Miss Chu
297 Exhibition St, Melbourne
03 9077 1097

After hearing so much about Miss Chu, especially about one woman waiting years for Miss Chu to come down to Melbourne from Sydney and the twitterings of wagyu beef pho, my curiosity got better of my supposedly healthy eating regime and head off to Miss Chu.

Looking at the menu I was a bit unsure.  Whilst the menu are mostly Vietnamese, there are a smattering of Chinese and Thai (som tum)- is it going to be like Duck Duck Goose- Jack of all trades and Master of none?

I tentatively ordered a Peking duck pancake ($2.5).  It came out almost instantaneously.  The pancake is slightly warm to touch, the duck is juicy but not fatty- one of the better Peking Duck pancake I have in ages.  The fact that they bothered to warm the pancake was impressive, and for that price, I felt like ordering 3 more.

Another thing that caught my eyes were the warm Vietnamese salad- I ordered the Traditional Hanoi pork springroll salad ($12).  Warm rice vermicelli noodles is atopped with crispy pork springrolls and a smattering of chilli that packs a huge punch- they are not shying away from hot chillis here in Miss Chu!  There are some sort of crunchy roasted ground rice and crispy ground fishy stuff on top which adds to the texture and flavour.  Where are the vegetables I wonder… this IS a salad right?  Don’t worry, they are hidden in the bottom- super fresh herbs like perilla leaves are hidden that huge bed of vermicelli, and the delicately fragrant fish sauce is also at the bottom.  I would recommend digging down to the bottom and slightly mix the vermicelli, sauce and greens so you can get all the flavours.  YUM!

Another must try is the Seared Salmon vermicelli- the salmon was perfectly cooked and flavours were well balanced.  This time the greens were coriander and lettuce.

Another time I ordered the Vegan sautéed shitake, enoki & shimeji mushrooms.  Whist I don’t mind it, it looks less pretty than the springroll one and it’s a bit too salty.  Must say I probably won’t order this one again any time soon.

Asian Vegetables with garlic chives dumplings and English Spinach and tofu dumplings $5 each.  I just love the glutinous chewiness of the dumpling skin, the lip smacking goodness of these succulent dumplings.  Strictly speaking the presentation wasn’t that great because a few of the dumpling skins are broken, but it’s probably the one of the dumplings around the city.

In terms of springrolls, the crab and prawn net is definitely the yummiest.  Lightly coated with a fluffy “nest”, it’s crunchy and not overtly oily.

I am also very impressed with their duck and banana flower rice paper rolls $8, although less so with their satay chicken and young coconut version because I couldn’t taste any coconut.  Sadly I didn’t take any photos, it’s always in my gob before I remembered!

Last but not least, the famous wagyu beef pho ($13).  Miss Chu promised that they don’t use MSG and if that is the case $13 for a wagyu beef pho is probably worth it.  A few things I would like to improve about the pho though.  I wish they would give us plenty of basil, chilli and bean sprouts for us so we can decide how much to put in our soup, instead of giving us only a smattering.  The beef can be sliced a little bit thinner – not that I am complaining since it’s wagyu beef

By now I have been to Miss Chu a number of times and have tried a lot of stuff on their menu- I am really impressed with the fresh food they have on offer.  They also have so many healthy or vegetarian choices to suit a variety of clientele.  They have managed to keep the quality of their food very consistent and whilst they may be slightly haphazard during crazy peak periods, I am gonna keep coming back, at least once a week!  8/10