A Celestial Of Heavenly Delights

Some of Our Classic Chinese Dishes

Teahouse Basic Fried Chicken

This is just a preliminary stage leading to the eventual setup for lemon chicken and tantalising sauce of other type. A choice selection of best chicken cuts from the chicken's prime breast fillets ensures superior 'finger licking good' than the banal prosaic KFC. Though it is nothing like a wok on the wild side as in other previous more exotic photo postings it nevertheless remain as classic as ever for the food lovers of all things Chinese and Cantonese throughout Australia. In the same vein it can be said that majority of the public would treat the rest of my photos with the same familiarity. Their original exposure may well be traced back as far as 1830's when the first Chinese gold miners and migrants brought their recipes to their camps in Oven Valley and Lambing Flats and from there beyond.

Stir Fry Marinated Beef with Black Bean

A very common and popular dish which is generally very agreeable and pleasurable for a family feed when accompanied with some Chinese fried rice. Fermented black beans are bought in packets and contains excessive salt(sodium). The content must be soaked and stired in warm water and its high density salt separated and drain water before put to further use. Cover leftover washed black bean with vegetable oil to prevent moulding and preserve in sealed jars for future use. Never use more than one level tablespoon at a time for a dish . Chinese usually makes a mixture of1 tablespoon cornflour with a quarter cup of cold water to 1 tablespoon of fermeted black bean for a dish such as illustrated. This mixture is then pour in the last minute during the intensely heated stir fry( no more than 120 sec depending on heat) when marinated meat has been cooked.Cooked beef shows its puffiness due to result of its marination.

Dom's Teahouse Lemon Chicken

That is exactly what will greet you when you get there . Personally I don't have a sweet tooth but my goodness they are just ever popular amongst the young and old. Our price are very affordable as well comparatively speaking. Vegetables are always fresh bright and colourful. You know you get them fresh. They are crunchy just blanched to the right milliminute and or seconds and they are not at all soggy or overcooked. This is a standalone Aussie classic. Perhaps this can serve as a good variation to additional taste sensation and a quick changeover to a different tang when the banquet gets too heavy on spices and curries.

Fried Rice Buck Bow Farn

Here is another Australian Classic since the 60's. The word Buck Bow Farn denotes 8 kinds of ingredients in a Wrapper. Well, wrapper apparently here must indicate the rice. I am not a Cantonese myself but I try to be smart. Sometimes too smart for my good... I would cook chicken beef ham seafood vegetables and other delight making up for more than 8 ingredients first in a separate saucepan making sure there is lots of thick tasty sauce to go with it. Then I would separate and reserve the prawn cutlets for the final decoration which will be on top of the fried rice. Fried Rice is shaped into bowl-like form. The cooked dish is added on and fill into its concave cavity. Then the whole process takes a quick summersault onto a wide round plate and you get a Buck Bow Farn.

Sweet and Sour Battered Pork

The whole crux of this blogging is not to present a lopsided view on our range of food we provide. We know these are not the only Cantonese and Chinese dishes as represented but we are not trying to neglect the role Chinese and Cantonese dishes has played and contributed so far to our financial bottom line over the years. Customers are generally right and they are made up of all walks of life. They are the families the children and the grandparents. These dishes are so agreeable and nothing is more ideally suited to see the pleasurable gathering of families and clans enjoying themselves over any form of social events. Thus said our job has to be described as well done for it is a truism that steadfast operators like ourselves are measured primarily by their ability to promote social happiness.

A Cultural Melting Pot

The dishes that ultimately Distinguishes us above Others

Thai Prawn Pepper Fry

Hot sharp piquant and fiery. That is the 'clearing out' taste sensation one is left with the aftermath of onslaught. Prawn cutlets are fresh succulent and naturally sweet. They blend deliciously with a tangy fashion in a distinctive mix of tamarind sauce , sambal paste, belachan, grated tomatoes, fiery ginger garlic, and freshly chopped hot peppers.Tamarind is available in paste or sauce form from the nearest specialist grocery stores and it is generally used in curries, relishes and Tom Yum soups. As it has a sour, acidic flavour, a good replacement would be lemon or lime juice.

Other added ingredients are more complementary and supportive in terms of presentation and taste. In this dish I chose to use red and green strips of diced capsicums and so in the tradition of what Thais are generally eating I will include as well a few tit bits of fried bean curd. but they are certainly not as critically crucial and vital as the mixture of sauce that the prawns dish will turn out to rely. The Teahouse Thai Prawn Pepper Fry remains an All Time Greats since 1978. And that indeed is not really an understatement.

Malaysian Sambal Goreng

In Malay it means it is a mixture of meat and seafood cooked in mixed spice and Sambal sauce. This is a popular combination dish in our restaurant . Most go for the variety of fresh vegetables, bean curd and meat and seafood cooked in a tasty sambal belachan sauce Yet again like our Sambal Ayam Ketchap this is a unique dish to Dom's Teahouse that is second to none.

