Yummy Chinese BBQ

"Well that's a big call," my partner says, looking up at the sign. There it is, framed over a terrace on Childers Lane in the heart of the university precinct: Yummy Chinese BBQ Restaurant. I like the simplicity - a hopeful statement rather than a big brash claim. So we go in, tracing our way past the couples dining alfresco and the knots of loud friends cooking skewers over the grill at their tables.  

A friendly young woman behind the counter explains how to order. The idea behind Yummy Chinese BBQ  is simple - it's all about a hotpot and grill. (There are two other stores in the chain in Sydney.) You choose from a couple of set menu options: the cheapest one ($35) allows you free rein at the buffet, where there are trays of meat and vegetables, a salad bar, and dishes of seafood and sides. For $45 you get everything at the buffet plus unlimited soft drinks, fancier cuts of meat and a couple of seafood delicacies. In the interests of comprehensive research, we choose the latter option. 

Each table gets its own extractor fan, with a charcoal barbecue set into middle of the table and a gas hotplate on one side. We fill our plates from the buffet - wood ear fungus salad, some pipis with garlic and chilli, triangles of shallot pancakes and a collection of chicken and beef skewers. For the more Western palates, there are piles of garlic bread and butter. Pop the meat on the sizzling hotplate - which the waitress covers with a sheet of easy-to-clean aluminium foil - and try not to let it burn while you check out the rest of the food. A quick whip around the sides proves that they're pretty standard fare. The mushroom salad is simple, uncomplicated and quite cold. The pipis are nice enough but the shallot pancakes are disappointingly soft where they should be crisp. 

The terrace overlooks Childers Lane and a very high tech (for Canberra) bus interchange where bored students peer at their phones while waiting for their bus. A digital display tells them when the next service is due in (Belconnen - 8 minutes, in case you were wondering). This section of the Australian National University is devoted to student accommodation, towers full of kids playing video games, hunched over their books in communal study lounges. This is very much their domain. They wander in hoodies and flip flops through the wide streets filled with shops and restaurants that cater to their tastes - bubble tea, fast food pizza, Taiwanese desserts, takeaway. 

A couple of Chinese charcoal logs are delivered to the table, and placed into the barbecue tray, white with heat and ash. This seems the perfect time to put a couple of chicken gizzard skewers onto the barbie (that's got to be the subject of Paul Hogan's next Tourism Australia campaign). They've got a good, earthy flavour, though they're glazed with a rather sticky sweet soy sauce that threatens to overwhelm. Much less interesting are some beef and capsicum skewers from the buffet and a pair of rather chewy chicken skewers. 

The waitress brings out a platter of seafood - a pile of scallops, slices of fresh fish marinating in a pot of soy sauce and prawns, and then a tray piled with sliced wagyu beef, rolled up like marbled bright red carpets. This is messy business. You've got to make sure you keep a set of utensils - chopsticks, fork, spoon - for eating and another set for using to turn the raw meat and fish on the grill. Accidentally use the wrong set on your cooked meat and it's a prawn juice party at your house. 

Luckily the fish actually is one of the best dishes of the night (when cooked). It's luscious, full of sweet flavour and deliciously tender with soy sauce. There are only about half a dozen slices but they're very good. The same goes for the scallops, which are likewise fairly tender but - in a particularly miserly touch - cut into small cubes. There's a more generous serve of the Wagyu - a neat row of bright red, rolled up slices. They uncurl easily on the hot plate and becomes juicy and crisp after a quick fry. 

After all this, we're starting to fill up. There's a rather prolonged wait for the final phase of the night - the hotpot. Luckily we're sitting in view of the restaurant manager, who sits down to his dinner and expertly cooks up a rather lush looking hotpot with Chinese cabbage, noodles and meat, so we get a thorough grounding in what to expect. It would be great if he noticed our longing looks and sent a waiter down this way but life wasn't meant to be easy. The gas grill is finally whisked aside and the hotpot comes out in its place. We head back to the buffet to pick up some noodles, bok choy, Chinese cabbage and meat and stir them all through the boiling, spicy broth, making a bowl of comforting noodle soup.

There are no desserts but the restaurant is beginning to empty out and we find a number of our fellow diners next door in the Taiwanese dessert outlet, picking up bowls of chilled sweet tofu with red beans and icy sweet drinks. It's a simple end to a simple meal - very student friendly, pretty cheap and not too bad quality.