Ba Guo Bu Yi Chinese Restaurant

We ate here on a whim for dinner on Saturday night & it was good! I often find choosing a restaurant on Gouger St overwhelming so we went with the theory of ‘try one that is crowded because it must be good’ — and the theory worked!
As we didn’t have a booking, we were asked to wait about 10 minutes before a table was ready, but that was fine & gave us a chance to look over the menu.
Service was prompt & the menu is so large we decided to get entrees as well. We shared dumplings & springs rolls which were good and then shared kung pow chicken & stir fry beef with veggies for main course. The main courses were a good size without being enormous so we were able to finish them off (well my husband did) and feel full.
Watching the staff turn around the tables was amazing — a group would finish & leave and within five minutes, the table would be cleared & cleaned ready for the next group that had just walked in.
My only icky moment was as I walked to the toilet, I had to walk past some mess & boxes as the toilets are up near the kitchen — it’s a pretty big restaurant, so it would be nice to see them using the space a bit more wisely so that patrons don’t need to see any of that.
The bill came to $ 57 which for two people having two courses plus drinks seemed very reasonable!
We’ll remember this one for next time!

Authentic SPICY Sichuan style. Try it all!

The chilli rating is a very rough guide!
After deciding to try something new other than Ying Chow down the street we found ourselves promptly seated in Ba Guo Bu Yi Chinese Restaurant.
The service was very welcoming and reasonably attentive besides when it came time to settle the bill… I’ll get to that.
Most of the dishes I smelt, saw and tested appeared to be impressive, traditional chinese food of all shapes and sizes. The presentation has that radically different feel you can only imagine discoverying in a back street of Beijing.
When the food arrived it all looked sensational and my girlfriend and I were very ready to «dig in»…then we tasted the actual food… nice…but you won’t go back twice…
I could taste a deep fryer that needed the oil to be changed… my dish was floating in oil… which I tried to convince myself that it was supposed to be eaten this way… but really??? 1 cm of oil covering the saucy top is too much. My girlfriends meal was extremely hot for the average palette as well… So with out rambling on too much… the food was average… but not bad…
When it came time to pay being that my meal was about two litres of curry I asked to take whats left home, a service happily supplied. We were charged $ 1 for each take away container and when my left overs were returned being a chef I couldn’t help but notice it was a third of what was given… and no rice… Secondly we had been charged for the packaged wet towels we hadn’t used…
Sorry all in all… It’s a one time wonder…

With so many new restaurants popping up all over Adelaide, it’s easy to forget that there are still heaps of great restaurants that have been around for years — this restaurant is one of them.
Located right near Chinatown on Gouger Street, this restaurant serves authentic Chinese cuisine. It was very busy when we arrived on a Sunday night, but it was lucky that I booked a table a few days before.
Staff were super friendly. They were a bit slow in taking our orders (probably because it was so busy) but the food came out a lot faster than I expected. We ordered a selection different dishes and shared them amongst our table — which is what most people in the restaurant were doing as well. The satay sizzling chicken, sweet and sour pork and vegetarian spring rolls were the stand our dishes.
It’s important to note that there is a surcharge for Sundays and the moist towelettes provided for each person on the tables are charged at 50 cents each. We weren’t aware of this before we got the bill, but as the overall pricing is quite reasonable it wasn’t that bad.
Overall, this is a great Chinese restaurant with amazing food and reasonable prices. It is definitely a Chinese restaurant that I will regularly visit.

Upon arrival, we were seated at a table where the tablecloth had multiple stains…
Wine portions are unpredictable…
BBQ pork dumplings were indeed tasteless and bland…
One dumpling had scalding hot water inside it, which burst into my mate’s mouth, causing a lot of discomfort.
Waitress confused the prawn and the vegetarian dumplings — which, if I had been allergic, would’ve resulted in a call for an ambulance.
Crispy pork dish (like thick slices of bacon) looked great on glossy menu — but when it reached the table, it was mostly fat.
One saving grace — is that the Beef in Black Bean was one of the best I’ve had since my regular haunt in my home town…
However, even that must’ve been loaded with oil because there was a pool of it on the bottom of the plate…
When my mate wanted service, I found he had to work for it, making eye contact very deliberately and expressively…
He said the fried ice cream was very crispy and delicious…
All in all… An ok meal prior to going out…
But a bit lacklustre…
The BIBB will be remembered, however…
He also said the wine menu was decent…
I found the beer menu a bit limited, though…
Finally, trying to get the attention of wait staff later in the evening was like trying to ice skate uphill…
My mate just wanted a toothpick…
When attention was finally given, they brought the bill over, rather than asking what we wanted…
And within 5 minutes, two people wanted to take the bill folder before we’d even looked at it…
In retrospect, a pretty dismal experience, actually…

