Savour Chinese culinary delight

This is not sophisticated dining but it’s worth looking beyond the bright red lantern shaped plastic lights and the emerald green lawn with its fountain surrounded with twinkling lights. 
The inside rooms are decorated in red, yellow and gold and are surrounded by a verandah, the ceiling of which appears to have been wrapped in tin foil. 
This is where we sat and watched as the punters just kept rolling into the place to the unlikely strains of Elaine Page crying for Argentina.  
Starters are between $6 and $7 and include wortip prawns, spicy beef stick, garlic butter chicken wings and for the less ecologically aware, shark’s fin soup.
Small soups are $2 and big ones are $3. They include wonton with mini dumplings, hot and sour, chicken mushroom, seafood and beef noodle soups.
 We ordered a pot of green tea. But the range of alcoholic drinks and beverages on offer is extensive. And the menu which we studied for our main course, to the background sound of sax oldies, was frankly enormous.
The chicken menu alone is extensive and offers old favourites such as chicken with lemon, bean sprouts, sesame seeds, cashew nuts, sweet and sour with pineapple, with mushrooms, including wooden ear fungi, and a first for me chicken wings stuffed with minced fish.
For those who prefer spicy food there is Szechuan chicken and for the less adventurous country style deep fried chicken or chicken and chips. Price range from $6 to $8.
The fish and seafood choice was enormous with squid, prawns, bass (in thirteen different dishes) bream and even silver fish from Mozambique.
There were 20 beef dishes and Quick Fried Mutton Slices was one of them.  All priced between $5 and $7 with one dish at $8.
The 31 Pork dishes ranged from $5-$7.
Limani pointed out that there were 13 dishes on the Delicacies Menu and the one that caught her eye was Pork Pickled Mustard Green Noodles and Boiled Small Dumplings with Pork. 
“Pork, a delicacy?” she asked in amazement before turning back to the comprehensive vegetarian section.
We settled for the oyster chilli chicken, garlic butter grilled prawns and eggplant Chang quing style.
More diners arrived as we waited for our food and there was a constant flow of customers ordering takeaways.
The service is quick — our food was served piping hot — the prawns were tasty, the eggplant exquisite, the oyster chilli chicken delicately flavoured and the vegetables crisp and delicious.
The contrast with our last venture into Chinese food couldn’t have been more marked. That meal had been laced with MSG, cooked with too much oil and what can only be described as glutinous gravy coated every dish. So we asked to see the cook.
He arrived with a waiter who stood by to translate. “What type of cooking is this?” I asked.
“I come from Shen Yang — our food is different — we do not put too much oil — our food is dry.  My cooking is North Beijing type.”
But it was not dry — the dishes were cooked expertly — moist with only a hint of oil and the spices and herbs delicately balanced — a culinary delight.
There is no dessert but if you have a birthday party you get free sliced fruit in season.
It might not be sophisticated but it did mean that we were not subjected to that third degree hauteur about not having booked a table that some restaurants indulge in as soon as they become popular. And the food is brilliant.

– Chinatown Restaurant is open every day from 10am to 9pm.
No 49 Quorn Ave
Mt Pleasant
Tel 0912 771 771