[SYD] - Yang Guo Fu Ma La Tang ( No. 1 Malatang)

Day 1 continued - Number 1 Malatang

We went back to our Airbnb and had a bit of a siesta…. all that eating had tired us out 😂.

We went back, watched Netflix, chilled and fell asleep 😴😅. When we woke up again…. it was time to eat! 🤩

We’d heard previously of the best Malatang in Sydney….and of course we needed to check it out. I’d heard that it was a chain store from the Malatang that was previously situated in 8 Street Garden City, and that one was also quite popular so we were definitely keen to try it out!

So back in Brisbane, we’d kinda gotten used to having the dry pot. I know Miss Y enjoys her soups, but I much preferred the dry pot. I tend to find that the dry pots have stronger flavours (plus soups always fill me up 😂) .

So I’m not sure if you’ve had the malatang before, but I’ll do a quick run through of how it works!

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Menu:

So when you walk into a malatang shop, you are faced with a couple of open refrigerators with probably about 50 - 100 condiments to choose from (depending on the shop). You get the choices of various veggies, meats, seafood, tofu, eggs, many different types of noodles and many many types of wanzi (which is pretty much balls 😂) . Fish balls, pork balls, squid balls, prawn balls and my ultimate love - crab stick! 🤤.

So there's A LOT of things you can choose from.

And that's why I really like malatang. I find that when you’re not too hungry, maybe just a tad peckish, you are able to choose what you want - down to the last egg. What you pick up from your bowl, you are weighed and they usually ask you the level of spice you’d like; small, medium and large.

This….was ridiculously cheap.

Between the 2 of us, our first malatang was only $21 😲

And we were soooooo full 😂. We honestly struggled to finish our shared bowl….it didn’t look too full. But boy oh boy! Were we wrong! It was way too much!! 😂

i really liked the flavour of the malatang though, it was so rich and creamy. 😊

We took a peek in the kitchen when we went to get our food. They basically had a huge cooking pot and they put each order in individual big strainers and cooked the chosen ingredients in the broth. 

I feel because they probably kept cooking the broth throughout the day, the natural sweetness of everything they cooked into the broth gave the broth more volume and depth and this in turn transferred into our food. We really enjoyed it.

We’d actually enjoyed it so much, we actually went back 😂. That's how much we enjoyed it!

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Summary:

Ambience ⭐⭐⭐

Service ⭐⭐⭐

Food ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.5 (so good!)

Food was good, the ambience was unfortunately lacking. 

It was quite crowded and didn’t look like the tables were cleaned regularly. They were incredibly busy, so I guess that's why the tables were not really cleaned. The poor staff were run off their feet! So there wasn’t really much ‘service’ so to speak. You pretty much grabbed what condiments you wanted in your malatang yourself! Here I was pleasantly surprised that they actually offered pickled veggies! I had never seen it before in Brisbane's malatang? Or maybe I was too busy drooling to actually pay attention 😂. 

The pickled veg gave the malatang a nice bit of crunch to the food. It gave the malatang a nice texture. I really liked it. I hope that I’ll be able to find some in Brisbane! If anyone has any that they’ve had, please tell! I’m super keen! 😊

The restaurant was designed oddly. The tables pretty much were aligned against the wall, in sets of 2 seaters or 4 seaters. The walking space was kind of a zigzag and it kind of gave the feelings that there were tables and seats everywhere! 

Because of the unique design of the room, it contributed to the fact that the air flow of the restaurant wasn’t the best. There weren't a lot of windows near the end of the restaurant, it was a tad warm, because not much air seemed to be able to travel all the way back.  

The restaurant owners did their best, considering the awkward shape of the restaurant, but unfortunately it wasn’t the best set up. But one thing I really liked about this restaurant...and it’s the wall art! The wall art they had at the entrance was quite cute! “No. 1 Malatang!!” 😂😂😂 It was super adorbs!

Obviously since we went back twice, we enjoyed the food 😂. The second time we went a bit later in the night, so we were able to claim a seat closer to the door 😂 . It was definitely more relaxing that second time and just as delicious. Can’t complain 🤷‍♂️.

Ingredients were quite extensive and fresh. The soup base was quite creamy, you could choose your own toppings to cook AND have someone else cook it for you plus it is pretty cheap. What more would you want?

More malatang! 🤩

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No.1 Malatang

Address: 175 Russell St, Melbourne VIC 3000
Hours:

Monday: 11am–10pm
Tuesday: 11am–10pm
Wednesday: 11am–10pm
Thursday: 11am–10pm
Friday: 11am–10pm
Saturday: 11am–10pm
Sunday: 11am–10pm

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