Guava is getting crushed, again

Lake House, Daylesford

2010-07-22T13:37:00.001+10:00

Over the recent holidays, we rented a car and drove down to Ballarat, and then took a further 45 minute drive to Daylesford, where we quite possibly had our best meal in Melbourne yet.

Lake House Restaurant is part of the Lake House Hotel, which is a luxury hotel/spa (accommodation costs about 500 bucks a night there). The restaurant is run by Alla Wolf Tasker, whom some of you may know from the recent episode of Masterchef. The hotel has numerous awards, including Regional Accommodation of the Year, Australia’s Best Spa Restaurant, Best Hotel/Resort Dining, Best of Award for Excellence, and also most importantly, The Age Good Food Guide’s Two Chefs Hats.

We got there early for our 630 booking, and hung around the lobby. The hotel manager was also kind enough to let us know the password for the hotel’s wi-fi access.

We studied the menu while waiting. Our options were either a 2 course meal for $69, a 3 course meal for $85, or a degustation 12 course for $125. We decided that we’ll go with 2 courses first with the option of getting dessert later depending on how things were going.

We were eventually seated and found the restaurant to be very warm and cozy.

On to the food!

Now, we’ve been to fine dining restaurants a couple of times before, and understand that the amount that we usually get isn’t too much, but Lake House blew us away in terms of the amount that was served to us.

Before our entree appeared, we got a complementary amuse-bouche.

This is a mini cup. It may look like a normal sized teacup, but it is not. Which is an appropriate size for an amuse-bouche. The soup was creamy and silky, and tasted a bit like dhal (the ones you get in roti canai). It also warmed our souls up, which was especially good for the cold day that it was.

And then the entrees.

For her: 5 Tastes from the Sea.

From left to right, Kinkawooka Mussels Mariniere, Oyster Jelly, Tuna Sashimi with Pickled Cucumber and an Asian Salad, Snapper Ceviche, and Crystal Bay Prawns Tempura Style with a Chilli Aioli. I had the Oyster Jelly all to myself. It was a fresh oyster embedded in jelly, and really tasted as if it were from the sea. Nibbled a bit on the tempura as well, and certainly way better than the food court tempura prawns. I also had a bit of the snapper ceviche (fresh fish marinated in citrus juice – the acid cooks the fish), which was also excellent (Denise said it was awesome!).

For me: Lake House Charcuterie Plate: ‘Birds of a Feather’. I sort of knew what a charcuterie plate was – bits of ham and pate on a plate, but the amount that I got astounded me And for an entree as well! My dish came in 2 separate plates!

The container on the right was a Duck Parfait, which was the only thing I didn’t like about the dish. It was sweet and too sour, and it didn’t appeal to me. The container on the right was Duck Rillette in an Elderberry Jelly. This was really good. Just like pate (I love pate), it went really well with the toasted brioche (the slices of bread in the middle). And there was quite a lot of pate as well (about as much as a tin of tuna, which is actually quite a lot!)

And the other part of the dish. From the top, and moving clockwise: Boudin Blanc with a Lentil Vinaigrette, Chicken Galantine with some Remoulade underneath it, and a Quail Egg Salad with a confit of Gizzard. Every individual component of the dish was really good and really satisfied me. This is truly a dish for any meaty person. For the amount that I got, it could very easily have been a platter to share for 2 people.

Next, the mains.

For her: Pork.

This came to the table with a cover on it, containing a ‘light smoke’ i.e. steam with the multiple scents of the dish infused into it, and when the cover was removed, you could smell all the different tastes of the dish.

The 2 chunks of meat on top is the Brined Loin, underneath them which you cannot see are Crisped Rolled Bellies, and the one by itself is the Trotter Croquette. This was a very very very good dish. You could taste every individual component of the pork, and everything worked very well together. The croquette was light and fluffy, and had the delicate crisp on top. The crisped rolled bellies were very much like siew yok.

The dish also came with some Gewurtztraminer ‘soured cabbage’ and some pickled apple.

We also did not find this very appealing. It was sour, and much like an apple crumble, which is a dessert, not a main course.

And for me: Beef ‘pot au feu’. The traditional version of pot au feu, according to wikipedia, it is a french beef stew, literally meaning ‘pot on fire’. It is usually served with some pickled vegetables, eaten with some form of carbohydrate, and the broth from the stew can be used as a soup.

This was a deconstructed pot au feu. And it came in 2 separate plates as well.

A piece of toasted bread on top of the bouillon, which was the rich concentrated beef broth, for sipping. The broth had a very clean beefy taste, and I discovered that I liked it very much. The dressings (I wasn’t able to identify what dressings they were) were what brought the dish to the pinnacle. I daresay that without the dressings, the whole dish would be quite bland, but with them, truly excellent. This is where the whole of the dish is more than the sum of its parts.

This was Sher Wagyu cooked sous-vide. You can see the beef Silverside beside the round chunks of beef, and some Oxtail Dumplings in between, with the pickled vegetables scattered around it. Underneath it all, there was also some Smoked Tongue (not visible in the photo).

I loved the oxtail dumpling. The dumpling pastry was very delicate, and the taste of the oxtail was wonderful. The wagyu was very much like Kevin’s sous-vide beef which won him the Bocuse d’Or challenge in Top Chef Season 6. Very very tender. Tastewise though, it was a bit bland, but that was before I tried it (and everything else on the plate) with the dressings (talked about above) that came with it.

All in all, this was a very beefy dish. For beef lovers.

Every table also got a bowl of greens. Ours was the only table that finished it.

At this point, we were quite full, but we decided that since the meal was so good, we couldn’t pass up dessert. We opted to go for a shared platter for two.

But before our dessert arrived, we were presented each with a complementary ‘dessert as well!

This was a very clean and refreshing dessert. The pear jelly was sweet and fresh, and the yoghurt complemented the jelly very very well.

And then our dessert arrived.

A selection of everything! Starting from the bottom right and moving clockwise: Mango Panna Cotta, ‘I Forget What This Was So Let’s Call It Lemon Pudding’, Butterscotch Ice Cream, Creme Brulee, Chocolate Fondant, and a Granny Smith Granita.

Everything was very good. I wasn’t very partial to the butterscotch ice cream, but I liked the lemony pudding. I also always like panna cottas, so this was very good. I thought the creme brulee was a bit runny, but tasted very good (reminds me of a certain tv show, hmm, but still, very true). The chocolant fondant had the classic runny chocolate oozing out of it when you cut it, but my absolute favourite was the granita. I had that last, and it was the ideal finish to an ideal meal. Imagine a Granny Smith Slurpee. Cool and refreshing.

Looking around the room and at other people’s dishes as well, I concluded that every dish that they served were of a substantial amount, and I found myself wanting every single dish that the other patrons ordered.

This is a restaurant truly deserving of it’s 2 Chefs Hat status.

Very very nice, and I’d say, slightly more worth it than a ski lift pass for a day. Heh heh.

Shira Nui

2010-07-15T15:35:00.001+10:00

I went to Shira Nui sometime in February, using my birthday as an excuse to spend some money on omakase, which I have had been waiting to try for a long long time. We had to take a 40 minute train ride to Glen Waverly to get to the restaurant. Basically, omakase means that you let the chef decide what to serve you. It also means that you have to be prepared to pay a lot. You get 2 pieces of sushi each serve, and each sushi is about $4.50. Up to about 9 courses in total, depending on the time.

There are 2 options for dining in Shira Nui. You either choose to sit at the counter, which means you’ll be having omakase, or you sit in the dining tables, where you can order a la carte.

Unfortunately, because this was a while ago, I have forgotten the names of all the sushi that I was served. I did keep a record of the names, but then lost the record when my phone had to be reformatted. Thus, all I have are pictures and some vague impressions of how the meal was like.

So the first course was this. Some form of white fish on sushi rice, with a sprinkle of sea salt and a dash of lemon juice. You will notice that I put there ‘no soy’. What this means is that the chef will decide whether we are supposed to add soy to the sushi or not. This course, being the starter, does not require soy. To be honest, I think this sushi tasted rather bland to me, and would like to have put some soy onto it.

This is the seared salmon, which was totally awesome. I think it was a ‘no soy’ sushi, but I cannot be certain. Seared on the outside, rare in the middle. Really really good.

This might have been a ‘soy’ sushi. I loved the taste of mackerel, and it went very well with the sushi rice.

Seared wagyu beef. I did not think that this was very spectacular. The seared beef tasted like good seared beef, but it didn’t work for me on the sushi rice. No soy.

Soy. One of the more interesting selections of the night. Not sure what ark shell is, but this was quite good as well.

The star of the show. Seared maguro steak. As you can see, just like the salmon, seared on the outside, perfectly pink in on the inside. Delectable.

I liked this one as well, but can’t really remember much about it.

Oyster with mayonnaise. I loved the oyster, but remembered that the mayonnaise had a funny texture to it that I did not quite like.

The last course, and my absolute favourite. Also the most expensive as well I think ($9 per piece).

And a complimentary dessert. Fruit with fruit sorbet. A nice way to round off the meal.

Final thoughts: The food wasn’t the most spectacular I have had before (I think more than half of the sushi were excellent, however, I’d have hoped that everything was excellent), however, the experience was certainly worth it (especially having watched episodes of Anthony Bourdain having omakase in Japan and New York). Sitting at the bar and watching the chefs make sushi from scratch (not only ours, but for the a la carte tables as well) was an experience to savour. I would like to say that I’d love to go back again, but I don’t think I’m willing to pay that much for this meal again. I’d return for the a la carte, however.

Horoki Casual Dining/Bar

2010-03-08T20:42:00.001+11:00

This place is severely (with emphasis added) recommended to those people that like to try a lot of different dishes and share food between small groups people.

This quirky little restaurant is located on Liverpool Street, and is not that big (only seats 27 people), so groups of 2, 3, or 4 would be perfect. Anymore would be pushing it because you won’t have enough to share between everyone anyway. The dishes are semi tapas-like, but the dishes are slightly larger.

There were only 2 other people in the restaurant when we got there, so the atmosphere was excellent. Comfy, cozy, quiet, comfortable.

On to the food.

This daikon salad was yummay (aye!)! The daikon had a potato chip texture (crunch!), and although it certainly didn’t taste like potato chips (in fact, by itself it didn’t taste of anything at all!), the sesame seed and soy dressing perfectly married together the daikon, seaweed, and the sashimi.

Then we had a scotch fillet steak. The specks of green that you can just make out (not the bok choy) are wasabi. There’s also some fried onion there as well. The meat was tender and succulent, and I loved the mushrooms. The mushrooms just go ‘pop’ in your mouth and you get a huge flavour explosion of mushroom.

