Randwick joins the club when it comes to in-house Chinese food

Address: 139/143 Alison rd, Randwick

Phone: 9399 4188

Web: zhucanton.com.au

Food: cantonese

Cost: 40pp

AS WE soak up sunset views over Royal Randwick, planes jetting into Botany through a dusky sky, I am reminded that Chinese restaurants in clubs are much like racehorses – many are stayers but few are of pedigree.

Zhu Canton, in The Randwick Club, is the former rather that the latter. It is a solid offering, maintaining the distance but unlikely to win any culinary Melbourne Cup.

Much has been invested in the installation of this suburban restaurant into the former Labor Club as we watch the last remaining tottering high heels of the racetrack crowd find their way to the new top bar LVL 4, while families start to fill the massive restaurant space on level 3.

The decor is split into two, a faux terrace with tiles and plastic wisteria and bouganvillea overhead, and tables of four to six with low-rise cane seats that gives you just enough of a glimpse of the windows facing the famous track, the airport approach and edge of a glowing cityscape. An adjustment to the seating height and location of tables would have eliminated that handicap.

Signature dim sum catches our eye with Snow White Rabbit ($8.8) appearing as three cute steamed bunny-shaped rice dough parcels filled with prawn and crunchy carrot, sweet corn and asparagus. Three for our table of four. A future yum cha visit beckons.

In Chinese restarant mathematics at its best, the long, thin pencil-shaped vegetarian spring rolls come as a foursome, standing oddly tall in a glass with a sprig of curly leaf parsley and half a cherry tomato. While it is not going to win any fashion contest, the ingredients are fresh and moreish, even though thr rolls are deep-fried to chestnut.

We are tempted by Shangahi soup dumplings ($7.80) but instead save our run for live barramundi ($68) which moments ago had been doing lengths in the foyer’s fishtank. It’s a simple affair. Subtle, with slivers of spring onion, the steamed fishing sitting in a shallow pool of soy. It was an odds-on favourite.

Sweet and sour pork was a typical tinned pineapple and gloopy sauce concoction with deep-fried battered bits of pork. The fried rice ($9.80), albeit with plenty of prawns, was also no standout.

Mango pancake ($8.80), was overly an sweet event that even the youngest neglected. The dan tart ($4.60) looked like they had been around too long, with the top of one tart split, but the flavour was acceptable enough, despite an odd garnish of tomato and parsley. While it’s a great fitout with tremendous views, Zhu Canton will need to find better form to compete.