A gluten-free yum cha hall for Bondi Junction
Nahji Chu, the founder and former owner of MissChu restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne has a new venture.
Brushing herself off after seeing her group slip into voluntary administration and sold, she is opening a modern yum cha and cocktail hall, on Tuesday, May 9, at Bondi Junction.
Chu has acquired the Oriental Jewel's 750 square metre site above East Leagues Club. And it’s big: 285 seats with a private dining room.
The menu, designed by Billy Kwong alum John Leong, will have the Man Bun, a vegan slider loaded with tempura okra, enoki and silken tofu.
There will also be DIY Peking duck pancakes, ants falling off trees, egg fried wild rice, Pac Man-shaped har gau, "cray cray" crayfish and scampi, or "ling by bell" scallop and ling-fish-filled dumplings.
And if that’s not enough, the place will offer a giant pork and crab xiao long bao served with a straw to slurp up the soup, and a Shot Wallaby (wrapped with saltbush and native green) served in a shooter of soup.
And then of course, there will be gluten-free "rooted" vegan dumplings.
"It's high-end food but with fun names, serious but not too serious," Chu told goodfood.com.au. "We're working with Marty Boetz to source produce from the Hawkesbury, and a lot of our produce is from his farm."
She is determined to put MissChu behind her. That was another chapter.
“MissChu's dead; she was my ego and she let me down," she said. "It's not about my ego anymore, I'm concentrating on the food and wine."
She said the new eatery will revitalise the site.
"The old site here was really traditional and so gratuitously Chinese, so I thought we should do something quite unusual that no one has done before, and go for yum cha that is clean, modern, with no MSG and a heavy accent on vegan and gluten-free," Chu said.
by Leon Gettler, May 3rd 2017
