During trips to Melbourne, I always try to stay an extra couple of days so I can eat at more places. The annoying thing about dining solo is that I can only try 1-2 small dishes before I get full.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Supernormal offer half-serves of most of their menu items for half the price. It’s not written on the menu or on the website. I only found out as I was sitting by myself at the counter, when one of the chefs leaned over and told me that they could do half-serves for me. Hurray!
Supernormal is quite big inside with lots of seating along the counter in front of the long kitchen.
Tap water is provided along with the menu and seasoned pumpkin seeds to snack on. Specialising in Asian/Japanese fusion flavours, there’s a decent selection of dishes on the menu from the raw bar, hot appetisers, noodles and larger mains.
I started off with a half-serve of the soy-marinated tuna with apple, avocado, lovage and nori crisps ($10). So fresh and delicate with sweetness from the crispy apple.
The half-serve of kingfish with buttermilk and green chilli ($9) was divine and I could have easily polished off the full serve.
The New England lobster roll is one of the items that cannot be provided as a half-serve, but it’s pretty small. It’s also very expensive at $17! The bun is super soft and there was actually a good lobster to mayonnaise to bun ratio. Delicious with plenty of chunks of lobster too.
The half-serve of pan-fried beef buns ($4.50 for one) was stuffed with braised beef and came with a small side bowl of fermented chilli. I was told it was best eaten quickly while it was still hot. The bun was large and stuffed full with beef, onion, and herbs and spices. Lots of flavour. Quite filling and pretty good value.
On another occasion, I tried the full serve of prawn and chicken dumplings ($16 for 6 pieces) which came with a chilli and vinegar sauce. The dumplings were plump and full of mince. I love the tartness of the chilli and vinegar. There’s quite a lot of sauce which may overpower the dish, I just didn’t dunk the dumplings further into the sauce.
There were no desserts that I wanted to try that day. Supernormal have a regularly changing soft serve flavour, and the flavour that day was Hokkaido milk, which wasn’t appetising to me at the time. I haven’t yet tried the larger main meals such as the Szechuan lamb or whole snapper, as I’ll need a group of people to help me finish that off. But I’m pretty happy sticking with the smaller dishes as it means I can try more.
Service is quick and the great thing about sitting at the counter is watching the chefs at work, and seeing them plate up some awesome looking dishes. My empty plates were cleared away promptly, and it wasn’t difficult to get someone’s attention when I wanted to pay the bill. Though friendliness depends on who you get.
Supernormal is a tad expensive, but if you’re willing to try some good food and half-serves, it’s a good place to visit, especially when dining solo.
Supernormal
180 Flinders Ln, Melbourne, Victoria
Opening hours:
Monday – Sunday: 11.00am – 11.00pm
Foodgasm 7.5/10
Value for money 6.5/10
Service 7/10
FPJ score 21/30
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