680 Swanston St, Carlton 9943 1055

 

Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles (before)

 

Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles (after)

Fried Kway Teow with Beef

Barbecue Lemon Fish

 

Thoughts:

Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles – a traditional Yunnan dish that has a charming story behind it. The story involves a scholar who was studying for his imperial exams amidst the tranquility of a small island. Each day his wife would bring him lunch by crossing a bridge onto the island however by the time she got there his food was cold. She decided to experiment with different methods to keep her dishes warm and soon discovered that by having a layer of oil on top of the soup, the broth would remain hot enough to cook the other ingredients by the she arrived onto the island. And since she had to cross a bridge to get to the the island, her dish became known as “cross-bridge rice noodles”.

What you get with this dish is:

• a bowl of pre-cooked rice noodles
• a big bowl of very hot chicken broth
• a plate of assorted slices of chicken, raw fish, ham
• a quail egg
• a plate of vegetables

The order in which the ingredients go into the soup is: egg, fish, ham, chicken, vegetables and then noodles. The next step is to wait for a minute or two for the ingredients to cook through.

I really enjoyed this dish. The broth was mild yet very flavoursome, and the noodles were fantastically soft and slippery. (Plus it was fun putting all the ingredients together) = Good

Fried Kway Teow – flat rice noodles with either beef or chicken or seafood, egg, spring onion, capsicum and bean sprouts = Not bad

Barbecue Lemon Fish – sweet, citrusy, and mildly (hardly) spicy. This perfectly fried crispy fish was delicious = Good

 

Overall:

Located close to Melbourne University, this place is often packed full of hungry students during lunchtime. The atmosphere was noisy and the service was good considering how busy they were.