Ask yourself a question: Do I feel Lucky, Chan?

Lucky Chan @ Crown Casino
(degusted 23/9/2011 )

Wagyu rolls - a standout -
but at $50 a plate don't fill up on these.
See below for more...

We had planned to do some cooking ourselves over at the Wooga Korean grill on Victoria street, but we found out – at 6pm on a Friday - that it was fully booked. So instead, we had to quickly find something else to satisfy our spicy cravings, on one of the busiest nights... At the recommendation of our dining friends, we decided to give Lucky Chan’s a run for our money (of which we had plenty, just as well), and they had a table available!

Lucky Chan’s used to be located on the corner of the Crown Casino near Jeff’s shed for some time, but recently moved to a more central position along in the Casino complex – still river side.. With a number of lack-lustre reviews on the ‘old’ location, we wondered if the move to the new digs would change anything…

As we have previously mentioned (and careful readers will recall) we don’t normally pay much attention to the prices of foods – instead letting the ‘vibe’ of the place and the quality of the food dictate whether we enjoyed it or not. Here we did sneak a peek at some prices, and we were amazed at some of the asking prices. The prices may be fair compared to the likes of the premium dining destinations at Crown (for example, the nearby Nobu, Silks, or Koko’s), but it’s an apples and oranges case – you can’t just directly compare them. Chan’s is listed as one of the “casual” dining places in the Crown website, and one would expect prices to reflect that distinction. Relatively small servings put the sting into the tail of these prices, which are at the high end of normal, if not perhaps more than most people would expect to pay for a meal. Looking at other blogs and reviews, it seems that the peeps definitely consider these prices too high. From our perspective, all we can say is that when we ignored the price-tag, we thought some of the food was top-notch..   But not everything was good.

Quick Bite: A tasty little gem in the crown

Where can you get a bowl of chow for under 6 bucks? Actually, perhaps we should re-word that:

Where can you get a tasty and enjoyable bowl of chow for under 6 bucks and not be disappointed?

By complete chance, we stumbled across this offering at the East to West eatery, inside the Crown casino complex. Nothing special.

This blog post is NOT about the eatery itself, but just one dish it offers.

Here they had on offer a simple seafood salad with shrimp, calamari, pipis and octopus, mixed through a salad with wombok, capsicum, celery, carrot and vermicelli. Not to forget the mild sweet chilli kick, and some peanuts, and fried shallots for crunch and taste. Is that some wood-ear mushroom in there too? Think it might be.

And then there’s that price tag to make fast food outlets blush – at $5.95 there’s no need to battle your way through the food court crowds – if you've dragged yourself away from the Baccarat tables long enough to realise you're hungry – grab one of these little rippers... 

Just don't get caught out paying $15 for a pint of your favourite amber fluid!

The Pub at Crown - Crown Casino (underwhelming :-/ )

Underwhelming Dinner at The Pub @ Crown

(degusted 24th June, 2011)

Summary: If you’re stuck for a meal you could do worse than ordering a few of the good starters here at Pub at Crown, but there are so many better pubs in Melbourne (within walking distance) that you really should get your pub-grub elsewhere.

Normally I would avoid eating at these “mass produced meal places” that obviously bank on the captive audience of casino patrons, rather than having to compete "out in the street" with others on levels of quality and service. However, as a result of hunger, circumstance, and since I'd had a couple of "not bad" meals here way back when (I was perhaps a decade younger), I was not completely against dipping my proverbial toe into this water(ing hole) for another try.

Starters - It’s a shame we didn’t just eat the starters and leave it at that.

Seafood Chowder -
Really yummy, hearty soup for a cold winter's night.

Seafood chowder was really enjoyable- full of flavour, seasoned well (perhaps a little on the liberal side with the salt, but good to my taste), and contained a several recognisable ocean-dwelling species (good to see). Nice bread to dip into the soup made this a dish I would actually have again.

The other starter degusted was the seafood tasting plate, which was advertised on the menu as oysters, prawns, smoked salmon, green-lip mussels and marinated octopus, (but sans explanation from the waiter, was delivered to the table with Moreton Bay Bugs in lieu of the mussels and octopus). Prawns juicy, oysters fresh, salmon moist, and a full bug (cut down the middle) that was tender and well cooked. Accompanied by pesto-coated toasted bread, this starter was unexpectedly good, albeit not as advertised.

Seafood Tasting plate - All good here.
Note the photographer got in a little too late to catch all the oysters intact.. :)

Mains. A pub cannot be forgiven if it can’t get the basics right.

Grilled Calamari Salad

Grilled calamari salad – served up a fair serve of calamari on this dish, cooked right, nice and tender. In fact, credit where credit is due - the chef got the calamari cooked just right. Now, normally I would simply expect everything to be cooked ‘just right’, but considering my chicken parma quality (see below), I think (unfortunately) the quality of the calamari was the exception, rather than the rule.  

And now to what should be a pub staple - Chicken Parma. It wasn’t cheap, so one would expect something half decent. Let me preface my review by saying that in my humble opinion, the cardinal sins for cooking and presenting a parma are:

-Cooking a soggy schnitzel, and

-Placing the chicken on top of the pile of accompanying chips..

Chips started life as potatoes, living underground before liberation and conversion to chips. Please Mr(s) Chef, Let them be free, don’t hide them under a Parma, especially not a soggy one... Booo!! Hissss!! 

Did I mention the parma was soggy? – And the meat component was thin.. It had that  're-heated from frozen in the microwave' taste & texture for which nobody should be expected to pay twenty-odd dollars. It did take up a fair amount of plate real-estate (see the photo compared to a $20 note), but I would have preferred quality over quantity in this case, and for the simple parma to have failed so miserably reinforces my resolve never to eat in a casino-run eatery, unless it’s 6AM and I feel like a 3-course meal and Maccas is closed for some reason…

The disappointing Chicken Parma... Unfortunately, quantity over quality here.
Big enough to feed a family of 4, but I reckon they'd all be complaining...

A glimmer of hope?
The seafood tasting plate was the saving grace, and combined with the respectable effort of the hearty seafood chowder, gave me enough motivation to actually write this blog post (although the very average service and lack of explanation regarding the tasting plate content substitutions should not be forgiven). The quality of the seafood items really contrasted with the lack-lustre ‘pub meal’ Parma, and suggests to me there may be several cooks out back, not all of whom are actually any good... I was half-expecting to be asked to vote Red team or Blue team*, so amateur was the parma effort…

Ranking:  - Meh.  

Meh                      It’ll Do                   Nom(x3)                              Must go back!

  If you’re stuck for a meal you could do worse than ordering a few of the good starters here, but there are so many better pubs in Melbourne (within walking distance) that you really probably should get your pub-grub elsewhere.

Done and Degusted @  Pub at Crown

Seafood Chowder

Seafood Tasting plate (w/ bugs instead of mussels and octopus)

Grilled Calamari Salad

Chicken Parma w/ chips and veg

 

* Red team Vs Blue team is a pop-cultural reference to ‘team challenges’ given to competitors on the amateur cooking television ‘reality show’, MasterChef Australia.