Pacific Seafood BBQ House

"Roasted meats and ducks hang in the window, and live seafood is brought over from the fishmonger next door. There is a menu, but few order from it. The multicolored pieces of poster board on the wall—in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese—tell you all you need to know ... They offered me steamed prawns, which were brought over still twitching, and we ordered clay-pot eel with pork and tofu skin in XO sauce, along with any and all of the roast meats from the window. The seafood was indeed impeccably fresh and tasty, the meats as sticky delicious as promised. I was in heaven, stuffing my face and talking food with my new friends for hours."

So said Anthony Bourdain about Pacific House, when he was in Melbourne a couple of years back.


I've heard of Pacific House being mentioned by my friends a few times already, but just never had the chance to go there. Just like Bourdain said, its famous for the seafood. Stuff like Lobster or Mud Crab fried with a noodle base.

And so when the opportunity to go came along last Saturday, I grabbed it. Got into the car, and drove to Victoria Street.


Although the place looks like any other chinese restaurant that you can find in Chinatown, the first thing that struck me about the place was that it seemed alive. For some reason that I cannot articulate, the patrons there just seemed so much more into eating, than patrons in any other chinese restaurant that I've seen. As in, the patrons that were there, seemed to be there because they chose to be there. They did not happen to walk by the restaurant and say, "Hey this looks like a nice place to eat, lets try it."

No.

It seemed like they actually chose to go specifically to the restaurant.

Because it was that damn good.

Anyway, we got in and sat down, and looked at the signs on the walls with all their special stuff. Unfortunately and disappointingly though, we did not have the monetary funds to eat seafood. Which means, no lobster or mudcrab for us. We reverted back to the usual fare of roast meats and rice. How disappointing.




Just basic stuff.

I think, to truly find out what Pacific House is all about, we needed to order seafood. Perhaps, sometime in the near future, I'll get a chance to find out.