Chinatown Noodle Restaurant is a common shop name in this city. They all share a name but the cooking at each one is slightly different. This version lurks on Bathurst St just down from the Town Hall and we dig their hand made noodles and pan fried dumplings.
It's a L shaped room with booths around the bend for larger groups, so if you poke your head in and don't see any seating straight away dig in a little further. It does get busy at weekday lunch but we've found seats easy on the weekends.
Wonton soup noodles - $11.80. Sometimes you just want something nice and plain and warm. And here it is. Perfect. The brain shaped wontons have a pork filling with a dense texture, while their jackets are slippery and soft. Add a dollop of chilli from the table pot at the end to shake up the spice.
Special Braised Eggplant $14.80. We were surprised when this came out super sweet, almost toffee covered. There were some flecks of chilli inside the sauce but mostly this was super heat hot and sweet.
Hot and sour noodle soup - $11.80. If you want to shake up your soup broth game, try out this one. While this soup doesn't have the handmade noodles in it, it does have a slight sour mouth puckering flavour.
Xinjiang Chicken Stew $16.80. Chunky and roughly cut chicken pieces stewed with cloud ear fungus, onions, green capsicum and potatoes. Its a basic brown gravy type sauce (a smidge of soy and vinegar for colour) and you need to be bone-digging friendly.
Fragrant Chili Pork $12.80. A generous amount of pork and red and green capsicum in a chilli sauce., with those ever wonderful noodles. There was a good heat kick from the vinegary chilli, different to the usual dried Sichuan style.
Red braised beef noodle soup. $11.80. One of those broths-with-a-difference, this one is almost pho or Taiwanese in its fragrance of star anise and cassia and fennel seeds. The beef brisket pieces are super soft and although some pieces have a little gristle across them, they fall apart easily.
Half serve of pan fried dumplings - $6.80. We discovered you can order a half serve of dumplings, great if you only want a taste or feel virtuous in the new year by not over-ordering. Chicken or pork are your options, dipping in vinegar or chilli sauce your other choice. The ball of filling is porky pink and the outside has the fried colour and crunch you want.
Menu A-Side.
Menu B-side.
Chinatown Noodle Restaurant (Town Hall Shop) is at 77 Bathurst St, CBD. Go there once, go there many times. And if Bill Murray doesn't appear, then go there anyway. No one would believe you if he did.
"We recommend finishing all the broth first then coating the left-over noodles in chilli and vinegar at the end for a two course meal in one bowl."
ReplyDeleteGENIUS!!!