Review: Chin Chin

Last stop from our food journey 2 weeks ago. Yes I know this part is late, I've just been sick and overwhelmed lately, but I will be posting up a few extra reviews this coming week despite my upcoming exam. See how much I love you guys!
Overall I can say Chin Chin has lived up to the hype. Although I will never be one of those people that is willing to wait over an hour for a table, I will happily sit and eat at the bar. The service is great, really friendly and observant, my glass was never empty and you get the one waiter the whole night which makes the experience much more personalised. Be warned serving sizes are small, the mains left me satiated but not full, and I am one small girl, so if you can eat or are super hungry be sure to order sides or more dishes than there are people.

Random Melbourne street art light projection

 

Open kitchen dining, must say they were quite hygienic!

Caramelised sticky pork - $26
With sour herb salad and chilli vinegar dressing.
First of all, loved the dressing, reminded me of home, lovely
balance of sweet, sour and chilli. The salad as said was mainly herbs,
cucumber and bean sprouts, so I only ate the cucumbers in it.
Now moving onto the main attraction, the flavour of the pork was amazing,
and the sweetness really went well with the sour dressing.
I must say the meat was quite charred on the outside and although
this added texture, it did leave it quite dry, even in the centre.
However 10/10 on flavour!

Pad Seuw - $24
With 6 hour braised wagyu, gai laan, rolled rice noodles and crispy shallots.
I don't remember eating anything crispy so I don't believe there were shallots,
on our dish but there was a lot of coriander garnish as you can see.
Proportionally I would've liked a bit more rice noodle. The sauce
was quite thick and strong for the little quantity of noodles and meat.
That being said the flavour was lovely and sweet but not too sweet.
The beef unfortunately was not melt-in-your-mouth tender.
Some bigger pieces were chewy while shredded pieces were just swallowed.

Coconut Sago with sweetcorn icecream, praline and puffed wild rice - $14
We saw them making it and it looked so good, sadly when it arrived a few minutes later
the ice-cream was already quite melted and cool rather than cold.
Other than that, I loved the coconut sago, the puffed rice had a nice little sweetness
to it and I loved the crunch. Wasn't a fan of the praline, along with the drizzled
syrup, made the dish too sweet and the praline was hard to bite into (was
worried I would lose a tooth). All in all just a tad on the sweet side as every
component had was sweet, especially the icecream, could not eat this on my own.