Another excellent dish. Octopus in garlic butter. Eaten with the bread on the side. The dish was sizzling when it came, and garlic butter sauce went very well with the bread, which was toasted to perfection.

And then we had some stuffed chicken wings. Looks like normal chicken wings, but they have been deboned and stuffed with gyoza, like a dumpling.

A very very interesting combination, and works very well with the soy dip provided on the side. It was like eating a chicken wing and a dumpling together.

And finally dessert.

Green tea ice cream was very good. 2 big scoops of it in a cup with a strawberry on top.

And I loved the panna cotta, except for the fact that there could have been more of it. As you can see, it’s barely half the cup. Still, it tasted very good, especially with the jam.

Pricewise, slightly pricey, but not too bad. The dishes were on average about $14 each, each chicken wing was $3.50, dessert was $4.50 each, and in total came up to about $30 each for the 2 of us. In terms of amount, I could have eaten more though. Perhaps if I had the foresight to order a bowl of rice (which I’m not even sure whether they have or not) I would have been much better off.

Horoki is truly a gem of a find and I cannot believe that I’ve never heard about it before.

6-Minute Egg

2010-03-06T17:37:00.001+11:00

This was my breakfast today, consisting of kabana, half a loaf of garlic bread, salad, and a 6-minute egg, with some cracked black pepper sprinkled on top.

What’s a 6-minute egg? It’s an egg with the white part near the shell firm (but not hard), and the closer you get to the yolk, the white gets softer and softer until you get to the soft and runny yolk. Its technique is described here, on the Voltaggio Brothers’ website.

At first, I thought I had failed and had obtained a hard boiled egg, but lo and behold, just like the description, the white was firm on the outside, but softer and softer as you get closer to the middle. The yolk flowed out like a golden river once I cut into it. Its texture was almost silky and it went extremely well with the garlic bread.

This was definitely a success story, unlike my previous attempts with poached eggs, and I will surely make it again.

Lin Heung

2010-02-14T14:02:00.001+11:00

This will be my final Hong Kong post. It is also written in 2 parts; the 2nd part came about because I actually went back to this place again on the day before I left Hong Kong.

Part 1:

Lin Heung is another restaurant that Anthony Bourdain went to but I only found that out after going to it.

My friend (from London) said that her guidebook recommended this traditional tea house and we could go and try it out. Sure, I replied, expecting just another random dim sum/yum cha place.

How wrong was I.

The first thing that struck when we got in was the hubbub and the clicking of teacups and teapots (watch Anthony Bourdain and this statement will mean even more to you). My friend immediately declared, “Okay Jian Wey, you’re in charge here!”.

The first thing I did was to order tea. The guy rattled off the names of a number of different teas, and I randomly picked out one of them. There’s a story to tell with the tea here but I forgot to take a picture of it and it is very hard to describe without the picture. Suffice to say I didn’t want to show my ignorance and just agreed to whatever the waiter said but ended up drinking the tea out of the cup using the wrong method.

I asked the waiter whether we should just wait for the lady to push the cart by us, or to actually go and get it ourselves. He said that we could wait, but I could just go straight to the source and get it (which I did, thankfully, because by the time everyone was done getting what they want, anything that gets pushed by us had only things that people didn’t want).

The ladies wheel their carts right to the door of the kitchen, and the guy stacks up a number of baskets onto the carts, and then the lady wheels them out again. The moment she gets a new batch, a lot of customers get up from their seats and surround the lady to get first pick at whatever they wanted.

I had to randomly open those dim sum baskets to look in them and pick what I wanted, as the ladies just shout out the names of the dishes in chinese and I had no idea what they were. I remembered that in the show (even though I didn’t know that this was the same place at that time), Anthony Bourdain’s guide went straight to the kitchen to get some har gao. Thus, I decided to head over there too, and happened upon a lady who was receiving a fresh batch of dim sum baskets. I ended up getting shouted at by the lady because I was taking too long deciding what I wanted and kept asking her what each individual thing was. When I turned around to go back to the table I realised I was blocking 4 other carts behind me and nobody else could get to the food.

Haha.

Not many pictures of food though. The situation was too stressful, but eventually I recovered my wits to take a few pictures.

I took this because this was familiar to me. Spare ribs are spare ribs.

I took this because this was unfamiliar to me. I still have no idea what it was. Had the consistency of fat, but I didn’t think it was fat. My friend didn’t dare try this though. Still, I thought it was very good (because felt like fat).

This is not a char siew pao, but a pork and yam bun. Its a bun with a slice of yam and a slice of pork (which, thankfully, isn’t 70% fat) in it. Like a sandwich.

I randomly picked this from the dessert trolley. We decided that it had toffee in it, but it literally just had a tiny miniscule drop inside the bun, and the rest of the bun was just, bun. More toffee (or whatever it was) would have been very welcome.

Other things that we had were char siew pao and siew mai (their siew mai was very good). Didn’t see any har gao (actually, my friend commented that we didn’t see a single prawn based dim sum), which was quite unfortunate.

The food here was certainly very good. Other people also ordered dishes in addition to their dim sum. I’d say the quality of the dim sum is nearly (only nearly) that of Tim Ho Wan, but they have much more variety here. The only problem is that you have to be familiar with what they are or you wouldn’t know what to get.

Highly recommended.

Part 2:

On the last day before a few of us left Hong Kong, we got together and came here again.

Because there were more of us this time, we were able to order more food and I had the opportunity to take more pictures.

Pork balls. Fairly standard stuff.

This is also fairly standard, but I have no idea what it is, nor what it is called.

This is the proper char siew pao…

…which looks different from the pork and yam buns. Here you can see the piece of yam more clearly.

Again, fairly standard stuff.

One of my favourites.

Chicken feet. The chinese translation comes out as ‘phoenix claws’, which I feel is inappropriate. You can’t eat phoenixes because they don’t exist.

Looks really good, tasted okay, but again, no idea what its called.

We also ordered a plate of fried noodles, which was, not so good. I still ate it though, but its not the best noodles I’ve had before (by far).

And these are my fellow elective friends whom I was very fortunate to have met. Certainly made the experience all the more worthwhile.

Hui Lau Shan Healthy Dessert

2010-02-08T17:19:00.001+11:00

This is where I get what I call ‘dessert in a cup’ (it didn’t sound too impressive to my friends at first).

This is also a shop that you can find everywhere around Hong Kong city. You might even find 2 shops in the same locale.

They sell a number of different drinks which are all variations of combinations of mango, coconut milk, sago, crystal jelly, aloe, and other things. The main ones would be mango, coconut, and sago.

An example would be this.

Compared to this.

And this.

I liked the mango in mango juice best.

The mangoes very fresh and sweet, and the drinks are extremely refreshing after a good meal, or perhaps on a very hot day.

Highly recommended.

Hong Kong Street Food

2010-02-07T18:36:00.001+11:00

This is a compilation of the street food I had in Hong Kong. Usually, most of these can be obtained from the same stall, which is around nearly every corner around the city area, which all nearly sells the same thing. However, there are variations.

This is ‘siew mai’. Not the kind you get in yumcha/dimsum places, but the street food kind. Apparently its made from fish (not pork). They dip it into soy sauce before giving you the skewer. It was very tasty, but I was not impressed (don’t like processed fish meat).

A skewer of ‘ngau zhap’, which basically means ‘a mix and match of pork stuff’. I got this during my first week in Hong Kong, and I think this was during one of my first adventures looking for food alone in the busy city of Hong Kong. Was very pleased with myself.

This is basically flour batter (like waffles). Translated into baby chicken eggs. You eat it just as it is. No toppings. Tasty, yet, plain. Not my kind of thing. Fills you up but leaves you unsatisfied. Still, very popular in HK though.

The above 3 items you can find at any random street stall that sells these kinds of things. An example of variations that I mentioned would be here, where they only sell the innards, but don’t sell gai dan zhai and other stuff.

Another variation would be at this other stall in Jordan.

The popular dish at this stall seems to be the chee cheong fun. Its basically the same thing as this, except without the filling (although, in that picture, the quality of that dish is way above the average version of that same dish elsewhere). This version of the dish is eaten with peanut sauce, sweet sauce, and soy sauce, with a sprinkle of sesame seeds on top. In KL, we have a very similar version as well, except in KL they don’t give the peanut sauce and the soy sauce. This was very good (I came back later at 9.30pm and they were sold out on this). I normally don’t (never) order this in KL, but being in HK, this was very very satisfying and yummy.

The chee cheong fun above can be eaten alone, or with accompaniments such as deep fried tofu, brinjal (aka eggplant and aubergine) , and other things as well. Supposedly, the deep fried vegetables should be stuffed with processed fish (what we call Yong Tau Fu in KL), but this shop sells it as it is (without the fish). It was still very good though.

They also had deep fried dumplings.

I came back the next day looking for more chee cheong fun, but they were sold out as well. I then left HK the day after that. If there is one regret that I had in HK, it’s that I didn’t get my second serving of chee cheong fun.

Da Bin Lou (Steamboat)

2010-01-30T23:56:00.001+11:00

I had a steamboat dinner with my relatives one night in Causeway Bay.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get the name of the restaurant as I took this picture in a haste (there was a lift full of people waiting for me to get on).

Steamboat in Hong Kong is really different from that you get in KL. For one, its held indoors in an air-conditioned restaurant (there could be air-conditioned ones in KL that I don’t know about, but I don’t eat steamboat much).

Before you start, you have to choose from an array of sauces.

This is placed on the table, and you have to scoop up whatever you want into your own bowl before they bring the hot pot to you.

So I grabbed whatever I could recognise and scooped them into my bowl.

And because it’s my first time having a HK style da bin lou, I also opted to have the soy sauce separate (people just mix everything together into the bowl) because I thought I’d like to enjoy some of the food without having too many sauces interfering with the flavour.

I eventually mixed them up anyway.

Self-explanatory soup base (this particular one cost HKD30 more than the others I think).

Fish skin to be eaten on its own, or to be dipped into the soup before eating. Didn’t sound like it would work, but surprisingly it does. I preferred it dipped into the soup.

Chicken in wine. Served cold, but can be dumped into the soup to warm it up/cook it more.

Make small scoops of this and drop it into the soup, and you’ll get squid balls.

“What happens if I put the whole thing into the soup?” I asked.

One of my favourites.

Very nearly my favourite.

Needs more colour.

Fish head was good.

To be put into the soup to enhance the flavour of the soup, and can also be eaten afterwards.

Not a fan of liver.

Also needs more colour.

Self explanatory.

Ah. Fish paste on a plate. You squeeze it out into the soup and you’ll get noodles.

Ah. Tongue. My favourite. Had 2 plates of this when I eventually discovered that the entire meal was a buffet.

