restaurants

Secret Kitchen CBD

Secret Kitchen is a popular Melbourne Cantonese yum cha restaurant, also featuring a great range of traditional Chinese a la carte dining options and a delectable seafood menu. Boasting outlets across Melbourne CBD, Doncaster, Chadstone and Glen Waverley, we were very excited to be able to dine at their open-space venue at Glen Waverley. Overall, the service was speedy, their yum cha had several specialty dishes and the environment was so vibrant and bustling – it was so busy for a Thursday lunch time when the rest of the shopping centre was quiet. The good fat: Their yum cha menu was definitely the highlight – not only did they have the classic, adorable pink custard buns, they also had a multitude of flaky pastry options, with a range of fillings, from savoury BBQ pork, to sweet durian. The egg tart pastry was similarly divine, crumbling perfectly in my mouth whilst the sweetness of the egg filling inside coming through. The truffle and scallop stir fry we tried from their a la carte menu was definitely an interesting twist on a stock standard stir fry. The scallops were juicy and tender, whilst the addition of mushrooms and perfectly cooked green beans added an earthy, yet refreshing crunch. The gelatinous rice cakes with crispy fried prawn inside was one of my favourites! A unique twist of adding black rice to the pastry created the overall purple effect, whilst the crunch of the golden flour, with the tenderness of the prawns inside was a delicious collection of different tastes and textures. The sesame dipping sauce on the side was an aromatic complement. The bad fat: The soup dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) were quite disappointing – the skin was definitely too thick whilst the filling was very dense, lacking any evidence of soup inside. I appreciated their wide range of Chinese a la carte dining options, and the ingenuity of combining scallops with black truffle – however the stir fry itself, was quite oily and the aroma of the truffle did not create some amazing combination when coupled with the scallops – but my friend, an expert durian pastry eater, also found the durian filling quite watery and runny inside. SHOULD YOU GET FAT HERE? Yes – With a competitive Melbourne Chinese market, Secret Kitchen is a worthwhile yum cha restaurant to try! FAT-O-METER: 3.5/5