Bubble tea in cocktail form? It’s the drink on everyone’s lips at this fun Surry Hills bar

Asian-Australians are some of the harshest critics of their own food – you should read the squabbles in the “Malaysian Food Lovers Sydney” Facebook group over the “best” laksa in town. As a Taiwanese-Australian, I’ve also been guilty of this.

The Taiwanese diaspora is fairly small in Australia with original spots in Sydney including Cho Dumpling King and Mother Chu’s Taiwanese Gourmet (both in Chinatown), Diamond Cafe in Hurstville and Bao Dao in Chatswood. But there is also a growing modern cohort including Meet Taiwan in Hurstville, Daruma Dumplings Beer House in Strathfield, Ommi Don in Chatswood and Redfern, not to mention Taiwanese-inspired cafes such as Festive Coffee in Ashfield and Ladies & Gentleman Cafe in Marrickville.

Although Linla doesn’t call itself a Taiwanese restaurant, it might be worth adding to the list. The Surry Hills bar was opened a couple of months ago by co-owner Charles Chang, who is Taiwanese and formerly the bar manager for Lotus Dining Group. He also runs Wai’s Omakase (by chef Ha Chuen Wai) next door and Japanese-inspired Moku in Darlinghurst. Linla (which means “cheers” in Taiwanese) is billed as a “modern social dining bar” that began life focused on cocktails, but now has a larger food offering.

We’re initially seated in the very loud rear dining room, but staff graciously accept our request to sit at the bar. Chang has reskinned the former Dead Ringer bar with a silver aluminium top and vertical tiles. There’s plenty of charcoal and concrete-grey colours, softened by low ambient lighting around dark leather bar stools. Very sleek.

Nearly every table has ordered the Mi-Bubble cocktail, Linla’s play on Taiwan’s most famous export, bubble tea. Combining aged rum, Earl Grey and English Breakfast teas, black sugar, small tapioca pearls, Milo and milk, it carries a bold blended tea flavour, accented by toasted oak from the rum. The bar was flooded with one-star Google reviews when the drink used to sell out early, so now the team stocks enough Mi-Bubble ingredients so it flows all night. The rest of the cocktail list features other classic Taiwanese flavours including pineapple, peanut, coriander and papaya milk. I would come back just for the drinks.

Food, meanwhile, is described with the dreaded “P” word (“Pan-Asian”) but there’s plenty of Taiwanese influence. Chef James Thipwongsa leads the kitchen, and the menu is split into snacks, small plates and larger sharing dishes. The pork bun is an ode to one of Taiwan’s most famous street foods, popularised by a stall at Raohe Night Market in Taipei that usually comes out blisteringly hot from the clay oven. Linla’s version is slightly smaller and muted on the black pepper and spring onion, but still a gallant effort that takes me back to one of Taiwan’s busiest markets.

Another night market staple is the blood cake, where glutinous rice is mixed with pork blood, steamed, cut into blocks and skewered. Linla’s deep-fried version comes with a garlic soy dipping sauce and is umami-rich; the texture chewy and mochi-esque just like in Taiwan.

We take a slight detour via Thailand with the larb fish of the day. Tonight it’s tuna belly lightly cured in classic sour and savoury larb flavours, adding spicy mayo and spooned onto a gem lettuce leaf. Subtle hits of citrus, chilli and umami, along with the textural collision of fatty tuna and crunchy lettuce. Tasty.

A must order is the night market crispy chicken – Taiwan’s signature fried chicken pieces coated in tapioca and sweet potato starch for that crisp, bubbly skin. It’s served with a brown paper bag to mix the Sichuan seasoning inside with the chicken and to shake it all up to coat all the pieces. It’s a fun and delicious touch.

Other dishes are interesting but stumble during execution. Wagyu tartare is served on top of a scallion pancake: delicious in theory but the pancake arrives cold, which doesn’t make for pleasant eating. XO fettuccine with calamari arrives with five dollops of cream cheese and turns into a thick mess, the spicy element leaning more towards Lao Gan Ma chilli oil than XO. The saving grace is an excellent cook on the calamari. For dessert, miso dulce de leche​​ lacks any miso flavour, with only the intense sweetness from the caramel, chocolate and honeycomb.

If there’s a common thread that all migrants share, we’re all chasing the taste of our homelands and often we can be the harshest critics of all. Even with some of the misses on the food, I’m excited about the Taiwanese perspective Linla is bringing to Sydney. And there are exciting plans for the future: a late-night Taiwanese supper menu after 10pm and lunch seatings too. This is a place that speaks to the world-class bar culture in Hong Kong, Seoul, Bangkok and Taipei, with a thriving cocktail list that draws on the team’s Taiwanese and Asian backgrounds. “Linla!” indeed.

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