You’ve ordered food, the kitchen has prepared it, and it’s arrived at your table looking lovely. There’s only one thing to do: wreck it. Pick up the provided pestle and pound your meal into a mash. That’s the concept at Pounding Rice Bowl, a city restaurant that explains its key activity in its name. Smashing a bowl of rice, minced pork and soft braised eggplant is a great idea.

The broken rice absorbs the juice from the pork, the eggplant becomes almost creamy and the amalgam makes for comforting chopsticked mouthfuls. Other toppings include braised pork belly and meatballs, but the premium wuchang rice from Heilongjiang province in north-east China – medium grain and slightly sticky – is a star too.

It’s not all pestles, either. Classic Aussie-Chinese dishes sit alongside dumplings and a fried chicken carcass served with a zingy Sichuan spice salt. Smashing.

Good to know: The scallion oil noodles here are one of the best sub-$10 lunches in town.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.