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

BUSY, buzzy and nightclub cool, Lucy Liu is a place to see and be seen. It also happens to serve up one of the CBD’s best offerings of pan-Asian cuisine.

Lucy Liu’s Korean-style crispy pork hock with apple kimchi salad. Pictures: Eugene Hyland

BUSY, buzzy and nightclub cool, Lucy Liu is a place to see and be seen. It also happens to serve up one of the CBD’s best offerings of pan-Asian cuisine with on-theme cocktails and a tight curation of beers and wine well pitched to the food.

Border hop with kingfish sashimi, Korean fried chicken and beef short ribs in rendang curry, but top of your dance card should be pan-fried barramundi and scampi dumplings swimming in a sharp soup of vinegar, ginger and spring onions.

Barramundi and scampi dumplings.

The pork hock won’t win any beauty contests, but is Lucy’s signature for good reason — marinated, braised then flash fried for fork-tender flesh and a gloriously crisp outer. Enjoy as you would Peking duck, with pancakes, apple kimchi salad and hoisin sauce.

Enter via a cobblestone lane and a dramatic red neon-lit hallway, and do sit at the bar overlooking the kitchen for dinner and a show.

Chocolate dulce leche with orange granita.

Eager staff who don’t upsell work the room with ease and there’s toe-tapping tunes to relive your disco days.

Must eat dish: pork hock

BEST DATE NIGHT: LUCY LIU

23 Oliver Lane, city.

Ph: 9639 5777

lucylius.com.au

Cuisine: Asian

Chefs: Michael Lambie, Zac Cribbes

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

Bookings: yes

Open: daily 11am-late

Instagram: @lucyliu_melbourne

This restaurant was ranked the 40th best restaurant in Victoria in the 2016 edition of the delicious.100.