If Chin Chin is trying to captivate me and seduce me into a long term relationship, it’s going about it the right way.

(Disclaimer – my friend Jess Ho works at Chin Chin – but not even she can get you priority seating!)

The large (cavernous?) space on Flinders lane uses the best of what it’s got; high ceilings, a corner location; a serious gap in the market; fills it full of comfortable furniture (not too full!), eclectic music and “beautiful” people; and serves up tasty, interesting food of SE Asia for me to share.

We had a fun night, 5 of us, an easy wine choice (in carafes from Yabby Lake  winemaker Tom Carson… Pinot Grigio or Pinot Noir) a moderate beer list with many from  SE Asia, a few cocktails to start with and intelligent, smooth service (“I’ll let you have some more time with the menu, then come back and talk about wine “, says our “wine guy”)

The service snaps along, pacey but not pushy. I doubt you’d want a long, languorous meal here (although a bar session could be quite tempting), but we didn’t feel rushed.

We ordered

• Chin Chin Pork “Roll Ups”  – red braised suckling pig, with pancakes, slaw and sour herbs $16 Spicy corn and coriander fritters with iceberg lettuce and chilli jam  $8
• Crispy Barramundi & green apple salad with caramelised pork, chilli and lemongrass $24
• Steamed spanner crab salad & chicken salad with ruby grapefruit, coconut and fragrant salad $23
• Salad of organic silken tofu, banana blossom and thai basil $16
• Massama curry of coconut braised beef brisket $18
• Son in Law Eggs with Chilli jam $8

And 1.5 litres of Pinot Gris.

I guess the “hardcore” will say it’s “panasian” in a derogatory sense, but I’m more than happy to explore different spice mixes and flavours in the one meal.

It’s all geared to be comfortable, approachable and somewhere you can’t wait to return to. If they were open for lunch I think I’d be back tomorrow, but until that happens, I’ll drop in for dinner / snacks in the next week I reckon. I want those corn fritters again, and some more massaman curry, I didn’t get to try the eggnets, or the oysters, or the tripe salad, or the house made noodles, or so many of the dishes others have been raving about … Next week!

(There are no photos because it was too dark and I was having too much fun to really bother with manually adjusting settings – can there be any higher praise?)

Billy from Half Eaten really likes Chin Chin.

Ed for Tomato seemed to enjoy it – and was sitting next to us on his what third? or fourth visit.

This entry was posted Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Restaurant / Bistro, Review . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.