Oriental tea house have got a good thing going. Located in upper class or corporate areas, they serve teas and yum cha to white people at double the price of a similar Chinatown establishment.
Nonetheless, Oriental tea house on Little Collins St do a full service Yum Cha on Fridays, and if you work in the area and don’t have time to get to Chinatown then it works well if you need your dumpling and fried octopus tentacle fix. Recommended, but not over more authentic establishments.
Showing posts with label chinese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chinese. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
SHANGHAI NOODLE HOUSE
15 Tattersalls Lane, Melbourne VIC 3000
So a group of us wandered in here after going to Camy’s, only to discover they were pushing that skanky, shite banquet on all their punters (who were still lining up in the rain for it – get a clue peoples!!). So, we thought, why not try this place, it looks allright doesn’t it? And we were very pleased.
They don’t serve alcohol, but do BYO, so we nipped down to Lt Bourke St and got a bottle of wine, and had some seriously tasty dumplings. The walls are decorated with brightly coloured pieces of cardboard which advertise specials and menu items, which I found cute. It reminded me a lot of some of the places in Adelaide’s Chinatown. The food was lovely and cheap. The waiter was very friendly, and we were not unceremoniously kicked out as soon as the last dumpling had passed our lips, like some other cheap Chinatown establishments! I’ve been there twice now, and both times had a great experience and ate lots of delicious dumplings. So if you wander down Tatersalls lane for Camy’s and either a) there is a line or b) it’s banquet only, go next door. You won’t regret it!
So a group of us wandered in here after going to Camy’s, only to discover they were pushing that skanky, shite banquet on all their punters (who were still lining up in the rain for it – get a clue peoples!!). So, we thought, why not try this place, it looks allright doesn’t it? And we were very pleased.
They don’t serve alcohol, but do BYO, so we nipped down to Lt Bourke St and got a bottle of wine, and had some seriously tasty dumplings. The walls are decorated with brightly coloured pieces of cardboard which advertise specials and menu items, which I found cute. It reminded me a lot of some of the places in Adelaide’s Chinatown. The food was lovely and cheap. The waiter was very friendly, and we were not unceremoniously kicked out as soon as the last dumpling had passed our lips, like some other cheap Chinatown establishments! I’ve been there twice now, and both times had a great experience and ate lots of delicious dumplings. So if you wander down Tatersalls lane for Camy’s and either a) there is a line or b) it’s banquet only, go next door. You won’t regret it!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
DUMPLINGS PLUS
269 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000
Ph (03) 9663 8181
Dumplings Plus….does not serve vegetarian dumplings. Massive Dumpling Fail!! My friend S and I, who is vego, went to get some dumplings after a few drinks….sat down, only to find they don’t have vegetable dumplings on the menu!! WTF is this shit?!?!? Not good enough, I think vegie dumplings should be a given at any self-respecting dumpling house. This aside, the food we did order was quite nice. We had Tom Yum tofu, which was lovely, and massive, with some fried rice and chinese green vegetables. Staff were friendly, food is cheap and quick. If you are vego, don’t go to Dumplings Plus! Otherwise it’s all good.
Ph (03) 9663 8181
Dumplings Plus….does not serve vegetarian dumplings. Massive Dumpling Fail!! My friend S and I, who is vego, went to get some dumplings after a few drinks….sat down, only to find they don’t have vegetable dumplings on the menu!! WTF is this shit?!?!? Not good enough, I think vegie dumplings should be a given at any self-respecting dumpling house. This aside, the food we did order was quite nice. We had Tom Yum tofu, which was lovely, and massive, with some fried rice and chinese green vegetables. Staff were friendly, food is cheap and quick. If you are vego, don’t go to Dumplings Plus! Otherwise it’s all good.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
SAN CHOI
352 Chapel Street, South Yarra VIC 3141
Ph (03 9826 9933)
I walked past San Choi a thousand times before I actually went in there. It is open late, and I found myself there around midnight one Saturday night after a movie and a few drinks. You know that stage when you realise you forgot to have dinner and you’re half pissed and need to eat something right now before you crash and burn? That’s how we were when we ended up at San Choi.
The menu is quite extensive and our tipsy brains were struggling to make a decision. Luckily our waiter was super-awesome and was able to make some solid suggestions based on the vague statements we had made regarding our needs. Our food came out quickly and tasted good. We had some prawn toast, chinese broccoli (I am obsessed with it) a chicken dish and some spicy squid. All were good – the squid was my favourite. Reasonable prices as well, and that waiter really was very good. He was really good at his job and didn’t seem to mind at all that he was serving drunk white people late on a Saturday night. I’d like to go back and check it out again for a proper dinner, rather than a stomach liner!
Ph (03 9826 9933)
I walked past San Choi a thousand times before I actually went in there. It is open late, and I found myself there around midnight one Saturday night after a movie and a few drinks. You know that stage when you realise you forgot to have dinner and you’re half pissed and need to eat something right now before you crash and burn? That’s how we were when we ended up at San Choi.
The menu is quite extensive and our tipsy brains were struggling to make a decision. Luckily our waiter was super-awesome and was able to make some solid suggestions based on the vague statements we had made regarding our needs. Our food came out quickly and tasted good. We had some prawn toast, chinese broccoli (I am obsessed with it) a chicken dish and some spicy squid. All were good – the squid was my favourite. Reasonable prices as well, and that waiter really was very good. He was really good at his job and didn’t seem to mind at all that he was serving drunk white people late on a Saturday night. I’d like to go back and check it out again for a proper dinner, rather than a stomach liner!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
SHARK FIN HOUSE
131 Little Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000
A few people have said to me that the service is pretty bad, but I found it to be OK. You shouldn’t expect silver service at Yum Cha; it’s all part of the experience. There was always a trolley coming around to our table, and I even got a couple of smiles out of our waitress. They had a lot of staff working the floor; all in all I thought it was a very tight operation considering they have three floors to manage! I definitely recommend this place and will be going back again soon.
