CHIN CHIN

As mentioned in my previous entry, I was going to try out a new dining place called Chin Chin with Andy to celebrate our 6th month anniversary. On Friday evening itself, Andy picked me up from work at 4.30pm and off we headed to the CBD to hunt for parking. Sadly, my apartment does not come together with a parking space this time around, hence we'll have to pay for parking whenever we linger in the city, and it usually costs a bomb to park in the city so that's pretty bad but this is Melbourne and we know everything in Melbourne is about $$$ :(

Coming back to Chin Chin, we got there around 5pm and got seated right away. We were lucky to be there just 15 minutes before the crowd started coming in then followed by a queue that started to form right after. Apparently Chin Chin is always swamped with people at peak hours and the only way to secure a table without waiting is to be there early since the restaurant does not take in reservations. 

Soon after we were seated and by only taking a glimpse at the menu, we reached out to the waitress to place our orders. I've done my research based on food blogs and Urbanspoon reviews, hence I know exactly what to order. We settled for an entree, 2 mains, a side dish and a dessert.

As depicted in the picture above, our first dish being served was Spicy Corn and Coriander Fritters with iceberg lettuce and Chilli Jam. Considering I've tried corn fritters in Izakaya Den (situated at 114 Russell Street) before, this dish didn't impress me much apart from the chilli jam that possessed a unique sweet and sour taste with a tinge of spiciness, nonetheless the fritters are bigger as compared to those served in Izakaya Den. 

The next dish that we had was the "Son In Law Eggs", whereby hard-boiled eggs were deep-fried, cut into halves and topped with sweet and sour gravy. This dish was undoubtedly zesty however having being raised in a country that encompasses vast varieties of Asian food, I've certainly tasted better dishes. 

Subsequently, we had the caramelised sticky pork for our next dish. From what I remember, the pork was deep-fried and served with caramel sauce as well as Vietnamese salad and dressing. I'm not a pork person hence I don't usually appreciate pork dishes a lot. This dish was not surprisingly scrumptious however rather palatable when pork was eaten together with the salad. 

The final dish that we had was the Green Curry of Rocking Eggplant, Snake Beans, Thai Basil and Grilled Chicken. I regard this dish as pretty decent, a tad bit too sweet for my liking though. I still prefer the localized Malaysian style green curry that carries more spiciness. 

As I've seen many good reviews regarding the desserts in Chin Chin, we decided to try the Oh-So-Famous Palm Sugar Ice-Cream Sundae with Salted Honeycomb and Lime Syrup. This was by far my most favorable order at Chin Chin as the honeycomb were just nice for chewing, in addition the lime syrup balanced up the overall flavor of the dessert therefore it does not taste too sweet. 


On the whole it was still a fun dining experience despite it was a pity that I didn't get to try the Shredded Chicken and Spanner Crab salad because Andy can't eat seafood. Andy persuaded me to go ahead and order it but it costs $24 and I probably wouldn't be able to finish the whole plate by myself so I decided to forego :( It was apparently a dish that is TO DIE FOR according to many food bloggers! Sigh. Perhaps I'll only have that during my second visit to Chin Chin next time. 


If you would like to give Chin Chin Restaurant a try: 
125 Flinders Lane, 
Melbourne VIC 3000


Last but not least, Happy 6th Month Anniversary :) 

Wish we were in Paris! :p