Tried BGBY tonight. Browsed the flashy menu… lots of pictures, but not numbered or named, so it does need a bit of guessing for some dishes. Ordered pig’s trotters and szechuan soup. Waiter took a while to notice us though. Food was served at reasonable speed. I was a bit upset with the the pig trotters though. I was half expecting the dish to be spicy because the menu stated it with a 2 chilli rating. It ain’t. But overall the food wasn’t bad and service speed was reasonable. Will probably visit again.

Have you ever wanted to see somebody order and eat a whole bowl of red chillis? Yes? Well this is the place to see it all then!
If you were not aware, this is a Szechuan establishment, and their traits are hot and spicy foods. You will consistently see large groups of chinese students here every single night, and for good reason. They serve authentic Szechuan dishes at very reasonable prices. The food will not appeal to all. Certainly, if you are not into the hot foods and want a more mainstream chinese dish, then go somewhere else on Gougar Street.
For those in the know, and those who want to give it a try, start off with the Cold Beef in Chilli Oil, which is always ordered whenever I go there. Also good for starters is the garlic ribs. Both dishes will get your appetite going.
For mains, try one of the lamb dishes, which is authentically a very popular choice of meat in this hilly part of China. Mapo Tofu is a mildly chilli dish, which will go very well as a saucy supplement to your rice.
One of my favourite joints on Gougar Street, this is a very modern restaurant with very good food. For amusement, I still like to sit and stare at other people who gobble down whole bowls of chilli, star anise, and chilli oil with every bite. Rude I know, but it just has to be done.
Sweating is optional here, but really, its to be expected.

Nice décor — Yes. Good looking menu — Yes. Tasteless food — Yes. Dammit!
I had high hopes for this place as it was rammed with chinese students. So I was thinking cheap and tasty, like Kowloon or Fortune Duck. I got cheap and rubbish. The pork wonton soup tasted like it was made with 2 minute noodle broth and the dumplings were rubbery and very bland. I kept having to dunk them in vinegar to get any flavour.
A bad meal is a missed opportunity. And I feel that this was one hell of a missed opportunity!

Even though I’ve only been there once, I fell head over heels in love with this place. Apparently this one is part of the Ba Guo Bu Yi franchise from China or that’s what my Chinese friend told me. For so long she has been telling me to give it a try. So why not ?
I didn’t regret at all. I’m no Chinese cuisine expert but the food is just right. Reasonably priced and portioned with excellent taste. Most of the main course ranged from $ 15 to $ 20ish and slightly more expensive with some seasonal stuff I guess. And in case you have no idea what the names in the menu mean, they have photos as well — big one! They also have dessert but the greedy me decided to try 3 main courses and a huge bowl of soup so I can barely breath. That’s why I’m giving it 4 stars.
P/​S: the food is quite spicy but you can always ask them to make it mild.
P/​SS: if i could i would marry the mapo tofu there but oh well they don’t even legalize same sex marriage here tsk tsk

I came here for dinner with a group of friends and a bottle of wine and had an excellent time. By the end of it I had a double dose of pink — pink wine cheeks and pink chilli lips.
Ba Guo Bu Yi is an excellent new (well over a year old now.) addition to the Gouger St strip of restaurants. While affordable for a casual night out, it is a little pricier than your East Tastes or your Kowloons. With good reason — the food is great. The menu is huge with lots of pictures for those of us who aren’t familiar with the more traditional items on the menu. For the faint of heart, there is a good range of mild dishes. But I really enjoyed some of the more unusual stuff. Not like tripe and chicken’s feet unusual. More like a big dish of thinly sliced pork, stuffed with sliced cucumber and loads of garlic, swimming in a delicious szechuan chilli sauce. W.O.W. Everything I tried was delicious. Shout-​out for the dumplings too.
I would love to go back with a bigger group so I can try more.