I don't usually take calls while driving, but for some reason, I pressed the green button.
Hello, my name is Yi. So & so recommend you.
Yes.
Can you speak Mandarin?
I can, but maybe let's not.
We want to do food photography, hopefully, tomorrow.
Uhuh. *cue laughing track inside head* Can I send you an email later with my rates, and then we take it from there?
Ok, ok.
By the way, which restaurant am I shooting for?
We are from Tian Fu. Dainty Sichuan. Hello? Is that a whistle?
I don't have many big dick moments in life with my wife.
She does not care about my so-called career as a 'food photographer'.
She doesn't know Brae, Embla, Etta, Gaea, Sunda, Omnia... Fine dining restaurants sound like random alphabets thrown on an ouja board. (Don’t they?)
That fateful day when I took a call in the car, she was sitting next to me.
When she heard the name Dainty, that’s her, whistling.
At that moment,
Me, Harvard. Dick, big.
Do you know Dainty?
Of course I do. My English accent became Chinese, hard rolling the tongue on the 'r'.
Of courrrse I know Dainty.
Back when Fat Duck or Noma came to Australia, the press pressed on pretentious questions like 'is it ethical for a person to spend up to $500 on a single meal in a casino while the money could be used to support the local mum-and-pop shop?'
Number one, the mums and pops would've fed the money back into the pokies or blackjack tables in the casino anyway.
Number two, $500 isn't that much, considering the amount I've spent in Dainty my whole life.
Let’s see.
I took my parents to Dainty.
I took my wife's parents to Dainty.
I took my high school friend to Dainty noodles in World Square Sydney. (Now closed. RIP.)
During the lockdown, I risked a 5.1km radius to pick up lunch from Dainty.
Rich Asians in Melbourne have been to Dainty.
Poor Asians in Melbourne have been to Dainty.
White people with Asian friends have been to Dainty.
Asians with white friends have been to Dainty.
I've seen two girls ordering six dishes, eating their small portions, then taking away the rest. (Genius, lunch sorted for the whole week.)
David Chang has claimed Dainty's yu xiang qie zi as the best dish in the world1 on multiple occasions.
And Dainty isn't just Dainty.
Dainty is also Tina's Noodles, Noodle Villa, Rising Embers, Dainty Hot Pot, Dainty Fish & Grill ... each specializing in a different way to eat Sichuan food.
Their market penetration is deep and wide.
The most successful restaurant in Melbourne is Dainty Sichuan.
Not the one with hats, not the one on any top whatever list.
We just don't talk about it because, well, let's just say the discourse doesn't sit well with the general Australian public.
The Chinese are supposed to come and pick fruits for us; not to be successful and outperform the industry.
Of courrrrrse I know Dainty.
The best job for a photographer, an advertising agency, or basically any job involving a client, is when you have direct access to the boss.
Like the big boss.
The one who said 'ok' and no one would say 'but'.
Yi isn't the boss, because he asked Chen the chef for opinions.
Chen the chef isn't the boss because he asks Yi for opinions.
The person who did not ask anyone for opinions, was Tina, Yi's wife.
Tina from Tina Noodles.
She's the big boss.
When I started calling her Tina Jie (big sister Tina), she smiled.
Phlebs mistake leadership qualities with being bossy.
When I say phlebs I meant my daughter.
“I want to be a boss so I can boss people around.”
My child, you can boss people around, but it depends if they'll listen to you. And even if they do, you're not sure if it's because they want to, or they had to.
You've heard how cult leaders, sociopaths, and serial killers attract their prey, right?
They make you feel like you're special.
How's your wife, Dan, has she recovered from her shoulder injury?
Hey, I remember you like wine so I hand-carried a bottle of Bordeaux from the village of Lyon.
Soy chai latte is your drink, isn't it?
The psychopaths, they were born with it.
Your boss, the management C suite circle of five, they go to business schools for that.
Tina definitely had that special something.
She owns the joint, but she was also busy tidying up the tables, and setting up chopsticks, filling up the pickle station.
She asked everyone in the kitchen if they were alright. (Have you had breakfast?)
When it was close to peak hour, she was in there, making and plating the noodles.
She made kitchen made me a bowl of noodles.
“Eat, eat.”
What about you? I said.
“It’s ok, I have too many noodles in my life.”
Two minutes later.
“Man, the way you eat my noodles is driving me hungry, hey Chen, make me one too.”
And she pulled up a chair across from me.
See how she did it? She was going to have a bowl of noodles anyway.
