Alison Tanudisastro

Haymarket’s Chinatown is a true melange of different Asian cuisines, regional specialities and shifting traditions. For my family, heading to this neighbourhood for a meal is a weekly ritual. We've been exploring this vibrant corner of the city for more than 20 years, and we've discovered hidden gems serving up all kinds of deliciousness from across Asia. Each meal is a way for my Chinese-Indonesian family to bond over shared memories of home, discuss the latest family gossip and, as my dad would say, “be around our people”.  Over the years, we've refined our pick of Chinatown's go-to restaurants; a trusted list that's been decades in the making, so new entries are rare. When I was growing up in the '90s, our list was dominated by the Cantonese barbecue houses and restaurants lining Sussex and Dixon Streets (the heart of Chinatown), from the steaming yum cha trolleys of Regal (RIP) and the fresh seafood banquets of House of Guangzhou (also RIP) to the tasty roast pork dishes of BBQ King (and again, RIP). Back then, Chinatown largely catered to the predominantly Cantonese-speaking community who had migrated from Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong since the Gold Rush years of the 1850s. But as communities here have diversified over successive generations, so has this area's identity. By the 2000s, the influx of Chinese international students filled the streets with gaming cafes, bubble tea shops and eateries offering regional cuisines from Sichuan to Xinjiang. Chinatown’s boundarie