The new complex at 206 Bourke Street, billed as an “Asian dining, retail and entertainment hub” has so far failed to impress in culinary terms.  When I first read about the multi-million dollar redevelopment of the former Village City Centre, [...]]]> Level 1, 206 Bourke Street, Melbourne (map)
Phone 03 9663 0005

The new complex at 206 Bourke Street, billed as an “Asian dining, retail and entertainment hub” has so far failed to impress in culinary terms.  When I first read about the multi-million dollar redevelopment of the former Village City Centre, I was excited at the potential reinvigoration of a Chinatown dining scene that has, in parts, fallen into such mediocrity that restaurants rely on street touts to lure in customers.  Amongst 206′s star recruits are Dynasty, a 600-seater Cantonese and dim sum specialist based at Shanghai’s Renaissance Yangtze Hotel;  a high end Japanese restaurant called Opulent; and Nan Xing Steam Bun, another yum cha specialist.  All of these restaurants are yet to open.  The existing tenant, John So’s Dragon Boat, has reopened, having been renovated and expanded over two floors.  You can see why I’d be excited.

After lacklustre dim sum at the restaurant of John So (he’s no longer my bro), we decided to have dinner at 206′s other new restaurant, The Bund.  Named after Shanghai’s famous quay, the Bund specialises in Shanghainese cuisine, with influences from Zhejiang, a province known for dishes like Dongpo rou (Fried pork belly stewed in soy sauce and wine), Jiaohua ji (beggar’s chicken) and Xi Hu cu yu (West Lake sweet and sour fish).  It is also the region where the famous Dragon Well green tea originated.

The alarm bells should have been ringing after the spin campaign touted ”affordable luxury with 5 star chefs from Shanghai’s Shangri-la Pudong Hotel” who will ”bring the amazing taste of Shanghai to Melbourne’s doorstep and present it in one of the most opulent settings the city has seen”.  The opulence obviously includes “two five-tonne shark tanks”, the purpose of which caused me some confusion when I first read it: were live sharks’ fins going to be offered?  The sales pitch continued on their Facebook page, which offered daily free glasses of wine and “buy one cocktail get one free” deals.

The Bund is located on Level 1 of the 206 complex.  Led up the escalator by one of the two friendly touts at street level, we arrived at a pleasant and modern dining room dominated by a large marbled bar smack bang in the middle.  Starched table cloths and funky light features lent to the opulent aspirations although this was somewhat cheapened by A4 paper plastered all over the front windows which advertised the specials.  The entrance also had a design quirk in that it didn’t have a partition or front greeting area, so that the table closest to it feels as if it’s halfway out the door! (Luckily that was not our table).

The sales puffery started to dissipate once we were seated: the shark tanks turned out to be a colourful aquarium behind the bar – nice but nary a shark in sight – and we were not offered any free drinks, with wine glasses quickly whisked away after we asked for water.  Perhaps they should have made it clear what the conditions of the offer were?

Now to the food: the menu was divided into various sections for seafood, meat etc.  However, descriptions were scant, with the provincial origin of dishes often not stated.

Drunken Chicken

Shanghai smoked fish

Xiao Long Bao

We started with entrees of Shanghai smoked fish, drunken chicken and six Xiao Long Bao (soupy pork dumplings).  The smoked fish was tasty though nothing exceptional.  The XLBs were also nice, with a good broth inside each dumpling, however, the skin was a tad too thick and certainly not a patch on Hu Tong.  The poached drunken chicken had great flavour and was very tender indeed.  However, it was marred by the bright red bone attached to most pieces.  I know that the cooking technique calls for the bone to remain rare, but it’s off-putting to cop shards of bloodied bone whilst eating and for one’s plate to pool with red liquid.  Perhaps the chicken could have been deboned or presented differently?

Spinach cooked with salted and century egg

Dragon Well Tea prawns

"Grandma's" braised pork belly

Our mains arrived in extremely quick succession, almost without a break from our entrees.  We shared spinach cooked with salted and century egg, Dragon Well Tea prawns, “Grandma’s” braised pork belly, and seafood fried noodles.  The spinach, which turned out to be snow pea shoots, was the dish that was probably the pick of the bunch (pun intended).  Swimming in a nice soupy gravy, it was tasty though the century egg lacked a bit of flavour.  The prawns were very bland, with a complete absence of any tea flavour.  Instead, Mellie noted an unpleasant aftertaste which suggested that the prawns might not have been very fresh.  The fatty pork belly was OK, though it was too sweet and cut a little too thickly for our liking.

Seafood noodles

After instantaneous serving of our mains, the fried noodles took an eternity to arrive.  We had to ask about it twice.  When it finally arrived, it was disappointingly not worth the wait, as it was the stinker of the night.  Completely lacking in wok hei charriness, the noodles were soggy rather than crispy, with a tasteless brothy sauce containing some bland seafood, particularly the rubbery calamari.  Terrible.

Service was friendly but a little lacking in areas.  We were not offered spoons with the XLBs or the noodles and had to ask for these.  Plates with piles of chicken bones were also not cleared promptly.

I realise that The Bund is newly opened and every restaurant has teething problems.  I do hope they sort these out, but our dinner was very disappointing.  It’s all fine to have a great fit-out but it has to be matched to good food and intuitive service.  Additionally, the ugly side of social media of the kind that’s been perpetuated by the complex must be backed up by substance.  You can fool tourists but food-savvy locals will be turned away if things are not up to scratch.    I will continue to try the other new restaurants at 206 as they open, as I believe in giving eateries a fair go, but I now do so with trepidation given our two experiences so far.

As we left the complex, The Bund’s touts, obviously having forgotten who we were, asked if we wanted to try some Chinese food.  No thanks.