So Not Fancy, So Good!

Thinking about food from this place makes me drool, though I’m still full from dinner. We discovered this tiny Taiwanese restaurant in China Town by noticing its long queue outside. There are at least 3 or 4 other Chinese restaurants with vacancies next door but everyone seemed to be happy to queue up for this one. Obviously, it has something special to offer.

Indeed, the food served there is mouthwatering. After you’ve tasted it once, you are hooked. It’s authentic Chinese food. Not the oily or sugary stereo type.

With so many cooking shows on TV and increasing number of people becoming celebrity chefs, presentation appeared to be everything. You’d think only fancier restaurants with tasteful decorations are blog worthy. I have friends who would judge food’s taste by its price tag. But let’s not discriminate here:). Why so many people keep coming back and queuing to eat here or take away? Because its set meals and a large variety of side dishes.

The set meals usually consists of the traditional Taiwanese stewed pork rice with a main dish (pork, chicken, fish or vegetables). Adding just 1$ extra, you can either get a large cup of green tea or a big bowl of hot & sour soup. That’s the best hot and sour soup I’ve tasted in Sydney, very true to its traditional recipe.

Apart from the set meals, there are a selection of noodle dishes to choose from. I like them all but very often order the beef noodle soup because I’m a insatiable carnivore. Not only that, the soup itself deserves favoritism. If you don’t mind eating meat, try it and you’ll know what I mean.

Clock wise: Tainwanese stew pork rice, fried chicken wings, beef noodle soup, smoke fish. Yep, the table is bright orange, no white table cloth. And it’s a bit wobbly too.

What keeps me coming back to this place is its variety of side dishes. There are a full window display of side cold dishes ranging from normal (e.g golden fried prawns, garlic cucumber salad etc) to weird and wonderful (pig ears, duck giblets…no chicken feet) to pick from. It depends on how adventurous you are with food. My favorite is the smoke fish as pictured above. At $4 (used to be $3.5) per plate, you can really taste as many flavors as you like in one sitting.

By now you might ask, so what’s the name of this restaurant? Truth be told, I only looked at it properly today, from some some crappy phone snaps: Cho Dumpling King. Hmmm. Does it serve dumplings? I don’t think so, at least not in the last couple of years since we started going regularly.

Menus are displayed on the window… with realistic pictures! You get what you see.

This restaurant is always full. Orders are normally taken outside by the waiters.

Then why the name? I’m not sure. Maybe it served dumplings once. Truth is, I don’t care. Do you?

It’s shoe sized restaurant serves amazing, authentic Chinese food at good prices. Service is relatively fast and friendly.

It’s so not fancy, but so good. So good that over the years so many people keep coming back and queuing outside for their turn.