Open since the ’70s, this family-run retro Chinese restaurant still sizzles in the suburbs

“Do you want cutlery or are you fine with chopsticks?” asks the waiter. The opening line makes me swoon, signalling we’re in the kind of suburban Chinese restaurant I love. Surely, it’s going to be Crown lagers and fortune cookies all the way to heaven.

Early signs are excellent: a lime-green, brick exterior with octagonal windows looks promising. Inside, comfy, red, vinyl chairs, pine panelling, crane artwork and chequerboard ceiling tiles set a right-on retro tone.

And then, as I settle in, flipping through an embossed menu with many plastic-pocketed pages, the action around me gets even more exciting. First, you hear the sputtering, then you smell the char, next you’re enveloped in a steamy fog punctuated by a chorus of oohs. Finally, there’s a slight swivel of the lazy Susan at the next table to make room for sizzling Mongolian beef.

Kingsland is iconic. The restaurant has been here since 1973 and owned by the Tran family since 1991, though Bonnie and Kevin Tran have been working here since 1979, not long after they arrived in Australia as refugees from Vietnam. Their twin sons, Graham and Ben, grew up here, doing their homework at the corner table, pressing sesame seeds onto prawn toast in the kitchen, making friends with kids who now bring their own offspring to dine.

After quitting a career in finance, Graham officially took over from his parents two years ago, aided by his wife, Elle, their young kids (who can also turn their hand to prawn toast and will accept Robux in return) and his brother. The older generation can’t keep away, though: the pull of the family business is strong.

A nice narrative and untouched interior will get a diner to Kingsland once. What keeps people coming back is caring service and food made with pride and rigour. Prawns are minced in-house, spread onto bread from the local bakery, smothered in sesame seeds, fried to order and delivered with a sprig of curly parsley. They’re soft, sweet and crunchy in all the right places.

Iceberg leaves for the sang choy bao lettuce cups are fresh and crisp, filled with a well-sauced tumble of chicken, baby corn and chopped broccoli stems.

That sizzling beef isn’t just dramatic: the meat is velvety, the flower-shaped carrot slices are al dente and the onion has the right slippery crunch.

Every old-school Chinese restaurant needs a signature seafood dish. The Kingsland version is a delicate stir-fry of prawns, scallops and fish in a basket made from potatoes. The spuds are shaved, soaked and pressed into a colander, then fried like one big, bowl-shaped chip. It looks awesome and is thrillingly crisp.

If there’s a dish you loved here in 1995 (lemon chicken or mandarin pork, maybe), it’s still on the menu, but consistency is married with careful innovation. You see it in the fried ice-cream, available in an on-trend Biscoff version that arrives with a flaming sugar cube, just for fun.

I’ll be back for more fun, too – and I know it because my fortune cookie told me so: “Love is an adventure that is just beginning.”

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.