Stairway to dinner

Supper Inn
15 Celestial Avenue (off Little Bourke Street), Melbourne
Open 7 days, 5.30pm – 2.30am
9663 4759 (reservations recommended)
Licensed, BYO, corkage $2 per person
Entrees: $4 – $8
Mains: $10 – $15
All cards welcome

Ok, so this is not the fanciest eating house in Chinatown: a seedy laneway, a dingy staircase, a small cramped dining room filled with laminex tables, faux wood paneling on the walls with pink vertical blinds on the windows. But this place is a Melbourne institution, so we had to give it a try. Around since the mid 70s, the Supper Inn is renowned for providing some of the most consistently good, reasonably priced and authentic Cantonese fare available in Melbourne, and often when all the other places have shut down for the night. We were early diners and lucky to get a table as soon as we walked in. We watched as numerous punters were turned away at the door or, as we experienced on the way back down, cued on the rickety staircase waiting to get in.

Forks were not provided and little brother got to perfect his chopsticks technique. He said it felt like we were back in China. We eyed the prehistoric looking lobsters in the murky fish tanks and decided against seafood! Instead, we had the roasted duck rice noodle soup, the sliced beef Szechuan style (loaded with cashews) and an overflowing plate of fried rice with bean shoots. Oh, and we started off with a little bamboo steamer full of the most delicious dim sims. Between the four of us, this was more than enough food and made every tummy happy. Not the best Cantonese we’ve ever had, but good honest fare all the same. We stumbled back down the stairs $40 poorer but glad to have experienced the Supper Inn for ourselves. You gotta give it a try!