What an iconic Melb institution!
Most suitable for after drinks meals with drunk mates. Pippies with XO sauce.
Great service and delicious food!
Always a good feed at this restaurant. Friendly staff and priced well. They open until late each day, great for a midnight snack. Most popular dish there would be the pipis in xo sauce.
The pipis and the chicken ribs are a definite must have! A Melbourne must visit!! Dipping the donuts into the xo sauce is an experience u won’t regret!!
We visited Ling Nan for a family dinner, and tried a variety of their most popular dishes. The XO Pipis were so delicious and had a nice amount of spice to it too. I loved the combination with fried dough stick! The Chicken Ribs was also very juicy and tender. We also had lobster noodles to share, although when the bill came we were quite shocked because they had not informed us of how heavy the lobster weighed. We had way too much lobster between the 7 of us! Otherwise, an enjoyable meal.
We came here for a late night snack after karaoke and I’m not sure if it was because I was starving or sobering up but it was the best Chinese food ever . We got the fried rice , Chinese sausage , fried chicken , beans and mince - all so delicious and the best thing is this place is open til super late
Amazinggggg customer service, waiters were great fun to be around. Will be back for the delicious food and memorable service!!
Been coming to this place for 15 years. We generally always go for the prawn toast, xo pippis, xo oysters, ginger and spring onion oysters, Cantonese beef, salt and pepper prawns with garlic and chilli and fried rice. 9 times out of ten it’s awesome.
Simple and amazing Chinese food that keeps the regulars coming back for more! This place is always packed with people just about anytime of the day, i once visited at 1am and it was bustling with people. Had the two crab noodles cooked two ways and they were both amazing. We had the crab noodles cooked with xo sauce and the other one with ginger and coriander and it was so good. Don't forget to try pipis with xo sauce and chinese donut, they never disappoint. This is a no frills restaurant that serves up amazing cantonese cuisine.
Friendly staff and opens till late!
Chinese cuisine here is always on point and you can't go wrong with ordering anything from the menu. Great place and good vibes to dine.
Ordered taro duck and one veg dish. Both amazingly tasty. Duck is boneless with soft taro and crispy stuff on the top of taro. Great combination. I have been searching for this for so long. Really happy found it here. And price is very reasonable. Two dishes with rice and tea totally 45 dollar. Size is big, we didn’t finish any dish got take away as well. Staff are friendly. It will become my regular dinning spot. Bit sad they don’t open lunch time.
Delicious lobster meal. The lobster meat is succulent and blend very well with the mee. . Friendly service enhanced our dinning experience. However , the portion was a little too big for us
Favourite chinese restaurant. Food is so delicious and service is best too. All around always had a great time and meal in this place. Recommended!
Pros: the pipis and fried rice were delicious, very flavourful. Chicken ribs was seasoned quite well and was the highlight of the meal especially when eaten with the fried rice with fish. Dishes were very decently priced. Service was great even at 2am in the morning!
Cons: not the most fancy and clean place.
The food’s great!! Ask for the chinsese doughnut and the pipet sauce. It’s not in the menu and it’s awesome. The braised pork belly was very soft and flavoursome.
Not the cheapest place around but the food’s really good.
Food 4/5
Service 3/5
Environment 3/5
The only reason for me to rate 4 stars is they open till 3:00 am. You could not understand how comfortable is in the 1:00 am under the bloody cold weather to have a hot porridge. The fresh oyster put in the bottom then covered with hot plain porridge. Then served to you and after mixing all together, you can feel the temperature worm your stomach. That’s amazing feeling.
The pipis are average but the sauce tastes good, especially come with a fried donut.
Came here for quick supper. We ordered xo sauce pipis, fried cha kwe, sea cucumber hotpot and pork with century egg porridge. I enjoyed everything except their porridge was quite bland for me. Food portion is really generous as well.
Will I be back? Yea!
