Some restaurant operators spend ages searching for the perfect venue location, then longer still perfecting bespoke fit-outs with high-end fittings and furniture. The PR spin begins well before the doors open, with carefully curated social media content showing every meticulous step leading up to the launch: colour swatches, timber selections, dish preparation, menu teasers, staff introductions… one might get sick of a place before they’ve even opened to let you try the food. 

But for their third iteration, the team that operates pan-Asian Gin Long Canteen in North Adelaide and modern Korean haunt Busan Baby in the CBD decided to do things a little differently. They found a retail vacancy adjacent to a supermarket car park, whacked in a kitchen and wall panelling, slapped up some paint and wallpaper, and finished the picture with a sketched image of the Asian White Tiger, for luck, I guess. And in an odd spot like this, they’d probably need it. 

On the outside, there’s a pink neon sign that reads “The Good Tiger”, reflected in windshields and bonnets of cars below. Effective, but if I hadn’t heard better,  this venue might be mistaken for a takeaway. Lucky for this Tiger, I have heard. And only good things, too. 

In we go, seated, and served without too much fuss. There’s not too much fuss to the menu, either. A decent-sized list covers all the typical South-East Asian areas of interest. Satay, check. Curries, check. Vietnamese pizza, what? 

Listed as “Asian Rice Pancake”, these are The Tiger’s signature starter, with four topping options in a dedicated section of the menu. I expect those delicate crepes with accoutrements that you fill and roll yourself. But instead, well, it’s basically pizza, but with a lot more crunch, thanks to a base that resembles the taste and texture of a rice cracker. A far cry from its doughy counterpart, this is still far more pizza than pancake. Much better than some pizzas I’ve had, too.

There’s one with roughly hewn mushrooms of different descriptions, textures and flavours, jumbled across its cracker base and topped with thinly sliced shallots – both fried and fresh – a little of spring onion here and a bit of coriander there, and in place of cheese or a tomato sauce, there’s spicy kewpie mayo on top, of course. It’s fresh, it’s delicious, it’s crunchy and it’s, well, kind of entertaining to eat.

The duck version is better again. It has a similar pizza-style treatment of ingredients, assembled on its base, though this time the punchy flavours of hoi sin sauce shine through, coating pieces of tenderly roasted duck. A solid hit of spice thanks to chilli oil threatens to knock this one off its perch but the heat’s extinguished by Jungle Spritz cocktails now at hand. (Maximum quench comes from a citrus version, with yuzu and lime, limoncello and gin.)

Not a pizza: The Good Tiger’s roasted duck pancake. Supplied image

There’s more spice in the sauce that arrives next, pooled around a few prawn dumplings, translucent and bouncy. Little pastry veins formed in textured wrappers capture an utterly tasty red curry liquid, to ensure maximum flavour while chilli ensures maximum bite. These are just dumplings, but very, very good ones. And somebody here knows their sauce. 

They know their mushrooms, too, with every variety you can list off the top of a typical head right here in a dish: there are shiitake, of course, enoki and oyster, I’m sure, and even those little black wobbly fungi things you typically find floating in soup. But this isn’t soup. It’s a dish that could easily be dinner on its own, with a deep, silken sauce coating the mushroom mix, and some barely cooked stems for crunch. That’s it. 

Confit Asian mushrooms. Photo: Paul Wood / InReview

Well, almost. Last is soft-shell crab, its second exoskeleton now a light and crispy tempura layer. Inside, juicy meat remains in joints, and the lot is flavoured with a curry mousse. Yes, mousse. It’s got heat and balance and flavour, everything a good curry should. It’s also got air, I suppose, but perhaps a little too much salt. And then it’s back to those mushrooms for me. 

Vietnamese pizza? Thai curried mousse? (And some “cheeseburger” spring rolls I had skipped.) These countries and their cultures might take offence if all of this wasn’t so good.

And I guess that’s the simple point you’ve been trying to make, hey Tiger?

The Good Tiger

U15/525 Brighton Road, Brighton (next to Brighton Central Shopping Centre)
www.thegoodtiger.com.au
0406 475 089

Open
Wednesday – Friday 11.30am – 2pm and 5-9pm; Saturday – 5-9pm; Sunday – Monday 11.30am-2pm and 5-9pm