LOCATIONIn Moonta Street, opposite Kuo Chi Oriental Supermarket.
PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIAWhile duck is a drawcard, T-Chow’s signature golden shark fin on its window heralds another of its specialities. Chef and part owner Eric Leung’s menu commences with “super shark’s fin soup in a steamy pot – enough for two”. Once you start slurping down the rich, viscous broth however, you may decide it is just for one. Further soup procurements include pig stomach and pepper, fish balls with seaweed, and some of that famous duck, shredded, and classically paired with orange (peel).
Manager and part owner, Jarrod Leow assures that you will salivate at T-chow’s green peppercorn chicken, deep fried quails with pine nuts, oyster omelette, and cabbage rolls whose crispy leaves wrap fillings of sweet prawn and Chinese mushrooms. He should know – after starting part time in 2000, he now co-owns the joint.
With seating for 280, this place gets packed with huge family gatherings that include even the most distant of relatives, to solo flying hungry punters chowing down on novelties of pork intestine with salted cabbage, stir fried croc with XO sauce, and French beans with Chinese olives and minced pork. A fancy room it is not, with well-worn carpet and battle-scarred walls, but it hosts hoards of loyal foodies and the Chinese community who are escaping the predictable sweet and sour pork dishes, back to their cuisine’s roots.
A bank of live seafood tanks holds its weight in gold of large lobsters, abalone and fat fish fearing the filleting knife. Their fate is chalked up on the specials board – jade perch, barramundi, coral trout and Murray Cod a heavyweight at just under $60 each.
Hotpots are also a distraction. Lift the lids on the likes of braised fish stomach, pork belly with scallions, dried bean curd sticks with glass noodles, or hot and sour beef tendons and you may forget about the fun of yum cha. Or not. Crystal king prawn dumplings, ox tripe with fermented bean curd, soft egg tarts, crispy squid tentacles, golden sand buns… It seems the steady stream of tasty and exotic fare never ends here.
Roz Taylor