Thursday, August 17, 2006

University Asia Restaurant, Nedlands, Perth

On the way back from M.River, we decided to stop by University Asia Restaurant in Broadway, Nedlands for some Chinese food. I was actually craving Chinese food heaps after spending those few days in M.River. This place has an interesting history, it used to be owned by Billy Lee; after his demise, it was sold to a Singaporean lawyer and now it's owned by Malaysians from KL (which still somewhat explains the Cantonese theme in the food). The food and service of this place is pretty much checkered with ups and downs over the past few years but currently is pretty good resulting in a slightly higher patronage from ourselves.

Started off with a thick soup with soft beancurd and prawn bits in it. It was a tad bit too salty today but was hot enough to be welcomed on a cold, rainy winter evening.

Sometimes I get queries on why I like to eat Chinese food in different countries when you can get Chinese food in Singapore. The answer is simply because Chinese food in different countries is different, you get alot of variations that you'll never find in Singapore and honestly, most of the best Chinese cuisine I've eaten is outside of Singapore anyway. This dish is pork ribs with portwine. Although port is slightly sweet, the seasoning of the deepfried pork ribs still overall made this dish deliciously savory. The chargrilled onions and shallots also gave a subtle fragrance which only served to enhance the dish further.

Roast (actually deepfried) chicken with soy sauce. Another variant of the crispy roast chicken, this allows the chicken to be more moist and flavorsome as it soaks up the soy sauce with roasted garlic that's poured over it.

Probably more Malaysian than Cantonese in origin, this dish of beancurd, mincemeat and sweet-spicy sauce over a raw egg base seems to be dying out in Singapore. Still sizzling when it was served, it went really well with the steamed white rice.

As is customary in most Chinese restaurants in most Western countries, the obligatory serve of fruits at the end of the meal were oranges. I only took this picture because this place took the effort to deseed and peel the oranges for us which I thought was pretty cool.

D

p.s: University Asia also supposedly serves a pretty wicked chicken rice set (which I have yet to try) during lunch which is popular amongst the students (UWA is just across the road).

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