#4 Rice@Richmond (10/242 Victoria St)

Attendees: Steph, Beata, Imogene

(Disclaimer: Two-third of this week's contingent may have been intoxicated after spending the day at a winery festival, therefore take no responsibility for judgements made).

It has all the ingredients of an Australian Asian restaurant. Waving gold cat statue. Check. Bamboo plant. Check. A karaoke show featuring bad ballads playing on a plasma screen (their version Unchained Melody is particularly notable). Check.

The tables and chairs are solid wood, which is a nice change. At the back of the restaurant there is a wooden "bar". Well it says bar but I cannot see any bottles of alcohol. The table behind us slowly fills up with an Asian birthday party, while we drool over the idea of food.

There some confusion when we open the menus. Where are the rice paper rolls? No pho? Oh, we’ve stumbled upon our first Chinese restaurant in Chopstick Chowdown Challenge. Time to change the standards we order.

So we order a heap of food (is this becoming a theme?) The waitress returns after a couple of minutes and suggests that we have ordered too much food for three people and asks if we’d like to cancel something. Too much food? We’ll be the judge of that! Our stomachs feel bigger than ever and we stick with our order.

Complimentary seaweed peanuts are placed on the table. Interesting. Unusual. Steph happily comments “anything salty is good”.

All the dumplings are garnished with tangles of long, long strings of carrot. “How do they get the carrot so long?” Imogene questions in amazement. We are dumpling connoisseurs and these quite good.

The waiting staff is very attentive and polite. They stand at military-like attention as we take our first bites of food and fill up our tea as soon as our cups are empty.

We discover that Imogene is our barometer for MSG. Her allergy will tell us the next day whether there is any MSG in the food by displaying red welts. I question whether it is wise for her to be participating in the ChChCh but she is says it’s fine because she can fix herself with anti-histamines. Rice @ Richmond claims to be MSG-free on the menu and the sweet and sour pork is an unusual dark yellow sauce. Aha,Imogene says, because it is the MSG that gives it the radioactive bright red colour we are accustomed to. Meanwhile Steph is pulling out phantom statistics on the rate of circumcision in Australian men.

Number 27 is a “shredded pork and noddle soup”. This is no pho and tastes rather like chicken Maggi noodle soup with added broad bean essence. But we’re embracing the saltiness tonight, right? However the Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce takes saltiness to the extreme. Have they mistaken soy sauce with oyster sauce? It is too much for even my wine soaked palate. Plus it’s more stalky than leafy.

I had my doubts about Rice@Richmond. Perhaps it was its faux ‘hipness’ for the internet savvy generation, with a name that looks like an email address, but overall the restaurant is better than expected.

Ratings
Fried pork dumplings 7.3/10
Steamed vegetable dumplings 8.3/10
Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce 5/10
#27 (Sliced pork and noodle soup) 5.6/10
Special (Sweet and sour pork) 7.3/10

Next stop...Pacific House