Some people complain when a banh mi costs more than $10, so wait ’till they hear about the $58 Vietnamese roll at TungThit, an Asian fusion restaurant in Abbotsford. Me, though? I’ve been back for another one.

It’s not because it’s served in a formal restaurant setting, though the ostentatious room – with its arched windows, marble fittings, artfully distressed brick walls, black-and-white movie star photos and an enormous, and incongruous, stag’s head – does make an impact, especially on scruffy Victoria Street.

Braised beef short rib banh mi.

The banh mi tastes great, of course: slow-cooked beef short rib is smooshed into a crusty roll along with grated carrot and a profusion of herbs (beef isn’t a normal filling for banh mi, pork being the takeaway fallback). But that’s not it, either. The reason I’ve been back is the service: it’s dinner and a show.

Nothing here is ordinary. “Flair bartending” is a style of mixology that involves acrobatic pouring and the juggling of cocktail shakers: TungThit has invented flair food.

That banh mi I was talking about is brought to the table on a wooden board by a black-gloved waiter who extracts the short rib bone with sword-from-a-stone drama. The meat is massaged across the bread, the roll carved with camp theatrics and – if you like – a succulent strand placed directly in your mouth. It’s silly and fun and I am so here for it.

The cross-section of the beef Wellington.

The actors – sorry, waiters – have more scenes. Halved marrow bone is scraped at the table into pho. Beef Wellington is sliced at the table for a juicy reveal, the halves separated with the same sense of timing as a magician flipping the final card. It’s a perfect blushing pink, the culinary world’s ace of hearts.

Sizzling steak platters are ferried through the dining room, hissing like a shaman’s basket of snakes.

Sizzling steak platter.

None of this would work if the food wasn’t good. TungThit sources premium beef, much of it high-quality wagyu, and cooks it properly. The short rib is braised long and slow, the steaks are charred and rested well, the broths are simmered for hours, bringing flavours to a subtle crescendo.

It’s dinner and a show... it’s silly and fun and I am so here for it.

I love this wacky development in Australian Asian cuisine which, though exciting and ever-changing, is often subject to an ongoing conversation around pricing: why can tortellini be expensive, but dumplings must be cheap? Why shouldn’t a banh mi that uses premium ingredients and relies on skilled labour be priced accordingly?

Owner Tung ‘Anthony ’ Nguyen brings a telling mix of experience to this restaurant (and its Springvale sibling). In Vietnam, he managed five-star hotel restaurants, then jumped to Gucci as a store manager, both on home turf and Europe. He moved to Melbourne seven years ago, working first in a meat factory, then seizing an opportunity to export beef to Asia. You can see the five-star and couture angles in TungThit’s extravagance and immersive experience as well as Nguyen’s entrepreneurial passion.

A coconut ice-cream sundae is served in a coconut shell.

Beef is the undeniable focus (“thit” is meat), but there’s also seafood, pasta, a few dishes for vegetarians, and a dessert that trips back in time to Nguyen’s childhood in Ho Chi Minh City. Every weekend, he’d go for ice-cream at a famous store called Bach Dung. His rendition is like the old favourite, coconut ice-cream scooped into a coconut shell topped with whipped cream and a drizzle of Vietnamese coffee. It’s nostalgia with a frisson of flair.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.