Quite enjoyed this, especially when dipped into the sauce (the one at the beginning).

Would like to have actually tasted this, but it takes a while to cook even in the hot soup, and it shrinks, so by the time you want to (and can) eat it you can’t find it anymore.

Char siew pao! Now this is different. They actually have char siew inside those mini buns (not really buns) which have to be cooked in the soup as well. Not too nice though, didn’t think there was enough char siew.

Self explanatory.

I like fish.

I think that’s about all we had. We had multiple of some dishes though.

A very good experience.

Mak Mun Kee

2010-01-30T09:21:00.001+11:00

This is my vote for the best meal I’ve had in Hong Kong (Australian Dairy Co. would be a close second). It also happens to be right beside Australian Dairy Co. as well. Which means you can get 2 spectacular meals with only 1 bus ride without the need to walk at all.

Mak Mun Kee is a similar shop to Mak’s Noodle Ltd (but they are not the same shop), i.e. they are famous for their wonton noodles. Both places also have other things such as beef brisket noodles and the like. What’s different is Mak Mun Kee is also famous for their pork trotters.

I actually read about this place about 2 weeks ago, when I was looking up Australian Dairy Co., and although it had good reviews as well, I dismissed it because it was ‘just another noodle place’. The decision to come to this place came about when I was rewatching that episode of Anthony Bourdain (and discovering all the things about Wong Chi Kee and Lin Heung (post yet to come) after I went to those places) and one of the places he went was to have beef brisket noodles (Long Kee in Mongkok). So I was trying to look up that place on the net and I read one comment that said that the best beef brisket noodle that that person had ever had was in Mak Mun Kee.

(Anthony Bourdain actually came to Hong Kong twice. He went to Mak’s Noodle Ltd on his first trip here (as I mentioned in that post), but on his second trip here, he went to Long Kee.)

And since I still haven’t actually had proper beef brisket noodles in Hong Kong yet (the one from Mak’s Noodle Ltd was unspectacular), I decided that I had to try out both Mak Mun Kee and Lung Kee.

I asked for their english menu just to be safe, but I already knew what I wanted. Beef brisket noodles and pork trotters.

I read somewhere else that they use nam yue sauce to make this (something grandmother also uses), so the taste wasn’t unfamiliar to me, but it was just damn good! It was not too tender yet not too tough or tendony (I’ve had those where the tendons get stuck in between your teeth). There were 4 fairly large pieces in the bowl, and I shared it with the guy who’s jumper you can see peeking out above the trotters.

And their beef brisket noodles (we each had one bowl). Wah. So good! And they even have some tendon in it as well.

SO GOOD! The tendons were so tender, and the beef was very good as well. “This made my day,” my friend declared.

Mak’s Noodle Ltd can’t hold a candle to this. And neither can Long Kee, for that matter. No fight. I take back my statement that the sauce from the beef brisket interferes with the clear soup of the noodles.

The noodles need the beef brisket in them to make them spectacular.

Being the greedy guy that I am, I came back another day, and polished off the same whole bowl of pork trotters by myself, had a bowl of beef brisket noodles (damn good!), and because I liked the tendon so much, I ordered another bowl of beef tendon noodle.

This time, its all tendon and noodles. You can also see the other (finished) bowl of noodles at the top corner.

Absolutely amazing.

Worth flying all the way to Hong Kong for.

Long Kee

2010-01-30T01:42:00.001+11:00

This is the shop in which Anthony Bourdain had his beef brisket and tendon noodles in his programme. My friend and I did the long trek from Jordan (after Mak Mun Kee, which you’ll hear about next) all the way to Mongkok looking for this shop.

It’s run by the 3 bodybuilder brothers, one of whom you can see walking towards the front of the shop in the picture there.

I looked through the menu looking to order what Anthony Bourdain did (I think he had some spicy beef brisket and tendon noodles), but the only spicy thing on their menu was the spicy beef tendon noodle (no brisket), and there wasn’t a brisket and tendon option (well, at least not on their english menu).

I ordered the spicy beef tendon noodle in the end while my friend had the beef brisket noodle (no picture of that).

Maybe we were just too full, but this wasn’t spectacular like Mak Mun Kee at all. Oh granted, the tendon was good, firmer than Mak Mun Kee, but I prefer the less firm version. The soup was also a tad spicy (the kind that doesn’t actually taste spicy at the beginning but you are very likely to choke on it) for my liking.

A celebration of muscle and tendon?

Maybe not.

4 Season Pot Rice

2010-01-28T19:28:00.001+11:00

When it comes to food, if I like something a lot, I’ll have to go back to it again at least once (this is evidenced so far by Australian Dairy Co.).

So I liked the rice pot a lot, and thus I had to go back to it again. This time however, I (we) went to the shop right beside Hing Kee.

4 Season Pot Rice (this is the name of the restaurant, and this is the one that Anthony Bourdain actually went to (yes yes, him again)).

This restaurant has a long line of people waiting to get in.

This time, I had salted fish and chicken. The chicken was good, but I didn’t particularly like salted fish.

Vegetables.

And oyster pancake again. This was way better than the one from Hing Kee. But its still not fantastic though.

Note to self: don’t order oyster pancake anymore, but do go back and eat claypot rice again and again and again and again.

Wong Chi Kee

2010-01-28T11:12:00.001+11:00

I shall write this post from 2 perspectives. The first one will be what I felt and thought when I was there at that time, and the second will be what I feel and think now that I have more information about the place.

PERSPECTIVE 1:

The final meal that my friend from Melbourne and I had together, after the roast goose, milk tea and kaya toast, some Teochew kuihs that he had, the fish head and tomato soup, and some egg tarts, was in Wong Chi Kee, which is opposite Yung Kee where we got the roast goose from. From the menu, I gathered that this place is famous for its noodles.

The menu outside was promoting their Fried E Fu noodle heavily, and, wondering what ‘E Fu Noodles’ was, I decided that I was going to order that (it was more expensive than their other noodles. My friend was deciding between their wonton noodles, and some other thing, before settling on their noodles with shrimp roe.

This tasted good and everything, but its just ‘Yee Mee’. We get plenty of ‘Yee Mee’ in KL. I don’t like ‘Yee Mee’. I almost never order it. Why did they have to charge more for it? Nothing too special.

And this is what my friend had. I think his guidebook said that this was the dish to get. The noodles were a bit different from your usual noodles that you get in the wonton noodles, and the shrimp roe provided an interesting flavour to it. I preferred it the way it was, but my friend thought it was a bit dry so he mixed it with the clear soup that came together with the dish.

Would I have ordered this? Not really. Nothing too special.

PERSPECTIVE 2:

ARGH! The handmade noodles with shrimp roe was the exact same dish that Anthony Bourdain had in his episode (except that he had it at the shop of the guy who actually makes the noodles)! He also described this as the ‘perfect noodle’, as handmaking noodles is a dying art (that particular scene is one of the most moving scenes in the whole episode). And he had the noodles mixed with LARD! Not clear soup! LARD!

ARGH!

To think that I had the perfect noodle without even knowing it was perfect, and thinking it was just a ‘nothing too special’ dish!

ARGH!

Apparently, this shops buys the noodles from the guy who makes it (his restaurant is in Tai Po, called Ping Kee, I think).

Would I have ordered that dish if I had know about it?

YES!

I would also have asked for the bowl of lard as well.

ARGH!

Sing Kee Dai Pai Dong

2010-01-27T23:37:00.001+11:00

One of the places that I wanted to eat at in Hong Kong was in some dai pai dong. I heard Anthony Bourdain say that in his programme (yes, I keep referring to him because his Hong Kong episode is the only guidebook that I have) that word, so I came here wanting to go to a dai pai dong without really knowing what the word actually means. It actually just means ‘hawker stall’ and we get plenty of that in Malaysia. Oh well.

I was fortunate that one of the people that works in the hall where I’m living now agreed to bring me to this dai pai dong in Central. I certainly would not have dared to go to it myself as I wouldn’t know (can’t) what to order there.

This is one of the last few dai pai dong’s available in Hong Kong as most of the places have been relocated into market complexes. This place is also recommended by the white bearded guy, Choi Lan, that I mentioned before here. I think that rectangular sign below the shop’s signboard says something about him.

The both of us had 3 dishes with rice.

The moment I tasted it, I knew that I was in for a treat. Good honest food. Very tasty. It’s like good home cooked food, with more oil.

None of this dishes are new to me, but its just that being in Melbourne for nearly one whole year and not having decent chinese food was a bit of a pain. This place reminded me of what good chinese food is supposed to be.

We had all 3 dishes with rice, which was hot and fluffy, and as close to perfect as you can get, but my camera refused to focus on the rice, for whatever reason, so I don’t have a picture of it.

I came back another day with my friend from Melbourne, who actually had a proper guidebook (I think he even had Choi Lan’s personal guidebook), and we shared this bowl of fish soup with rice. He was saying “Oh my parents will be so jealous that I got to come here and they didn’t!”.

This is basically a very similar soup to the Fish Head Beehoon dish, except without the noodles.

Again, the one thing that struck me when I first tasted this dish was how honest it is. That was the exact word that popped into my head.

Oh, and I just found out that Sing Kee was voted Best Dai Pai Dong by Time Out, a local magazine.

They didn’t give it a high rating for cleanliness though. Which, I suppose was deserved. There was a rat just a metre away from me as I was waiting for the soup.

Tsim Chai Kee

2010-01-27T12:41:00.001+11:00

I did eventually go back to Mak’s Noodle Ltd for their proper wonton noodle (because I said that the beef brisket that I had with the noodles the first time I was there interfered with the noodles too much).

However, there was this shop directly opposite Mak’s that caught my eye.

Tsim Chai Kee is also a restaurant that’s been heavily reviewed on the net.

It’s a restaurant similar to Mak’s, except with a better looking interior decor, and they sell their noodles for half the price, and twice the size of Mak’s (seriously). This fact alone put’s it above Mak’s for me.

Trust me, even though it looks exactly the same size than Mak’s, its bigger. The wonton was also bigger, and had succulent prawns.

If I had to compare between the 2, then Tsim Chai Kee gets my vote for its price and size.

But in conclusion, I think that wonton noodles in its pure form (i.e. the yellowy egg noodle in clear soup with wontons) just doesn’t do it for me. Its just too bland. I need something like roast pork or roast duck in it to provide the flavour. Something like this. I guess the beef brisket noodle that I had in Mak’s was the better choice after all.

I don’t think I’ll be having wonton noodles (in its pure form) anymore during my time in Hong Kong.

Oh, I now (after having gone to Mak’s twice and Tsim Chai Kee once) also think that both Tsim Chai Kee and Mak’s is overrated.

