Tag Archives: Chinese food

Wang Wang Dumpling

1 Comment

3/51 Waterfield St, Coburg. Phone: 9354 0294

Who needs leafy, scenic vistas or coastal views when you can gaze out on a Coburg parking lot?

Such an outlook may have a whiff of reverse snobbery about it, but nevertheless it reflects the kind of food we like to eat, the places we like to eat it in and the prices we like to pay.

Wang Wang Dumpling was noted down for do-soon exploration on a recent lazy afternoon spent exploring Brunswick Market and other interesting bits of Sydney Rd.

So it’s a pleasure to stroll in for our regular Saturday lunch outing.

The interior is actually rather swish considering the vehicular scenery.

We are happy to adhere to the obliging staff’s recommendations after telling them of our haste – not because we’re in hurry, but because we’re hungry.

We order dumpling in hot and sour soup ($9) and Shanghai fried noodle ($9.50).

The soup ‘n’ noodles combo is a doozy – and at the most tender of pinches could suffice as lunch for both of us.

Swimming in the viscous soup are 10 dumplings.

The soup is delicious – of mild spiciness, it’s chock-full of egg, tofu strands, mushrooms, chilli, peas and perhaps more.

The pork dumplings are sublime. They have a distinctive flavour, the nature of which I endeavour to discover as I pay, with no great success. Best I can say is pepper is involved.

The noodles are plainer, and thus complement perfectly the rich and spicy soup/dumplings.

Joining the noodles are fresh mushrooms, bok choy and tender beef pieces, the lot tossed in a soy and oil sauce.

The hand-made noodles themselves are the highlight.

Al dente, they are of irregular girth and very yummy.

This is a meal of many joyful slurps.

We are eager to return to explore the menu further.

Bennie likes the look/sound of the Shanghai duck seasoned with soy sauce. Kenny will happy to stick a pin in the menu, so varied and enticing are the myriad noodle and dumpling offerings.

Wang Wang Dumpling on Urbanspoon

Green Tea

3 Comments

320 Racecourse Rd, Flemington. Phone: 9372 6369

What do you do on Judgment Day?

We go to Racecourse Rd for lunch.

We first check one of our fave Turkish kebab meats ‘n’ dips places, but hastily retreat when we realise the plate-size lunches have escalated in price to $15 and more.

Plan B is definitely Green Tea.

While a whole bunch of folks are having a fine old time comparing the relative merits of the next-door-neighbours Laksa King and Chef Lagenda, around the corner in Pin Oak Crescent, something appeals to us about checking out the premises vacated by Laksa King in the process of moving to its swish abode.

So it is that we amble up the arcade known to generations of Melbourne cheap eaters.

The space that was formerly Laksa King has undergone a transformation from those dog-eared and dingy days. It looks swell and swish, with much dark wood.

On the signage outside, Green Tea announces itself as purveying “Vietnamese & Chinese Cuisine”, but there are also Thai and Malaysian-derived dishes on the menu.

There’s pho, laksas, nasi goreng, green curry, pork belly hot pot and chicken teriyaki.

Will this be capable multi-tradition, perhaps even sensational? Or just a clumsy melange?

First up is a complementary plate of prawn crackers.

Then dad learns a lesson about letting Bennie have the run of the drinks cabinet unsupervised – to the tune of $3.80 and a bottle of Cascade sarsaparilla.

Bennie, meanwhile, learns that sarsaparilla tastes like not particularly nice medicine and smells like footy changerooms.

Two plain dimmies are stodgy, hot and delicious, but pretty steep at $4.90.

Having already pronounced a hankering for fried noodles of some sort, Bennie orders the mee goreng ($10.80).

It’s a good one without reaching any great heights. Some more seasoning zing may’ve been a good idea. This dish is routinely served with a lemon wedge on the side. We ask for one and it is provided.

That the lad fails to finish his food, though, says more about its quantity than quality.


I order the beef laksa.

I get the vegetable laksa ($8.80).

I’m not one for sending perfectly good food back to the kitchen – not today anyway – and proceed to enjoy what is an impressive array of non-meat goodies.

In my bowl are bok choy and other leafy vegetables, cauliflower, broccoli, onion, carrot, green beans, tofu, baby corn, two kinds of mushroom and quite possibly some items that escaped notice.

The noodles are egg only; no rice noodles here. Nor is the usual pile of bean sprouts resting under all.

The soup is thin, uncreamy and not particularly flavoursome. As well, I’m pretty sure I detect a whiff of tom yum about it all.

The whole experience is a bit odd.

Paying for our $31.10 meal with a $50 note, I receive a handful of shrapnel in return.

Dang! I really wanted to be knocked out by this place.

Green Tea on Urbanspoon

Yummie Hong Kong Dim Sum

4 Comments

189-193 Barkly St, Footscray. Phone: 9078 8778

Bennie’s mate, Rakha, is spending a large chunk of Sunday with us – and a fine thing this is.

We dig his company a bunch, of course, but his arrival also opens up unexpected vistas in terms of luncheon possibilities.

Bennie has been bugging his dad for months for a return visit to Yummie, but dad has concluded that yum cha is unviable unless we have at least one buddy along for the ride.

Even better, Rakha was an enthusiastic participant in our most recent yum cha outing, several months previously in the CBD.

So off we go!

I’ve never seen lads so eagerly relinquish a PlayStation.

Yummie has a strictly functional ambiance and is unheated. It occupies premises that once housed a cheap, good and short-lived Indian place and, before that, a Polish deli.

As is our general experience with yum cha, there is a certain amount of low-key anarchy and chaos.

Sometimes there are longish waits for food – any food.

Other times it’s a case of too much on offer.

Our previous visits had been of the mid-week evening variety, when we ordered from the list.

