Archive for the ‘Supper/Late Night’ Category
Minh Xuong
Minh Xuong
209-211 Russell Street, Melbourne CBD
(03) 9663 2895
Mon-Sun 11:00am-2:30am
(Alex: This may or may not be related to the Minh Xuong on Victoria Street in Richmond, not confirmed.)
The latest addition to the cheap Asian restaurant/cafes in Chinatown is Minh Xuong, occupying the space vacated by King of Kings (Alex – oh King of Kings, I will miss you… somehow). Located on Russell Street, between Little Bourke and Lonsdale, Minh Xuong opened around Chinese New Year this year, and has been doing fairly steady trade since.
We visited the place late on Chinese New Year’s day after my insistence that I had to eat Chinese food on Chinese New Year or I wasn’t a good little Chinese girl, especially after being rejected by the North East China Family the night before (Alex – to be fair, we did interrupt their reunion dinner). We were drawn to Minh Xuong, tempted by the glistening skins of the roast meats which were hanging in the windows.
On the menu are a variety noodle and rice dishes, stir fries, congees, claypots, Chinese ‘snacks’, soups, and of course, the Roast Meats.
We are pointed towards the Roast meats by the friendly Chinese waitress; MS went for the roast duck

Roast duck
which was pretty decent considering we were dining at midnight on a Sunday night. The skin was nicely crisp, the meat pretty tender, with a thin, but not excessive layer of fat separating the two. The sauce was decent, not the best in Melbourne, but certainly very tasty.
MS wouldn’t let me order the char kuay teow because apparently only Malaysians are allowed to make this dish (Alex – I’m just sayin, I don’t trust HK/Canto places with CKT!) , so I went for the mapo tofu (stir fried tofu with preserved vegetables in a chili bean sauce with pork mince)

mapo tofu
As you can see from the above picture; deliiiicious!! I looooooove mapo tofu and have been surprised how difficult it is to find a decent mapo in the Melbourne CBD. Delicious, silky and relatively large pillows of tofu were cooked with pork in a tasty spicy sauce. I was impressed that slices of pork were used, rather than just cheap mince. It had a nice fiery kick to it. I love my spicy food and did not even have to add any chili to it as it had the perfect heat. I finished this dish despite the size, yet I could have gone more because it was so tasty!
Jess’ Ratings:
Taste: 8/10. The duck was ok, but I loooved the mapo tofu. I do love that dish, so I may seem biased, but this is definately one of the better mapo’s I have.
Authenticity: 8.5/10. I’m Chinese and I think this is pretty Chinese.
Value: 8/10. I can’t remember how much each dish was, but the overall bill came to less than $20. Great value. dishes well sized and well priced. Quality, reasonably fresh ingredients.
Service: 8/10. Our waitress wasn’t overly knowledgable in the menu (or the English language) but she was super friendly. Service with a smile in Asian restaurants is rare, so the smile earns Minh Xuong bonus points :).
Ambience: 7/10. It is what it is. A cheap Asian cafe/restaurant, but is still clean and comfortable.
Overall: 8/10. This may seem high for the sort of place this is, but remember, this place can serve me a decent feed til 2:30am at this price. Service is much better than most Asian joints we go to (at least friendlier) and it’s clean!
The best news is that this place is open 7 days, and does late night trade nightly until 2:30am. I’ll never go hungry again.
Alex’s Ratings:
Taste: 7/10. I’ve been dishing out a lot of 7s lately.
Authenticity: 9/10. Couldn’t fault what we ate in terms of authenticity to the HK/Canto roast meats tradition and Mapo Tofu.
Value: 8/10.
Service: 8/10. I agree with Jess, the waitress put in the effort and was very pleasant, not something one is used to in Chinese restaurants.
Ambience: 8/10. I judge it on being clean (at time of writing) and not too noisy.
Overall: 7/10. As I say, a lot of 7s.