Shark Fin House in Melbourne Chinatown is well known for its dim sum. It is 3 storeys high but still pack to the brim and near impossible to get tables especially on weekends. There are 3 seatings at most Chinese restaurants here that serve dim sum with the first one at 11:00am, second at 12:30pm and last at 1:30pm.
We decided to try their dinner last Saturday and were handed the chinese menu. This made no sense to us as we cannot read or write mandarin so the head waiter gave us an English version instead. The English menu was somewhat lacking as we could not find any claypot tofu dishes on it. So when we ordered, we asked the waitress whether they serve claypot tofu with salted fish and she said yes. We asked why it was not in the menu and she said it was in the Chinese menu. Anyway, our second dish we ordered was venison with XO sauce from the English menu.
Service in Shark Fin is just average, it is always hard to get the attention of the waiters. Luckily the food came out quick. The claypot tofu was a winner. It had lots of salted fish in it and the sauce was well balanced with the chicken, ginger, tofu and salted fish. As for the venison, it was a different story altogether. The ginger and spring onion was lacking, the meat had too much corn starch and the XO sauce did not make its presence felt.
I have a high suspicion that the venison dish has been tweaked to the Aussie taste buds whereas the claypot tofu has remained a traditional Chinese dish. We will be more mindful in future not to order from the English menu and to just order dishes we know in Cantonese. I did not take any photos of the dishes this time as there were too many people sitting close by. I personally think I should just patronize Shark Fin House for its dim sum as it is best known for that.
We decided to try their dinner last Saturday and were handed the chinese menu. This made no sense to us as we cannot read or write mandarin so the head waiter gave us an English version instead. The English menu was somewhat lacking as we could not find any claypot tofu dishes on it. So when we ordered, we asked the waitress whether they serve claypot tofu with salted fish and she said yes. We asked why it was not in the menu and she said it was in the Chinese menu. Anyway, our second dish we ordered was venison with XO sauce from the English menu.
Service in Shark Fin is just average, it is always hard to get the attention of the waiters. Luckily the food came out quick. The claypot tofu was a winner. It had lots of salted fish in it and the sauce was well balanced with the chicken, ginger, tofu and salted fish. As for the venison, it was a different story altogether. The ginger and spring onion was lacking, the meat had too much corn starch and the XO sauce did not make its presence felt.
I have a high suspicion that the venison dish has been tweaked to the Aussie taste buds whereas the claypot tofu has remained a traditional Chinese dish. We will be more mindful in future not to order from the English menu and to just order dishes we know in Cantonese. I did not take any photos of the dishes this time as there were too many people sitting close by. I personally think I should just patronize Shark Fin House for its dim sum as it is best known for that.
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