Rice Paper Sister, Melbourne CBD

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MELBOURNE | The Rice Paper Sister is the newer, more “refined” version of Fitzroy and CBD favourite Rice Paper Scissors from owners Rahmie Clowes and Shane Stafford, and in the few months its been open has already impressed a lot of people. We’ve been meaning to check it out for a while, so when we received an invite to see what it was all about we accepted and made our way down.

The space is casual and refined, less chaotic and on trend than the other Rice Paper restaurants, more stylish and modern. White walls and wooden accents create a more mature space, but it’s still vibrant and a colourful mural of a woman by Byron Bay-based artist Glenn Mossop shows that the place still wants to have fun.

This more mature space suits the restaurant well, with the food also taking a more mature approach than the other Rice Paper restaurants. Head chef Ross Magnaye taps into his Filipino heritage and more to create dishes that are inspired by cuisines from across East and South East Asia, and Australia. Suckling pig is done Balineese style – served with jackfruit salad and roti it’s beautifully tender and flavoursome. Meanwhile the signature 16-hour Filipino x Burmese fusion goat shoulder is marinated in a sweet-sour mix of ginger, galangal, turmeric, oyster and fish sauces, and Sprite.

The Issan-style kangaroo tartare, one of our favourite dishes, combines generous chunks of raw kangaroo meat with chilli fresh herbs, roasted rice burnt eggplant dressing, tapioca crisps and betel leaves. Its texturally complex and utterly delicious. Another highlight is the BBQ calamari stuffed with Filipino spicy pork sausage, coconut adobo and squid ink sauce. We would have been happy just eating copious amounts of this all night.

For dessert, the Vietnamisu — a Vietnamese coffee take on tiramisu which includes Vietnamese coffee mousse, chocolate, lemongrass and ginger infused masala, really hits the spot. Each layer works well on its own, or combined with the others.

Thirsty folks can choose from 20 different wines, mostly local, along with beer, spirits, cocktails and mocktails. We tried the “A Great Leap Forward”, with, lychee infused vodka, lime, mint and topped with ginger beer, and the “Lemongrass Tom Collins” – lemongrass infused gin with cucumber and topped with soda. Both were tasty and fresh, but if you can only have one, go for the a great leap forward which has more balanced flavours.

We’ve always been fans of Rice Paper Scissors, so had high hopes for the third incarnation when we first heard about it. Thankfully those expectations have been met, with food that proves that fusion doesn’t have to be a dirty word.

Rice Paper Sister

15 Hardware Lane
Melbourne
Victoria 3000
Australia

Telephone: (03) 9600 4949
E-mail: [email protected]
Website

Open
Sun – Thu: 12:00pm to 3:00pm; 5:30pm to 10:00pm
Fri – Sat: 12:00pm to 11:00pm