delicious.100: Chin Chin is one of Melbourne’s best restaurants

Five years after opening, the phenomenon that is Chin Chin continues at the queue-tastic eatery that put Flinders Lane on every tourist’s must-visit map.

Chin Chin’s bug tail stir fry is a must-order dish. Pictures: Andrew Tauber

THE phenomenon — and there is no other word for Chin Chin — continues at the queue-tastic eatery that put Flinders Lane on every tourist’s must-visit map.

But five years on Chin Chin’s charms are more fully realised by locals, for Benjamin Cooper’s revamped menu — to go with a recent room refresh and overhaul of the GoGo bar downstairs — is so filled to bursting with good things to eat you could come back two dozen times and still eat something new. And it will be delicious.

Chef Benjamin Cooper by the kitchen pass.

New highlights include a duck larb of brow-mopping yet refined heat, and savoury egg noodles plied with sweet bug meat. Salads remain a must, whether punchy nahm jim-dressed glass noodles with crunchy prawn dumplings, or a zingy green papaya salad with tamarind bite.

Glass noodle salad with shiso and sesame prawn dumplings.

Spicy duck larb.

Staff keeps the food — and sharply curated booze — coming fast, and charm the pan-generational crowd with humour and skill. While its imitators are many, there is only one Chin Chin. And it’s great.

Must eat dish: bug tail stir fry

CHIN CHIN

125 Flinders Lane, city.

Ph: 8663 2000

chinchinrestaurant.com.au

Cuisine: Asian

Chef: Benjamin Cooper

Price: between $41 and $80 a person for two courses, food only

Bookings: groups of eight or more only

Open: daily 11am-late

Instagram: @chinchin

This restaurant was ranked the 74th best restaurant in Victoria in the 2016 edition of the delicious.100.