York Cafe
Phone 03 9642 2882
Everyone needs a cheap and cheerful neighbourhood takeaway joint for when you can’t be bothered cooking or when the pantry is stone motherless bare. Takeaway is sometimes lacking for us CBD residents, who miss out on the great suburban staples of quality pizza joints and fish and chippers. Thank god for gems like York Cafe to satisfy our take out cravings!
A bustling lunch spot, York Cafe is a haven at night for students, who converge on the place for a cheap feed during a break in studying, and also nearby apartment dwellers, who keep the delivery boy very busy indeed (minimum delivery order is $20). Rita, the pocket dynamo owner, ensures that everyone is well looked after.
A clean, bright and neat little space, York offers the gamut of Hong Kong-style fast food, from a range of soup and fried noodles, to various combinations of toppings on steaming plain rice. Nostalgia abounds, with spam and fried eggs on rice available, and the drinks menu listing Ovaltine and Horlicks. A separate a la carte menu is available, which comes with complimentary soup and rice, but is currently only written in Chinese so you may have to get Rita to translate. What I love about York is that the food is tasty but not too oily, and most dishes are usually loaded with vegies. Also, the owners go the extra mile by catering for those who are gluten intolerant.
I have tried almost everything on the menu and loved them all. Those on a budget usually go for the $6.50 beef or chicken on rice, which you can choose to have with a range of sauces, including black bean, garlic chilli, satay, curry, oyster, XO, szechuan and more. Let’s see Subways match that! The York does a particularly good beef and bitter melon with black bean sauce (first pic), deliciously warming fish ball soup noodles (second pic), and one of the best examples of the Cantonese version of char kway teow ever - dry-fried beef with rice noodles that was smoky and ever so tastily licked by the breath of the wok. There’s also a nice range of fried rice dishes and vego’s are well catered for with seven vegetarian dishes. If you are game, request some fresh chopped chilli, which are sliced razor thin and come from Rita’s home garden. They will blow your socks off.
Drinks are quirky and fun, with Hong Kong-style ice milk tea (ice tea with condensed milk) and a very nice ice lemon tea. Espresso and cafe latte’s are also available. The York is not licensed but you can BYO.
I love this place! City life would have been unbearable without a great “neighbourhood” place like York Cafe.
Written by ElegantGourmand on
August 27th, 2007 | Tags: Asian, cafes, Chinese, restaurants | Category: Uncategorized
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August 27th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
this place sounds good!
have you tried their delivery before? how far do they deliver to?
sounds like a good option for me on hungry nights when i’m too lazy to walk out
August 28th, 2007 at 2:52 am
Now I know why the place looks so familiar - I was about to head there for lunch the other day! (ended up eating somewhere else though..)
The food looks homely and the price is pretty decent - will definitely give this a try sometime
August 29th, 2007 at 2:54 am
I tend to eat in most times, as I live right next door
I have used the delivery once (and felt totally lazy about it) and it was quite fast. They deliver only within the CBD. delivery hours are 5.30 to 10.00pm.
forgot to mention that the a la carte (written only in Chinese) is $10.80 per head, which includes a dish of your choice, soup and rice. For $2 more you also get a drink. Dishes include variations of the normal menu, plus things like duck and taro and salt and pepper calamari.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Hmmm, never been to this restaurant. must put this down on my list… and the prices are cheap, isnt it? $6.50. =)
August 31st, 2007 at 3:30 pm
hi,
that milk shake drink looks delish & the food at the york cafe certainly looks very apppetising.
love meg from pennypincherspantry -uk