Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Jennifer Wong

‘We put it in the car fridge and take it home 1,000km’: love letters to Australia’s Chinese restaurants

A family standing outside a Chinese restaurant.
‘My siblings and I would sometimes sneak into the busy kitchen to steal a few prawn crackers’: Julianna Loo Bun shares memories of Lantern, the Chinese restaurant in Yeppoon, Queensland, run by her family Photograph: Supplied by Julianna Loo Bun

It seems as though almost everyone in Australia has a Chinese restaurant memory. When Lin Jie Kong and I made our series Chopsticks or Fork? for the ABC two years ago, we found this sense of nostalgia is especially true when it comes to Chinese restaurants in regional Australia. These restaurants are the backdrops to birthdays and anniversaries and “firsts”: whether it’s dressing up to dine out or trying non-western food such as spring rolls or chicken chow mein.

Over the last few months, we’ve travelled to restaurants in Victoria, Western Australia, Tasmania and Canberra for Chopsticks or Fork? – The Book and chronicled places we weren’t able to visit for the show. We’ve met more families who run these establishments and chatted with diners who can’t get enough Mongolian lamb and deep-fried ice-cream. Some of these diners and their families have been visiting the same Chinese restaurant for four or five generations.

A female waiter serving dishes to a table of diners in a Chinese restaurant.
In a scene from ABC’s Chopsticks or Fork? restaurant co-owner Whitney Lai serves diners at New Bo Wa restaurant in Moree, NSW Photograph: Supplied/Chopsticks or Fork?

Now we’re seeking your memories for the book, in the form of stories or photos about a Chinese restaurant close to your heart. Maybe it’s about the eatery your family ran when you were growing up in Mildura, or the local in Laurieton where you’ve been eating lemon chicken every Thursday night for the last 20 years.

By way of inspiration, you might have a cosy childhood memory like Tina Kurtz, who writes: “Every Friday night Dad would take me for a walk to Pearly Wong’s Kwan Tong Palace in Berowra [NSW] to pick up dinner to give Mum a break. She stayed home, put on a record and had a bath in peace.

“After ordering special fried rice, sweet and sour pork, chicken cashew nut and garlic prawns we’d get a block of chocolate for Mum, as well as the once-a-week bottle of Coke. To this day I can’t eat old-school Chinese food without Coke.”

Presenter Jennifer Wong, in a colourful striped shirt, sitting at a white-clothed table with a bowl of deep-fried ice-cream.
Jennifer Wong with deep-fried ice-cream at New Bo Wa restaurant in Moree Photograph: Supplied/Chopsticks or Fork?

Meanwhile, Peter Baker tells the story of a Chinese restaurant on the western side of Forest Road in Bexley, Sydney. “My dad was a retired cab driver and his words of wisdom to me were: ‘Eat where the cab drivers eat.’ His reasoning being that it’ll be cheap and consistently good.

“This place had about six blue Formica kitchen tables with matching chairs … Dad was right – the food was consistent and good.”

Or maybe you’re a fan of a particular dish, like Joanne Real, a devotee of the ham and chicken roll at the Capitol restaurant in Townsville, Queensland. “This restaurant has served my family members meals for six generations: my great-grandmother (who was three-quarters Chinese), through to my children and some of my cousins’ grandchildren.”

For the benefit of extended family members who live out of town, she takes the concept of takeaway to extraordinary lengths. “We put it in the car fridge and take it home 1,000km to Mount Isa for them.”

A black and white photograph of a young child with her father in a restaurant kitchen.
‘It truly became a family-run enterprise!’: Julianna Loo Bun, as a child, with her father in the kitchen of the family restaurant Photograph: Supplied by Julianna Loo Bun

We’re also looking for stories from those who ran, or run, the restaurants. Juliana Loo Bun wrote to us about her dad, Arthur, who arrived in Australia from Hong Kong in the 1950s as a sponsored migrant. With his wife Matilda, he ended up running two Chinese restaurants in Queensland: Melin and Lantern.

Juliana writes: “The Lantern had a living area for the family upstairs and the restaurant downstairs. I remember loud parties happening while us kids were banished upstairs. My siblings and I would sometimes sneak into the busy kitchen to steal a few prawn crackers.

“At Melin, we all helped out in the restaurant. All four kids were expected to lend a hand. It truly became a family-run enterprise! It gave me a much deeper appreciation for the phrase ‘hard yakka’ and how hard my parents worked.

“As a child I resented the absence of my parents who were too busy working to spend more time with their kids. Looking back I am grateful for the experience which honed my interpersonal skills and brought my family closer together through shared adversity.”

No memory is too short to share. We love this one from Tom Plevey, who writes about some paperwork left behind by his grandfather: “I have a business receipt of Goong Goong’s purchase of a Chinese restaurant in Darwin which includes, among other items purchased, a ‘six-pound bag of monosodium glutamate’. Is that Chinese restaurant-y enough?”

MSG is delicious. So yes, Tom. It definitely is.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.