We've been going to North East China Family Restaurant ever since it opened, which was about three years ago. It's our go-to place for takeout on a Friday night as a reward for a long hard work week; when a whole stack of family come to visit, it has room for large groups and a menu with something to please everyone from kids with soft palates to grown ups with savoury palates. We have had stacks of meals either there or from there. What's that you say? You should blog it, already? Okay.
You can tell it's north-eastern food because the chili oil and vinegar are already on the table. V is for vinegar, and the chili oil is in the short round bowls.
302 Flinders Lane
Melbourne, 3000
No website, but try this
Not a Six Degrees architectural space, this. It's a standard box of a commercial/restaurant space in the city, with lots of seating downstairs, the kitchen at the back, and an upstairs balcony level used for overflow seating. Times may have been good in the last few years, as there has been a repainting and the installation of a couple of large screen TVs, which seem to show either infomercials about property investment or Chinese game shows. They're both pretty entertaining.
It's nice to see that the tables and chairs are nice dark wood, decently carved, and not just the standard laminex and steamed curved wood chairs you find in so many places. NE China Family is a little more expensive than the generic Chinatown dumpling/noodle places, but both the presentation and the food are a step of quality higher that justifies that to my mind.
When it's busy (Thursday, Friday night, lunchtimes depending on the time of year) service can be a little slow and the quality of the food can slip a little, but the dumpling skins being a bit thicker or thinner, and the food taking a little longer is the worst we've noticed over the years. Accept that if it's busy, you need to sit back, relax with a Tsing-Tao from the bar or a bottle of wine from the bottle shop across the road, and enjoy the company for a little longer. Noise volumes can be quite high on those busy nights - this is a lively, energetic place, so if you want a quiet tete-a-tete turn up on a Monday or Tuesday.
But let's talk about the food.
Shrimp meat pot-stickers (6 pieces for $12) are a whole prawn inside a soft semi-transparent dumpling. Grab it by the sticking-out tail (a presentation I don't remember seeing elsewhere), dip it in the vinegar, chili oil or both that you have put into your serving bowl, and enjoy the soft juiciness. This was a great dish. Don't eat the tail. It's chewy.
Hot & sour soup ($3.50) - a bowl with bits of tofu, vegetables and pork in a rich and fiery broth, almost literally foaming at the rim. OGF diner Coljac, who was with us for this munch, described the dish as "nuclear hot", and given his travels in northern China we trust him on the issue. Actually, as in many of these soups, there is a film of chili oil (or Szechuan pepper oil) on the top, which Coljac took the brunt of. It gets gentler as you work through it, I promise.
Chicken and prawn dumplings (15 pieces for $11). Medium firm skins, enough to chew on without being tough, and mild flavours of chicken and prawn mince within. I like these with a little chili oil and vinegar.
Pork and pickled Chinese cabbage dumplings (15 pieces for $8.50). Clear pork flavour, didn't really pick up any pickle flavour from the cabbage, skins medium to thick. Not the most exciting dish they have but quite nice dumplings.
Sauteed shredded pork in sweet bean sauce. This is one of the dishes that keeps us coming back here, because we've never seen it anywhere else. Little shredded pork strips are cooked in a sweet bean (Hoisin or maybe yellow bean) sauce and then put on a bed of shredded leeks and served with pancakes, which are like Peking duck pancakes, maybe a little larger and thicker.
You wrap it up in your pancake, roll in the traditional way (bottom first then sides) and chow down. Soft pork, mild savoury sauce, fresh bitey leeks - we love this one too. You may need to order extra pancakes depending on how heavily you fill them. We think a little can go a long way here. Interactive food is always a good thing.
And here are some simple standard dishes that can tell you a lot about a restaurant. Green Vegetables with Oyster Sauce ($12) can be a token dish in some restaurants, but here it's a heaping bowl of steamed/fried bok choy with a generous coating of oyster sauce with some garlic, stock and no doubt a little vegetable oil to emulsify it.
Ma Po Tofu ($12.50) is another fine dish. Slightly sweet pork in a mildly hot sauce, but what sets this apart is the balance between the tofu and the pork and the spices. I'm not a huge tofu fan, but I really like this dish here. And we love the firmness of the tofu.
Shrimp, leek and egg dumpling (15 pieces for $11.00 (fried, fried is $1 extra)). Again a pretty delicate dumpling with mild flavours within, you want to look to the vinegar or chili oil for some bang if you have a jaded palate like mine. And when you order fried dumplings they warn you they will take twenty minutes or more. A little crusty skin around the lower edge shows that they cook them from the start in the wok pot-sticker style, rather than taking pre-steamed dumplings and giving them a quick fry like some places do. A positive sign I think.
No xiao long bao here then, but plenty of good strong flavours, good quality and value for money (BYO! Why are only Asian restaurants BYO in the city these days?) and a unique dish. That's why we keep coming back.
Happy dumplinging,
Ecumer
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