Joanne | Melbournecitay
+4
Best sweet and sour pork in Melbourne CBD! Love the other dishes - the pipi and mapotofu was divine as well. Service and ambience isn’t their key strengths (I am strongly reminded of Hong Kong eateries where there’s a slight element of impatience) BUT I love how tasty the food is here and I am looking forward to my next trip here
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Had takeaway here this evening. We've eaten here a number of times before. The ambience at this restaurant is that of a generic Chinese restaurant, nothing exceptional but functional. This is the kind of place that Chinese families typically come to have a meal together, with shared dishes along with rice or noodles.
We had the crispy roast chicken, Mongolian beef, Chinese vegetables with mushrooms, and stuffed tofu with mushrooms and prawns. The crispy chicken wasn't very crispy, but still pretty good and the breast meat wasn't too dry. The Mongolian beef was well tenderised so it was very soft and sauce was tasty. The vegetables were pretty average and a waste of money in my opinion. There were a couple of big chunks of stalk in there too. Most people probably just order it in order to have a vegetable dish. The tofu was quite nice and quite generous - probably the most value for money out of all the dishes.
In terms of price, I wouldn't say it's cheap for what you get. Each dish costs $20-30 if it's a shared dish, and the dish sizes aren't very big so you may need one dish per person unless there are small eaters. That works out to $20+ per person, so I would order dishes that require a bit more effort to cook or can't easily be replicated at home (like the vegetable dish).
Lingnan serves very good authentic Chinese Cantonese cuisine. The dishes cooked well and price are reasonable. Love their stuffed scallop and the fried noodle with crab. 这里的粤菜超好吃！ 推荐煎酿带子 牛腩煲 糖醋排骨 还有螃蟹炒面！！
Came here on Saturday night with 5 other ppl and spend around $26pp! We had
Pipis in xo sauce: really good! Recommend the dish
Then the fried bread😍 really crispy outside and soft inside. One of my favourite!!!
And the beef.... forgot the name the vegetables! Which just okay.
The deep fried calamari!
Overall they were a good dish :)
A restaurant I would go to when I’m craving for Chinese food. Some of my favourite dishes here will definitely be pipis in xo sauce and also their live crab with noodles cooked in xo sauce/ginger and onion. The quality of their food is great and very consistent. I have gone here several times and each time leaving the restaurant very satisfied. Service is not bad as well, overall – thumbs up!
So good!! The staff are friendly, the restaurant has a nice and the food here is absolutely amazing! The wait is quite long, however it is worth the wait.
We were a group of 8 and had a table booked for upstairs. It was busy on a Friday evening. It's a fairly narrow restaurant on 2 levels. The place is badly decorated with pink walls and orange napkins. We had the clams and Chinese doughnuts to begin with; one dish of clams was with XO sauce and I believe the other one was with garlic and butter. I very much enjoyed both though my favourite was the garlic and butter. We then followed with a large number of dishes including steamed fish, deep fried calamari etc. The food, in my opinion, was decent and on par with what you get at other Chinese restaurants. The bill at the end was quite high but we did have a lot of food. Even though the service was good and the food came out quickly, I thought the people serving us were extremely rude and the guy (perhaps the owner or the manager?) was making jokes that were not politically correct. They even asked us to leave as soon as we finished our food when the big table next to us was free ...
We have ordered garlic clamp and coral trout with steamed rice. Food was delicious, though we didn’t like the service until second waiter came. First waiter was little bit rude he said we only have one and a half hour to order and eat and waited to us to order but second waiter was really friendly and help us a lot.
Lobster with soft noodles is da best with pipi xo. However if lobster is too pricey then order king prawns with soft noodles, the taste is also good. Other food that we like are the salt & pepper fried chicken. Note that the restaurant is only open for dinner
Cantonese food normally is not my choice coz I have such heavy taste. However,whenever I feel like Cantonese food ling nan always comes to my mind. It is a restaurant located in Chinatown. When u goes in, it’s just so simple without much decoration. Their food is comparatively cheap for a meat...