Personally, I prefer this to the mobile cart tradition – you get exactly what you want, or at least ordered, and with a higher probability of fresh-out-of-the-steamer.

For this Sunday lunch, though, there are trolleys, so we’re a bit confused. Some of the occupied tables also seem to be ordering  a la carte.

We enjoy a pretty good lunch doing a bit of both.

We start with trolley-derived deep-fried won tons ($4.80).

These are barely OK – and barely luke warm.

Also from the trolley service come prawn dumplings ($5.80) and chive dumplings ($5.80).

This is more like it!

They’re all hot and fresh, with lovely casings of typical stickiness and with prawn fillings of sublime semi-crunch texture.

Next up is our order of chicken feet ($3.80).

They have close to zero of the black bean and chilli zing we’re expecting, but they’re so hot and tender that they are greeted with all-round acclaim.

Also a la carte is a rice roll with deep-fried flour ($6.80), ordered on the basis of my inquiry to a neigbouring table: “What is that?”

This, frankly, is a little weird.

The soft rice covering surrounds fried dough of some sort and also spinach or some similar leafy vegetable. It all disappears, though, and is tasty dipped in the accompanying bowl of oyster sauce.

Perhaps the prawn, beef or BBQ pork versions might be the go next time.

For our last hurrah, we tackle two more trolley items – BBQ pork pastry ($3.80) and deep-fried prawn roll ($4.80).


The pork items are for the boys – just as well, as there’s only two of them.

They like them, but both concede they prefer the steamed bun variety.

The prawn roll is, with the chicken feet, a highlight.

For each us of there’s a flat and crispy fried tofu casing wrapped around fine prawn filling. They’re very good.

There are more highly regarded yum cha places in our extended westie neighbourhood, but choice is limited close to home.

As well, it’s not that much of priority for us.

In that context, Yummie does just fine when the mood strikes us.

It’s reassuring, too, to note that for Sunday lunch – peak traffic time for yum cha the world over – Yummie is busy without being frantic.

Ms Baklover’s review of Yummie at Footscray Food Blog is here.

Yummie Hong Kong Dim Sum on Urbanspoon



Just Good Food

6 Comments

Please note: These premises now house a restaurant called Phi Phi.

28 Alfrieda St, St Albans. Phone: 9310 9881

St Albans is such an unknown quantity that picking a place to eat is a bit of a lottery, but we resolve to not stress at all about where we’re going to eat or what we’re going to eat there.

As it is, a few seconds after ambling on to Alfrieda St, our choice is more or less made for us as we spy an emporium whose splendid name we had noted with approval on a previous visit.

Just Good Food?

Sounds good to us!

In we go to a bright and cheerful room, to be greeted by efficient but friendly staff – table, menu, order are all organised with cheerful briskness.

For this Saturday lunch shift, a couple of tables of folk are already chowing down.

Just Good Food is a hardcore Chinese place on a street dominated by a Viet vibe.

I reckon they probably turn on some splash-up and pricey seafood for dinners, and the few steamers we see about the place suggest there is yum cha to be had, too.

But for lunch, the usual range of rice and noodles seems to be the go, so we go with that flow by both ordering two-roast combos at $9.

“I want to try duck,” says Bennie – so duck he gets, accompanied by barbecued roast pork on rice.


Of the many unexpected joys that doing Consider The Sauce has conferred upon us, that it has become such a delicious father-and-son project is paramount.

Moreover, Bennie insists on reading each story just after it is posted, playing a vital proof reader and sub-editor role by pointing out mistakes, keeping his eyes peeled for likely looking fang venues and – in this case – taking some of the photos.

I order the barbecued roast pork, too, with soya sauce chicken in egg noodle soup.

As more food exotica enters our neighbourhood, Chinese roast meats can almost be seen as old-school in the same vein as steak and black bean sauce, but sometimes they simply hit the spot perfectly.

This is one of those times.

Our meats are very good indeed.

The pork is a deep pink and as lean as any I’ve seen. The soya sauce chicken is moist and juicy, even the meatier segments which can sometime be on the dry side, although as ever care is vital for any one of a certain age with a multi-thousand dollar dental investment to protect. Beware of them bones, folks!

Bennie likes his duck, especially once he works his way past the more bony bits – mind you, for a lad who digs chicken feet, a bit of skin and gristle is hardly hard labour either.

He makes appreciative noises about how the meat juices have soaked into his rice, while my soup is hot, a little peppery and light on the grease. Along with the meat, we both gobble up our bok choy pieces, making us feel all virtuous.

And then we’re done. What a beaut lunch – and just what we were looking for.


Just Good Food is one of those places that has multilingual signs festooned around the wall. From them we learn that they have live barramundi for $23.80 and oysters for $1.50 a pop. As well, there is a list of about 20 basic yum cha items costing between $4 and $5, though whether they are housemade or not we know not.

So it seems that Just Good Food may be quite a find.

While our meats were very good indeed, I’m not about to confer on them “best ever” status or anything like that.

But the service and warmth of welcome does put Just Good Food a cut above, especially from a certain Footscray place that boasts a similar lineup but from where he have long since stopped supping due to a frequently belligerent attitude.

As we approach the front counter to pay, we are spared the common routine of explaining where we had sat and what we had eaten,  a cheerful “$20.50 please!” greeting us instead.

In such places and at such times, it is a mistake to confuse a welcome briskness with a rude brusqueness.

The staff are completely at ease with our photographic efforts and even allow us a peek of the giant ovens out back from whence the meats emanate.

As we stroll back to the car, we are blessed and awed by witnessing what we subsequently discover is an amazing sun dog (photo below).

Yummy – some kind of Saturday lunch, eh?

Just Good Food on Urbanspoon