Mr Wong: Restaurant review

Mr Wong sure knows how to roast a duck. Beside the open kitchen, the birds hang raw and resplendent in a glass display, quietly awaiting the five-spice and roasting treatment. They arrive shiny and crisp-skinned, with an excellent fat-to-tender-meat ratio, primed for rolling in pancakes with cucumber and hoisin sauce. Duck is a top order at this Merivale behemoth, where the extensive menu shows a grab bag of Chinese influences under a loose Australian-Cantonese banner – there are wins in excellent fried rice and braised mushrooms that sing with Shaoxing wine sweetness, for example, or with the likes of Sichuan-style crisp battered eggplant in fish-fragrant sauce. In the seafood stakes, pipis in a vibrant XO sauce win out over steamed cod fillets for both interest and execution – a whole fish might be a better bet. There's plenty to see in the two-level dining room, from the Shanghai colonial-era accents to the glassed-in wine cellar where staff ascend a ladder to reach the bottles above. There may be a couple of draughty pockets, and the somms might steer you towards the pointier end of the Burgundy-heavy wine list, but these are small losses, because as that final, memorable deep-fried ice-cream shows, at Mr Wong, when you win, you win big.

Phone:
(02) 9114 7317

Bookings:
Bookings for 6+ guests, yum cha, lunch and late night only

Chef(s):
Dan Hong & Loong Oon