Plume, Maribyrnong

I find midweek yum cha so deliciously naughty.  It's like an afternoon nap, or a bath before noon.

Plume, just outside the Highpoint shopping complex, do yum cha daily.

Things started off well with really good ham sui gok.  Very delicate fried skin gave way to soft glutinous rice dough, with a sweet pork and mushroom filling.

But Plume had peaked too early.  All the dumplings were just all right.  The siu mai (prawn and pork were OK, very chunky, perhaps too much so.  The har gao (prawn) and prawn and chive were mushy.

Didn't like the char siu bao - the pork and sauce had an odd, overly floral taste.

Ordered these prawn rice rolls which were soggy and just looked like they had no love in them.

We didn't have dessert.  I didn't have high hopes.  And that is what the fish are for, anyway.

Roti Road

"May the road rise up to meet you," goes the old Irish blessing to the weary traveller.  The road I have in mind, though, isn't going to get a chance to "rise up" to meet anybody - it's about to get hit with a stampede.

Roti Road is a brand-new Malaysian-Chinese restaurant that has just opened in Footscray on the site of the old Yummie. It's had an epic makeover, complete with glossy wood, red banquettes and green-leaved potted plants dotted throughout. 

We were wandering by, perfectly content with our dinner plans at an old favourite, when we saw that it was open for business.  Wild horses etc etc.  Thus you'll have to forgive the quality of the camera phone photos on this instance - I was a bit underprepared!

House-made roti with three dipping sauces of sorts (sweet and almost smoky chicken curry sauce, a lovely dal, and jammy sambal).  This roti is unreal.  The whole plate is $5.90 (YES) and you can add a very excellent chunky lamb (or beef, or chicken) curry for an extra $4.  This roti rivals Mamak - seriously, you have to try it.

Just some good old salt-and-pepper squid in a noodle basket.  This was done well.

These chicken dumplings looked gorgeous on the menu (indeed, most things do - they're beautifully photographed) but I found them a bit lacking in flavour and juice.  A bit of soy and vinegar, though, and Bob's your uncle.  The little "webs" aren't attached to the bases but are separate, which is unusual.

We were busy gorging ourselves when suddenly, an upbeat dance track came on and the stereo got turned up.  We peered about, wondering what was going on, but the staff were all looking at the floor with knowing smiles.  Suddenly, out of the kitchen bounded a chef, twirling and flipping a tissue-thin sheet of roti pastry like pizza!

He popped and locked his way through the whole track, all the while spinning his roti in the air, while the patrons whooped and cheered.  It was so unexpected and so joyful.  Apparently this happens every evening!

Can you find the roti?

One half of Roti Road is David Tran, who is the son of Yummie head honchos John and Annie Tran.  Devotees of their dumplings can rest easy that yum cha is still on offer daily until 3pm.  I had a quick chat to David after our meal and he confirmed that their head chef is Malaysian, and everything is made here from scratch, from the roti to the laksa paste.

Speaking of which, here's what you have to look forward to!

David shouted us this Matterhorn of a dessert - roti with condensed milk and icecream.  Completely OTT fun.

Roti Road is officially opening today, Friday 2 May.  I love the decor, which feels smart but not slick.  The food is really good and I can't wait to try more.  The toilets need some TLC but I believe that was meant to be happening over the last few days, plus some more artwork going on the walls.  Oh, and it's BYO for now but a licence is in the works.

No need to divert to Flemington, Footscrazies - when it comes to Malaysian food, we can go our own way now!

Roti Road (Facebook)

189-193 Barkly Street, Footscray

Phone:  9078 8878

Golden Horse yum cha

What are the three sweetest words in the English language?

"I love you"?

"Marry me, please"?

I say they're...

"YUM CHA DAILY" !

The Golden Horse has just opened on possibly Footscray's best corner site, and is ready to feed you these sweet nothings seven days a week.

There aren't many small yum cha restaurants like this around.  Usually when a yum cha place is small, it means no trolleys, or a very small range of food.  That's not the case here.  Golden Horse have a great range of dim sum, and it's not dumbed down - I spied chicken feet, pork ribs, tendon and silken tofu with prawn.

The small space does mean it's tricky to get a table of exactly the size you require, which means you might have to share a table.  I felt pretty sorry for the couple who had to share an eight-seater with me and my three grotty kids, but luckily the first trolley hit within seconds of sitting, so I could plug them with food straight away.

Shu mai, or "the ones with the dot on top" as they're known in our family.  They're made from prawn and pork with a wonton wrapper enclosing the bottom and sides.  These were really chunky and quite awesome.  Love how you get four to a basket rather than the usual three!

An equally generous serve of har gao or prawn dumplings.  Great.

Ridiculously amazing pastry - short, flaky, feathery and totally melt-in-the-mouth.  It was curled around a jammy BBQ pork filling.  Pounce the minute you see these come out of the kitchen.

These prawn noodle rolls are one of my favourite things - big noodle sheets (like lasagne sheets) flopped around prawns.  Pro tip - attack these with an empty bowl, ie, not one full of soy sauce.  The sauce with these is really light and sweet and deserves to be enjoyed on its own.

Crisp prawn rolls, I believe wrapped in rice paper, served with a little dish of mayo.  Also try the very similar golden brown-coloured variety, where the prawn is wrapped in fried bean curd skin (those ones come with a violently coloured yet delicious sweet-and-sour sauce).

Forgo the standard jasmine and order some chrysanthemum tea.  It has a fresh taste, a little like chamomile but much more gentle.

Ham sui gok, aka "football dumplings".  These have a glutinous rice flour batter around a filling - normally pork mince and a bit of mushroom.