Ling Nan is a no-nonsense Chinese restaurant with a large menu full of Cantonese and other Chinese favourites. It’s been around for a long time and a lot of people have varying options about the place, but for us it’s a great late night option when you’re in the CBD and looking for a tasty late night feed.
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Out of a lot of supper spots down in Chinatown, this place is surely a must-go if you know what to order. They said this is the place where all chefs in Melbourne had their supper.
They have 2 types of menu, one of them is Vietnamese and one of them in English. It is said that the Vietnamese menu contains everything that the English menu has, but not the other way around. So if you're eating here, you MUST know what to order :)
Luckily I came here with my boss who's been here a lot of times so the dishes we ordered were always mostly good, and he speaks Chinese so it is definitely a plus!
Panda 🐼🐼🐼:
-Foods: Gai lan with homemade prawn cake (my #1 favorite!)
Crispy pork intestine with prawn filling (#2 favorite!)
Pippies with XO sauce (they serve this with chinese doughnut which soaked up the sauce so it is really flavourful)
MSG chicken (i don't know what they call this but my boss told me that this is the name haha)
-Most of the stir fry/veggie dishes are really good, tried gai lan, spinach, kangkung and all of them were nice, but the gai lan is still the champion!
-Quite homey taste, will remind you of your childhood foods
-Unlike many Chinese restaurants, they serve legit high quality foods with not just MSG (you can really tell)
-Service is quite ok (if you know how to speak Chinese...)
-Spacious place
-Open until 3 AM
-Accept both cash and card
-Free flow rice (I am not really sure about this one tho...)
Pandon’t ❌❌❌:
-A bit pricey (4 dishes for 5 and it's about $20 each)
-If you don't speak Chinese (like me) you really have to know what to order
-The servers don't speak English that much
My new favourite supper spot whenever I crave the taste of home-cooking stir-fry with rice. Will always come back for sure.
Good food, fast and efficient service. Don't expect staff to smile or have small talk but they are efficient and attentive in bringing out your food, clearing tables/dirty plates, and meeting your ad hoc request like extra rice, tea, bowls etc. The calamari serving was smaller than what we expected for $20 but boy were they good and tasted great both on its own and with rice. The signature pipi was also delicious with Chinese donut and there was plenty of pipis on the plate for $26. The downside was that it was a bit overcooked as on this occasion the pipi was a little tough to chew. In addition , I happened to taste 3 pipi that wasn't very fresh.
Always come here for supper! Authentic cantonese foos taste. But the service sometimes get quite bad. PiPi with Chinese donut is the must have. Also love the congee as well.
Always passed this restaurant but never really eat there until yesterday and it was awesome!
The highlight of our dinner was the quail and the duck with yam, it was so yummyy!!
Service surprisingly were good, they were very friendly and polite during the whole dinner time, we left happy and super full! :D
Late night , wish to gathering with friend , located at Chinatown restaurant open till 330am . busy placed waiting 15 minute then order food , yes not bad the food , delicious and the customer services not bad too ^^ good job , price reasonable.
Cozy traditional Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant that opens late and serve tasty food!
We've been here multiple times and the food was all consistent and yum.
Last time we were here we got ourselves some lobster with stirfried noodles and it was delicious. The lobster was super fresh, plumb, and juicy. The meat was firm and cooked right. The sauce was tasty and not overly sweet or salty. We also got some stir-fried veggies which were crispy and fresh.
Service was standard, friendly, and quick. The place opens till late, which is another plus point!
The food here is wonderful. The setting leaves a lot to be desired but looks can be deceiving. Homeliness in this case is derived from the friendliness of the staff and sumptuous food. Forget about the pink walls, just enjoy the food and have a good time with those we hold dear.
Food was absolutely delicious. Exactly what we were looking for- reasonably priced, unpretentious Chinese food. The real deal. Extremely bright lighting and hot pink walls would steer away someone looking for more ambiance, but it didn't bother us one bit. Also, some of the best spring rolls we've ever had!
