Long before I was a food blogger, I was a uni student who liked to eat at one Chinese restaurant in the city and was always served by a guy who looked like Monkey Magic, we always ordered the same thing, I would always eat too much rice and the meal would be perfect. I was really sadden when Oriental Kitchen closed up, or so I thought it was. During my quest to find fish and chips in Charnwood, I was delighted to come across Oriental Kitchen again in its new location (well new to me) and I vowed to come again ASAP to see if anything other than the location had changed.
As we sat there and waited for our meal, countless people came in and our collecting their take aways, this place was really popular with the locals (I assumed they were locals and not crazy like us eating at the other side of town).
Short soup. I found this bowl completely impractical, even when the waitress was sitting it down she was finding it hard not to spill the short soup. The short soup was nice enough, not overly salty and a decent amount of dumplings inside.
Spring rolls. Nothing particularly special about these spring rolls although they were served piping hot.
‘Surf and turf’ hot pot with black pepper fillet steak, snow peas and prawns. This was no longer on the menu but the waitress said that they could replicate it, after all, this is what we came for. As soon as it came out on the sizzling hot plate, I knew it wasn’t going to be the same. The beef was tender but it wasn’t in cubes (yes shape makes a big difference) and the sauce was heavily doused with black pepper.
Chicken chow mein. This is my measuring stuck for a Chinese restaurant, my pad Thai for Thai and butter chicken for Indian equivalent. I could tell right away by looking at the noodles that this wasn’t the type of noodle that I liked. The chicken pieces were nice and tender but overall, even with the abundant amount of greens (it was 85%+ worth of greens), it was too salty.
Overall the service was friendly, the food came out fast and cheap but it wasn’t what I remembered the food to be like, if it was, I would travel a lot more frequently to Charnwood. It is just a typical local Australian Chinese restaurant.
Venue: Oriental Kitchen
Address: Shop 2 / Charnwood Shopping Centre, Charnwood Pl, Charnwood, ACT, 2615
Phone: (02) 62588184
Opening hours:
closed Monday and Sunday lunch
Tuesday – Saturday 12 – 2:30pm
open for dinner 5 – 10pm 7 days
TALES OF A CONFECTIONIST 