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When a spring roll arrives at your table already dismembered for your convenience - well, one has got to wonder. Is it a half arsed attempt at nouveau food styling? Or did the chef think the plate was too stark to send out on its own without a splattering of spring roll pastry decorating the plate? Hmm…I dunno. I don’t get it. But that is pretty much indicative of the dining experience I had at Lau’s Family Kitchen. Yes, the food was great (when it wasn’t broken!), but there were a few little quirks that just had me wondering.

The Lau family is somewhat of a stalwart on the Melbourne dining scene, being creator of the legendary Flowerdrum. Gilbert Lau, big daddy of said establishment, retired back in 2003 - some say to pay off gambling debts, others say to just rest after six day work weeks. Either way, he now has his finger in the pie at Lau’s, along with his sons who now appear to be running with the Lau show.

First quirk of the evening was the request for two glasses of sparkling. They only had enough for one glass (which was complimentary when they realised the error - good move!), as they forgot to put the bottles into the chiller from the busy night prior to our lunch visit. This wasn’t a bother so much, but the very stern reprimand to the waiter who “forgot” the task did bother me.

And despite having five staff on the floor on what is pretty much a small dining area (40 seats), the service was a little hit and miss. One waiter would plate your food, whilst another wouldn’t. You were either ignored for a period, or awash with attention. They also didn’t notice our empty wine glasses.

The menu is small - a range of approximately 20 dishes. You can choose from the retro and kitschy sweet and sour pork to the endangered patagonian toothfish (which I refuse to eat due to it’s status). Nothing will jump out and bite you on the arse though - so don’t expect any culinary surprises.

For entree we started with the dismembered lamb spring rolls (photo above), which despite the massacre on the plate, were wonderful. Crisp pastry, tasty lamb and vegetable filling, and served with thick sweet plum-y type sauce.

Next entree was the eggplant and yam dumplings - mashed yam/taro stuffed into slices of eggplant and capsicum, battered and deep-fried to absolute deliciousness and dressed with a reduced and thickened stock. You want to eat this one rather quickly, else the batter turns less than crispy. But it still tasted pretty good all soggy.

We then moved to the mains and chose the Beef Hor Fun. It was a tender pile of meat set in a rich satay sauce atop slippery flat rice noodles. Best thing to do with this dish is dig your spoon in and mess it all about, to get the noodles coated in satay sauce.

A fresh bowl of steamed and braised mixed vegetables (snow peas, bok choy, shitake, chinese broccoli) accompanied our now messed up dish of Hor Fun. The veg did come with something a little extra - about four strands from some sort of brush (perhaps used to clean down the wok?). We pointed this out our waiter, but didn’t get any recompense/apology etc. That was a little disappointing.

We decided to forgo dessert in favour of Acland Street treats not too far away, and the fact that a dessert menu wasn’t offered to us.

I think Lau’s would be a great place to have a good casual meal with your mates. It doesn’t hold any aspirations of being the next Flowerdrum. Basically, I think they just want to offer honest food to regular punters. If they could just iron out a few of their service quirks - they’ll do absolutely fine.

Written by mellie on November 6th, 2006 | Tags: Chinese, restaurants | Category: Uncategorized |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL