EAT: TUAN TUAN CHINESE BRASSERIE, CARLTON

The snow buns that are a signature dish of Carlton’s Tuan Tuan Chinese Brasserie have been on my to-eat list for quite some time since the opening of the restaurant last year. Despite being a 15 minute or so walk from the old work place, I never did get around to visiting during lunch before the move. However with a family trip to the east side planned over the summer holiday period and the route passing through Carlton, we decided to stop by for a snow bun fix. Their crispy snow buns come in a variety of flavours including the BBQ pork, salted egg custard, pineapple and almond cream, and we opted for a savoury and sweet with the pork and salted egg. Of course those familiar with Chinese BBQ pork buns will know that the flavours are often savoury with varying notes of sweetness, and Tuan Tuan’s version skewed more towards sweet. While I would have preferred less sweet for the pork, the textured crispiness and melt in the mouth lightness of the snow bun pastry still won my taste buds over. Given my immense like for salted egg flavoured dishes, I was unsurprisingly also quite taken with the flavours in the salted egg buns, but the custard filling was too runny. Expect an oozy mess.

I visited Tuan Tuan for the snow buns, but it was the salted egg prawns that came out on top; the crispiness of the batter, juiciness of the prawns and the generous coating of salted egg was well executed. I would happily return for this dish… and probably give the other two snow buns a go while I’m at it.