Anyone with even a cursory interest in Chinese cuisine has seen Panda Hot Pot in Carlton, with its giant overhanging dragon.
Perhaps Melbourne’s most Insta-famous eatery, Panda Hot Pot has now expanded – its newest Box Hill venue joins Carlton and Carnegie at Sky SQR on Station Street. Once again, subtlety was not in the fit-out budget.
A big silver dragon waits just inside the entrance, which settles what kind of lunch this will be.
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Panda describes its interiors as wuxia-inspired, after the Chinese martial arts genre, and Box Hill commits to the bit. Gorgeous traditional wooden roofing runs overhead, while the floor plan keeps unfolding well past the point where most restaurants would have stopped.
Large balconies take in Box Hill’s skyline, which seems to gain a tower whenever anyone blinks. Even the bathrooms are stunning black marble and imposing steel doors, a sentence we don’t often get to type.
With more than 100 dishes to choose from, the two of us took the sensible route and leaned on the platters. First, though, the soup. We split our pot between laksa and Sichuan, and each side made a strong case for itself. The laksa is the diplomat of the pair, coconut milk doing most of the talking, with a low, easy warmth underneath. It’s the place to retreat when the other half starts making demands.
The Sichuan makes demands. Dried chilli and peppercorns do the work here, and we ordered it mild, on the understanding that the word meant something. It did not. The thing was still very spicy, and still very good. Diners going in at full strength should probably let a loved one know beforehand.
Hot pot lives or dies by what goes in, and both the meat and vegetable platters were wonderful. Few pleasures at a table beat dropping in a slice of meat and fishing it back out wearing half a province’s worth of chilli. The extras earned their spots. Cheese rice cakes, little sticks with no obvious claim to Sichuan tradition, don’t need one. The prawn mash in bamboo fungus, a neat roll of prawn in lacy netting, was every bit as hard to stop eating.
Service was great from the moment we arrived, which helps when the table is mostly boiling liquid and the people at it are mostly sweating. Box Hill has never been short of good Chinese food, so a newcomer needs a hook. A dragon, a few balconies and a mild that isn’t should do nicely.
Panda Hot Pot Box Hill is at L106/517-521 Station Street and opens daily from midday to 10.30pm. More details here.
