restaurants • shopping

TuanTuan Chinese Brasserie Melbourne

Tuan Tuan is a South-East Asian with Cantonese styled fusion restaurant concept that grew from the Phillipines and has expanded its first location to Melbourne just north of the CBD. It’s a brightly lit, beautifully decorated restaurant that could stand for either a casual date night or a cosy catch up with friends. I was super impressed with their specialty – custard snow buns, that features a variety of different fillings, but the salted egg custard definitely being my standout. The good fat: Being their entree/dessert-styled specialty, it’s no surprise that the snow buns were beautifully done. A light pastry, with a delicately flaky exterior complemented with various fillings – the snow buns were an authentic, yet innovative start to our meal. The salted egg yolk instead is the definition of yolk porn – good bye to the Melbourne cafe eggs benedicts because this yolk custard drip trumps them all – a warm sauce hinted with sweet and savoury. The bad fat: The prawn curry became a little one-dimensional towards the end as there were only really prawns with curry – it would’ve been nice to have a bit more complexity to the dish or another interesting added element of flavour. SHOULD YOU GET FAT HERE? YES – If you love Cantonese styled yum cha pastries then the snow buns are a must try (Char Siu BBQ Pork or Salted Egg would be delicious), but whilst you’re there, be sure to grab a deliciously warm laksa or curry too. FAT-O-METER: 4/5 The prawn curry and laksa fish were pretty classic South East Asian dishes and the perfect soul warmer with the raging winds of Melbourne winter hounding outside. The laksa soup had powerful notes of coconut, and generous helpings of fish balls. Likewise, the thai prawn curry featured many fresh and juicy prawns supplemented by a lightly-spiced, yet earthy green curry.