Went for a catch up dinner last wednesday and we forgot to make a booking. We got a table of 8 within 5 mins so we were pretty happy. All the walls are painted pink which is a bit unusual for chinese restaurant. My friend did the ordering and everything was good. My fav were the jellyfish salad and crispy chicken. The xo pipih was nice but not as tasty as Super Inn for me. Service was okay, it was fast because someone in the group spoke cantonese.
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With all the reviews on how bad the service is and how rude the staff are, we went in with some trepidation, but still keen to try the food. The food was great. We ordered the XO clams with chinese donuts. These were very good. Then the seafood san choi bao. This was good too and came in a very crisp lettuce cup. My only criticism would be that the sauce was a touch on the too sweet side, but still enjoyable. We also ordered the seasonal greens with black mushroom and the crispy calamari. The greens were fresh and delicious and the calamari had great flavour. The batter a little thicker than what I normally get at my local restaurant -they probably use a dusting of rice flour, whereas here at Ling Nan, they used a thicker batter which made the dish heavier. This isn't a complaint, it was still very enjoyable, and had good flavour.
The rude staff and bad service didn't happen to us. The closest we experienced to that was when we walked in and the young man who greeted us didn't smile or have much to say, but directed us to table at the rear. The two older male waiters were great. I was offered cutlery when I mentioned chopsticks didn't come naturally to me, they came over often to collect plates and tidy up the table and we even discussed their favourite dishes. On the way out we had a 5 minute chat to the lady behind the register who turned out to be the daughter of the chef who started the business all those years ago and told us how she started working in the restaurant as a teenager. She was lovely and again we discussed her favourite dishes on the menu which is everything seafood, especially the XO clams and she also recommends the quail. We enjoyed dinner and will definitely be going back.
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The first time we were here we were rudely told that we would have to wait for at least another 30 minutes because it was against their policy to allow sharing of tables. We didn't even know they had an upstairs. On this Friday evening however we went with two people who knew the owners and we got a table straightaway upstairs after some light hearted banter between the owner and my friends.
Once we were upstairs we were given tsingtao for all the guys and tea was brought out for me.
We ordered the specialities which were delicious xo pipi with Chinese doughnuts. These are just mussels in a spicy sauce. You dip your doughnut into it.
We had some stir fry greens which were stir fried in soy. The Mongolian beef was quite sweet and came in a dark plum sauce like gravy.
The tofu seafood dish was ok.
The owner brought over some chilli for me because he said he could see it in my eyes that i needed some. :)
Service is super quick. Food is good value but not Chinatown cheap. But great taste.
For five of us bill was around 32 bucks with drinks and we were stuffed.
Definitely do not come here for the service, any pleases or thank yous will pretty much just be ignored! But the food makes up for it, with the pipis with xo sauce and donuts and the spicy chicken ribs being so good that I'll come back even with the crappy service.
Ling Nam. Ling Nan
Whichever way you call it, i feel like most melbournians have stubbled across this little gem sometime or another in their food hunts.
Located in busy section of chinatown, this place can never go wrong for typical chinese food. Personally never experiencing it myself, dont come here for the 'no service' typical staff you woulf normally expect from an asian joint. Do however, expect their salty egg yolk chicken ribs, xo sauce pippies, and stir fried snow pea leaves to be on par, to name a few. Great comforting chinese food to share qith family or friends.
The food here is a hit and miss. The pippies XO sauce is good compared to all the other places I've tried. Overall, the dishes are quite average. I usually come for a late night feed. I always order duck tongue with jelly fish salad. If I don't dine here for a while, the next time I do I genuinely enjoy the food but there's nothing special.
XO crabs noodle, chilli crispy calamari and stuffed fried intestine are the best dishes here. Service somehow depending on who serves whom? Interesting indeed, despite thats the case, its a great place to be when we are hungry after hours for supper!
