Mamasan Kitchen + Bar restaurant review

No fortune cookie is needed to predict Mamasan’s fate — the food tastes even better than the Broadbeach restaurant looks

Sip and sup in style: Mamasan review

MAMASAN Kitchen + Bar may be the newest kid on Broadbeach’s Oracle block, but it’s already the busiest. The latest venture of Moo Moo The Wine Bar & Grill owner JP Duitsch and his fiancee Lauren Mitchell has gone straight to the top of the food chain.

On a Saturday night, sipping a light and lovely elderflower and lychee Hanamachi cocktail, I’m in prime position to see and be seen, and it’s clear Mamasan’s sophisticated setup has succeeded in luring the beautiful people.

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While it’s an excuse to trot out the designer heels, the restaurant has none of the stuffiness of fine dining — the all-hands-on-deck open kitchen provides the theatre and the dishes beg you to get your hands involved.

The menu is a melting pot of South East Asian flavour, but head chef Ray Choi isn’t afraid to tweak tradition to better appeal to his audience.

Everybody’s favourite san choy bao ($17) is elevated with slow-cooked Byron Bay pork, with fresh lettuce cups to load up with a mix of green beans, peanuts and addictive sauce.

Crispy Mamasan KFC (Korean fried chicken) is full of lip-tingling heat ($22), while king crab ravioli dumplings ($22) are adrift in a concentrated sambal bisque to coax you into cleaning the plate.

Assemble the delicate Peking duck pancakes ($29) at the table — they’re delivered in a steamer, ready to compile with sweet hoisin, cucumber, shallots, lime and coriander.

The coconut-infused, slow-braised wagyu that joins daikon in the red peanut curry ($34) is so tender it can’t look at chopsticks without falling to pieces. Another highlight is a zesty Vietnamese papaya salad, with Mooloolaba prawns, green apple, Vietnamese mint and lots of coriander ($20). While we didn’t make it that far, there are also larger plates designed to be shared between two or three people — crispy chicken with pickled ginger and Indonesian satay sauce ($34), Sichuan salted duck with Chinese five-spiced plum sauce ($38) and whole fish at market value.

When it comes to dessert, don’t baulk at the $22 price tag for the chocolate brownie — there’s nothing average about it. It’s the kind of rich, chewy, gooey archetype all others should aspire to, with surprising pops of sweet and salty texture, melty scoops of creamy sesame ice cream and salted caramel-filled fortune cookies.

The dish sums up the menu well: it’s not overly tricky food and it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the flavours are almost impossible to fault.

Quite simply, the best meal I’ve had for a long time.

Mamasan Kitchen + Bar

Shop 3 Oracle Boulevard, Broadbeach

Book it: 5527 5700

Open: Daily from noon — late