We’d driven twenty one hours: endured the elements, one another’s company, and Mc Donald’s for breakfast lunch and dinner, in preparation for the culinary delights of Melbourne’s China Town.  These restaurants turned out to be a reoccurring topic on the way down from Sydney after feasting on junk food, car snacks and gas station goodies. “Just wait till we get to Melbourne.” I remember thinking to myself, ‘Malaysians and Singaporeans must have super human taste buds.  How good could the food be?’  In my opinion nothing compares to the real thing.  I’d had Chinese food back in Brisbane, but I always found it overly influenced by western condiments such as mayo and tomato sauce, nothing close to the real thing. Maybe the taste of food has to do with where you eat it and the people you share it with.  As a Canadian, staying in Malacca Malaysia, I couldn’t agree more.  To me, food always tasted better when it was eaten with family and served hot by a waitress, as opposed to slopping it on a paper plate amidst the busy atmosphere of some shopping mall in the suburbs. I must admit, if it’s one thing I miss when I’m at school in Australia it would have to be the food in Malaysia: the savory rice, the chilies, the fresh green vegetables and juicy ripe fruits.  My pathetic attempts at cooking anything similar often ends in watered down curries, crunchy rice and charred pots and pans.

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Our first official day, the mission: to find Shark Fin House, a much talked about restaurant in China town.  My friend Leng had heard about it from her relatives down in Adelaide, apparently they had excellent yum cha.  We traversed city blocks, asked strangers, talked to shop keepers who all enthusiastically pointed us in the right direction.

My feet were burning by the time we made it to the front door.  It looked quite empty from the outside; I would’ve never guessed this place was a restaurant hot spot in Melbourne.

The inside looked elegant; waiters and waitresses were dressed in freshly pressed clothes and an impressive fish tank alive with exotic seafood to greet customers at the entrance.  Leng scans the grounds before she’s approached by a pleasant looking employee.  Suddenly, I can’t help but to feel Closter phobic as the front doors fly open, a gust of wind bursts forth, a frenzy of hungry locals and tourists pile in and the lunch rush begins. A Chinese tour guide with bright orange lip stick, a head set and an impressive looking clip board motions her crew forward.

“Leng, I’ll be outside,” I shout as I squeeze through the crowd only to be embraced by the cold winter air.

Leng comes out minutes later with a business card in hand, she’s all smiles.

Half of us are leaving Melbourne to go back to Brisbane on Thursday, and Leng feels yum cha at the Shark Fin House would be a good way for us all to get together one last time as a group. 

We agree to meet the next morning at eleven.

The restaurant doesn’t look any different the next morning.  People cram around tables, waitresses shout orders from across the dining room, silver yum cha trolleys quickly empty, and the staff already look warn and overworked: they’ve been open for less then an hour. 

We’re given a centre table, right in the heart of the restaurant.  I leave the ordering up to my friends, and pretend I know what they are saying as they converse with the waitresses in Mandarin, each party speaking a mile a minute. 

Suddenly, I feel as though I’ve been transported back in time, a guest at a royal banquet.  Pork buns, porridge, and prawn dumplings in bamboo baskets quickly fill the table as my eyes grow wide and my stomach growls in delight.

I reach across the table and attack a dumpling with my plastic chop sticks, dunk it in chili sauce and pop it in my mouth.  I savor every bite; noting each ingredient I swallow: prawn, rice paper, carrot. I put down my chop sticks, wipe my mouth on my napkin, relish in the fragrance of my cup of tea and think, “Man, this tastes just like home.”

We make small talk, take pictures and just as I think the food frenzy is about to end, expensive items wrapped in banana leaves, or baked in oyster shells take the place of empty dishes.  I haven’t eaten this good since I was last in Malaysia, I think to myself as I forcefully try a spoonful of everything.  I lean back in my chair, and take another sip of tea in hopes that it will dissolve the over flow of food in my gut. 

“Egg tart?” Leng presents me with a plate of steaming yellow tarts.

I smile.  Should I?  Aah what the hell!  I grab one, bite into the warm yellow filling and golden crusty base, I’m not going home for another four months.

photos by Ywen Leng Hew

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