Breast Chicken With Whole Chilli & Cashew Nuts

A very Thai dish cooked in their traditional way by using even imported Thai dried chillies. Apparently it goes down very well with our customers down at the Bay. Partly because we use only choice quality of breast chicken fillets and no other cheaper chicken cuts. The secrets in this dish is a combination of sauces that makes up for its dissimilar and distinct flavour.

Beef Rendang (aka) Rendang Daging

The sinew of our underlying strength lies in the fact that for years I have developed a changing strategy. Whereby staying the course ( sounds like George Bush?) of intense competition and wearing times it literally means adopting a measure of everchanging strategem seeking subterfuge in a more emboldened form of multiculturalism having to multi-task and synergise constantly at a menu that represents a cluster of food which has been increasingly harmonised as one hell of a cultural melting pot. But with some certain clear exceptions perhaps the Beef Rendang remains truly the same Rendang that we set out in the very outset.It has indeed surpassed its time.

Rendang in Malaysia and Indonesia is cooked with beef though occasionally it sometimes can be with chicken. Back in the villages amidst the breeze underneath the swaying palm trees and idyllic setting further away from our madding crowd their festive cooking takes virtually a whole day. A slow process if you ask me for a fast track person. In fact many hours it will take to cook rendang in order to allow the meat to absorb in the mixture of spices condiment and coconut milk and till all the liquid has almost disappeared the natural oil oozes out and meat remains tender and soft. Because the dry form of rendang is rich and thick in coconut gravy and concentrate in spice this dish is therefore ideally served along plain steamed rice.

Dom's Teahouse Malaysian Beef Curry (Gulai Daging)

Human beings are good carriers. Not the disease I mean but of interchanging ideas. The British popularise this curry business in Europe and elsewhere since 1830's when Queen Victoria was at the Realm of Pax Britannia and W E Gladstone doing the biddings at her behest.You take the pick . I didn't particularly take to their Malligatawny soup, do you ? Nevertheless, the best curry house in the world is in London's East End . Elsewhere Curry burger with a Beer is a hit. As a matter of fact geographically speaking Malaysia and Singapore is at the crossroad of 2 ancient civilisation and these young countries just couldn't possibly escape the influence of China and India for the last thousand of years.

Curries differ from region to region in accordance to the local ingredients being called into use. Indian uses cumin tumeric and saffron. They are more likely to use potatoesThai tend to use kaffir lime leaves lemon grass and chillis. In Malaysia where coconut is abundant the milk is ever present in curry dish and sweets too come to think of it. Malaysian and Indonesian also use the dried form of shrimp paste in their curries.

Fried Rice in The Making

The boss slave himself at the helm dutifully shuffling away conjuring up yet perhaps another masterpiece.This time he is doing an Indonesian version of spicy fried rice.

Indonesian Nasi Goreng

The classic Indonesian and Malaysian fried rice. Some has a fried egg on it. But I thought I would do better by beating lots of eggs together fry them in a pancake pan individually then pile them tidyly together in a stack and slice them into long nice looking shreds before strewing them onto the rice dish. This dish is stir fry with belachan (shrimp paste) sambal oelek bajak ketchap soy sauce and other spices. Materials include shredded raw onion chicken pieces shrimps shallots and fresh bean sprouts.

We do consider ourselves very lucky to have a strong contingent of Dutch elements in our community down at the Bay. For the Asian Teahouse with its Sambal Bajak and Sambal Oelek must have reminded them to some extent the old East Indies & Malacca when they were then former colonies of the then Dutch Netherlands. Any European bound global tourist will tell you that Nasi Goreng along with Bahmi Goreng is a popular Asian dish in Holland's restaurants today.

Shall We Doodle

Yes! I do dabble in some noodles here but certainly not oodles of it like some noodle houses that cater specifically and exclusively in noodles' menu only. There are of course more different types of noodles than what is shown here. There is the brownish buckwheat type the egg flavoured noodle the translucent arrow root based noodles as well as the greenish colour spinach based noodles. But given the already extensive nature of my menu and the fact that there is only one 'hands on chef' on the job it is best for practical reason to have the choice of available noodles restricted to a few. The far left plate above depicts a picture of yellowish egg flavoured wheat flour noodle. Your front left contains a plate of broad flat rice flour based noodle sometimes known as 'rice stick'. The plate to your far right represents a whitish finer form of rice vermicelli popularly know in Singapore and Malaysia as Bee Hoon.The last plate contains a softer and finer version of yellow noodle that is versatile and suitable for numerous dishes like Chinese 'Long soup' and chow mein.

