Golden Century

July 23, 2005

Photo: Tanya Lake

The 24 tanks of seafood present Joanna Savill with an abundant selection of live dinners-to-be.

Golden Century
393-399 Sussex Street, Haymarket 9212 3901
Open noon to 4am seven days

Golden Century is an institution. Looking up from the street outside to its floor-to-ceiling facade of interlocking fish tanks gives you little sense of the spectacle that awaits on the other side. But climbing the stairs to the reception stand, you start to sense the nervous tension that's peculiar to this place.

Even on a freezing winter's night, there's a gloomy huddle of waiting diners lining the harshly lit stairwell. Walkie-talkies hiss and crackle. A hopeful customer pushes forward to the lectern, only to drop back into the line. The anxiety goes up a notch. A walkie-talkie springs into life. Made to wait momentarily despite our booking, we are relieved to find ourselves suddenly pushed through to the roar inside, past metres of busy tables, dozens of scurrying waiters in gold and blue embroidered jackets, white platters and dishes flying by.

The fish tanks are what you come here for - all 24 of them. The rest, in the end, is secondary. The kids may want salt-and-pepper squid, spring rolls and steamed gow gee, but we're here for wriggling parrot fish and writhing lobster, some of those tiny translucent prawns dive-bombing each other in the top tank in the far right corner and perhaps a few of those creamy pink scallops sitting neatly on their coral-coloured shells. We want XO sauce and Szechuan pepper, ginger, shallots and soy and fresh, steamed seasonal greens.

There's an regular menu, a specials menu and a list of live seafood and greens. We count five kinds of crab (mud, king, spanner, snow and blue swimmer) and about a dozen species of fish. There are pippies and golden perch, barramundi and abalone - hundreds of the blighters, from tiny suction-cup size to plate-sized whoppers. We select something called "mixed bits" from the specials list, plus a serve of king mushroom, sliced thick and meaty with fat, juicy, mustard-green stalks. Putting in the kids' order is easy. Choosing our live seafood takes more time.

"What do you recommend?" we ask our waitress, expressing a yearning for crab. She points obligingly at the mud crab. "With ginger and shallot," she says baldly, as if there were no possible alternative. But what about a whole fish? we wonder. "Coral trout," she responds, with equal firmness. "With ginger and shallot." We wrangle for a few minutes, tossing up the options.

Around us a steady procession of waiters in waistcoats is dropping nets into tanks. Plastic bags filled with their catch - lobster, crab, scallops, whole fish and more lobster - are held aloft, waved for customers' approval and dispatched to the kitchen. OK, so mud crab and coral trout it is. With ginger and shallot and Szechuan sauce.

It's all a little haphazard. Soft drinks arrive, but our water doesn't. A tower of bowls is set down but not distributed. We miss that gentle moment of waiter ceremony where bowls are filled and handed around which usually launches a Chinese eating spree.

The kids take over, manning the silver rice bucket. More dishes appear. We push others aside to make room. There are hot towels and finger bowls for the crab. More plates shift, splashes of food multiply. We relish the salty mix of diced seafood and Chinese sausage, chilli and boiled peanuts (our "mixed bits"). Our little mud crab is sugar-light and spicy, and the firm, almost rubbery flesh of the coral trout succulent and salty-sweet under dark-green splinters of shallot and a light soy broth.

Around us every table is laden - with scallops and sang choy bow, salt-and-pepper squid, whole fish (coral trout) with ginger and shallot, and lobster such as it was going out of style. We linger over our fish bones, picking out the cheeks, and suck out the remaining crab claws. The kids are restless and disappear to explore the fish tanks and the toilets. They're impressed by the smart, square basins and the push-button plastic film that covers the loo seats after you've finished. They're lured back by plates of not-so-sweet watermelon and chewy, sesame-fried rice balls.

Our Golden Century dinner is over. We've had fun. As we leave, an eager queue is still waiting in the stairwell and the walkie-talkies are crackling.


Food 7

You come for the fish tanks. The rest is secondary.

Atmosphere 7

Great if you're into spectacle and bustle.

Service 6

Plentiful, but not always effective.

Value 7

You pay dearly for live seafood (coral trout $98 a kilogram, mud crab $58), but the rest is quite affordable.
