Last time that I mentioned Camy Shanghai Dumpling House, I conjectured that the popularity was due to its open secret status and cheapness. At least now we know where the cheapness comes from: not paying their staff. From the Herald-Sun: Mr Chang worked 13-hour days from 9.30am-10.30pm with only five-minute breaks, which had to be… Continue reading Indentured Labour: Camy Shanghai Dumpling House’s secret, part 2
Tag: Chinese Food
“It’s a minefield even for Asians”
I had dinner on Saturday at Poon’s Chinese Restaurant in Barkly Street, Footscray. It was the worst Cantonese meal that I’ve eaten in Melbourne. The service was gracious and friendly considering that they were packed and it was dirt cheap. The meal was a mistake but not an expensive one and it filled me with… Continue reading “It’s a minefield even for Asians”
Xiao Long Bao in the Gastrodesert: Little House, Bundoora
I think that it was Australian food writer John Lethlean who labelled the region north of Heidelberg in Melbourne as a gastrodesert. On the surface, it’s gastronomically grim up north; the oleaginous wasteland of charcoal chicken and Smorgy’s. People speak with fondness of shopping mall food courts and premixed bourbon and cola. If Stuff White… Continue reading Xiao Long Bao in the Gastrodesert: Little House, Bundoora
Four Seasons Claypot Rice
Tasty lens flare When there is a queue of twenty people out the front, take the hint. It is either very good or super cheap. Most of the time, I have a plan to eat my way around but after knocking back a handful of dumpling meals, I was satisfied by Hong Kong. This opened… Continue reading Four Seasons Claypot Rice
Meandering through Sheung Wan
Just to avoid the impression that I did nothing but eat dumplings in Hong Kong, I also spent a few lazy hours wandering the streets of Sheung Wan in a dumpling and pork induced stupor, planning which dumpling place I’d hit next and remembering dumplings past. Sheung Wan is where the edible dried miscellany vendors… Continue reading Meandering through Sheung Wan
Lin Heung, Hong Kong
Lin Heung is proof that the advice from random strangers on the Internet is better than anything published elsewhere. A commenter whom I’ve never seen before mentioned this dim sum joint amongst a handful of the sort of hawker stalls that pique my interest, so I decided to hit it up. Just because I don’t… Continue reading Lin Heung, Hong Kong
City Hall Maxim’s Palace, Hong Kong
When people play the standards well, it is still exciting. To be sure, City Hall Maxim’s Palace isn’t the sophisticate jazz stylings of Lung King Heen but those culinary riffs wouldn’t exist without a benchmark. In Hong Kong dim sum, that ticking metronome is Maxim’s. They make the classics in plenteous quantity and they do… Continue reading City Hall Maxim’s Palace, Hong Kong
Lung King Heen: 3 star dumplings
Scallop and prawn dumpling, Lung King Heen It’s a strange thing to live in the bottom half of the planet that has no Michelin stars. In some ways, it has an internal logic for Michelin: the guide’s ostensible purpose was to get people out into the provinces by car and thereby burn through more Michelin… Continue reading Lung King Heen: 3 star dumplings