Annam – Dani Valent

Inside Annam restaurant in Chinatown. Photo: Paul Jeffers

Back to restaurant reviews
56 Little Bourke St, Melbourne, VIC 3000

My score: 4/5

Chef Jerry Mai has a mission. It’s to show Melbourne that Vietnamese food isn’t (just) what we’ve been eating in Richmond, Footscray and Springvale all these years.

It’s also the food her parents made in refugee settlements in Cambodia and Thailand (they ran noodle stands and coffee shops under tarpaulins). It’s the flavours she inhaled in Brisbane, where she’d stand on a crate to wash dishes in her parents’ restaurant. It’s the simple stir-fries she’d make at home in Springvale, after the family moved to Melbourne and her mum and dad were working late. It’s the festive gatherings around a suckling pig and rice paper, all reaching hands and sticky fingers.

Jerry Mai’s Annam is built around this storied vision of grill and garden, smoke and chatter, as well as the cheffy tricks and wiles accumulated in a long career and extensive travels.

Kingfish sashimi at Annam restaurant.

Kingfish sashimi at Annam restaurant. Photo: Simon Schluter

She started making pizza at Topolino’s and powered through stints at Longrain and Gingerboy, as well as long-gone restaurants like Red Rice and Chi. She went to London to cook spicy Thai at David Thompson’s Nahm and schooled up in modern Japanese at Zuma. For the past five years, she’s been taking Vietnamese soup through its paces at Pho Nom. All her experience and energy have culminated here, in this handsome, substantial restaurant in the heart of Chinatown.

Pop in for the quick and easy “office lunch” (maybe wok-tossed beef and broccoli pasta, a favourite Saigon student meal), settle in for the good-value “chow down” banquet or come to build your own heaven from the menu of robust grills and curries, lively salads and peppy stir-fries.

The grill burns charcoal for heat and ironbark for a fragrant lick of smoke. Octopus tentacle is cooked hard and fast, then turned into a salad with abundant herbs, green mango, cucumber and a garlicky galangal dressing.

Jungle curry with chicken, eggplant and corn.

Jungle curry with chicken, eggplant and corn. Photo: Simon Schluter

Kingfish sashimi nods to the Zuma days. The fish is the hero but it’s lovingly dressed with ponzu and coconut water, then scattered with crisp shallots. Microherbs are so often a dumb garnish but Mai uses tiny lemon balm shoots to bring lemongrass-like lift without the fibrous cud effect. Clever.

Oxtail is braised in sarsaparilla, a soft drink popular in Vietnam, and that melds beautifully with the star anise, cassia and orange peel also in the pot. The meat is melty, rich and deeply flavoured; the reduced jus becomes sauce for the slippery dumpling skins. (I’m finding this hard to write without running back to the restaurant for more.)

Thai influences come to the fore in the jungle curry, a spicy, soupy bowl of chicken, eggplant and corn, and the house-made sausages.

Sarsaparilla braised oxtail dumplings.

Sarsaparilla braised oxtail dumplings. Photo: Bonnie Savage

To make the Chiang-Mai style snags, pork shoulder and back fat are minced with a curry paste heavy on the lemongrass, chilli, kaffir lime and galangal, then hung over charcoal to dry and cure. The grilled sausages are served with cabbage and pickled chilli for DIY wrapping.

Annam is a complete package; the cocktail and wine offerings are good; there’s a private room and excellent booths, and there’s theatre and aroma aplenty spilling from the open kitchen. It’s a pleasure to see one of Melbourne’s great chefs creating new Melbourne stories on the big city stage.

See their website.

First published in Good Food, 20th March 2018.

2018-08-07T12:30:04+10:00

Leave A Comment

© Dani Valent 2024