Ling Nan serves good Cantonese food, however are slightly overpriced for the quality that they deliver at. The vegetables are cooked nicely here, and was really the only standout during my last meal here. The staff are alert, but seem generally uninterested in behaving in a manner that is welcoming or professional, but rather simply to seat you quickly and provide you with foodhas efficiently as possible. It is noteworthy to observe that larger tables will generally receive more attention and care from staff, as they provide the restaurant with more income. Consistency between all customers would be appreciated.
Despite the poor service and messy environment, the food was really good. The ambience will make you feel like you're dining somewhere in Asia. Would say this is a great place for supper or that post clubbing eating. The porridge was so fine, the sg meehoon was fried well and the fried 'you tiao' was fried real crispy and soft on the inside. Defs recommend!
Ordered the lobster egg noodles, pipi with chinese dougnut, oysters, salt pepper tofu, spicy fermented watercress, garlic chicken and vegetarian fried noodles. Serving was pretty good, there was 9 of us and we had a hard time finishing everything!
Lobster and abalones were perfectly cooked. Food was well flavoured and not too salty like it can it be at some Chinese restaurants. Not sure if they use MSG but the food tastes like they do. Decor takes you back a few of decades ago, it's got an odd warmth about it. Service needs improvement, staff weren't that friendly. Will I come here next time? I'll have to think about that.
def a go to place after a big night of clubbing or when you just down for a feed of some yummy pipis with the chinese donuts! highly recommend!!
Ling nam is a fantastic little hidden gem in Melbourne city. The decor is very 1980s wedding with its peach napkins.
The food is fantastic! You must try the pippies in XO sauce with noodles and the fried chicken.
The service is fast but nothing special. You simply go for the fabulous food so have zero expectations of the staff or the look.
Not suitable for a date as it can be quite loud.
Very basic but yummy food
The Pork sweet and sour was nice but the large pieces of pineapple not sure ?
Fried rice good
Mapo tofu nice quite sweet tho
Very nice service aswell
Good place for a feed
Xo pipi with Chinese doughnuts. One of the best. That's all I have to say. Restaurant is good for its food overall but man! Still can't get over how amazing the xo pipi with Chinese doughnuts are. 😨😨😨
It's GOOD, we had the the Pipi in XO sauce, chinese donut, special fried rice & salt and pepper fried chicken.
POSITIVE : THE XO SAUCE IS HEAVEN. Try any of their dishes with it and no other XO will compare. Late night trade, we rolled in there at 2 am after a club and had our cravings met.
NEGATIVE : service is not 5 star but fast, and lots of dishes are traditional chinese for western and possibly use a fair share of MSG.
Another "iconic" Chinese food institution in Chinatown.
Nothing fancy, oldie but a goodie ..... it has never fail to deliver at anytime of the evening, especially close or around midnight.
Always a great atmosphere, linen on tables, much friendlier and pleasant staff who has been there for years.
Your classic Chinese food, live seafood, enjoy ....
Food is great. They let you know youve order enough and might not finish. The char siew is not good enough in my opinion. But the rest like quail, seafood, lala is good. Not pretentious and friendly place
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Came here with work colleagues as they offered BYO for any bottle and we had a special Hennessy XO to share.
One of my colleagues was able to order traditional Chinese dishes for us in Chinese and took care of the meals for the night.
We tried a bunch of new and different things including salted fish fried rice, abalone, jellyfish and duck cold noodle salad, fried tofu, crispy fried quail, roast pork with veggies, sweet an sour pork ribs and special deep fried chicken pieces.
The cold noodle jellyfish and duck salad sounded odd but as surprisingly tasty, you could not tell you were eating jelly fish as it tastes more like pickled cabbage. The abalone was quite expensive at $6 a pop but was something none of us had tried, we all enjoyed it and I would describe it as taste and texture mix between an oyster and a mussel. The quail was very tasty but a little dry, the sweet and sour pork ribs were full of flavour and crunchy as the rib bones were crushed as part of the dish.
