NOT T-Bar! T-Chow!

Scandal!
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love child does NOT serve dinner at the T-Bar!

Nor does anyone else for that matter. We four arrived, starving, to find empty fridges and to match our empty stomachs. It turns out all our snobbish friends (you know who you are) were *ahem* right. T-Bar is not a dinner venue and is thusly STRUCK OFF the Gouger Street Epic(urean) Adventure.

However, let it not be said that we are planless gimps for we are not. We carried the T-theme through and ended up at T-Chow. All right – fine, we bloody know it’s not a Gouger Street restaurant as per The Rules, but the next stop is Stanley’s Fish Café and we’ll be dining on the forty-buck fish alone.This time, we’re reviewing T-Chow, not as part of the Epic, but as a service to food lovers.

You've seen T-Chow, you've walked past it. You've even been inside and eaten there. 'Classy place' you thought. You were right. It's the kind of classy which has the word 'Classy' Bedazzled on its pleather jacket. From the glitter fish tanks to the white table-cloths covered in butcher's paper, T-Chow isn't just a place, it's a venue. Things happen here.

Food also happens here. Unfortunately, this is not the Austin Powers kind of 'happens', this is the other kind of happens. The kind referred to on Holden bumper-stickers Australia-wide.

Shallot pancakes.

All our sloth turds are served with soy vinegar and parsley!

These could have been the best things I've ever eaten. They could have been mislaid sloth turds. I wouldn't have known because by the time they turned up, I was so hungry, it's a miracle I stopped at the plate.
Mele: They were actually really undercooked.

Green peppercorn chicken.

Supposedly the flagship. If so, the T-Chow armada would have trouble taking over Marion Swimming Pool. Their A-game was C+. It had flavour, but so does lots of Chicken Tonight. But, in keeping with the flagship concept, that is deep-fried seaweed around the edges.
Mele: The chicken was beautifully tender. Alas, nothing else was.

Salt'n'Pepper Squid.

Now with lettuce!

Should probably just be called 'Squid'. Or I didn't get any bits with the world's most common seasoning.
Mele: It was overcooked. If salt and pepper squid can be viewed as the barometer of a good restaurant, a death knell is ringing in my ears.

T-chow is behind the times. This restaurant is coasting on an old, undeserved reputation. If you thought sweet'n'sour chicken was the height of Chinese cuisine in the 1980s, and still believe it is, you are a bogan or the owner of this joint. STRAIGHT UP.

Good good, there were so many relics from the past here it was like going back to highschool. Even Axl Rose turned up.

Nothing lasts forever, man. Even cold November Rain.
*sniff*
*Cue rain-soaked coffin*

Peking Ribs.

Even slanty photography can't save it.

Should probably just be called 'Peking', because I was hard pressed to find any actual evidence that I was eating intercostals.
Big call? Maybe. That photo doesn't really do it justice. I'm also not a butcher, but I like to think I understand what I'm pointing at when I go to the local meat vendor and say:

'OI. THOSE RIBS ARE FUCKING CHUMP CHOPS.'

Guest reviewer: Charlie.

"The milk was INTENSE."