Lan Fong Yuen

2010-01-27T00:13:00.001+11:00

After our roast goose with rice, my friend wanted to go to this place famous for its milk tea.

As you can see, they have a lot of newspaper and magazine reviews on display there for people to see.

One of the pictures there features Choi Lan. Choi Lan (I call him the white bearded guy) is a celebrity food critic that appears on TVB (I think). He’s very popular, and even has his own food guidebook(s). My grandma watches his programmes, and on my first night in Hong Kong when I was at my grandaunt’s place, she was watching his program as well. I guess he’s like the chinese Anthony Bourdain. Except Anthony Bourdain lets other people bring him to restaurants, but Choi Lan recommends restaurants to others. If you go to a place and you see a picture of the white bearded guy, then it must be good (because if it wasn’t good then he wouldn’t have gone there in the first place).

Now, this milk tea is supposed to be different because the make it in a stocking (hence the word ‘mut’), and my friend said that it was much smoother than normal milk tea. I couldn’t really tell the difference. And the stocking is what people at home in KL make teh tarik with anyway.

Unfortunately, I was attracted by the picture of the kaya toast that they had on display and ordered that as well. Its like french toast, with butter and kaya in between. I thought there was more butter (I got rid of one whole chunk to the side as well) and I could hardly taste the kaya.

Conclusion. Ok ok only. So so. ~ ~

Roast Goose at Yung Kee

2010-01-26T14:08:00.001+11:00

Goose was one thing I needed to have in Hong Kong. So I was sitting in my room on a Saturday morning, wondering what to do with myself till the afternoon (I was going to meet up with a different friend), when my friend from Melbourne who’s in Hong Kong at the moment as well messaged me on MSN and said “Oh you’re online! I’m going for goose in central. Do you want to come?”

Of course I did.

You don’t search for the great meals in life. You put yourself in a position, and in places, where they may be more likely to happen to you.

So said Anthony Bourdain (no he didn’t come to Yung Kee).

I don’t know what Yung Kee is famous for. It’s in my friends’ guidebook(s). Apparently they serve dishes whose (is this the right usage of the word ‘whose’?) recipes’ are long forgotten.

If you eat inside the restaurant, you have to order at least half a goose for a very expensive price. But you can get a takeaway box for HKD35, which is what we did.

We found some steps near the restaurant and ate there instead.

And how was it? Forgettable. Not nice and boring. Meat was tough.

Certainly not as good as the goose that Bourdain had in his show. That was “worth flying all the way to Hong Kong for”.

This isn’t.

Lamma Mandarin, Lamma Island

2010-01-26T01:48:00.001+11:00

Basically, the purpose of my trip to Hong Kong for my electives was for food. Thankfully, there are another 2 elective students here (from London) who came here to travel and sightsee. All I had to do was to tag along with them for the travel and sightseeing bit, and just eat whatever that comes along.

So last weekend we took a ferry to Lamma Island (Hong Kong has a number of outlying islands and Lamma Island was one of them). We landed at one pier, then did the 1.5 hour walk to the other pier and had a seafood dinner there. The walk was pretty interesting (up the mountain and down again), and we dragged it over 3 hours so that we'd reach the other side in time for dinner then ferry back to the main Hong Kong Island.

It was good because I did not have to make any travel plans; all I did was just follow along like an obedient puppy. =)

Lamma Mandarin is one (actually I think it might be the only one) of the restaurants recommended in my friend’s guidebook, so of course we had to go there. We did a set meal for 3 for a total of HKD330 (it was actually a set meal for 4 for HKD380, but they were quite flexible).

No photo of the restaurant, unfortunately. =(

Fresh steamed prawns. Supposed to be dipped in chilli and soy sauce. Neither of them ate prawn heads so I had them all.

Steamed scallops with lots of garlic, spring onions, and flavour. Very tasty. Yes, I also ordered a bowl of rice to go with it, and no they did not take my rice away before the fish arrived (inside joke).

The fish. It looks dead but is actually steamed. They did not fancy the head, so I had that too.

Deep fried squid. Anything deep fried is generally very good.

Fried rice with fairly large prawns in them. To make you full if you’re not already.

And the vegetables. I love stir fried veges.

Very good food and very good company. It was the perfect ending to a very well planned trip. I do have some pictures of the island walk, but that might or might not appear somewhere some other time.

Australian Diary Co.

2010-01-25T11:52:00.001+11:00

Australian Diary Co. (not sure if its really from Australia) looks to be one of your typical char chan teng’s around Hong Kong that serve their Hong Kong style breakfast all day. Basically a variety of eggs cooked different ways with some form of toast and some form of meat (ham luncheon meant, sausage, etc), macaroni in soup with meat as well, milk teas, coffee, stuff like that. What’s so atypical about Australian Diary Co. is that its really famous for its scrambled eggs and even has a facebook group dedicated to their eggs as well.

And I love eggs.

This place was recommended to me by my friend who said that its a very popular place amongst the locals and there always is a queue lining up into the place. A quick look on the internet confirmed what she said, and also mentioned that due to the long queues, the waiters in the restaurant are actually quite rude and chase you away as soon as you finish your meal.

So feeling slightly apprehensive (the menus were all in chinese as well), I took a bus to Jordan, got off and quickly found Parkes Street, and walked to the restaurant, prepared to line up and wait. Surprisingly there wasn’t a queue at all, and I got a place immediately (sharing with 2 other individuals who were there each by themselves as well). The waiter was also quite friendly and I’m pretty sure was telling me a joke, but as I did not understand what he saying, I nodded and gave him a smile. Looking around me, I could see a variety of dishes that people were having, from sunny side up eggs with sausages, fried eggs (not sunny side up) and ham, scrambled eggs and ham sandwiches, to macaroni soups with luncheon meat.

I described to the waiter that I wanted scrambled eggs (chao dan) in between 2 slices of bread in cantonese, and he took that to mean that I wanted a scambled egg sandwich, which is exactly what I wanted. I also asked for some form of milk, which they were apparently famous for, and thankfully he knew what I was referring to immediately. Hot or cold, he asked. Hot, I replied.

The milk arrived first. Its like steamed eggs, except that its milk. Like the texture of the egg in egg tarts. It was a new thing for me, and was fairly good as well.

And then the star of the show arrived; their scrambled eggs.

This picture just does not do the eggs justice. It was soft and fluffy eggs, perfectly seasoned (maybe a tad bit saltier; but just a tiny tiny tiny bit, which is the way I like it!) cradled in between 2 slices of pillow soft bread. Deelicious!

Yummmmm. Just look at the eggs. A bit yellowy, but blame my camera for that.

The milk and the sandwich came up to HKD31.

I also found out that at different times of the day, the eggs comes with different forms of bread. Later in the afternoon/evening, you get the eggs in a sandwich, like what you see above. Earlier in the day (breakfast/lunch), they come with a slice of toast.

I liked the place so much that I went back a week later and got the eggs with toast.

It was so good that I had 2 of these. HKD13 each.

If you are an egg lover, then you simply have to come to this place.

Squid balls and seaweed hor fun

2010-01-25T02:19:00.001+11:00

I met up with my friends in Causeway Bay 2 weekends ago, and had dinner at this stall that was famous for their hor fun with squid balls and seaweed. I don’t have a picture of the shop, and I also don’t know the name of the shop.

There were actually a lot of other options up on the wall, but everything was written in chinese, and although they had pictures I had no idea what they were. All 6 of my friends ordered this so I ordered this as well (I’m not usually a fan of hor fun soup).

It looks pretty bland, and actually tasted pretty bland (even the soup; I expected the soup to have more taste, but it was actually quite tasteless) that I was looking for soy sauce to go with it (there was no soy sauce available, only vinegar, chilli oil, and sesame oil).

And then I dug around in the bowl a bit and found that there was quite a lot of seaweed in it.

Eaten with the seaweed, the noodles tasted way better. I guess it was probably intended to be this way though. Also, the squid balls tasted very fresh as well. Much better than the squid balls that I buy from the Asian grocery in Melbourne.

I didn’t like it very much, but I would actually go back again if given the chance (probably not though).

I don’t think I appreciated it enough the first time round, and a second go would probably do it more justice.

Lap Mei Fan

2010-01-24T16:32:00.001+11:00

I enjoyed the Rice Pot at Temple Street Market so much, that when I met up with my friends (from Australia) the next day in Causeway Bay, and they ate in some Hong Kong restaurant that sold steak with supermarket french fries and mixed veges (peas, carrots, and corn), that I decided to not eat there and went by myself to this other restaurant that I walked past earlier in the day instead.

I cannot read chinese, so I don’t know what its called.

Basically, they sold rice in pots as well, but steamed (rather than cooked over charcoal, I think).

And I got this for HKD38. Not that cheap, but way cheaper than the steak at HKD90.

That’s random preserved meat on the rice. The 2 different kinds of chinese sausage. and the 3rd meat is pork I think, not too sure. Again, soy sauce on top (but no lid to cover it with this time).

It also comes with a bowl of soup.

A very excellent meal again. Way better than crappy steak.

I love rice in pots (just not in KL).

Insides of cows and pigs, Temple Street Market

2010-01-23T23:29:00.001+11:00

This is the other part of the meal that I mentioned in the Rice Pot post at Hing Kee Restaurant.

Basically, as we were walking into the restaurant, on the opposite side of the road, I noticed that there was a crowd gathering around a small lighted area in the generally quite dark alleyway that the restaurant was in.

I thus walked closer to have a look at what was going on.

Now, there are plenty of similar places in Hong Kong that sells these things. Cow and pig organs on skewers, boiled in either hot water or some soy sauce broth/stock thing. This was the first one though, that actually had a crowd gathering around it and also a queue lining up for it. Therefore, it must be good. Even my friend and her family confirmed that this stall is generally better than the other stalls out there, although they could not give me a reason why.

Maybe because its situated in a dark unlighted alleyway, in a stall that has no signboards whatsoever.

Either way, I love this stuff.

And thankfully, my friend’s family did too.

Many people look at it and go “Eww”, but I can assure you that its good, albeit and acquired taste.

I don’t really understand why pomelo skins come together with the pork skins. Not that you can tell them apart by looking at them anyway. Maybe they want to cheat buyers.

So I ate quite a bit of this before the Rice Pots arrived, and it did get quite yucky after a while.

I don’t think I’ll have anymore organs while I’m in Hong Kong.

Hing Kee Restaurant, Temple Street Market

2010-01-22T13:33:00.001+11:00

Anthony Bourdain’s programme, No Reservations, had an episode on Hong Kong, and one of the places he went to in that episode was Temple Street Market for claypot rice. Therefore, claypot rice at Temple Street Market was a must go for me. Going alone was a bit of a problem though, as there are a lot of shops selling claypot rice there, and I didnt’ know which was good. Fortunately, last week I able to meet up with my friend and her family who happened to be going there anyway for, you guessed it, claypot rice.

