Perennial and enduring, Tattersalls Lane has long been an icon of Melbourne cool: conflicted, cultured – east meets west. A shabby-looking scion that shoots off the busy Little Bourke St, it’s set right in the heart of Chinatown’s cluttered, messy furore. A sharp, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it left turn leads the unwary into typical, high-bricked walls lined with smatterings of old event posters.

Gaylord’s restaurant is the first thing you’ll notice – if not for the eye-catching name, then the bizarre photo terrace foyer – and works as an apt indication that, as an Indian restaurant in the heart of China Town, Tattersalls Lane is one that doesn’t care much for convention. Further north is underdog restaurant Shanghai Noodle House, tired and vacant from playing second fiddle to the maddening, loud genius of its main competition, Shanghai Dumpling.

Most Melburnians are all too aware of Shanghai Dumpling’s charm and allure – it’s evidenced clearly by the snaking queues on Friday and Saturday nights. The place is lit like a Kmart, the service is terrible (don’t take it personally), but the food is fantastic. It’s cheap, too: the frugal diner often walks out well-fed for a fiver (sans beer, of course).

But it’s the little things that make Shanghai Dumpling worth it: the over-zealous doorman Jimmy – whose vocabulary extends only to numbers and his volume set only to ‘bracingly loud’; the awful covers of forgotten 90s popular music, or worse, butchered classics; and, of course, the offensively loud, conversation-disturbing ‘happy birthday’ song – so annoyingly hilarious that it always prompts diners to dob their friends in. Shanghai Dumpling is an institution, really, and one that, to its credit, refuses to change albeit its popularity. Here’s hoping it never does.

Tattersalls Lane’s next surprise is Section 8. A renovated car park, it’s a corrugated, rusty and effortlessly cool iron jungle, right down to the mesh fence, the mess of steel girders and the bar – a hacked, painted shipping container. All this is softened with clever oriental touches, as statues, parasols and lanterns sit, spring and hang around the wooden pallet seats. These are sprinkled with cushions and make for a surprisingly comfortable, unique Melbourne bar experience. Like neighbour Shanghai Dumpling, it too may be a victim of its own popularity; if you intend to make it your bar on a Friday or Saturday night, get there early.

Pass over Stevenson Lane – there a few interesting pieces of street art, but ultimately, its focus is waste disposal – walk up through the evergreen walls and suddenly you’re at Lonsdale St, a world away from where you just were: a little avenue of contradiction, juxtaposition and a reminder of what it is, after all, what makes Melbourne great.

Reviewed: May 2009

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