FOOD
Interior designers turned restaurateurs now making THE BEST CHINESE CUISINE in town By KATHERINE SAMPSON Chinese cuisine is a globally adored food, and Toowoomba is no different with the Hooper Centre’s Qi’lin Oriental Cuisine already a front-runner for best in town.
R
ecently the Australian Good Food Guide awarded the restaurant with the Readers Choice award for Chinese food in South East Queensland Country 2020. This was the latest in Qi’lin’s long list of industry awards, from being the Best Chinese Restaurant in Queensland by the RCA for six years consecutively to being
26 NOVEMBER 2020 | TOOWOOMBA STYLE
a recommendation on the 17th edition of The Lonely Planet’s Guide to Australia. The Chinese restaurant is run and owned by Annette Cheung and her husband and head chef Stanley Poon. The couple came to Australia in 2004 from Hong Kong where they were both full time interior design consultants. While completing her MBA at the
University of Southern Queensland, Annette met her business partner, who has since retired, Darryl Scott, and in 2008, after a year of preparation, Qi’lin was born. It was a massive leap for Annette and Stanley, having come from a vastly different career, but they used this to their advantage.
“We did all the décor ourselves,” Annette says. “We went to China to get all the products. “Building material, kitchen utensils, everything. “And then we brought it all back in a big shipping container.” Not only is the restaurant uniquely