Turns out that this Hing Kee Restaurant has about 5 or more branches around that Temple Street area, and they all have the same menu and sell the same things. There was also another bigger restaurant that was beside this particular Hing Kee, that already had a huge queue outside it. When I do go back the next time, I’m going to try that other restaurant.

There’s plenty of choices for you to pick from with regards to what you actually want in the with the claypot rice, ranging from HKD18 for some basic things like Beef with Rice Pot to HKD45 for things like frog legs and eel.

I went for one of the more basic ones.

Beef and Spare Ribs with Rice Pot for HKD23. As you can see, I had already put some soy sauce onto the dish. According to Anthony Bourdain’s guide in that episode, you put the soy sauce, then close the lid to let it steam for a bit before eating it, which is what I did, and which is what none of my friend’s family did.

Ah, I felt so much more knowledgeable than them then.

Just kidding.

Because her whole family was there, we also had oyster pancake and some vegetables.

As you can see, its actually oyster egg fried so that it comes out in pieces. But its not so good. Oily and greasy.

The vegetables were not too bad. I like vegetables.

There is also another part to the meal which shall come in a separate post.

For now, I must declare that it was an excellent dinner, and I love the Rice Pot, although I generally don’t like the KL style Claypot Rice. I plan to go back again for more Rice Pots before I leave.

I must also thank my friend and her family.

Good bye.

Wang Fu

2010-01-21T01:32:00.001+11:00

So I went back to Mak’s Noodle Ltd on Monday and had the proper noodles with the wonton. It was better than the first time there, I must say.

Anyway, after that we decided to go to Wang Fu, a dumpling place that was just a few shops away from Mak’s, after reading a review on the net saying how good the place was. The review recommended the Mutton Dumplings, and also the Tomato and Egg Dumplings, which I would not have ordered had I not read that review. So we ordered 5 each of those 2, and also 5 Pork and Chives Dumplings.

And the conclusion? Not so good.

This was okay. Good, but boring.

This was also not too bad. The mutton flavour really came through.

This was not good. It wasn’t bad actually, but just uninspiring and lacking in flavour. The tomato was just diced tomato, and the egg was like bits and pieces of random scrambled eggs. The reviewer had no idea what he/she was talking about. Fail.

I won’t come to this place again. Not because its bad but because its boring.

Mak’s Noodle Ltd

2010-01-17T00:13:00.001+11:00

One week ago, on my first Saturday in Hong Kong (my posts aren’t exactly in chronological order), and with nothing to do, I decided that I needed to go to the city area a bit and look for food. Considering that the purpose of my visit is for food, I had to have something that was unique to Hong Kong, and not just some chain or franchise. A random search on the net had me reading some reviews of this place called Mak’s Noodle Ltd.

So off I went, after consulting Google Maps. I took the bus to Central, then had to look for Wellington Street without a map. Eventually I found it, after walking one whole circle, when I could’ve got there a full 15 minutes earlier.

Mak’s Noodle Ltd has been reviewed quite a bit on the net, and has its own wikipedia page. It’s famous for its noodles served in small bowls (the same bowls that you eat rice out of). Apparently, the small bowls keep the noodles from going soggy. It’s name in chinese literally. means ‘Mak’s stingy noodles’. Most of the reviews describe this as the best (or very good) noodles that they have ever tasted.

The place also appeared in the Times magazine for being one of the top 3 best ‘hole-in-the-wall’ restaurants in Hong Kong.

Most importantly, Anthony Bourdain came here the first time he was in Hong Kong. I actually only found this out today, in a different branch of Mak’s Noodle in Causeway Bay (instead on Central). They displayed this in front of their shop. The address given for the one that Anthony Bourdain went to is the one in Central (which was the one that I went to), but his description in the article about the place talked about ‘jah-jiang noodles’ and noodles being served in plates. Which made me confused. They certainly didn’t have any noodles in plates, nor black bean noodles. Either they had a different menu a couple of years ago, or he didn’t actually come to this restaurant, or he got himself confused with some other restaurant. He did talk about won ton’s though, which is what they do have.

So I went in and said I couldn’t read their chinese menu and asked for recommendations and they presented me with an english menu. Ultimately, this is what I ordered. Beef Brisket Noodles, and a bowl of Wantan.

Were they the best noodles I’ve ever tasted? Probably not. Would I go back? Actually, yes. In retrospect, I probably should have had the noodles with the wantan, and the beef brisket by itself. The way I did it, the sauce of the brisket messed around with the flavour of the noodles and the soup. The wantan was pretty good actually. Juicy and succulent.

But the amount was quite little though. =(. Two bowls of that was just about right for me. Thing is, each bowl costs as much as a bigger bowl in another restaurant. My meal came up to HKD 55.

Or was it 58? Can’t remember.

Tim Ho Wan

2010-01-15T02:23:00.001+11:00

I keep getting asked the question “Why did you choose Hong Kong for your elective?”

And my reply is “For the food.”

Usually I get a blank stare in response, the other person probably waiting for me to come up with a punch line of some sort.

But no, really, I came here for the food.

Anyway, when I read that the cheapest Michelin star restaurant is located in Hong Kong, I knew I had to go there during my 4 weeks here. The problem was, the restaurant only sits 20 people, and on our first try there, there was a crowd waiting outside the restaurant, and there happened to be a TV crew as well. Oh yes, this is a Dim Sum restaurant. I’ve also recently declared that I’m sick of Dim Sum, and don’t want to go eat Dim Sum anymore, but this was a must-try, and if I had to eat Dim Sum to get to eat in a Michelin star restaurant, then so be it.

This was at 7.30 pm on a Wednesday night. We were told to come back in 2 hours time or something, so we did not bother (we ended up eating some steak which cost me HKD 140 (that’s RM 70) that wasn’t very good anyway).

So, a week later, I came again with 2 other people, prepared to wait for 2 hours. Arrived at 6. Took a ticket that said 260, and the then current number was 210. The 2 girls went off shopping somewhere while I waited. A lot of people didn’t bother waiting so quite a few numbers were skipped. By 6.50 I gave the girls a call and they came back.

If you’re wondering whether it was fair that I stood there for an hour while they shopped, well, all things considered, I didn’t mind actually. The original plan was for them to walk around Mongkok for 15 minutes then come back and I walk around for 15 minutes and just take turns, but I was afraid that they would not have the patience to wait had they come back after 15 minutes. If they weren’t willing to wait, then I would not have been able to eat here. Turns out they found a nice dress shop and I didn’t hear from them until I called them 50 minutes later, so it all worked out well in the end. Plus, waiting to collect my passport in KL was infinitely more excruciating than this.

This is a picture of their kitchen. Didn’t get a picture of the seating area, but it was quite cozy and comfortable, considering the amount of people that were packed in the restaurant.

Everything is in Chinese so I don’t know which was what.

You can also see a smiley face which I drew on the top left corner while I was standing outside waiting.

The food did not take long to come. Apparently, everything is made to order. And everything was so good! Also, part of the enjoyment was that I knew that I was eating in a Michelin star establishment, and I was also pretty pleased with myself for being willing to wait an hour to get it. As a result, every dishes’ taste, flavour, and enjoyment was enhanced multiple times. So the enjoyment that I felt is a few times better than the how I am going to describe each dish. For each description that I make, imagine that the food tasted 3 times as good.

This came first. As I was preparing to take a picture and was wondering what it was, the congee then appeared. The quality of the dim sum here is really just that much better than most you get outside. As you can see in the picture, the skin is quite thin, and the each ingredient could be tasted individually. Comparing this to the places where you get dim sums with thick skinned, this place beats them hands down.

The congee was very good as well. One of the girls declared, upon taking a spoon, “This is really quite good.” Considering that she is from Hong Kong, I’ll take her word for it, and I guess everyone else should too.

And then suddenly everything else appeared all at once until our table was stacked up with the bamboo baskets.

My favourite. Har Gao. Again, skin was very thin and delicate, and you could really taste the prawn.

The ribs. Not overly flavoured with the black beans, so you could also taste the pork properly. In other places, you get a very strong black bean flavour, that you don’t actually taste the pork.

Beef balls. Not the best I’ve ever eaten.

Chee cheong fun. Very clean flavoured. Thin outer layer, fresh prawn, and soy sauce.

Minced beef on rice with a fried egg. And it was the runny egg yolk too!

This was very good. Freshly made, crispy on the outside, and the char siew inside was piping hot. Each bite produced a crunch effect.

Not a fan of spring rolls. These had cheese and vegetables and some meat inside them. Again, not a fan of spring rolls. No matter how many times you multiply this, I still don’t like spring rolls (which basically means that these were okay).

Ah. The Siew Mai. Remember that there were 4 Har Gao as well. And there’s only 3 of us. Well, this is the first time that I actually prefer the Siew Mai over the Har Gao, and that says a lot. In the end, I took the extra piece of Siew Mai without asking the other 2, and let them fight it out for the last Har Gao.

This is Tim Ho Wan’s Char Siew Pao. Their specialty Char Siew Pao is unlike the usual pork buns; as you can see, the outer crust is actually crispy, and is a bit sweet as well. You could also taste the milk that they used to make it. Very very good, but this took ages to come. We finished all the other dishes and had to wait an extra 15 minutes for these to come out as their oven could only make 8 plates of these at one go. And quite a number of other tables were also just waiting for this last dish as well. What this means is that the throng of people outside had to wait the extra 15 minutes as there were a lot of tables that couldn’t leave because they had to wait for this specialty Char Siew Pao.

And finally, a picture of their kitchen. The guy happened to put out his hand as I was snapping, which resulted in a pretty good capture.

Good day, and goodbye.

Roast Duck and Crispy Pork Noodles

2010-01-11T21:05:00.001+11:00

The first satisfying meal I had in Hong Kong was this takeaway noodles from the cafe in the hospital where I am doing my electives.

Instead of saying ‘Siu yok siu ngap fan’, they say ‘Yok Ngap Fan’. Everything is shortened here.

Church St Enoteca

2009-12-01T23:28:00.001+11:00

Today I shall talk about Church St Enoteca, a restaurant located on Church St, Richmond. I will have 13 pictures today. Which reminds me, I had an idea today for my blog: “13 days, 13 dollars, 1 restaurant a day. The aim, to try and find the most worthwhile restaurant to eat sashimi for 13 dollars.” For example, I could go to Sushi Ten and have a bowl of salmon/tuna/mixed don for 13 dollars. Or I could go to Don Don and get a bowl of sashi don for 8.50 and then top up the remainder with sushi rolls. OR, I could go to one of the random sushi stalls around the city and order a pack of sashimi (15 pieces) for 9 dollars, and top up the rest with sushi rolls again. Something like that.

