Jackpot Dining - West End

When I was finalising this post, I realised that this place has never been blogged about ever. Seriously guys, it's been open for at least four years and no one has ever blogged about it, and its in the direct centre of West End practically. It has like four sister stores. Well, I took advantage and your chance to take the first post is long gone, like your ex girlfriend who will never return!

There seem to be lots of little Jackpot Dining places sprouting all over the city and with that in mind VGirl and I decided to go here. No, I'm lying, we totally went to go out to this Mexican place in West End that was closed for the New Year. Then we weren't able to go to Lock and Load Bistro cause we didn't have a reservation and so we ended up here.

It was absolutely bucketing rain during this time and I had gotten a lot of water into my flats when protecting VGirl and Dr H., from the rain. Dr H., went to dinner at Little Greek Taverna which VGirl and I didn't want to go to.

SAFE HAVEN FROM THE RAIN

Look out for this flag!

The interior is nothing exciting, it reminds me of a slightly upmarket cafeteria hall. At the front is a counter where you pay, order and get your drinks. The majority of the restaurant is taken up with plain white booths and tables. At the back is a counter that contains help yourself sauces and the entrance to the kitchen where you can watch chefs chopping up barbequed meat.

Their drinks range!

More drinks!

Even more drinks

The sauces, soy, chilli, chilli garlic oil, plum and black vinegar

I picked up this can of lychees juice. It's one of those deceptively heavy Asian cans, that are super thick and have a deceptively small amount of juice in them. This juice was very syrupy, sweet and had a strong taste of lychees, think the texture of mango nectar and the like. I'm unsure if I would buy it again, but it was an interesting taste.

I felt like eating roasted duck but also wanted noodles, so I ended up getting shredded duck with vegetable noodles! It was initially quite disappointed with the appearance of this dish since the garnish of white and purple cabbage, whilst striking was very haphazard. There didn't seem to be enough duck, as I was expecting the usual deceptive pile at the top and nothing beneath. With every mouthful, there was a chunk of duck and I found I had quite a lot of duck in my noodles. As well as a LOT of vegetables, cabbage, bok choy, garlic, onion and small slivers of carrot. It was a very healthy dish I think and I really enjoyed it in the end.

These spring rolls were vegetarian so VGirl snagged a few as well. I honestly can't remember what was in it besides carrot, peas, corn and cabbage. They were freshly fried and super, super hot when they arrived at the table. I'm pretty sure VGirl burned her mouth when she ate them. They came with a little side dish of sweet chilli sauce.

When I was writing this I had no idea what this was. I looked at the photo and said to myself, that is unmistakably barbeque pork buns. I had no idea why I would order this as I don't usually like it. Its in my Facebook pictures as well so I must've gotten it but I wrote no notes on the dish which is strange. I honestly have no recollection of eating this.

Then I remember that these were VGirl's fresh green vegetable buns! She said they weren't that great. That's all she said.

Memory loss barbeque pork buns

HAR GAO! Delicious, thin skinned, multi pleated, prawn filled morsels of deliciousness. For their price, at the time of writing 3 for $4.80, its a little pricey but still a delicious and consistent alternative to the usual yum cha hotspots. I would happily drop by for these har gao if I had a hankering for yum cha in West End.

Delicious!

These are steamed vegetable dumplings, these were expensive considering its two largish dumplings for $4.50. VGirl said they were really delicious but she did baulk a bit at the price, odd considering I had to pay for our dinner. She said she would go here again, solely for these dumplings but only for a special occasion.

Tell me your secrets dumplings.

We ordered the steamed Chinese vegetables with oyster sauce. One of those places that literally gives you oyster sauce sadly. The vegetables were fresh, springy and still a bit crunchy.

Boo plain oyster sauce

This place was so good, I went back here again with my Boyfriend! I had to talk him out of ordering the steamed vegetables as I knew how completely average they were. We also got a serve of the har gao dumplings when we went here. Below is a picture of Bubble Black tea, it doesn't have any pearls or anything, I'm unsure of why the name is Bubble Black tea. Its a very, very sweet earthy black tea, there isn't any bitterness due to how much sugar is present but it has a very distinctive tannic flavour from how long the tea has been brewed. I had to dilute mine with water as it was so intensely sweet.

So, so sweet.

I panicked while ordering and got barbequed pork and roasted duck with veggies. My Boyfriend was not happy as he expressly wanted ONLY roasted duck, but it was too late to take back the order. We all regretted the barbequed pork, it was meltingly tender, so soft you could pull it apart with two forks. With zero flavour. It looked like char siu and tasted like the faintest hint of it. The roasted duck was really good though, tender, fatty, juicy with a great crispy skin. He kept muttering under his breath that he could've had a whole plate of duck. He made me eat the barbequed pork.

BBQ pork and roast duck!

I got the butter garlic chicken with a side of fried rice for an extra $2. The rice was well cooked, a touch plain, but the grains were fluffy and well defined, carrot, peas and egg were present in the fried rice.

I don't know what I expected with the butter garlic chicken. One of my friends heavily recommended this when I said I went here the first time, so I decided to pick it. They were crispy fried chicken bits in literally a butter and garlic sauce. When you bite into the chicken, you got this overwhelmingly strong taste of butter and garlic. It wasn't unpleasant but it was a rich and surprisingly filling taste. I was glad I picked the fried rice as a side as there was little else to this dish besides the chicken.

Oddly tasty

Jackpot Dining West End
Atmosphere: 6, fancy arse cafeteria room. I wouldn't bring a hot date here that's for sure.
Service: 8, wonderful friendly, polite and super efficient staff members. They would helpfully point out each dish and are very patient with people umming and ahhing at the door without being obtrusive.
Food: 8.5, would gladly go back here again. For how much you're paying for food here, the huge portions and very solid cooking? This place is a winner, winner, chicken dinner for me.