587 – Good Wok – Crawling our way to Old-School Oz-Chinese

A Saturday night outing!

Woo hoo.

Friday night was unavailable as my 96 year old father had selfishly booked it for his birthday, so the quest got bumped to Saturday. Which in our little world is grounds for a bit of excitement. To celebrate this innovation and to entertain ourselves on the long walk to almost-St-Peters, we undertook a bit of a pub crawl through the Courty, the old Sando, and the Union. We had to by-pass the Towny as it was being picketed by a mob of transgender protesters and their enthusiastic supporters. “See how much more fun Saturday night is,” I said to Strop, but she wasn’t listening to me, she was busy chatting up one of the cops that were keeping an eye on proceedings.

Even with lots of stops and drinks on the way, it’s a long way and it’s all getting a bit familiar. Strop took particular offence to the sameness of the tile shop’s window display. “They should change the tiles, I’m bored with these ones.” Fair enough, surely considerate shop owners would take our needs into account and change their window displays every week.

By the time we got to Good Wok we were in a very cheerful mood. And quite hungry too, but easily confused by the barrage of menus confronting us: stuck to the counter, up on the wall and in takeaway flyers. Strop decided that a fixed menu was the way to go. There was some complication because the version that caught her eye came with lots of entrees but only one main. It took the efforts of two staff members to convey this subtlety, but eventually we got the message. “That’s alright, we’ll just order another main.” Easy.

Good Wok is not large but we had a choice of tables, as there was only one other patron present when we arrived, although more came during the evening. There was a steady stream of take away customers coming and going all the time we were there, and most seemed to be regulars who joked with the staff, and knew exactly what they wanted.

After we took our seats, we were promptly presented with a large plate of prawn crackers. I was trying to remember the last time we’d had prawn crackers as they rapidly and crunchily, disappeared. I think I might have said, “These are the best prawn crackers ever,” or the closest approximation that a mouthful of prawn crackers will allow.

Soup was next. Corn and chicken soup and it was yum, verging on double yum. Hot, glutinous and filling. The dim sims and spring rolls arrived with little bowls of brightly coloured dipping sauce. Strop muttered something about “If you were tripping, this would be the place to come.” I have no idea what she meant.

The pork ribs in Peking sauce were sweet and spicy with plenty of pineapple chunks. Another double yum contender. The chicken and mushroom hotpot was good too. Tasty, with lots of ginger and plenty of fresh flavoured veges.

Good Wok serves up good, old-fashioned Oz-Chinese, cheap and cheerful, with more flavours than you can poke a stick at. A real find. After we had eaten everything up, we decanted ourselves down the road a bit to the Botany View, just to round out the pub crawl and to fortify ourselves for the long road home.