCKING FORK, THAT’S WHAT! So I guess the waiter was like “hmmm I have no idea what this girl is asking for, she is white, she must want a fork, yeah that’s probably what she wants, I’ll go get her a fork, yeah, a fork.” I was furious, D thought this was absolutely hilarious, and in hindsight (now that I am over the trauma of it all), it was pretty funny.
So I had better move on to the food. It wasn’t bad, more expensive than Shanghai Dumpling ($8 for a plate of 15 vegetarian dumplings) but the dumplings were quite nice. The chinese vegetables we had were also good. The restaurant is also more spacious than Shanghai Dumpling, and they have their own branded crockery which is quite cute.
About halfway through the meal, my dining companion D found a plastic key tag in his dumplings. This is not good. When I pointed out to the waitress that we had found a foreign object in our food, she simply went “uhh”, and took the key tag into the kitchen. There was no look of horror, no embarrassment and no apology! This incident has caused a great deal of argument between myself and D, because I think that something like that is really, really bad (having worked in food service before), whereas he doesn’t think it’s much of a big deal (he used to work at Subway – I guess their food hygiene and safety standards aren’t that high). Although about 2 weeks after our visit, it actually dawned on me that I continued to eat my meal after the discovery of the key tag. So while I was happy to harp on about it obviously subconsciously I wasn’t concerned enough to actually stop eating!
I went back to North East China Family a couple of weeks ago – I thought they deserved a second chance. I’m happy to report that this time there was no plastic key tag in the food and I didn’t have any forks pushed on me by waiters who are insensitive to the struggles that the bogan race faces every day. The food was again good. I am still undecided though – I just don’t know if I can recommend a restaurant that doesn’t even give a shit when random objects make their way into customers food. Makes for a good story though.
After reading the blog ‘stuff white people like in Melbourne’ (stuffwhitepeoplelikeinmelbourne.blogspot.com – it’s very funny, you should check it out), I became very ashamed of the frequency of my visits to Shanghai Dumpling House. So I decided that I should get out there and try some other dumpling places. A girlfriend recommended it to me, so my friend D and I went to check it out one Friday night after work.
So, the first thing that had to be said is when we walked in to the restaurant, the waiter asked us if we wanted forks. Now, as someone from the northern suburbs of Adelaide who didn’t pick up her first set of chopsticks until the age of 18, and who has managed to overcome the adversity of her bogan heritage and fashion herself into a worldly, urban professional (although will exploit her bogan cred where appropriate/advantageous), OF COURSE I DON’T WANT A FUCKING FORK!! Of course, the waiter didn’t know my life story, however, if he had a clue he would know that any self-respecting white Melbournian wants to show how highly developed their chopstick-wielding skills are. Asking for a fork is like saying “I am a huge bogan and I have no idea about ethnic cuisine and yes some lemon chicken would be great thanks.”
So, forkless, we sat down and ordered some dumplings and a side serve of vegetables. I asked the waiter for a beer – the waiter (for whom English was a second language) didn’t understand what I said and asked me to repeat what I wanted. After saying “Beer” a few different ways (BEE-er, Bay-er, Be-EER) and gesturing desperately at the beer fridge, he went away, but instead of returning with an icy cold beer what does he bring me?? A FUCKING FORK, THAT’S WHAT! So I guess the waiter was like “hmmm I have no idea what this girl is asking for, she is white, she must want a fork, yeah that’s probably what she wants, I’ll go get her a fork, yeah, a fork.” I was furious, D thought this was absolutely hilarious, and in hindsight (now that I am over the trauma of it all), it was pretty funny.
So I had better move on to the food. It wasn’t bad, more expensive than Shanghai Dumpling ($8 for a plate of 15 vegetarian dumplings) but the dumplings were quite nice. The chinese vegetables we had were also good. The restaurant is also more spacious than Shanghai Dumpling, and they have their own branded crockery which is quite cute.
About halfway through the meal, my dining companion D found a plastic key tag in his dumplings. This is not good. When I pointed out to the waitress that we had found a foreign object in our food, she simply went “uhh”, and took the key tag into the kitchen. There was no look of horror, no embarrassment and no apology! This incident has caused a great deal of argument between myself and D, because I think that something like that is really, really bad (having worked in food service before), whereas he doesn’t think it’s much of a big deal (he used to work at Subway – I guess their food hygiene and safety standards aren’t that high). Although about 2 weeks after our visit, it actually dawned on me that I continued to eat my meal after the discovery of the key tag. So while I was happy to harp on about it obviously subconsciously I wasn’t concerned enough to actually stop eating!
I went back to North East China Family a couple of weeks ago – I thought they deserved a second chance. I’m happy to report that this time there was no plastic key tag in the food and I didn’t have any forks pushed on me by waiters who are insensitive to the struggles that the bogan race faces every day. The food was again good. I am still undecided though – I just don’t know if I can recommend a restaurant that doesn’t even give a shit when random objects make their way into customers food. Makes for a good story though.
No comments:
Post a Comment