Brisbane Phoenix Chinese Restaurant review

It’s the much-anticipated new Chinese offering from the swanky Brisbane Quarter, but Phoenix Restaurant left our reviewer deflated.

When it comes to Chinese food I consume more than most, thanks to some very good friends — food addicts the lot of them — from the Chinese community.

And with their guidance I have eaten a thousand great dishes across a couple of decades, in both Brisbane and Hong Kong. I’m a convert, but no expert.

And I’ve been thrilled with the rapid expansion of Chinese food in Brisbane that has taken it from the fast-paced, delicious but often grimy tables of Chinatown and Sunnybank, to places a little more glamorous — Donna Chang and the irrepressible Little Valley.

But are they Chinese joints for caucasians? Probably.

Brisbane Phoenix restaurant is the latest offering at Brisbane Quarter.

When it comes to the culinary fine-print there’s a philosophical gulf between the two cultures.

Then, to stir my curiosity, along comes Phoenix in the ghost-town luxe of the Brisbane Quarter, right across the corridor from the impeccable Persone, but without the stellar views.

In fact sitting here is something like waiting for the lifts at the back of Myer — white walls, no life. We are peering at a future view of our Barrier Reef.

Inside is grey and black highlighted by peach lanterns.

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It’s nice, and there is a bevy of staff, all cheery, smartly dressed and eager to please.

We settle in with a couple of Tsingtao — not the best beer on the planet, but if I’m eating Chinese I find it kind of obligatory.

Then three dishes from the yum-cha menu — crab xiao long bao ($16); scallop and caviar shumai ($12); king prawn and goji-berry cheung fan ($12).

And here is where I cross the boundaries between knowledge and experience, but I’ll do it regardless.

Soya Chicken ($18) at Brisbane Phoenix Chinese Restaurant

There is much better dim sum in town.

Best is the shumai — tasting of fresh scallop, laden with tiny roe, pliant pastry … very good. The long bao is short on soup (which is kind of like Uluru being short on rock) and anonymous … not reeking of crab.

And the cheung fan is let down by big, fleshy, almost good but flavourless king prawns.

A good prawn — sweet and laden — would make this dish great. Which it almost is, but isn’t. Duck is better — it’s “pipa”, which is by definition mostly well-worked, crispy skin and a skerrick of meat. And this is a good rendition — caramelised, rich and bearing a slight crunch ($32).

Then there’s eggplant with minced pork in spicy sauce ($26).

“There is much better dim sum in town”, Tony Harper says of the offering at Brisbane Phoenix.

This is a Sichuan dish, so a little Sichuan pepper would be nice, but not obligatory.

But chilli heat is. Even though I request it hot, there is only a smattering of bird’s eye in the mix, and there’s a suspiciously familiar taste in the foundations of the dish. Could it be sweet chilli sauce? Oh dear.

Phoenix had me in its grasp — I was excited, expectant, eager. But I left deflated.

The food is good, but truthfully no better than can be found at a dozen restaurants in Chinatown and well short of Brisbane’s two glamour restaurants.

I hope it succeeds, I hope it excels, but I wonder if it has all been dumbed down to meet the myth of a bland-seeking Australian audience.

SCORES OUT OF 10

FOOD: 6.5

DRINK: 6.5

SERVICE: 8

VIBE: 7

Brisbane Phoenix

Level 2, Brisbane Quarter

300 George St, city