But I digress.

Church St Enoteca.

13 pictures.

Here we go.

The view from opposite the road. Perhaps it looks like a church.

And the menu.

The bar, seen from where we were sitting. This made the restaurant quite a bit noisier than I’d have liked it to be. Classy food should be eaten in silence. Well, relative silence, that is.

The customary free bread, which I love. My first encounter with bread with salt sprinkled on top. And I love salt. Still not the best free bread I’ve had though. Best bread I’ve had was in Bluestone, on Flinders Lane. Unfortunately, the pictures I have from that meal are too dark to be able to do anything with.

I seem to be ordering tuna at all the restaurants I’ve been to lately. That’s semi seared tuna at the top, raw tuna on the bottom, anchovies hidden around the plate, a dollop of cream(?I forgot what it was), sprigs of green sprinkled over the top, and that might have been a scallop as well. It wasn’t a very memorable dish. Only 4 slices of fish. Four! I can get 15 slices of sashimi for 9 dollars in a random sushi shop in the city.

This was a hit. Warm octopus slow cooked in olive oil, salad of chorizo and kipflers, parsley, garlic, and lemon. Tasty. Substantial. Chorizos. Octopus. Excellent.

Veal, stuffed with sweetbread. Asparagus on the side, cloves of garlic lying around, and some pureed (?)potato to go with it. This was melt in your mouth stuff. Cutting it like a slice of cake, you could feel the fat melt in your mouth, and then the coarser meatloafy texture of the sweetbread in the middle. Amount-wise, it was good as well, but nothing compared to this:

500g of T bone steak. Hmm. Doesn’t look as big here as it did when we were there. I remembered it being huge. Half a slice of lemon, and a ball of spinach. A ball of spinach. The steak came with:

Mashed potatoes (which was better than the pureed potato) and pesto sauce (which was not better than the mustard).

We had problems with the steak though. Ordered it medium rare, on the outside it was nearly well done, called the waiter, who came with the front of house guy over, and they peered at the steak, and said “that looks medium rare to me". Preposterous! And then they told us to cut towards the middle and the bone, which we did, and it was at least medium, to my opinion. Then they started to explain why that was medium rare, and the type of grill they used, etc etc etc. We didn’t push the issue further though (didn’t want to wait another 20 minutes, dislike confrontations, didn’t want to spoil our meal, coward, not confident that I wasn’t wrong, etc etc etc).

After about 5 minutes, the waiter came by and politely asked us whether we wanted mustard with the steak or not. =/

Well, of course we did. Much better than the pesto.

We also ordered onion rings to go with our meal.

After all that, we finally get to the stars of the night. The desserts.

Callebaut Sao Tome single origin dark chocolate mousse, chocolate jelly, honeycomb, ‘aero bar’, mint whip, and dulce de leche gelato.

Vanilla yoghurt pannacotta, mango jelly, salad of mango and mint, and coconut sorbetto.

I think any description of the desserts wouldn’t do them justice. Suffice to say that there were plenty of ‘mmm’s and smiles going around.

That’s it for today.

Goodbye.

The Italian

2009-11-25T19:10:00.001+11:00

This was a few weeks ago. We went to The Italian somewhere in the city and had excellent food.

The good thing about high end restaurants is that the provide you with bread to eat. Free bread. And their dips are usually very nice as well. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the bread.

Our starters were chilli mussels and salmon carpaccio. Both were extremely good. The chilli mussels had a very tasty soupy base, and I absolutely love salmon with the fresh gardeny flavours.

Yellowfin tuna for the main. With some pesto sauce I think.

And the other main, the only dish which I have the full name for. It was also very good, but for the moment, I don’t know how to describe good food apart from saying it was ‘very good’ or ‘truly excellent’ or ‘absolutely amazing’, which doesn’t say very much.

And tiramisu to round it all off.

Very good.

Takumi

2009-10-31T18:34:00.001+11:00

So I did end up going to Mart 130 again on the weekend. And the food was as good as I hoped it would be. But that is a story for another day.

Today, I shall talk about Takumi. Located on Bourke Street, they call themselves ‘Melbourne’s Only Wagyu Beef Specialist’, and they specialise in a variety of wagyu beef cuts for you to self-grill on your very own grill on the table (much like a Korean BBQ place). Being a wagyu beef place, its a restaurant where you have to spend quite a bit to eat your fill, with quite a variety of set courses costing from $45 pp to $90 pp. Alternatively, you could also go ‘omakase’ and ask them to serve you whatever they have, and you just pay the price later.

They do, however, have a variety of ‘signature dishes’ (which were basically their entrees) and a la carte meats to be ordered for the grill, which is what I went for.

This Salmon Carpaccio only costs $10.80, which is what I’d consider a steal for an entree in a restaurant like this. And it was very good as well.

This, essentially a beef carpaccio, was significantly more expensive, being $18.80, but was still very good.

The grill did not cost us anything. You can see some white hot coals at the bottom.

$24.80. The word ‘premium’ significantly increased the value of this plate of meat. There was no ‘non-premium’ version of this.

$9.80! There was a premium version of this dish, and it costs $15.80.

Basically, the we had an excellent meal there, but I needed judicious amounts of rice to be satisfied. That being said, its a place that I would go to again when I feel like eating some higher class meat.

And before I forget, we had ice cream as well.

Mart 130

2009-10-18T22:37:00.001+11:00

Mart 130 is a popular breakfast place situated along tram route 96 (from Bourke Street), and has been reviewed countless of times by numerous blogs and reviews before. Most of the reviews start by saying that Mart 130 was an actual tram stop which got rebuilt as a cafe, and ‘mart’ is ‘tram’ spelt backwards, and 130 being that it is stop 130 along route 96. I don’t intend to repeat what they said.

As you can see if you look closely enough, the red word by the side of the building is actually ‘tram’ spelt backwards, and this was an actual tram stop. Oops.

While it doesn’t look like much from the outside, a very cozy and welcoming atmosphere greeted us as we walked in.

Customers can sit inside, or out the back, but it was quite full when we were there, so we took what we got, and sat out the back. The only problem with that was that the sun was streaming directly into our faces.

This is the huge menu that greeted us as we walked in. Notice the ‘R’ in tram is backwards.

Our drinks came before the food. The mango juice was freshly blended mango, which was awesome. The iced chocolate had a scoop of ice cream in it, which was also awesome, I guess.

This dish is, I think, one of their specialties. Corn fritters with bacon, relish, sourcream, and a sprig of coriander. I normally don’t like corn, but this was quite good. Very good indeed.

This was ordered off their specials, and is basically what I said it is. While nothing special to shout about, the eggs were poached well, sausages were good, and the sour dough bread was good as well.

Don’t let my description of the meals (I didn’t sound too excited) put you off from going to this place. It is a truly excellent place for breakfast, with a wonderful bustling atmosphere, and good food.

I might be going again this weekend, if possible.

Gourmet Hot Dogs

2009-07-20T12:07:00.001+10:00

I’m a huge fan of hot dogs. When I was back in Malaysia, I devoured all the hot dog programs that they showed on Astro’s food channel, and I really really wish that Australia would have more street food like in the US where I can walk up to the stand and order a hot dog that costs me $3 instead of $8. And I’d really like stores that sell hot dogs 24/7 at ridiculous prices like $5 for 2 hot dogs, instead of $8.90 for 1.

Anyway, when I spotted this stand in Federation Square quite some weeks ago, I was immediately excited.

So excited that I tried to finish 2 of them by myself (I was trying to recreate the feeling of getting hot dogs in the US (not that I’ve ever been to the US anyway), where I can get 2 dogs for cheap).

Unfortunately, although it did not look half bad, ultimately, it wasn’t too good anyway. The ones in Victoria Market are better, and Riverland also does hot dogs which are better.

And they did cost me at least $7 each (I can’t remember the exact price).

La Notte

2009-07-18T16:40:00.001+10:00

Its hard to find pasta that I like. I like seafood pasta with olive oil, but most places sell seafood pasta with tomato sauce or some cream sauce. Those that sell pasta aglio olio don’t have any form of protein in them.

Luckily, this Italian restaurant near my place had what I wanted.

And this is a basic meat and potato dish, with plenty of flavour.

Chocolate and Vanilla

2009-07-11T12:28:00.001+10:00

A perfect combination, chocolate and vanilla.

Especially when they are in generous amounts.

Huge servings.

More is better.

Intrigue

2009-06-25T08:13:00.001+10:00

Something’s afoot! The steward smiles at you like he has a secret, or like he thinks you have a secret, or like you think he thinks you have a secret. There are secret plots brewing, you are sure of it. At the very least, there are yours. A passing servant murmurs, “The eggs are on the plate.” You frantically search your codebook for the translation before realising he means that breakfast is ready. Excellent. Everything is going according to plan.

If nothing else, I’d buy Dominion: Intrigue just to read that on the back cover. Its so intriguing! Eggs are on the plate! Where’s the bacon then?

Shoya

2009-04-17T23:08:00.001+10:00

Due to an unexpected windfall lately, Denise and I were thinking of having some nice Japanese food, and Shoya came to mind. We originally thought of having the omakase, but then we weren’t sure whether we’d want to pay $100 each or not. So we decided on lunch instead, which was way cheaper. And a very good decision it was too. Not because the omakase was terrible (I don’t have enough information to say anything about their omakase), but the lunch that we had was excellent.

Shoya certainly fulfilled expectations in terms of the restaurant design. We were expecting a nicer restaurant with a higher class feel, and that was exactly what we got. We got there and after some contemplation, settled on their Kaisen Chirashi Set ($24.80), from their Lunch Set Menu and the Ume Set ($32.00), from their Shoya Special Lunch Set Menu. Because we were sharing the two sets, what we eventually ate turned out to be an omakase-like meal.

They started us both off with a small appetiser of pickled vegetables each.

And then we both got a savoury egg custard. Evidently, both sets included this dish. Reminded me of steamed egg back home where we eat this with rice, which was not a bad thing. Hidden within this cup of egg were different things, of which a piece of chicken was the only thing that I can currently remember.

After that, things started to pick up. The pickled vegetables and egg custard magnificently did their job in whetting up our appetite, bringing out expectations up. “Surely our next dishes must be good.”

In no particular order, this is what we had.

A bowl of chilled bean curd in soy sauce with the fish flakes on top, and some spring onion on the side. Again, this reminded me of home, where we used to eat cold tofu with the deep fried onion. Again, not a bad thing. We enjoyed this a lot. This was from the Kaisen Chirashi Set.

