Oriental Teahouse: dim view is the sum and total
A Sunday night dream of some lovely Chinese food to crown a happy weekend doesn’t go to plan.
Picture the scene. Three people are perched at a high table in a newly refurbished Chinese restaurant in fashionable South Yarra. They’ve waited a half-hour for this table to become available — at the bar, where getting attention, a drinks list, let alone a drink, has proven challenging — but now it is time to fulfil the Sunday night dream of some lovely Chinese food to crown a happy weekend.
The music is obnoxious techno. Loud obnoxious techno, and the host (me) is apologising already.
Now here’s where it gets subjective. The “Veggie” san choi bao — which is bland and utterly forgettable except for a commercial plum sauce — arrives with two cos leaves. The host is upset. “There are three of us,” he says to the waiter. “But it only comes with two,” says the waiter. “But … This is a restaurant. You’re in the hospitality game. You can see there are three of us. How hard would it be?”
The waiter tells the host not to get upset. But that horse has bolted. It’s all very well for everything to be shared these days, but surely it puts just a little onus on the restaurant staff to read a table, no? It doesn’t help that, a minute later, another waiter picks up a not-empty wine glass and asks: “Would you like another?” How about: “No, I’d like to finish this one and then decide.” I hate that.
The pitch
OTH is a reborn tea retailer and dim sum house, one of three such outlets in Melbourne. The idea is fast, casual, affordable Cantonese classics, often with a bit of a pan-Asian twist, say wagyu beef marinated in kaffir lime inside steamed dumplings. Or soft-shell crab sliders with sriracha chilli sauce. Tea is a focus.
The reality
OK, the nightclub trance music is dreadful, contributing to a tense cacophony; staff members appear to run around leaderless; and the individual service is robotic, slow and downright bad. (Things we ask for, such as fresh chilli, just never come.) The food is good, right? No, the food is not, overall, much good either. The wine list is on a special occasion (Mother’s Day) diet — three of two colours — and the whole place is proving a poor end to the weekend.
The cuisine
Fiddled-with Cantonese is perhaps the best way of putting it. Now, I am hugely predisposed towards Cantonese on a Sunday night but …
Highlights
I’m putting this under the heading of Quite Nice (and Reasonably Priced): prawn, wood ear mushroom, sesame and bamboo dumplings in a spring onion dressing. They are good, steamed wheat-flour wontons with a pleasant filling in an also-pleasant dressing. Six dumplings, $10.80. The prawns fried in rice paper, served with mayo, are fine, too.
Lowlights
Radically oversalted “Salt & Pepper Calamari Dusted In Garlic Salt” (capitalisation is theirs) served with crunchy fried noodle bits. Why? Really odd and not at all good, it looks like sad McNuggets in a bowl of shredded potato crisps. Slightly odd-smelling chicken feet with a bland sauce dotted with the odd black bean. And “Legit Special Fried Rice — Packed With Chinese sausage, BBQ Pork & Egg”. Neither special nor packed. We’ll leave the legitimacy question to you. The vegetarian version is even duller.
Will I need a food dictionary?
No
The damage
It’s cheap but it’s not good value.
In summary
OTH wants desperately to look cool. It’s not enough. Food, service and hospitality will always trump interior design.
orientalteahouse.com.au
Oriental Teahouse
Address: 455 Chapel Street, South Yarra
Phone: (03) 9824 0128
Hours: lunch, dinner daily
Score: 1 star