china red

At a recent entertaining Chinese New Year party that we left far too early, a conversation started amongst the bloggers there about how they post blogs. Chronologically seemed to be the way to go, so, even if a fun thing happened today, you post about the thing you had next on your list, which may have happened ages ago. Seems fair, so let’s travel back in time about six weeks and do that, which also helps get rid of some of the terrible pictures on my phone that I need to delete to make more space for eleventy billion self-portraits of the Rocket figuring out where the camera button is.

 

 

Pre-Rocket we discovered a most wonderful futuristic eatery in Melbourne’s Chinatown called China Red, or Touch-Screen-Place if you are me or Teach and get it confused with China Bar all the time. Because yes, instead of table service, you are seated next to a touch screen, order your choices right there, and then someone delivers them to you at high speed. It means you don’t have to awkwardly mispronounce things like I always do, and you can hem and haw all you like over luscious oily pictures of food while everyone else at your table says JUST GET THE DUMPLINGS LIKE ALWAYS JEEZ. It also means you don’t really have to tip much, right? Right.

 

 

We’ve ordered a few things there, but we now have a standard order of twelve vegetarian dumplings, garlic beans, a coke and an iced tea. Odds are in your favour that the dumplings will be fat and delicious (eat them with the supplied chili oil and flakes dumped in soy sauce), and the beans soaked in garlic, al dente and mouth-destroyingly hot. It’s not as cheap as you’d wish, but it’s totally divine. Not only that, but the last time we went, they even sourced a high chair for the Rocket to sit in and didn’t even blink when she dropped beans on the ground. (I cleaned them up before we left, I promise. I’m not That Guy.) While the atmosphere is slightly higher than cafe, the casualness of the touch screens make it lower than a posh restaurant, so: take your kids, but leave if they cry. Luckily, you can be in, fed, and out in no time, meaning there’s a lower chance your kid will opt for said tantrum. And if your kid is older, they can ruin your day by ordering seventeen spring onion pancakes which you’ll then have to pay for, because there are no refunds once you’ve hit the order button. But you’ll probably eat them anyway, because they’re yum.

 

China Red

Shop 6, 206 Bourke St

Melbourne

9662 3688

website

 

There’s a flat entrance, and all ordering and payment is done at the table. There is a downstairs section, which is unfortunately where the toilets are located, but as it’s in a strip of shops there are public toilets handily located just across from the shop. A pram might be squashy, but not impossible.