Chinese restaurant Pounding Rice Bowl provides the mortar, pestle, rice and pork and asks diners to smash away.
You’ve ordered food, the kitchen has prepared it, and it’s arrived at your table looking lovely. There’s only one thing to do: wreck it. Pick up the provided pestle and pound your meal into a mash. That’s the concept at Pounding Rice Bowl, a new city restaurant that explains its key activity in its name.
Smashing a bowl of rice, minced pork, and soft braised eggplant is a great idea. The broken rice absorbs the juice from the pork, the eggplant becomes almost creamy and the amalgam makes for comforting chopsticked mouthfuls. Macerated screw peppers, a type of twisty green chilli, are served alongside.
Other rice bowl toppings include braised pork belly and meatballs, but no matter the garnish, the rice is the star. Premium wuchang rice is imported from Heilongjiang province in north-east China: medium grain and slightly sticky, it’s a perfect carrier for bold, savoury flavours.
China’s south-central province of Hunan is the main inspiration behind these dishes but don’t go there and expect to be given a pounding stick whenever you eat out. There is a Hunanese dish of preserved century egg, chilli and eggplant that it’s traditional to bash – either in the kitchen, or at the dining table – but Pounding Rice Bowl owner Ben Wen expanded the concept for his Melbourne restaurant, building a whole brand around the idea of self-smashed food.
Originally from the famous beer town of Qingdao (home to Tsingtao) in eastern China, Wen is an ever-creative entrepreneur who’s opened 70 venues since 2008, including pizza parlours, dumpling houses, barbecue chicken joints and a Peking duck restaurant. His fast-casual smarts and an expansive vision for modern Australian-Chinese food combine in this restaurant, which he plans to expand to Asian hubs Box Hill and Glen Waverley.
“The scallion oil noodles are one of the best sub-$10 lunches in town.”
Open from lunch to late (and soon for breakfast), Pounding Rice Bowl is just out of the Chinatown fray. There’s cosy seating downstairs near the kitchen, while the first floor is spacious, decorated with custom illustrative artwork by an employee with a background designing Chinese film paraphernalia.
Ordering is via QR code, but there’s no problem engaging with a waiter if you prefer. Limitless pickles and sweet plum juice are available at help-yourself stations, just one more sign of the hospitality here.
The menu is broad and savvy, reflecting a kitchen that employs chefs from all over China, and allows them to showcase their specialties. A range of classic Aussie-Chinese dishes, such as sweet-and-sour pork and honey chicken, keeps nervous guests on-side. The more adventurous – or simply acculturated – go hard on offal and odd-bits such as fried duck head and spicy pork ears.
I love the “fried chicken bone”, a whole carcass that is marinated, braised, fried and served with a zingy Sichuan spice salt featuring 21 ingredients. Gloves are provided so you can eat with gusto: crack some bones, nibble their edges, get messy and give yourself extra points for eating the last (delicious) scraps from a product that often hits the bin.
You’ll also want to try the springy, fresh house-made noodles. To make them, Wen uses the “00” flour he fell in love with during his pizza shop days. He’s also a fan of Melbourne water, saying it’s not even necessary to add salt to make a wonderful dough.
The scallion oil noodles here are one of the best sub-$10 lunches in town, using three different types of onion to create a piquant but sweet dressing for the long noodles.
Meanwhile, the dumplings are better than decent. Pork parcels everywhere often include cabbage; these ones smuggle in water chestnut for a more sophisticated crunch, just one more way Pounding Rice Bowl shows a level of detail and care at a keen price point.
Smashing may be the activity; smash hit is the result.
Three more regional Chinese restaurants to try
Chilli Queen of Hunan
Don’t be put off by the slightly forbidding entrance: the restaurant beyond the opaque window is welcoming, offering a chilli-spiked and garlicky insight into the food of landlocked Hunan. Try the smoked pork stir-fry and spicy-sour potato.
45 Koornang Road, Carnegie, chilliqueenofhunan.com.au
Bay Aka Kebab
I recently led a series of food tours along Clayton Road and every person in every group fell in love with the tender, carefully spiced lamb skewers at this humble Uyghur barbecue restaurant. The pride is as moving as the tenderness. (Also try the savoury yoghurt drink, made from a house recipe.)
276 Clayton Road, Clayton
Hakka Cuisine
There’s an extensive menu of pan-Chinese and live seafood dishes at this large restaurant with private rooms, but the main drawcards are Hakka specialties such as wine-braised pork, duck with taro, and preserved claypot vegetables.
1101 Toorak Road, Camberwell, hakkacuisine.com.au
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