Recently in Chinese Category

Firstly no offense intended for my next statement.

For some strange reason, a number of my Aussie Australian friends (read Caucasians, westerners, etc) think Oriental Bistro is one excellent place to eat in Chinatown. An even more fascinating fact for me is that I have always seen more Westerners eating in Oriental Bistro in the past - which was why I have not tried it.

Therefore, I decided it was time I bit the bullet and gave it a try.

What is it about this place that fascinates my Aussie friends?

Oriental Bistro is located right at the corner of Exhibition St. and Little Bourke Street of Chinatown. Their address - 195 Exhibition Street and their phone number - 03 96639080.

One of their specials is this pork belly on rice.

Looks absolutely yummy - and Andrew who ordered this seemed to really enjoy this tonight.

Shark Fin House is probably the most popular yum char place in Melbourne city. They are located just past the corner of Russell Street in Chinatown at 131 Little Bourke St.

It is the most packed yum char restaurant during the weekends, and they probably command the biggest slice of the yum char pie on most days in Chinatown.

I have been here a lot of times in my many years living in Melbourne. I finally decided that it is time to write up a review of this place when I paid them a visit again recently.

The food here is good and you just can't go wrong with most of the traditional yum char dishes.

Take the fried calamari here for example, very tasty and goes extremely well with the chilli oil. Yum.

" At Red Emperor, we specialise in sumptuous cuisine prepared traditionally by our master chefs."

This Asian cuisine restaurant is situated in the Southgate complex at Ur3, 3, Southgate Avenue - Southbank. The restaurant faces the Yarra river and Melbourne city with plenty of natural light flooding in - and provides an excellent view of the city landscape at night.

I had an opportunity to do visit this place twice - once for dinner and the following morning for yum char - with SY's family when they were here so I have them to thank for this review.

I'll begin this write-up with our dinner experience.

We started off our meal with some deep fried oysters which were absolutely delicious when accompanied with some freshly cut chillies and chilli oil.

It is really quite easy to miss Golden House as you're driving past Power Street to head towards Crown casino or to the city.

Located at 18 Power Street, Soutbank - this pretty authentic China type Chinese restaurant specializes in steamboat meals at a flat rate of $20 a person.

The exterior is really nothing much - literally - with just glass windows and a lack of signage.

The food however is really something different... to me.