Ostentatious and theatrical, OTT Vietnamese steakhouse TungThit makes an impact on scruffy Victoria Street.
14/20
Vietnamese$$
Some people complain when a banh mi costs more than $10, so wait ’till they hear about the $58 Vietnamese roll at TungThit, an Asian fusion restaurant in Abbotsford. Me, though? I’ve been back for another one.
It’s not because it’s served in a formal restaurant setting, though the ostentatious room – with its arched windows, marble fittings, artfully distressed brick walls, black-and-white movie star photos and an enormous, and incongruous, stag’s head – does make an impact, especially on scruffy Victoria Street.
The banh mi tastes great, of course: slow-cooked beef short rib is smooshed into a crusty roll along with grated carrot and a profusion of herbs (beef isn’t a normal filling for banh mi, pork being the takeaway fallback). But that’s not it, either. The reason I’ve been back is the service: it’s dinner and a show.
Nothing here is ordinary. “Flair bartending” is a style of mixology that involves acrobatic pouring and the juggling of cocktail shakers: TungThit has invented flair food.
That banh mi I was talking about is brought to the table on a wooden board by a black-gloved waiter who extracts the short rib bone with sword-from-a-stone drama. The meat is massaged across the bread, the roll carved with camp theatrics and – if you like – a succulent strand placed directly in your mouth. It’s silly and fun and I am so here for it.
The actors – sorry, waiters – have more scenes. Halved marrow bone is scraped at the table into pho. Beef Wellington is sliced at the table for a juicy reveal, the halves separated with the same sense of timing as a magician flipping the final card. It’s a perfect blushing pink, the culinary world’s ace of hearts.
Sizzling steak platters are ferried through the dining room, hissing like a shaman’s basket of snakes.
None of this would work if the food wasn’t good. TungThit sources premium beef, much of it high-quality wagyu, and cooks it properly. The short rib is braised long and slow, the steaks are charred and rested well, the broths are simmered for hours, bringing flavours to a subtle crescendo.
It’s dinner and a show… it’s silly and fun and I am so here for it.
I love this wacky development in Australian Asian cuisine which, though exciting and ever-changing, is often subject to an ongoing conversation around pricing: why can tortellini be expensive, but dumplings must be cheap? Why shouldn’t a banh mi that uses premium ingredients and relies on skilled labour be priced accordingly?
Owner Tung ‘Anthony ’ Nguyen brings a telling mix of experience to this restaurant (and its Springvale sibling). In Vietnam, he managed five-star hotel restaurants, then jumped to Gucci as a store manager, both on home turf and Europe. He moved to Melbourne seven years ago, working first in a meat factory, then seizing an opportunity to export beef to Asia. You can see the five-star and couture angles in TungThit’s extravagance and immersive experience as well as Nguyen’s entrepreneurial passion.
Beef is the undeniable focus (“thit” is meat), but there’s also seafood, pasta, a few dishes for vegetarians, and a dessert that trips back in time to Nguyen’s childhood in Ho Chi Minh City. Every weekend, he’d go for ice-cream at a famous store called Bach Dung. His rendition is like the old favourite, coconut ice cream scooped into a coconut shell topped with whipped cream and a drizzle of Vietnamese coffee. It’s nostalgia with a frisson of flair.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Exuberant and theatrical
Go-to dishes: Sizzling steak (from $62); short rib banh mi ($58); signature pho ($68); beef Wellington ($119)
Drinks: The beverage menu is showy, like the food. There are a couple of big, spendy reds if that’s what you need with expensive meats, and there’s an okay list of cocktails, so long as your tastes lean sweet. Vietnamese coffee is available hot or cold, and there’s house-made iced tea.
Cost: About $190 for two, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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