Chinatown’s early bird is still open for breakfast. The ladies in the front window are already teasing and folding pastry for today’s beef shallot pancakes, chicken and pork buns and fried or steamed dumplings as workers breeze into the long, L-shaped room — housed in a miniature pagoda at the entrance to an arcade — to order soybean jelly soup $4.50 with yu tiao (dough fritters) $2.20 each or superior broth with egg $4.50. At lunch and dinner, things heat up with seriously spicy Szechuan beef noodle soup $8, kung pao chicken with rice $9.50 and the full range of congee, from sliced pork $7.50 to seafood combo $10. And most of the day the beverage bar does a roaring trade in instant hits: a takeaway fruit crush or house-made taro bubble tea with big pearls of tapioca.

Full Address

86-88 Dixon St, Haymarket, Australia

Directions: From Central Station, head west on Eddy Ave, turn right into George St, left into Hay St and then right into Dixon St. A 10-minute walk.