Mahjong Black

David and I attended the rather exciting Melbourne Spring Fashion Week Designer series catwalk on Friday at the Melbourne Town Hall, immersing ourselves amongst the well dressed and beautiful, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the quiff styled models as they strutted about.

After the buzz, pretty lights and sexy music, we both wandered over to Mahjong Black and stepped into elegant, seductive black tones, soft and sensual lighting and an overall calm, serene atmosphere. Mahjong Black very quietly opened a few weeks ago, the smaller sister to it's flagship restaurant, Mahjong, in St Kilda. I was honestly quite surprised when I found the place not particularly full on a Friday night, although was certainly not surprised to see the David and I were possibly the youngest (and possibly noisiest) customers!



Service from the get go was absolutely amazing, the waiters were charming, ever so friendly and helpful. From pulling out my chair as I sat, to assisting David with his jacket as he took it off and ever so quickly providing us with water, all in the first 5 minutes! As David and I bantered over what entrees to get, someone very swiftly came over to very, very politely interrupt us, introduce the specials and make his own recommendations. Whilst I don't like over-exuberant service, I do enjoy being fussed over and Mahjong Black does that exceptionally well.



We both ordered a glass of the Clic Bianco, a white wine from Italy and before our entrees came out, were given sweet buns, instead of bread, obviously since we're at a Chinese restaurant. It was served with black and white sesame seeds, certainly a different way to start off your meal! (And I do apologise for the dark, grainy pictures, only so much you can do in low light!)





We started with one of the recommendations from the waiter, the duck spring rolls. Oh my goodness, I know it said 3 on the menu, but these were huge! As David said they "are like the size of 3 normal spring rolls put end to end"! I couldn't stop gawking at them! When I eventually sunk my teeth into them though, I enjoyed the beautifully crunchy and light pastry absolutely stuffed with rich and flavoursome duck. The certainly didn't hold back on squeezing the meat in there. And although they would've been fried and were filled with duck, the rolls weren't particularly oily at all. Very enjoyable and also very much recommended from me as well too!





We followed up with a second entree of mini san choi baos. Just two. I know in the menu it said mini, but I wouldn't have minded something a tinier bit bigger...they were still delicious though. The little piece of lettuce that the mince chicken and vegetables were balanced on was remarkable firm, fresh and crunchy, I was surprised the whole thing didn't buckle over and splat on my lovely Melbourne designer dress when I picked it up. It was served with plum sauce on the side (which is what led to David wanting to order this in the first place...) and some nuts to garnish at will...and both David and I were pretty willful. The flavours in this were good, although I feel this dish might be slightly overpriced...



Onto our mains, our first was a special for the night, a beef dish with white radish, it was very tasty with nice home-cooked flavours and the beef and radish were both of a beautiful soft texture. I particularly liked the radish actually, it cut through some of the rich and thick sauce.

Funny story though, it was originally served on a glass plate, as presented above. All the plates are lovely and warm when they come out. David and I were happily chit chatting when we hear a massive crack out of nowhere. Befuddled we look around the restaurant, both clarifying we heard the sound when I look down at the plate and see a huge dark line cross from one side to the other. Our glass plate could not take the heat and very politely snapped in half! Thankfully our waiters were very quickly on the job and hurriedly cleared the plate away and we were assured we'd get a fresh one soon. What more can you ask for really?



As I've mentioned many times before, I'm a sucker for eggplants. So whilst I was originally leaning towards an eggplant entree, I was strongly suggested to have the eggplant with black pepper sauce. Good move waiter. The eggplants were exceptionally cooked, whilst I am used to and do enjoy exceptionally soft eggplants, these still retained their shape but were tender enough to bite through and soft enough to absorb the seasoning and flavours from the sauce. Which was very, very peppery. I loved it, David found it too spicy. Make your choice.

It's quite a lot of food for two people, my stomach was happily expanding under my elastic waistband dress (I dress appropriately to eat out), which I expressed to the waiters, but when we were proposed with the prospect of an ice-cream dumpling to share, I'm pretty sure both David and my eyes lit up as silly, childish grins crept onto our faces. How could we say no?



Isn't it just gorgeous? I couldn't bear to it straight away, admiring the playfulness of the presentation. The disc of watermelon, stacked with a chocolate filled wafer stick, two mochi-style ice-cream dumplings and lightly drizzled with a ginger syrup. Small enough to not be cumbersome, big enough to split in half to share. The skin of the dumpling was so light and not at all chewy like the ones I occasionally buy from the Asian supermarkets. The ginger syrup was so subtle and so delicate, a very light overtone that just quietly added that little kick to the ice-cream. It was all very refreshing and I could easily see myself coming back again just to have this.

All in all, I really enjoyed my dinner at Mahjong Black, David thought it was a bit pricey, but seeing as we really had a full size almost three course meal, I felt the quality of food and quantity of food justified the price. The only thing I thought was extremely unreasonable was having to pay $6 for a serve of rice. Can rice really be made that spectacular? I honestly find it quite hard to believe, but fortunately I don't eat much rice so we only had to get one serve for David this time.

I look forward to seeing how Mahjong Black does and whilst I won't be here on a regular basis, I think it's somewhere I would be more than happy to come back once in a while, whether for a special occasion or not. Although, every dining experience can be an occasion can't it?

Mahjong Black
118 Little Collins St
Melbourne, 3000