But it's the way I ate her noodles that made her want to eat them. Not the taste. Me and my beautiful noodle-eating face.
My point is, you'd never know she's the owner of 10+ restaurants in Melbourne. And she did it all without any conventional press. You don’t see her on Masterchef, or writing cookbooks or hamming it on Instagram.
No shelves 架子, as the Chinese would say.
The menu I was shooting, was for a noodle shop they’re opening in Singapore.
They have one in Ueno too.
“We love Japan. Do you know Jack Ma is in Japan now? Man, if only he would come to our noodle shop in Tokyo.”
It’s just really refreshing to hear a restaurant owner not complaining about shit. I mean, I’m sure she has her problems2, but she still sounded young at heart.
You should open in Fukuoka. I will come and work for you.
“Fufufufufufufu,” She laughed.
(Yea, I got game too.)
I also said their ma yi shang shu (ants climbing up the tree) was the best. I could not get enough of it.
“Did you hear that Chen?” She shouted.
“Man, I have nightmares about that dish. When I was training the head chef rejected my ma yi shang shu four times! FOUR! It’s not easy, bro, you know your stuff,” says Chen as he applied make up to the bowl of noodles.
Are they all just kissing my ass? And wait, did I just hear that Dainty actually has QC in the kitchen?
Maybe because I was speaking Mandarin, but the shoot just feels homey, you know? It’s great to have the big boss around and nodding and approving shots.
Wait, is this how white photographers behave with white clients?
We wrapped up, I got paid a week later, and in true Chinese client relationship fashion, I never heard from them since.
The Chinese signage says ‘贵州羊牛肉粉’, translated as Guizhou beef and lamb noodles.
The English signage simply says ‘premium beef and lamb pho’.
Are you trying to start a war, Tina?
But wait, let’s go back to your first question in mind.
What’s the difference between Guizhou beef noodles and Lanzhou beef noodles?
It is pretty similar to Lanzhou beef noodles - broth made from beef bones with rice noodles in it. You can pick cuts like offals, intestines, briskets etc.
So, like … pho.
I wasn’t sure if I really liked the noodles because they were my client, or because it’s actually good.
So I took my wife there today, four months after the shoot.
To say Noodle Villa put in zero effort in their shop deco is actually a compliment. If anything, they put in a negative amount of effort - when the effort is actually harmful to the business, worse than leaving the space untouched. I won’t get into details, but I had a hard time understanding the shiny stuff hanging on the wall.
The lady told me the machine wasn’t working, so she’ll put my order through first and we’ll pay later when they’re back online. (We paid cash in the end.)
All the malfunctioning disasters didn’t seem to put my wife off, and I guess that’s why we’re still together right? We both know not to judge a restaurant by its cover.
She enjoyed her noodles. She thinks it’s better than (sorry my Vietnamese friends) pho.
I’m just relieved she said it first, and glad it wasn’t a case of them just making a really good bowl for me during the shoot last year, the boss being in the house and all that.
Because I also prefer Noodle Villa’s Guizhou noodles rather than beef pho.
It’s cleaner, fuller body, more concentrated, fewer herbs going on. The beef slices were solid.
Taiwanese gonna pitch a fork about their niu rou mian, Lanzhou noodle fans gonna Lan their zhou, Korean will try to ship their Yukgaejang … it’s just beef noodles man.
On this chilly Wednesday morning, this Guizhou beef noodles hit our spot.
And the lamb skewers.
If you remember Dainty’s signature cumin pork of lamb dish with their addictive (probably opium-doused) seasoning, this is that, on sticks.
If the soup noodles were nourishing, the lamb skewers slap you in the mouth.
I usually hate stinky lamb, but this is my favourite lamb dish in Melbourne.
The verdict is we should bring our daughter back one day.
If you’re in Singapore, they are in 313@Summerset under the same name 黔莊 - Noodle Villa.
See how they butcher my photographs by cropping them out in a menu format.
The fact that Chang was mindblown over a candied deep-fried eggplant dish is a very big tell that he is in fact a white man trapped in an Asian’s body.
The day before the shoot, Yi said his father-in-law was in the hospital. We can postpone the shoot, I said. No no, it's ok, he said. On the day, Tina tried to show the video of her dad in the hospital wearing the gown.
Hey Harvard, entertaining read as always. You mentioned that Tina said “if only he would come to our noodle shop in Tokyo.” Does this shop still exist? Has it yet to exist? I'm going to Japan in the fall and I'd love to visit if possible.