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348 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, 9685 2900
My score: 3.5/5
In many cities you go to the hotels to find the great restaurants. In Melbourne, not so much. I’m suspicious of our hotel restaurants, imagining unwitting travellers prey to uninspired venues doing exactly as much as they can to get away with it. Orient East busts that mold open. It’s a fun, clever post-colonial homage to British Malaya in the Seasons Botanic Gardens on St Kilda Road (opposite the Shrine). It serves visitors to the hotel but also has a handy office worker catchment, making it part of Melbourne life, rather than a sterile tourist-only zone.
Kitsch wall panels and pop Penang signage work towards a happy, beachy mood in the multi-level dining space. There’s a terrace too but the resort vibe will swing more easily when the weather warms. The menu is a light-hearted mash-up of Malaysian classics and stiff-upper-lip British fare, which works in nicely with the need to offer room service mainstays like burgers and club sandwiches. Prices are keen.
Aficionados get antsy about authenticity when it comes to dishes like char kuay teow, a stir-fried rice noodle dish. I haven’t tramped the streets of Kuala Lumpur doing taste tests so I can’t comment on the faithfulness of the version here. I will say that the Penang-style CKT was enjoyable from first bite to last, wet without being sloppy, both fishy and porky, and the flat noodles tangled without clumping. Above all, a lovely, smoky wok-hei (wok ‘breath’) brought the whole dish together. Hainanese chicken rice, another much-disputed and beloved dish, was soft and subtle, the gingery poached chicken served with chicken-flavoured rice (delicious), a pot of broth (comforting) and chilli sauce (punchy).
A snack menu includes bao (steamed buns) that are equal parts Chinese staple and Melbourne zeitgeist. The roast pork belly in plump folded bun was a most enjoyable pig in a blanket, and the soft-shelled crab bao was even better, the peppery crisp crab and spongy bread contrasting happily. On the colonial oppressor side of the ledger, the fish and chips ticked the right boxes and the chunky tartare sauce got a triple tick and gold star too. Desserts included a banana fritter blast of sugared fat (that’s a compliment) and restrained coconut ice with tapioca pearls. Service was a little slow and our beers weren’t cold enough but, overall, this is one hotel restaurant that’s delivering good times in a tasty package.
See their website.
More hotel restaurants:
Middle Park Hotel, 102 Canterbury Road, Middle Park, 9690 1958
Channeling a bygone era of travel as romance, this handsome pub has deluxe rooms up top and British-skewed pub food downstairs.
Pei Modern, Collins Place, 45 Collins Street, Melbourne, 9654 8545
It’s not a hotel restaurant but it’s in the driveway of the Sofitel and it’s great so I’ll let it count, even though the views aren’t as good as those from the hotel’s dining room up on level 35.
Hare & Grace, 525 Collins Street, Melbourne, 9629 6755
Down the other end of Collins Street, in the shadow of the Rialto, Raymond Capaldi’s eatery does great steak, surprising contemporary food and easy snacks.
First published in The Age, July 28, 2013
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