Char Siu House, North Melbourne

I met up with my cousins last night, and they suggested we eat at this little simple Chinese restaurant called "Char Siu House". The restaurant is located just a mere 10 minutes walk from their house, which is quite convenient for them when they have their Chinese food cravings. The restaurant seemed quite popular with take away food, and the atmosphere reminds me of the Malaysian hawker stalls. With the warm weather yesterday, I was almost convinced that we were in Penang! Here are some of the dishes we've ordered.

Half roast duck
The roast duck was better than I'd expected.
I found the one at Pacific House tastier and juicer.


Special Fried rice

This was slightly tasteless. I would expect normal Chinese takeway places to be very generous with their salt and MSG, but it tasted rather bland. It went well if you eat it together with the other dishes though.

Lemon chicken

This was probably my favorite dish! It was a lot better than I'd expected. The batter felt very light, and remained crispy! The chicken breast wasn't dry, and the sauce was flavored just nicely.

Stir-fried Vegetables with Tofu


Fried Chicken ribs with salt and chilli pepper

This was pretty good too. It wasn't as oily as the ones I've had in Pacific House or Rice Bar.

Stir-fried noodles or Char Kwoay Teow

This was quite disappointing. I think the only good part of this dish were the prawns.
The noodle itself was very bland.

Overall, this is a very reasonable Chinese restaurant. The waiters were quite friendly, with fast service, and the toilet was clean! The place wasn't very busy, so we were able to sit and chat around for a while, which are not usually possible in the usual busy Chinese Takeway type of restaurants around the city! So anytime you are around North Melbourne, on a low budget and looking for a fast, carefree restaurant, you can give Char Siu House a go. Pictures can be deceiving sometimes, as the first picture on this post actually looked a lot better than the actual restaurant itself :)