Thursday, August 29, 2019

Chinese At Chow's Table

We couldn't bring ourselves to eat at DancinWok or Golden Dragon, or any similar restaurants in Busselton or Dunsborough. We’re kinda avoiding all Asian restaurants in this area. We aren't visiting long enough to want to eat Chinese or Asian food. If we really want to, we could stop by the supermarket and get ingredients to cook. Between L and I, we could certainly produce a very good Chinese meal.

Couldn't stop laughing when we had to round back to Chow's Table for lunch. Driving here and there meant that we might miss all the lunch hours at the desired restaurants. Most open at noon and close by 2.30pm. When we didn’t want a burger or McDonald's, we had to eat at Chow's Table, whose menu wasn't half bad. The prices for wine weren't ideal, and many were from House of Cards next door, of which we weren't keen on. Iced water it was for hydration then.


We had ordered kangkong with chilli and belachan. I balked a little at AUD26 for the dish. But fine, if they promised chilli and belachan. I missed that. However the kitchen had no kangkong that day and suggested replacing it with kailan stir-fried with soy and garlic. I DID NOT WANT TO PAY AUD26 FOR KAILAN. Replaced it with mapo tofu with minced pork. It was pretty all right, except they were too enthusiastic with the Szechuan pepper and chillies. I NO LIKE MAPO TOFU. Also had a honey-glazed char siew pork neck with pickled daikon. Other than it priced at a brow-raising AUD36 and being too sweet, it was edible.

The Chinese style roast duck hanging from the bar in the kitchen looked legit. We thought that a little heavy and ordered the half chicken instead- Hainan style with ginger, spring onion and sesame. Yup, we were suckers. You know what? That chicken was damn good! The way it had been steamed wasn't impressive, and the sauce didn't have enough body. There wasn't good quality sesame oil either. (L can whip up a kickass Hainanese chicken rice any day when the wet market stocks the type of fowl she prefers to use.) BUT, this meat was tender; we don't have this quality of regular chicken in Singapore supermarkets. A large bowl of nicely steamed white rice for AUD5 fed all of us! Honestly, it was pretty satisfying to eat rice. This would be our first meal with rice for the carbs. Not too bad lah!

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