Sofia Levin reviews: Benyue Kitchen — ‘not your average neighbourhood Chinese’
In a sentence: Elegant Cantonese from ex-Lau’s Family Kitchen staff
The damage: entree $9.80-$26.80, mains $21.80-54, desserts $11.80
Top tip: call ahead to order poussin and ask what off-menu specials are available
Quench your thirst: plan ahead and BYO
If you like this try: Flower Drum (CBD), Bamboo House (CBD)
When St Kilda institution, Lau’s Family Kitchen, closed its doors after 15 years a favourite, you could almost hear Melbourne’s collective gasp of horror. How can we live without that ma po tofu? That flawless fried rice? That velvety crab omelette?
Those questions now have an answer: drive to Aberfeldie, a suburb wedged between Essendon and Essendon West a little more than 10 kilometres beyond the city. Less than a year after Lau’s fired up the wok one final time, three members of the long-standing kitchen team opened Benyue Kitchen in suburban brick building, resurrecting many of the dishes and introducing some of their own.
Benyue is not your average neighbourhood Chinese joint. This is the epitome of elegant Cantonese fare, influenced by the original owner of Flower Drum, Gilbert Lau (as in, Lau’s Family Kitchen). It’s apparent in entrees, such as perfectly plump siu mai dumplings, made in-house with juicy Queensland prawns, pork and mushroom. You can feel the mastery when the golden batter of salt and pepper calamari shatters upon contact with your molars, and when that crab meat omelette melts like butter at the back of your palate.
If you can wait half an hour, do: technique shines most in soy poussin, a young chook larger than a quail but smaller than a hen. That je ne sais quoi (any one know what that is in Mandarin?) in the soy poaching potion is Chinese rose wine, also known as mei kuei lu chiew. It adds sweet, floral and herbal notes. The russet bird practically shimmers. It’s so succulent it makes me think of the ortolan, the now-forbidden French delicacy where tiny songbirds are eaten whole with a napkin over one’s head to disguise the sin.
You’ll want to order white rice to soak up any juices, but the scallop fried rice with truffle paste is a different beast. At $43.8, it’s a heady bowl speckled black from the mass of truffle, which coats the rice and is carried on life rafts of omelette, scallop and barbecued pork.
More familiar family-friendly dishes include beef in XO sauce and barbecued pork; fried crispy noodles served with soft, flaky fish fillet; and Lau’s famed ma po tofu with minced pork. The surprise hit was the Szechuan-style braised eggplant with minced pork, shrimp and spices. Oily, fatty and filled with flavour, I wasn’t expecting to prefer it to the ma po tofu.
To finish, we split all three nostalgic Chinese-Australian desserts: banana fritters, pineapple fritters and deep-fried ice cream.
Benyue is BYO; but call ahead if you’re planning on matching bottles to special dishes – there are limited portions of the poussin and they’d sold out of peking duck when I visited.
Benyue
365 Buckley Street, Aberfeldie
benyuekitchen.com.au