Restaurant Review: Chin Chin
Highlight: Head Chef Benjamin cooking a meal for me personally! Lowlight: The waitlist Snapshot: Delicious South-East Asian cuisine Food: Steamed Rockling in Broth, Pineapple Rice, and Mixed Vegetables Thoughts: An incredible diversity of flavour profiles Price: $150 for food and drinks for two Recommendation: Do it!
Last night, my Hus-Ben and I went to Chin Chin for our five year wedding anniversary. We arrived at 8pm on Friday night and waited 45 minutes for a spot at the bar. The bar was great with high backed chairs (good back support) and a hook for my handbag. So we settled in, ordered drinks (Alcoholic ginger beer…yum) and waited for the good old, awkward, to-ing and fro-ing fructose dance to begin.
I told one of the bar staff the main list of what I couldn’t have (gluten, onion, garlic, apples, pears, honey, mushrooms…you know, the bad boys) and that there was more where that came from. After a few minutes, a more senior staff member came out and held up a menu that had black texta all over it. "You can’t eat anything on the menu!" he said. I was super worried we were going to have to leave and find somewhere else. But then he said, "So the chef is going to cook a meal especially for you!" I was pretty stoked and very thankful. The waiter said that no-one ever gets to walk into Chin Chin and say, "I want the head chef to cook a meal just for me!" So the night was looking pretty good.
Next thing, the Executive Chef, Benjamin Cooper came out and was absolutely lovely! (Not at all like the chefs I used to work with in my hospitality days). Ben asked me what protein I wanted, what I can eat and what we liked to eat. The whole experience was so unexpected and fun - I responded to each of his suggestions with major excitement, “Ginger…I love ginger!” “Lemongrass…lemongrass is awesome!” “Chillies…Chillies are the BEST!" People that know me, know that I can get pretty enthusiastic about anything.
Unaware of the spiral of events that we had set into motion, my husband (also called Ben) and I kept chatting and reflecting on our last year of marriage….highlights, places we’ve visited, things we’ve loved, things we’ve learnt, etc.
Then came out our meal…Steamed Rockling in Broth, Pineapple Rice and Mixed Vegetables. It all looked so good, we both served ourselves huge portions and began eating. The rockling was amazing, the broth was so full of flavour….and then the chilli hit! Every bite was so beautiful…and so SPICY! The flavour profiles in each of the three dishes were so different, I was amazed that with the limited options of fructose friendly ingredients the chef was able to bring such a diversity of flavours. The chilli was amazing, it was definitely more than I would dare put on my own meal, but we both absolutely loved it. Pride was the only thing keeping us from asking the bar for a shot of milk! After the chilli hit, the taste spread into a beautiful warmth and we finished the incredible meal, leaving nothing on the plate (except a few extra chillies).
The whole experience was so lovely. Chin chin made me feel so special, when most restaurants make me feel like a massive problem. It made our anniversary so nice. I totally recommend going there if you have fructose malabsorption and being open to what the chef brings. It’ll blow you away.