On the first day at Melbourne, Mell and I met up with Margaret and Kerol. Margaret is a dear friend who came to Melbourne more than two years ago to study and was last seen on this blog on the pudu Mongolian Steamboat place we went for her farewell.

It has been over a year since we met in KL, I think I still had a different (and some said very tragic) hairstyle then.

Red Silks Restaurant and Bar
KY, Mell, Kerol, and Margaret at Red Silks, Chinatown @ Melbourne

Chinatown at Melbourne is located at Little Bourke Street from the intersection of Swanston (the busiest street) to around the intersection with Exhibition or Spring Street. Red Silks is technically not really in Chinatown anymore as it is located in a little mall at Bourke Street half a block away.

The closest tram stop to the place would be Swanston/Bourke.

red silks restaurnt and bar at Melbourne
braised preserved vegetable with pork belly, eggplant, clay pot tofu with seafood

The restaurant offers quite a wide variety of Chinese foods; from noodles to single serving vegetable-on-rice to the more common “tai chau” style dishes, they have it all. As a licensed bar, they do serve beer & wine too.

For lunch, we ordered 3 dishes to go with steamed rice for the four of us.

red silks restaurant and bar at Bourke Street
lemon honey tea & iced milk tea, glorious fatty pork belly

I of course, ordered the braised preserved vegetable with pork belly (mui choi kao yok). While slightly too salty to be eaten alone, the dish goes very well with steamed rice with its fatty pork belly. If only they had chili padi..

The eggplant with minced pork was quite a strong tasting dish that goes well with steamed rice, I do find it a bit too heavy after a while though.

The clay pot tofu with seafood came with good size prawns, cuttle fish, scallops, crab sticks, green peas, and a generous portion of Japanese tofu in classy yummy gravy. This dish was as good as I’ve had from anywhere else.

red silks restaurant and bar at melbourne chinatown
Bullens Lane is at the heart of Chinatown

The portions were quite large and we actually did not manage to finish all three dishes. The bill came to about A$17 per person, still rather affordable in Melbourne standard. Other dishes in their lunch specials menu goes from $8 to $10.5 and like most other places around here, water is free.
map to red silks retaurant and bar

Address:
Red Silk Restaurant and Bar
101, 1st Floor
200 Bourke Street
Melbourne

GPS: -37.81284,144.967357
Tel: +613-9663 9922

KY eats – Red Silks at Chinatown, Melbourne
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25 thoughts on “KY eats – Red Silks at Chinatown, Melbourne

  • April 16, 2009 at 4:51 am
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    you had a tragic hairstyle one year ago??? really?? show picture..!

    Reply
  • April 16, 2009 at 10:08 am
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    pinkpau,
    It’s the longer hair laa all over the archive. :X

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  • April 16, 2009 at 10:14 am
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    no durian pancake there? 😛

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  • April 16, 2009 at 10:43 am
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    Oh No. I’ve got to get out of here. All those pictures of those food to go with the steamed rice is going to make my digital scales tip even further!

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  • April 16, 2009 at 10:52 am
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    You are really funny. have chinese foods in Melbourne :P. i think you should eat more lamb and beef there 🙂

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  • April 16, 2009 at 11:06 am
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    I just noticed something amusing – the map you drew of Aus looks so much neater than the ones of the places back home… 😀 because everything in Melb is in neat perpendicular lines? LOLOL…

    btw, don’t forget to try max brenners while you’re in Melb! the strawberries and chocolate dip – to DIE for.. 🙂

    Reply
  • April 16, 2009 at 11:17 am
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    Yah go to Melbourne to eat Chinese food wtf, don’t have enough of that in KL?

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  • April 16, 2009 at 11:17 am
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    Robb,
    Haha haven’t seen any!

    mumsgather,
    LOL the scales, they are evil

    power8003,
    I had those too. 😛

    beetrice,
    Hahaha everything’s in square grids here! And yah Max Brenners is awesome. 😀

    ShaolinTiger,
    This is an asian city what to do. ;X

    Reply
  • April 16, 2009 at 12:32 pm
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    Their portion so big right? We used to call Little Bourke Street as “Siu Pook Kai”.

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  • April 16, 2009 at 4:36 pm
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    KY’s tragic hairstyle = Aaron Kwok old school hairstyle… (but Aaron is more lengjai!) 😛

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  • April 16, 2009 at 4:38 pm
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    Precious Pea,
    Yah the portions are huge!

    Margie,
    Hahaha it was all your fault. 😛

    sotong,
    Shhh!

    Reply
  • April 16, 2009 at 10:20 pm
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    glorious fatty pork is KY. =PPP

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  • April 16, 2009 at 11:25 pm
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    Bullens La! That’s like Malaysian style man…

    Q: “Where’s the restaurant??”
    A: “Bullens LA!”

    Haha, I find their abbreviations esp road signs very funny. Like when I was researching on places to go in Perth, I saw google map with street names like St. Georges Tce. I thought so hard… how to pronounce “Tce” not knowing it was an abbreviation. Until I asked a friend and he said “Terrace”. Ohhhhhhhhhh chehhhhhh.

    Reply
  • April 17, 2009 at 12:06 am
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    i read about this seafood rest called claypots in st kilda…app it’s a really casual festive restaurant with really fresh seafood…daily menu on a chalkboard that gets erased as stuff runs out..grilled fish, stirfry mixed shellfish, claypots of sea food with rice (i guess it’s like our claypot chicken rice) with diff flavours eg cajun, etc ..some rave reviews on the internet…

    was planning to go there when i visit melb in a week’s time…you might wanna check it out…or maybe mell might have heard of it?

    Reply
  • April 17, 2009 at 1:58 am
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    ah you went to dondon, one of my favourites!! simple, but most importantly, very tasty foods and super super fast service!

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  • April 17, 2009 at 8:06 am
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    wah pork belly! Wow KY now draws the map of Melbourne streets! Kudos

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  • April 17, 2009 at 12:41 pm
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    panda aka racoon,
    Hahah yah you’ll never get lost

    Huai Bin,
    😀

    Jade Zheng,
    Oh yah!

    Yiling,
    Hahaha that’s very tragic. 😛

    jennee,
    ooO interesting, too many places to try! 😀

    DiN,
    Yah Dondon was very nice! 😀

    eiling,
    Hahaha cos it’s all squares 😛

    Reply
  • April 17, 2009 at 4:22 pm
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    Chinese food in Melbourne is fantastic! I think that’s because the seafood, vege, meat, etc. are all succulent and fresh. Not to mention Aussie rice, much, much better than ours here.

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  • April 19, 2009 at 10:46 am
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    ronin,
    I guess it’s partly due to the fact that most chefs are actual imports from HK & China too. 😀

    Reply
  • April 20, 2009 at 10:12 am
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    the map must be the whole of Mel-burn? LOL

    Reply
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