Ideally noodles should be made fresh and delivered by the day. By tradition the techniques of noodle making are 'hand-made' that is to say they are, literally speaking, labouriously hand- pulled and left to dry in the shed. Chinese called it 'lai mein' or pulley noodle. Believe you me. Nowadays fresh noodles are mostly machine manufactured and mass produced. But given the small size of Hobart city's Asian community and its limited ancillary service we can only rely on existing local grocery stores and supermarkets for their pre-packed products.


The ubiquitous yellow soft noodle which is quite fine in texture. Cantonese restaurants use them regularly in their Long soup or soft Chow Mein. I found that children used to love and enjoy long soup. Especially when they found that they are too short for their stature they would try to drag their long trails of noodle with a pair of chopsticks all the way up to their mouths by standing up on their chair.

Take half a packet of noodle such as this . Scald it in a bucket of hot water for 2 or 3 minutes occasionally stir strains to loosen. Take a sample with a fork and bite for its firmness making sure that it is not over-soaked or over-cooked. Drain immediately in a sieve or colander and rinse noodle dry with cold water to prevent latent temperature. Prepare and mix 2 table spoon of oyster sauce to 3teaspoon of cornflour and a quarter cup water . Add 2 table spoon vegetable oil in your saucepan. Stir fry at high heat a handful mixture of fresh chicken pieces shrimps and squid with tit bits of crushed garlic(half teaspoon) and green vegetables like bok choy and sliced red capsicums till they are nearly cooked. Then add mixture of oyster favoured cornflour into the saucepan with the rest stirring further to boil. Lastly add your set aside noodles and stir again for 30 seconds or more. Hey Presto! You are a Chinese chef too! Anyone can be one if they try. Nothing is impossible.

Large cylindrical shaped egg noodles laced with chilli soya and tomato sauce. But nothing beats its freshness. Because when noodles are freshly made you can virtually taste the whole strain and its delicate balance . Soon you are fully engrossed and you feel you are captivated with the unusual freshness and mesmerised with its mildly salted subtlety from one strain to another strain and very soon you begin to gallop it down voraciously by mouthful after mouthful. Such was my observation on my way in to Singapore. Nothing beats their Singaporean Hokkien noodle dish. Indeed it is a popular quick fix for the locals. Some told me Hokkien Mee is synonymous with Singapore fast food icon but I would venture to add another one and that is the Char Kway Tiaow dish below.

My hot favourite simple and yet complex . Presumably this is another popular Singaporean street stall noodle widely known as Char kwai Tiaow the same noodle base which I use to prepare a Pad Thai noodle dish at Dom's Teahouse restaurant. It is the white colour rice flour based broad flat noodle. Although the soaking preparation takes longer time and the actual cooking experience requires more skills and nimbleness the proof of the pudding is really in the eating. There is a mysterious sweetness to its strain and I suspect this has something to do with the glutinous nature of its flour.

Initially it was a poor man's dish popular amongst the manual labourers camp during the colonial days . Their main ingredients for the day were a scrambled egg and cheap vegetables like chopped spring onion and beansprouts . But over time as popularity increases and as society becomes more affluent other ingredients were added and now Char Kway Tiaow as a quick fast food dish has become a buzz word with the local food connoisseurs. Today the chopped spring onion scrambled egg and fresh bean sprout still stay. But clams sliced pork and even chinese sausage were added. However, the base ingredients to this dish has to contain a mixture of sambal belachan and freshly ground chilli.

The Malays called it Bee Hoon Goreng and it is another hot favourite at our Dom's Teahouse here. It is hot. It is fiery but it is fierily tasty. I remember that balmy tropical night when I was back in Malaysia I went to a Malay kampung open air food stall market and ordered myself a plate of noodles made out of rice vermiceilli. It was so cheap and delicious and it didn't cost me anymore than what I would spend on a cup of tea in the West. You feel like after having resided in an highly inflated country like the West your money stretches like a Malayan rubber band as its purchasing power increases exponentially. I also ordered freshly squeezed tropical fruit juices akin to converting my stomach belly into a portable mixed juice punchbowl for the night. Their fruits are numerous and diverse as well as exotic. You name it Rambutang, mangoes, pineapple, durian, soursop, paw paws and the like. Their fruits are so sun ripened and natural so pungent so luscious and so aromatic so opposite to that of our Western greenly harvested refrigerated long haul transported fruits in our stores. Their Nasi Goreng, Beef Rendang, and skewered meat Satays along with Bee Hoon Goreng which I savoured that particular night are so equally smackingly delectable.

The Malays are a hospitable lot. There is something about them. They hold themselves with high esteem and they are damn sight loyal lot too because I used to employ some. John Howard would have grown to love them. Malay culture a classic quintessential fineness portraying their open Kampung friendliness and their classy batik baju dress. British don them for the occasions. Their warmth their hospitality and their openness that night has certainly left an indelible mark on my memory.