A lot of Chinese food in Melbourne – from char siu pork to beef chow fun – is Cantonese. But until recently, Rowling Wu says she struggled to find one dish that defined her home city: silky rice rolls called cheung fun.

Desperate for a taste of home, Wu launched the first Australian outpost of Liyin Rice Roll Master, a franchise from her home city of Guangzhou, in the CBD.

“There are a lot of Asian cuisines culturally embedded in this city, but I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted,” she tells Broadsheet. “Even with the yum cha culture here, [the cheung fun] is not 100 per cent what I had when I grew up, so I was dying to bring this kind of food to Melbourne.”

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While some restaurants rely on store-bought rice rolls or pre-ground flour, the Liyin team prepares each batch to order using from-scratch ingredients and a traditional method. “It’s a very delicate process,” Wu says. Her team starts at 7am or 8am each day so they’re ready to open at 11am.

First, the rice is soaked for around two hours, then ground using a large stone mill imported from Guangzhou. The mixture is filtered into a silky milk, brushed onto a thin mesh cloth and layered with each customer’s desired fillings. Finally, it’s steamed until translucent and wrapped up to serve.

Wu says pork, beef and char siu are the most traditional fillings, but Liyin offers nearly 20 variations including a combination roll that includes all three. Other options include black truffle and prawn, beef and cheese, and a red rice version rolled around crisp prawns.

But it’s not just rice rolls. There’s beef hor fun, fried chicken and congee, including a seafood version inspired by Guangzhou’s river-fishing community. “They go out to do their fishing in the morning … and then they put all the leftovers into their congee,” Wu says. “It’s now developing into a new kind of style [in Guangzhou]. Every restaurant does it.” Like cheung fun, congee is often thought of as a breakfast staple, but at Liyin both are available all day.

Since starting Liyin, Wu has noticed a few restaurants serving a similar style of Cantonese cheung fun – for instance, MQ’s Secret Kitchen. But Wu has a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats mindset. “I’m more than happy to see this kind of food is thriving in Melbourne,” she says. “It reminds me that I have this cultural heritage inside me.”

Liyin Rice Roll Master
Healey’s Lane, Shop C2/550 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
0487 314 801

Hours:
Mon 11am–3pm, 5pm–10pm
Wed 5pm–10pm
Thu to Sun 11am–3pm, 5pm–10pm

instagram.com/liyinriceroll