My China Plate

I know in this day and age a song like Monte Python’s «I Like Chinese» is considered a little un-​PC, but in a sweet, old-​timey way, kind of like my deaf Nanna who shouts inappropriate generalisations at you in a crowd like «Indians are always late for church». But I found myself remembering fondly the lyrics to this song and feeling nostalgic for the experience of the lovely service that used to come with terrible Chinese food during my meal at China Plate. China Plate is not terrible but it is not amazing either. It is pretty standard, meat pre-​cooked, fried items pre-​frozen, just add veges and sauce, over-​salted Chinese food. It fills a hole, the servings are MA-​HA-​SIVE, the price is reasonable. We had the Mongolian Lamb (wouldn’t recommend), Chongquing Spicy Chicken (would recommend if you’re a big group), Chicken fried rice with beef beans and egg (not bad), Green onion pancakes (really good, I’d come just for this) and tea. I love Chinese restaurant tea. Wish I knew what type it was. All up about $ 50 including boiled rice and a coke.
According to my formula, based on the quality of the food the service should have been mildly friendly. It was not. I’m sure there are better places in Burwood. There was a fresh noodle shop up the road that we should have gone to. Next time we’ll brave the line.

This place has fantastic food. The service was a bit frantic with staff running back and forth in the one narrow aisle, and things seemed to come out with wide gaps in between, sometimes mains came before starters, etc., but I still didn’t mind because ultimately you got fed great food and this isn’t the sort of spot you’d come if you were feeling fussy anyway. Lots of families and kids, but we ate at peak dinner time on Saturday night so that’s to be expected.
Burwood in this area is nothing but blocks and blocks of amazing looking, mostly Asian restaurants, but a few Middle-​Eastern and European varieties to be found as well. It was hard to pick so we basically chose based on who had the nicest looking food photos. I find this technique has not yet failed me on Unilocal reviews, so why not apply the practice to restaurant windows?
The menu is vast, and includes standard Chinese offerings including scallion pancake, fried/​steamed/​boiled dumplings, fried rice, noodles, but also has some more adventurous twists on the same, with whole fish on some plates, rarer style mushrooms and vegetables in combination dishes, jelly noodles that I hadn’t ever heard of before, and more things I can’t really say what they were. Some items don’t have an English translation next to the character text but most do and are adequately descriptive to make good selections you will be happy with. There’s also scattered photos on the menu, for the lazy pickers among us. My partner just pointed to a few of the ones he fancied, and I picked a featured set of dumplings and took a (not terribly risky) chance on some vegetarian hokkien noodles.
Everything we ordered was good. My partner thought the mince meat in his spicy noodle soup was a bit «mysterious» but when pressed he wouldn’t commit to whether that was a bad, good, or neutral characterization. We both enjoyed the scallion pancake which was thick and doughy but still flavorful with herbs. My meat dumplings in chilli oil were delicious but hard to pick up with chop sticks. Finally, my noodles were predictably safe and yummy, but they actually had some meat in them near the bottom, which doesn’t bother me but goes to my point about this not being the best spot for fuss-​pots.
Places like this with solid, inexpensive Chinese fare always excite me and make me want to return because one good experience like this pretty much guarantees the rest of the menu is worth trying. Of course there’s lots of good variety to choose from in Burwood, but this should definitely be on the list of options.