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Susie Wong

Larissa Dubecki
Larissa Dubecki

Bold: Susie Wong's interior pitches to its location.
Bold: Susie Wong's interior pitches to its location.Justin McManus

13/20

Asian$$

If it is possible for a fruit to be a social menace, that role must fall to the durian. The spiky botanical oddity is so stenchy - imagine a vast hill of decaying food waste, only much less pleasant - it's banned from hotels and public transport across its native south-east Asia and, closer to home, recently caused the evacuation of Mitcham hospital.

It's a singular thing, either loved or reviled (or both: British novelist Anthony Burgess described eating durian as ''like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory''). You can find it without too much trouble on Victoria Street. Yet Susie Wong is boldly going where no restaurant - at least in my experience - has gone before, and has put it on the menu in service of dessert. Its rich, custardy texture actually makes damn good sense with a buttery-crusted tart bearing just a hint of the cheesy off-ness that makes it such a public enemy.

Strike one for the durian. But that's just the end point of this new modern Thai-Cambodian-Vietnamese restaurant at the darkest Windsor reaches of Chapel Street, where it gets extra hipster points for the old-timey adult bookshop next door. The brick-walled room with a gabled timber ceiling hung with finely wrought wooden birdcages - empty, thankfully - brings the mise-en-scene to the correct pitch, although a month after opening the cold is a real liability.

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Surf 'n' turf: Pork jowl and pipis sloshed with XO sauce.
Surf 'n' turf: Pork jowl and pipis sloshed with XO sauce.Justin McManus

It's a big space to heat with just a couple of portable gas braziers (a situation being rectified, they say) and it's even harder to shrug off the chill when some of the food arrives on the wrong side of tepid. Slippery rice noodle wrapped around chunks of prawn and lap cheong (the chewy Chinese sausage) was promising, too - but cold dumplings? Blah.

Jerry Mai, a talented member of David Thompson's Nahm diaspora, was attached to the project and her bio remains on the website, but she's flown the coop following ''creative differences'', leaving Daniel Sullivan (ex-Red Spice Road and Ms.G's) navigating solo in his first head chef role.

I'm not so sure about the menu headings, which include ''tease me'', ''happy ending'' and ''extra services''. OK, so they're a tribute to the original Suzie Wong, the prostitute of 1960s fiction and film, but for those not in the know they'll be yet another generic stab at Asian Sex Worker Humour 101. Just a bit too Wong-town, guys.

But there's merit to the cuttlefish inside a ''burnt'' (squid ink) batter with a light sprinkle of roasted Sichuan pepper and a fragrant squeeze of cumquat. They make the Chiang Mai sausage themselves: pork minced fine with rice vermicelli and jumping out of its skin with lemongrass. It arrives in the company of a bunch of crudites - white cabbage, Thai basil, snake bean, pineapple and an innocuous-looking pickled green chilli that turns the whole thing into a hostage situation - a rare outbreak of chilli heat in a mild-erring menu. Reach for the Bia Ha Noi, my friends, the most refreshing, food-friendliest lager known to mankind. The wine list, on the other hand, is as brief as it is affordable but doesn't really embrace the food in any remarkable way.

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There was a dull bit of beef rump cap with chilli jam, forgotten as soon as it was cleared. There was a memorable pork jowl - so fatty and spoon-carvable it was more like pig custard under its cap of golden skin - given the surf'n'turf treatment with pipis and braised wong bok sloshed with XO sauce.

And a Milawa chicken, braised in red master stock then hung to dry and fried until burnished the shade of varnished pine. The toffeed skin carries hints of star anise and cassia bark, and cooking it on the bone keeps the meat juicy. Kimchi and other pickled veg arrive on the side: the Asian brief wanders freely. Their crab fried rice, vigorous on the white pepper, would do any Canto joint proud.

At the end there was the durian tart as well as the less successful kanom babin, a starchy cake that was more like a textural chew-toy for an excellent coconut sorbet. And so off into the night. Lucky I already had my coat on.

THE LOWDOWN
The best bit
Durian!
The worst bit
It's cold in here, baby
Go-to dish
Pork jowl, XO sauce & pipis, $25

Twitter: @LarissaDubecki or email: ldubecki@fairfaxmedia.com.au

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Larissa DubeckiLarissa Dubecki is a writer and reviewer.

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