Happy little corner find

IT``S 9PM ON a Saturday night in an Adelaide heatwave. Driving on spec to a favourite little eatery for a quick post-movie bite when chief navigator yells excitedly: Wow, did you see that, a Chinese restaurant back there and it was full of Chinese people. Turn around. Let's eat there.
Out go the anchors, and before you know it we're peering in the window, throwing the dice and walking in the door of a quite nondescript restaurant with perhaps one of the cutest names around, Happy Corner.

Inside, most of the tables are full of happy-sounding parties and family groups, many of them Chinese, and perhaps Korean as there is a strong community in the St Morris vicinity. And just a couple of gweilo, our table included.

The mood is hot, like the temperature - the air-conditioning has been supplemented by a few small portable cooling fans. The active tables are stacked with many bowls of interesting dishes, woks and ceramic pots, while a row of television screens is showing a convoluted mix of Chinese language entertainment as well as a weird Scandinavian-looking strongman contest.

The world has indeed compacted.

Near the entrance a corner of tanks house barramundi, coral trout, all the way through to a slither of eels. All eventually appear on a fabulous gold-encrusted, picture-heavy menu which, by the way, does a wonderfully authentic job of mangling many of its phrases.

Nothing like a fun piece of Chinglish to put you in a good frame of mind.

For the record, Happy Corner has been on that rather bland corner in St Morris for a while, but came under new management three months ago when Mr Li Songlin, Mr Sun Jun and Mr Evan Cao joined forces. All have had experience in places such as Ming's Steamboat and Ming's Palace, Shanghai Palace and nearby Magill's Zen restaurant. A group of Shanghai hotel chefs was hired and they're now headed by Qiuping Shi, as assistant chef with prior experience at Royal Garden, and Sunny Sun, head chef, with prior experience at Shanghai House.

The cooking at Happy Corner reflects the kitchen's origins as well as their passion for Cantonese and Szechuan cooking. A high-energy waiter asks if we are after western or Chinese food, and directs us quickly through the menu. Authentic Chinese dishes get the photographic treatment, and so do the live seafood. All up, there are some 170 dishes, roughly half-and-half western style and authentic Chinese.

The accompanying wine list isn't as flash, as is the case in many Eastern venues, but with a corkage fee of only $7 a bottle, a smart bottle of your own is worth considering. However, take into account there are many strongly flavoured dishes here and a delicate wine might not match up.

A couple of basics set the tone for what is quite an exciting Chinese experience. Fried rice can be mangled in many suburban and Chinatown eateries, just like English, but here the special ``Happy Corner'' version is great, grains still fluffy and separate, with well-managed proportions of pork floss and pine nuts as well as the usual prawns, barbecued pork and beansprouts.

For a green sidelight, a mound of soybeans and tiny dice of other vegetables, served cold, is intriguingly refreshing and healthful, flavoured by sesame oil dressing for some distinction.
Duck in brown sauce sounds like it could be dullsville, but in fact is a classic Chinatown serving, full of typical game bird flavour.

A Shanghai specialty of juicy dumplings succeeds. The little parcels containing minced pork and a simple stock that dribbles out as you bite - just as the traditional style demands.

And a crunchy tofu dish with sweet and sour sauce says a lot about the kitchen's standards, not steeping to the tragedy of commercial S&S; but putting in some effort to their own, which essentially comes to the table as an elite sweet chilli version. The tofu inside its almost toffeed outer is soft and gooey and offers a lovely textural diversion to more powerfully flavoured plates.
Unusual - in gweilo terms - scrambled eggs in a pyrex-style dish with Chinese cabbage and rice noodles in soupy, subtle XO (scallop) sauce are so hearty, even in the sweltering temperatures, that it is almost dish of the night, the solid parts soaking up all of the liquid goodness to become a lovely gooey bowl of goodness.

Then there's the Szechuan chapter of the menu as well as what are called ``griddle'' dishes, which are arriving to other groups in mini-woks on table burners.

The heat in a dish like spicy pork belly with capsicum and cabbage is tempered, while pork ribs in cumin sauce is a cracker, redolent with the spice though not overworked with chilli heat. The point here is that every dish tasted is full of character, well cooked, smartly delivered and, crucially, not boring.

Even the desserts go beyond the deep-fried ice cream that lesser venues stick to. Here a mound of sticky black rice with sweet red bean paste inside works well - without the usual coconut milk seen in most of its incarnations. And little sweet pumpkin cakes are doughy, gooey, and taste a little like fried cinnamon doughnuts.

Everything on the table prompts gasps of intrigue, prods and pokes with chopsticks, taste tests, approvals and smiles. It is indeed a Happy Corner.


THE RESTAURANT
Happy Corner Restaurant
441B Magill Rd, St Morris
Phone 8431 6606

Dinner: 5pm-midnight, Sun-Thu; 5pm-1am, Fri-Sat

Seating: 100

Owners: Li Songlin, Sun Jun, Evan Cao
Head Chef: Sunny Sun

THE VERDICT

THE BILL
Dumplings: $5.50
Mains: $8.80-$28.80
Desserts: $5.50
Corkage: $7/ bottle

Summary

Inside a fairly nonedescript corner Chinese lies a terrific restaurant with live seafood, authentic Shanghai, Cantonese and Schezuan dishes, as well as a huge list of westernised plates for more conservative diners. Staff are neat, well versed and the cooking has plenty of interest.

Worth exploring.

Score:15/20

Score guide: Below 10: Awful. 11-12: Fair. 13-14: Good. 15-16: Special. 17-18: Outstanding. 19: Brilliant. 20: Perfect.