Ph (03) 9663 1555
I just got back from a lovely brunch with two girlfriends at Shark Fin House. I can’t believe I had never been there before!! It was so good! As far as Yum Cha goes, the food was excellent and there was a great variety of dishes to choose from. I am supposed to be at the gym now working it off, but I decided I was too behind on the blog to exercise!! The dumplings were superb, the prawn toast was excellent, the chinese broccoli was nice, but the best thing EVER was the sago pudding – Oh my GOD! I had never had it before; because I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth I usually fill up on savouries at Yum Cha and skip the desserts. I was about to do the same today, but decided to have a taste of the Sago pudding before the girls finished it off, because they were raving about how tasty it was. I had basically just finished my little monologue about not having a sweet tooth, blah, blah, blah when I had a taste of the pudding and it was so good my eyes almost popped out of my head with excitement! Then I proceeded to scoff the rest of the pudding, much to the amusement of the girls!! We decided to get another one to share because one third each wasn’t enough!!
A few people have said to me that the service is pretty bad, but I found it to be OK. You shouldn’t expect silver service at Yum Cha; it’s all part of the experience. There was always a trolley coming around to our table, and I even got a couple of smiles out of our waitress. They had a lot of staff working the floor; all in all I thought it was a very tight operation considering they have three floors to manage! I definitely recommend this place and will be going back again soon.
Monday, February 8, 2010
NORTH EAST CHINA FAMILY RESTAURANT
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.
CAMY’S SHANGHAI DUMPLING HOUSE
25 Tattersalls Lane, Melbourne
OK, so I LOVE Shanghai dumpling. This is probably the only restaurant I have waited outside in the rain for! Yes, I go there a lot, and yes, there have been stories of cockroaches in the kitchen, and yes the staff are rude (there is one particularly vile girl who usually is working upstairs, and every time you look in her general direction she looks at you like she is going to come into your bedroom at night while you are sleeping and slit your throat), and yes I pretty much order the same thing every time I go, but this place is a Melbourne institution. I always take interstate visitors there, and a meal plus a beer always costs $15.
I’m not too keen on the recent introduction of the ‘banquet’, it seems to me just a way to get customers to spend more money in the restaurant. I tried the banquet and found we didn’t eat half the food. I guess usually when I go there I am usually lining my stomach after a couple of after work drinks, in between the first place and the next place, so I’m not looking for a huge feed, just a quick cheap bite.
They also do BYO and corkage is quite cheap, so if you have a group you can bring a bottle of something. I usually just go for the $5 Tiger or Tsing-Tsao beers though, because it’s not the kind of place you tend to kick back with a couple of vinos. As soon as you arrive you are expected to order (no mulling over the menu!!), and as soon as you stop eating you are hustled out the door, which I like because it’s one of the reasons the food so cheap and is all part of its charm.
If you haven’t already visited Shanghai Dumpling, do so immediately, even if you are just going to bitch about it. It’s one of those places you need to know about if you’re going to call yourself a Melbournian.
OK, so I LOVE Shanghai dumpling. This is probably the only restaurant I have waited outside in the rain for! Yes, I go there a lot, and yes, there have been stories of cockroaches in the kitchen, and yes the staff are rude (there is one particularly vile girl who usually is working upstairs, and every time you look in her general direction she looks at you like she is going to come into your bedroom at night while you are sleeping and slit your throat), and yes I pretty much order the same thing every time I go, but this place is a Melbourne institution. I always take interstate visitors there, and a meal plus a beer always costs $15.
I’m not too keen on the recent introduction of the ‘banquet’, it seems to me just a way to get customers to spend more money in the restaurant. I tried the banquet and found we didn’t eat half the food. I guess usually when I go there I am usually lining my stomach after a couple of after work drinks, in between the first place and the next place, so I’m not looking for a huge feed, just a quick cheap bite.
They also do BYO and corkage is quite cheap, so if you have a group you can bring a bottle of something. I usually just go for the $5 Tiger or Tsing-Tsao beers though, because it’s not the kind of place you tend to kick back with a couple of vinos. As soon as you arrive you are expected to order (no mulling over the menu!!), and as soon as you stop eating you are hustled out the door, which I like because it’s one of the reasons the food so cheap and is all part of its charm.
If you haven’t already visited Shanghai Dumpling, do so immediately, even if you are just going to bitch about it. It’s one of those places you need to know about if you’re going to call yourself a Melbournian.
EPILOGUE TO SHANGHAI DUMPLING POST:
OK so the banquet officially SUCKS. Some friends and I went in over Chinese New Year and the only option was banquet. It was awful. Half of the food is fried crap that I wouldn’t order from the normal menu, we just ate it because it was served to us. Also the owner put a plate of fried pork dumplings on our table that he had clearly just taken off another group’s table. They were stone cold and I do I even need to mention the food hygiene implications?? I mean, look, they probably do that behind the scenes, but if that IS what they do, I don’t want to know about it!! It was very blatant and there was no way we were eating them. So under no circumstances should anyone ever order the banquet. I don’t care how good the perceived value is! Normal menu is fine, banquet is not!
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