These ones had a pretty filling with chopped pork and a little (what I think is) Chinese chive.  With the perfect crisp exterior and warm, slightly gummy interior, they were great.  Try these with chilli sauce.

Wasn't a fan of these panfried dumps - they were not hot enough.  Honestly, I'm never a huge fan of this type of dumpling (jiao zi) at yum cha.  If you want fried dumplings, go order a whole plate for ten or so bucks at 1+1 across the road.

This squid obviously never skipped leg day.  Even though these calamari tentacles were really big, they weren't tough, and the light coating was great.

Just enough room for char siu bao - fluffy steamed buns with a warm dob of BBQ pork in the middle.

Something to keep the kids quiet while I go to pay the bill (which, for all of the above for a very greedy adult and three kids, came to $61.80)...

...and after paying, I got chatting to Barry Diep, whose family restaurant this is.  All the yum cha is made in house.  There are some serious dumpling smarts going on here - one of the chefs is the ex-head chef of a Gold Leaf restaurant, and was coaxed out of retirement to saddle up the Golden Horse.  (Barry's uncle is one of the owners of the Gold Leaf chain, which includes Sunshine's Gold Leaf - a big favourite of mine.)

Barry's dad is also a chef at the Golden Horse.  He did his formal training in Hong Kong in the 1970s with an apparently very highly regarded chef of the time, and one of his fellow students was the current head chef of Laksa King.  He has been cooking since he was eight, including up and down the length of Vietnam.  As such, Barry reports that he was exposed to French techniques and ingredients.  His signature dish is snow crab with foie gras.  CAN YOU SAY HELL YES?!

Dad's other specialty is his XO sauce.  Barry kindly gave me this little pot to take home and try, while the kids all got a mango pudding each.  The sauce is a knockout and the puds were all fantastic - they had tiny little real mango bits in them.

I really like the Golden Horse.  Eating yum cha in a big dim sum barn can feel like you're on a conveyer belt, but this is a really friendly little place.  This site is an iconic one for the suburb, and it feels so right to have a big, busy yum cha restaurant full of people right here in the guts of the 'scray.  I love that everything's made here, and afterwards the insatiable salt/MSG-induced thirst that normally attacks me after a yum cha session was nowhere to be found.  Can't wait to come back in the evening and try the a la carte stuff.

You could say Footscray is now a one-horse town, and I think it's all the better for it.

Golden Horse

Cnr Hopkins and Leeds Streets, Footscray

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Yum cha at Gold Leaf Sunshine

In the eastern vs western suburbs friendly rivalry, we might score a goal in the injera stakes, but they lord it over us with yum cha.  At least we have at least one great example in Gold Leaf Sunshine.

This is our favourite local place for the yummy stuff.  My earlier post about Gold Leaf Sunshine was kind of lukewarm, but we've been many, many times since and always love it.  It reminds me of a temple from the outside, reclining peacefully under the gum trees.

This day we wandered in to a full lion dance ceremony celebrating Chinese New Year, complete with handsome young men banging drums, firecrackers popping crazily and children being terrified, made even more awesome by the fact it was Australia Day.

One reason I love Gold Leaf is their unusual and unique yum cha items.  These soft "spring rolls" were fantastic, pliable flat rice noodles curled around a fresh prawn, dried mushroom and tender bamboo shoot filling.

Bouncy butterflied prawns with a tingling umami hit of XO sauce, rich with dried seafood and Chinese air-dried ham.

Sweet pucks of prawny mince on tender silken tofu discs in a very light thickened stock.

These were deep-fried har gow-like prawn-stuffed dumplings, but with a different wrapper that was pleasantly thick, crispy on the outside but fluffy on the inside.  They were fantastic!

Getting back to the classic hits rotation now - big, porky siu mai with lots of juice for contented dribbling.

Yes, I know it is bogan but we call these football dumplings...and yes, you do get three here - the plate got tackled the minute it was set down.  Rightly so too as they were pretty unreal.  They are properly called ham sui gok and are made with a sticky dough enclosing a pork mince and mushroom filling.

The yellow dumplings' above more virtuous cousin - har gow, steamed prawn dumplings with a little bamboo shoot.  These were quite good.

Another favourite, totally flaky pastry that melts on your fingertips, filled with warm chopped BBQ pork.  Master Restaurant in central Footscray do these incredibly well too, as well as blind taste test-winning BBQ pork buns.

Cheong fun are thickish, wide rice noodle sheets gently flopped around a filling such as prawns, long Chinese donut or BBQ pork.  These prawn ones are my favourite - they're so slippery and delicate with a thin, sweet sauce that's just divine.  Gold Leaf's were just slighly on the mushy side but still delish.

Enter the evil twin!  While these also contain prawns, they're made with beancurd skin instaed of rice noodles and are lusciously deep fried for instant crack-tification.

The only speed hump in the meal was this rather bland sticky rice.

Just perfect fried squid legs with tender thighs snaking down to snappy little ends, dusted all over with coarse salty crystals.

Personally I love the stacked jellies with fruit and coconut layers, but this quivering bowl of rainbow iridescence is a childlike pleasure.

I wasn't a fan of this coffee jelly - it tasted suspiciously like instant.

I know these as banh bao chi.  You can buy them from To's in Little Saigon in white and green hues, but these ones were the best I've had.  They are soft glutinous rice dough with a filling of chopped peanut, coconut and granulated sugar.  These skins were so fresh, they almost melted on your teeth, collapsing and inducing much undignified stuffing of bao into mouths.

Gold Leaf is busy and colourful, innovative and progressive yet still stays true to its roots - a bit like the western suburbs, I guess.

Gold Leaf Sunshine
491 Ballarat Road, Sunshine
Phone:  9311 1863
Yum cha daily - prices $5.30 - $11.00 per plate.



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