While we were eating this, they brought out our sashimi dishes, but the plate of tempura also appeared before we could get our chopsticks on the sashimi, so we decided to eat the tempura first while it was hot.

Of course, anything deep fried must taste good. However, there is a difference between mass produced tempura that you get at a buffet and freshly fried tempura and brought to the table while it is still piping hot. And this is the first time I’ve eaten piping hot tempura, and it is way better than tempura at a buffet. This, was from the Ume set.

After that, we got started on the sashimi.

The sashimi from the Ume set. Slices of fresh fish on top of a banana leaf, sitting on a rock of rock solid iced ice.

And the main from the Kaishen Chirashi Set. More raw fish on a bed of sushi rice.

And I must declare, the sashimi at Shoya is truly excellent. I don’t know what’s so different about it, but everything associated with it was better than anything I’ve tasted before. I suppose the fish was very fresh, but then again, I’ve never been able to tell what’s fresh and what’s not. The sushi rice was also better than other rice. What was most interesting was the wasabi. I’ve never been a wasabi person, but this was the first time that I actively put wasabi onto the fish (I normally put a small chunk into the soy and let it diffuse without actually mixing it in; I don’t really like the taste and find that it overwhelmed what I like, which is the fish). This wasabi was milder and not so hot, and it actually tasted good.

While we were having our hands full with the sashimi, more things arrived, so we diverted our attentions away from the sashimi for a while.

The unagi from the Ume Set. I liked the unagi, but there’s nothing here to wax lyrical about, as I’ve always liked unagi and this was also very good. I’m not very sure what that was on top of the cucumber. Tried a bit of it but did not like it. Natto, maybe? Or a milder version of natto? Don’t know. Anthony Bourdain hated natto when he tried some in Japan, but I didn’t find anything to hate here, just that it wasn’t that good.

The main of the Ume set. Which came with a small bowl of mixed steamed rice.

Nothing much to say about the rice. We had too many other things to eat already and did not finish this. So-so only. But the wagyu was truly truly amazing. Beef cooked medium rare, and another case of a milder sauce being better than usual. Just like wasabi, I don’t usually enjoy teriyaki sauce, for the same reason; that it overpowers the meat. But in this case, the mild sauce allowed the flavours of the beef to be tasted. The only problem with this dish was that it had a chunk of what I can best describe as a cheese pastry puff thing, that was also doused with teriyaki sauce. We felt that it had no place in the dish at all, and should have been best left off the plate.

And while we were eating all that, the Mini Udon from the Kaisen Chirashi Set and the Miso Soup from the Ume Set arrived.

The two bowls of warm soups provided a very good balance to the meal as we took our time savouring the wagyu and sashimi (together with the wasabi).

And after we finally finished everything, we had two scoops of very, very good ice cream for dessert.

The ice cream came cold, and it took its own time to melt, so we, took our own time to polish them off. The vanilla ice cream was just that, very good vanilla ice cream, but it was the green tea ice cream that really took our breath away. I don’t think we normally cared for green tea, much less the ice cream version of it, but this was just that good. And it was good because the green tea flavour was mild.

And that’s that. The lesson for today is that mild is good.

Fisherman's Pier

2009-03-06T10:24:00.001+11:00

Although Melbourne got a lot of restaurants, but Geelong also got. You see, this is Fisherman's Pier.

Located right beside the sea, can see a lot of boats and water. Also got a yellow construction site (on the left side of the picture) which kacau.

The inside also very nice. They make it very comfortable. Then got the windows, can see outside.

So first, we order soup to drink. Seafood soup. Got prawns, mussels, and some bread thing. I dunno what that green oil is. But very nice.

Here also got seafood. Calamari and sausage. Sausage is not seafood though. Got vegetables also. It's called 'rocket'. The taste very unique. Last time I thought that they put dressing to make the rocket taste like that, but actually, its the natural taste of the vegetable. Nice nice.

Fish. Below the fish is risotto. Like rice only, but different a bit. Donno how to describe.

Then this one also fish. If I never tell you, you sure think it is steak. Cos it really look like steak lor. Below that got some raw vegetables, then got half egg on the side also.

I think in general, both of the fish nicer than the mains in Donovan's.

Because nicer and not so jelak, therefore got dessert.

Woh.

Triple chocolate.

Go home after that.

Have to take train.

Donovan's

2009-02-28T17:16:00.001+11:00

Donovan's in St Kilda is a restaurant that has excellent recommendations (Awarded 2 Chefs Hats by The Age Good Food Guide 2008), with the food generally getting good reviews. but unfortunately tempered by some complaints of bad service.

Ambience-wise, Donovan's is truly excellent.

You get a view of the beach and the sea, and I loved the quirkily designed interior which gives it a very cozy and comfortable feel.

As you can see, they use different chairs, the walls have plenty of things on them, everything looking very nice and comfy.

They started us off with some bread with butter and a fava bean dip, something I haven't tried before. I have a tendency to overdose on bread before a meal, and that's because I'm usually hungry while waiting for the food to arrive. The bread was excellent, and the dip was good as well.

I don't quite know how to describe this starter. It was called a 'parfait' on the menu, but as far as I know, a parfait is some form of dessert. If anything, it resembled pate more than anything. Maybe foie gras, but I haven't had that before, so I cannot say. Loved the quail, enjoyed the two chunks of pate-like meat, don't really know what the cherries were doing on the plate.

Oh yes, it came with some toast as well. More bread.

And then, we had some scallops. Seared. The only scallops I've ever before had were the preserved ones used in chinese cooking, and since I've heard a lot about 'seared scallops' from Top Chef, I thought it'd be good to try it. And the verdict? Not too bad, but nothing spectacular. Nice to look at though.

To the mains!

Unfortunately, this is where it fell short.

This fish, tasted a lot like chinese style steamed fish with soy sauce. And because we're used to that, this tasted weird, with the creamy mashed potatoes and the oxtail stew around it. There was also too much sauce.

And the pork chop. Its supposed to be one of their top recommendations, but, tsk tsk. I don't know why it is so, but western cooking seems to favour certain meats with the fat on them. Like duck. And this pork chop. I'm usually one who loves the fat on the pork, but this was too much for me. And you add to that the two chunks of garlic butter on top.

Just look at the butter dripping off the thing. And the cotechino (that's the sausage slice), I took a bite onto that, and it was SO oily. Oil, oil, and more oil. I had to remove a chunk of the garlic butter, and then remove the fat from the pork, and the cotechino was just inedible. The only saving grace was the lettuce in a bowl that came together with the dish.

Because of the disappointing mains, we did not proceed to dessert, and left soon thereafter.

Butter and Cheese

2009-02-12T10:27:00.001+11:00

This morning, I was making my breakfast, which consisted of 2 slices of Helga's bread,each with some butter and ham on it. Now, because the butter just came out from the fridge, it was still hard and not spreadable, so, I had to scrape it multiple times and force it onto the bread. What resulted was little knobs of butter on the bread.

My friends who were sitting down nearby noticed it and asked, "Is that ham and cheese?"

And I replied "Nope, its butter."

"WHAT?! BUTTER!?", they exclaimed.

Confused, I said "What's wrong with butter?"

"Jian Wey, your heart must be dying inside you."

My question now is, is butter any much less healthy than cheese?

Taman Midah Curry Mee

2009-02-08T10:59:00.001+11:00

In Cheras there is a place called Taman Midah, and in one of the lanes in Taman Midah, is a stall selling curry noodles (and also Lum Mee and other things).

Nowadays, to really get any drink to be less sweet, you'll have to actually hammer it into them. I want 'Extra Kurang Kurang Kurang Manis', or better yet, just say 'Teh Tarik Kosong'.

Due to miscommunication problems, I ended up with Curry Wantan Mee instead of Curry Beehoon Mee, but which actually tasted way better than what I expected.

Like I said, they have other things like Prawn Mee, Lum Mee, and any combination of noodles in any of the soup they have.

An excellent place for breakfast.

Marsala Lamb Shank at Delicious, Bangsar ViIIage

2009-02-02T14:10:00.001+11:00

Lamb Shank at Delicious. Expensive, but very filling and quite good.

Hoong Tho, Ipoh

2008-12-31T17:18:00.001+11:00

Let me tell you a story. A story that I've told to anybody who would listen.

About 6 years ago, give or take a couple of years, I found myself in Penang with my family. On the day that we were to leave back to KL, I woke up at about 5 am with severe pain in my tummy (the umbilical region, for those who want to know more). It was as if I needed to go to the toilet, but that did not relieve it at all.

That morning, the plan was for my dad to take my brother and me out to the beach, while waiting for my mum to attend the final conference event for the day, then leave in the afternoon. I was nearly doubled up in pain by then (no, I don't remember the pain going to my RIF, if that's of any interest at all), but the decision was to get back to KL first before going to the hospital, rather than go to the hospital in Penang. So my dad brought my brother to the beach, my mum attended her event, and my grandma stayed with me in the hotel room. I remember being on the floor, curled up into a ball, and trying to drink 100 plus.

We left Penang sometime before noon, about 10 plus am. I was sitting in the back seat, trying to lie down, but with my brother and grandma there as well, it was difficult.

All I was trying to do was to tahan and wait it out till we get to KL.

At noon, my dad declared that he was hungry. And we turned off into Ipoh, and drove to this place called Hoong Tho, where I struggled to sit on the chair, watching my family feast on Wat Dan Hor and Fried Wantan.

That was 6 years ago.

Ever since then, I've decided that I'll go back to this Hoong Tho to eat the War Dan Hor and Fried Wantan. Drive all the way there if I have to. By myself, if I have to! The years flew by, and nothing ever did happen.

Even the times that I did have the opportunity to go there, I was dissuaded one way or the other. "The place not so nice already." "Now very dirty." "Got other nicer place, we go those la!" Bla bla bla.

So this last week, I decided that I'd drive there by myself for a daytrip, and maybe meet 2 of my friends there, and drag them to Hoong Tho. Eat then come back. A bit of a waste of a long drive, I know.

The daytrip happened yesterday. Got one other friend who happened to be in KL to go along as well. Upon reaching the 2nd friend's place to pick her up, her mum said "Hoong Tho?! Why want to go there?! So dirty."

Bleh.

I insisted we go anyway.

After 6 years, finally. And the verdict? Not so nice. KL can get better. Fried wantan was better than the Wat Dan Hor, but also, nothing spectacular.

Proceeded to another shop a few doors away and had 2 bowls of noodles shared between the 4 of us, and even then, we did not finish the noodles.

And that was all we did with respects to food, this Ipoh trip.

Since they wanted to play mahjong before we left, that was what we did. I had to be taught how to play it though. I now realise its just like any other boardgame.

