Natural Spring Chinese — Restaurant in Tuncurry

(3.5 stars) The twin towns of Forster–Tuncurry are home to nearly ten Aussie-Chinese restaurants. Chung Wa, on the Tuncurry side of the bridge, was the one that leapt most frequently from locals’ lips when we were canvassing somewhere to eat. It’s a modest-looking restaurant fronted by whacky faux-nautical street furniture. It does a roaring trade in takeaway, and with just one person running the front counter, phone and floor, dine-in customers may feel a little forgotten. However it was easy enough to help ourselves to chilled wine glasses from the drinks fridge, and shortly thereafter, a corkscrew was produced for our BYO, and our order was taken.

Saying we liked spicy food saw us steered from fillet steak in Peking sauce ($22) to fillet steak in Szechuan ($22). They also upped the red chilli in the Mongolian lamb ($22) which arrived in a cloud of throat-catching steam. Both cast iron sizzling platters were super heated and overloaded with more tender meat and well-handled vegetables (onions, carrots, baby corn, straw mushrooms and snake beans) than we could eat. I preferred the Szechuan sauce that caramelised at the bottom of the pan as it cooled, creating a great onion gravy.

Being outsiders we ordered a third dish—braised scallops with XO sauce ($25)—that was totally superfluous to need. However the small scallops were moist and just set, something many fancier restaurants struggle to replicate. Eaten over special fried rice ($10), moderately dotted with a range of braised and barbequed meats, it was another good dish with crunchy florets of broccoli and cauliflower added to the vegetable mix. We left with takeaway containers: Chung Wa delivers excellent bang...

This restaurant is a hidden gem of Tuncurry. The food was delicious and the service is excellent. The wait time on the meal was minimal, and food portions compared to other Chinese restaurants I've visited, were huge and great value. The wait staff( restaurant manager) was very pleasant and helpful and being it's a BYO restaurant she offered us the use of the fridge for my beer and a cooler for the wife's wine. Would definitely go back or recommend. Only negative I could pick was the pushing of a tip at the end of the night. We spent $75 between the 2 of us and I could see a family doubling that figure and Don't agree that a tip should be featured on the bill at the end of the night, it should be an option not a given in my opinion. I would however of tipped anyway without...

Chung Wa has been our go to Chinese for over 14 years. Peter had great tasty food. The lunch time specials were great. However it has changed hands with Peter and Anne retiring. We tried 2 lunch times specials the first week after the change of ownership, the meals were up to the normal standard. We tried again the next week, same lunch time take aways and we were very disappointed. The sweet and sour port was tough, flowery with not much of the red sauce. The Combination Chow min was not nice. The fried rice was just that. Sorry, Last time we...