Liji Malatang - Target Centre, Melbourne CBD
Spicy Beef Bone Soup
Yesterday I was trembling, I didn’t feel myself, something was missing in my life and I needed to rectify it. I looked to when my last post on this account was and realised that missing part of me was of course soup. Knowing full well this hunger wasn’t going to cure itself I made tracks into the city, and wandered the streets until I found a restaurant that didn’t have huge wait times. This place was Liji Malatang nestled in the Target Centre between Bourke and Little Bourke. While i’m sure many soup fans in Melbourne are familiar with Malatang by now - For those who need a refresher, It’s basically Chinese for Spicy + Numbing, the flavours you get from Sichuan peppers and chili. Malatang restaurants have fridges that are filled to the brim with ingredients that you put into an oversized bowl which is similar to Hermione Granger’s bag - You keep putting things in it but it never seems to fill up the top. THAT IS THE FIRST TRICK PEOPLE. Don’t get caught out, you have to imagine all those ingredients you place into your bowl in that bag of yours that you call your stomach and you will have no problems. Malatang is charged by weight - Liji is $3.20 per 100 grams.. and if I wasn’t careful that price could have become very very extreme very quickly. The ingredients options at Liji are much the same as Dragon + other similar priced by weight restaurants around the city. They have all the options - An assortment of Mushrooms, veggies, tofu and other beancurd related items, balls - all kinds of balls, big balls, filled seafood balls, meat balls plenty of balls. The fresh meat here was the standard thinly cut lamb, beef or pork but they also had thicker cuts of marinated beef which were very tasty. One thing I will mention is that Liji has peeled prawns which is an essential, not only are you not wasting precious weight on crustaceanic shell you also can be lazy and suck the prawn meat right out of its tail, less messy - good. Now the broth, the broth here was tremendous, It was bold and had all the right flavours dancing around my tongue. Yes it was Spicy, Yes it was Numbing - Malatang certified but it was also very beefy. The aromas were fantastic. This place has a sauce station with all the regular condiments. Sesame oil, sesame sauce, chopped coriander, chopped green onion etc. a great addition. Liji Malatang is an underrated restaurant, It’s hidden in Target centre but you won’t feel rushed here like you do in other places because there is a heap of space and heaps of tables. I also saw they did cumin lamb skewers so you bet i’m going straight back for them.

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Broth Flavour: 🍜🍜🍜🍜/5
Soup ingredients: 🍜🍜🍜.5/5
Service: 🍜🍜🍜🍜/5
Overall: 🍜🍜🍜🍜/5
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It was the perfect balance of rich soup flavour and numbing spiciness! They even gave us aprons because we were wearing white shirts