This place looked very deceiving with its large round table, very basic interior, and fresh seafood tanks in the window; I was truly surprised with the tasty food and experience but the place could do with a makeover and new interior design!
One of the best Chinese restaurants in town. Nowhere else makes better pippies in xo sauce, congee is good, many choices of fresh crab/lobster/fish. They cook seafood very well here. Also love the duck & jelly fish salad. They open til very late making it a convenience option for those hungry night owls.
If you are a supper person and asian food lover come to this place. The dishes won't disappoint you but the service won't be that good. My favourite is the XO pi pis, Chinese donut and salt & pepper chicken ribs.
Great place if you're hungry and wandering around Chinatown in the wee hours of the morning. I believe they open until 3.30 am. Food is of reasonable quality. Try the yam stuffed duck.
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每次來這裏我都感覺到香港老牌餐館的氛圍。也許服務員沒有對你微笑，也可能因為我是廣東妹的原因，哥哥姊姊都對我很好。我每次來，或者介紹朋友來，都一定會點豉椒花蜆加油條底。記得油條底是一定要另外點的！鮮甜的花蜆勾芡汁慢慢滲入油條里，香口之餘又餘留著脆，這個可以代替我的主食。還有就是芋頭香酥鴨，不過感覺這次芋頭並沒有上次的香。這個分數我稍微給高的一點點，可能是我的感情所在吧？誰說要公平公正的啊！哈哈。
Recommendation one…oh i coudlnt even tell you what i had because I rarely read any english words on the menu. I know exactly what Im getting. if you trust me, then show my attached pics to the waiter and enjoy them. Watch out. they dont know what “smile” means.
Came here for supper at 1:30am. Service was alright, your typical Chinese place. They weren't rude but they never smiled! Anyway, we ordered preserved egg and pork congee, yam duck, intestines, snow pea sprout stir fry, and pepper beef. Everything was excellent besides the beef was a tad too sweet, I think there was honey in it and some of the pork in the congee was really salty. My favourites were the intestine and yam duck, would definitely come back again!
A true chinatown classic. Delicious and really consistent. The staff have fun but are totally professional and ensure you're looked after. Currently being renovated I hope it retains it's feel.
DO: The Fab Four. Salt and pepper chicken ribs. XO Pipis. Chinese donut. Garlic snow pea sprouts.
DON'T: Order like us. They have so many items to explore but we always stick to our Fab Four.
TIP: Don't be afraid to ask for a doggy bag.
Had a pretty nice meal here...some kind of fish/seafood and beef. All the food was nice enough and the staff efficient...but for the price it wasnt as high a grade as you can get in chinatown.
This place is always busy. Decided to give it it ago and our meals all were tasty. Very quick and efficient services. I would love to come back to try more
I did come back love the crispy chicken!!!
One of my favourite place for supper, an institution in Melbourne that's definitely not to be missed. Now located on Lonsdale Street, not far from their old spot, the food is just as good as before. Can't go wrong with the XO pipis with Chinese Donuts, Water Spinach with Fermented Bean Curd, and the Salt & Pepper Squid and Chicken. Great flavours and excellent execution. So glad that they have reopened!
Had a dinner here and really enjoyed their new venue. It is cleaner and well maintained.
We had a few diferent menus, xo pious, stir fry chinese broccoli, pork ribs, steamed baramundi and hokkian rice.
As every othwr reviews mentioned, their xo pipis are great, but to my surprise their hokkian rice also tasted amazing ! Def coming back here
A chef recommended this place to me and it showed in the food. It's good value, it came out fast, and the quality of the food was evident not just in the flavour combinations but the technical aspects, nothing over or undercooked, everything fried was crisp and clean, and in big portions. Some of the best food I've had in years. Front of house are courteous and efficient, extra napkins and water refills appear as if by magic even during a busy service. 10/10 highly recommend
Love this chinese restaurant... authentic dishes .... great food with great company
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