That's me. Apparently, my friends had some issues with regards to how I arranged my tiles.

I thought it wasn't too bad. And no, I did not actually win this hand. I did however, win the next one. Yes, I really did!

We left after that and I had to drive home in the heavy, pouring rain.

Oh, and the conclusion of my tummy pain story? We eventually reached KL, and I was feeling slightly better by then already. Went to Hospital Selayang, got some bloods taken, decided it wasn't worth doing whatever it was they wanted to originally do to me (I wasn't told), and went off to have some dinner somewhere in Selayang. I think it was some Double Boiled Special Chicken Soup. I was feeling well enough to eat already, and recovered thereafter. No similar pain has recurred again since.

The Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel

2008-12-27T22:28:00.001+11:00

Look at this!

A Tropical Daiquiri!

Absolutely gorgeous.

Okay, well, it isn't much to shout about really. It tastes like juice, except with alcohol. Its also the first cocktail that I didn't mind drinking, except I think it'd be better without the alcohol. Maybe I should just drink juice instead. =D

Anyway, back to the restaurant. The Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel is located in the Crown Casino, in the row of shops right beside the river. A cozy little restaurant, with a view of the river, if you are sitting downstairs, or in a very comfy area with a few tables located upstairs, but with no view of the river.

We ordered, including this Daiquiri above, 2 entrees, 2 mains, and 1 dessert.

This came first. Yellowfin tuna and leek tartare, cucumber gaspacho, cream and condiments. In the picture, the tuna is peeking out from behind the cucumber. No, I did not intend it to be that way. I can't really remember how it tasted like, but it was a great dish. Whoever wants a comment should go watch Top Chef and pick one of the positive comments from there. My first time eating a tartare of any sort, and a gaspacho of any sort.

Scampi carpaccio, citrus and ginger vinaigrette. Another raw dish. The scampi were flatly laid onto the plate. This tasted very much like what you'd imagine a fresh garden to taste like, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

So once those were finished, the mains made their way to our table.

My Pan-roasted rib-eye with boulangere potatoes, served with herb butter. This was a very oily and fat dish. Not only the butter on top of the meat, but within the steak itself was creamy, melt-in-your-mouth fat. It was very very filling, and if you don't mind the fat, then it was also very very good.

The duck breast with braised turnips, onion, apple chutney, confit leg spring rolls. The western way of serving duck is to make sure that there is a layer of fat on top, and it must be medium rare. So different from the chinese style roast duck. The duck was good, but we didn't really care much for the turnips and the spring rolls. The sauce was excellent though.

And finally, to top it all off, some chocolate mousse for dessert.

The chocolate tear drop with morello cherries and sorbet provided a very good finish to a very good meal.

I absolutely enjoyed the meal here. The presentation of all the dishes was really nice, the environment was really cozy, the food was excellent, and I had good company as well.

Ajisen Ramen

2008-12-11T22:50:00.001+11:00

I've been a bit lazy lately. Of course, the end of the very long semester was coming, everybody was feeling tired, exams were coming up as well, but well, the reason why I've not been updating is because I've been fairly lazy. Oh, and I think Fallout 3 might have had something to do with it as well. Now that I'm back in KL, I've got nothing better to do anyway. Might as well clear up the backlog of pictures that I have. Here goes.

A couple of weeks back (most of the weeks seem to get mixed with each other in my mind, I can't really be sure which week it was already), I was at this Ajisen Ramen on Bourke Street. I've mentioned before that I think ordering Ramen in a Japanese restaurant is like ordering Glorified Instant Noodles and paying $10 or more for it, which is true to a certain extent, but then again, good instant noodles is still good food.

Now this bowl of ramen cost me either $15 or $22. I think it might have been $22. And I'm sure it had a fancier name as well. But it was quite quite good. I loved the soup base that they use, and it had plenty of seafood to keep me satisfied as well.

A cheaper bowl of noodles, this was. My friend mentioned that the steak was fairly bland compared to her previous time, and I concur. I suppose they might've forgotten to season it.

And finally, dumplings! Or, gyoza! Have I mentioned before how much I love dumplings? I love dumplings. My next post will have dumplings in it as well. Watch out.

Squire's Loft, again

2008-11-01T10:24:00.001+11:00

I was at Squire's Loft again recently, where I somehow contrived to polish up 1 kg (4 racks) of pork ribs by myself, because I wasn't too sure how much I usually eat (I normally get one chunk of ribs from Victoria Market and finish that, but I never did check how heavy that one chunk of ribs was).

It turned out to be quite a lot actually, although a lot of the weight was taken up by the bones. But the alternative would be to get half that, and I don't think that that would've been enough.

And this is a scotch fillet. I love the chips though, which I didn't get with my own meal, as I thought that would've been overkill.

Villa Romana

2008-10-21T22:51:00.001+11:00

What a lazy person I've been. Its been so long since I last updated. Everyday, I check other people's blogs and feel disappointed if they haven't updated it, and here I am, not updating mine. And even this was taken 3 weeks ago.

So what I did was to go to Villa Romana on Lygon Street again.

Its difficult remembering the names of the dishes that I ordered, especially 3 weeks down the track. I do remember there were clams in the pasta, and that it was not too bad, but that was it.

And this is a Scotch Fillet. It might have been an Eye Fillet instead, but I think that it was a Scotch Fillet. With mushroom sauce. And mashed potatoes and some beans and carrots.

One of the better Sticky Date Puddings that I've had before, with a good balance of cold ice cream to the hot pudding. Quite sweet as well.

Bye bye!

Spaghetti

2008-09-29T19:22:00.001+10:00

I've been making quite a bit of spaghetti lately.

I've always loved the seafood pasta with white wine that you could order from the restaurant. I find that its much better than pasta with thick sauce like bolognese. So, with a recipe I plucked off the net, I went and bought some marinara mix and mussels, and came up with this.

There's some white wine in there as well, plus a couple of cloves of garlic and some chopped tomatoes. All in all, I considered this a very successful venture.

This is what it looked like in a bowl. That whole pan amounted to 2 bowls of this, which I finished.

Also, using very similar ingredients, I also replaced all the seafood (except the prawns) with meatballs, removed the white wine, added some mushrooms, and came up with a surf and turf pasta, which I think was very good as well, but a picture of that was not taken.

And finally, again, using the same ingredients as the previous pasta, but this time using minced meat and not meatballs, I made the same thing, except I also dumped a whole can of Campbell mushroom and chicken soup inside, coming up with this, which was also very good:

I ventured to finish that by myself in a single setting, and I usually succeed, but this time, the creaminess of the whole thing just got the better of me, and for the first time since living outside, I actually set some aside in the fridge and ate it the next morning.

And what exactly was the whole point of this? Well, I haven't been taking pictures of food from restaurants much lately, so I had to come up with my own things to fill this space up.

Bye bye.

Vic Harbour

2008-09-17T20:20:00.001+10:00

Docklands has plenty of restaurants to choose from. Vic Harbour is one of them.

Chorizo and grilled bread and what tasted like the chinese dark soy sauce drizzled all over it. Nothing very much to say about this.

I think this lacked a bit of basic seasoning, but upon the sprinkling of some salt, I thought it was awesome. I love the seafood and the tomato base to the extremely (olive) oily pasta ;p

Surf and turf! The prawns went very very well with the medium rare steak, and the potato mash (obscured from view) and the red wine jus.

And finally, sticky date pudding to finish it up.

Crepes in Geelong

2008-09-08T07:59:00.001+10:00

And we're back in business!

I suppose I'll start with something relevant, considering I just got back from Geelong, and this could also be a study in comparison of crepes. ^^

So we see a crepe in the middle, drizzled with chocolate sauce and chocolate crunchy bits, a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side, a dollop of cream, and one slice of orange.

Death by Chocolate, that's what it was called.

Was struggling to finish it towards the end, but no, wasn't anywhere near Death.

Lol.

For those in Geelong, this is on Ryrie Street, next to Baskin Robbins, which is next to McDonald's.

Goodbye.

2008-08-16T12:22:00.001+10:00

I have a theory. Its based on taking advantage of Murphy's Law (if there can even be such a thing as taking advantage of it).

So, if you lose something, Murphy's Law would dictate that you will never get it back. Or alternatively, you get a replacement and you find your things again.

The only way I see out of that is to buy a replacement immediately after you lose something. This way, if Murphy's Law holds true, you get your things back, and now you have an extra; or you don't get your things back, but you already have a replacement.

Hot Pot

2008-08-12T19:11:00.001+10:00

A couple of weeks ago, before I came to Geelong, a few of us had hot pot at my place.

There were seven of us, and we had four pots of these.

We could not finish the fourth pot.

Geelong

2008-08-03T18:13:00.001+10:00

So I'm in Geelong right currently for my placements, and just cannot be bothered updating the blog when I get back to Melbourne during the weekends. This post is just for the sake of continuity, and just an excuse for not putting anything else up =P

And that's my room. Internet isn't provided in the room though =(

Om Burger

2008-07-22T17:47:00.001+10:00

Recently this short film made by FriedChillies Media won the Best Super Short Film at the NYC Food Film Festival. Titled 'The Sloppiest Burger in Malaysia', it was just a 2 minute thing, showing a Ramli Burger stall, somewhere in Ampang. Go and watch the video; if it can win, it must be good, right?

So, I also went and tried the thing lor. In Ampang Jaya.

It does look sloppy, doesn't it? While there have been claims by some people that this Ramli Burger is the best in the Klang Valley, to be honest, I think it tasted just like any Ramli Burger anywhere. Someone will have to convince me otherwise.

Fogal Meat Market

2008-07-16T15:21:00.001+10:00

There is this place, called Fogal Meat Market, in Plaza Damas, which is somewhere in Hartamas, where I got lost at sometime at the beginning of the year when I was trying to get to Bukit Tunku (but that's another story altogether).

So, the place is actually a meat butchery in front, with seats at the back (and some outside the shop at the back and front) which allows the place to double as a restaurant.

There's plenty of blogs reviewing this place, and the impression was that the Lamb Burger was the 'thing-to-have'.

I do hope the Aussie owner of the shop isn't reading this (he seemed like a very nice guy), but unfortunately, this burger was very plain, and, um, forgettable. The meat patty lacked seasoning, and so it was quite plain. The wedges and salad were so-so only. I suppose being slightly sick that day played a part in influencing my taste buds though.

If you cast your eyes to the back of that picture, you see a plate of toast and some scrambled eggs.

This is what it looks like.

And although it looked plain and simple, this was gobbled down by my friend who claimed that it was "sooo goood".

Oh wells. Looks can be deceiving, after all.

To wash it all down, sticky date pudding.

The pudding/cake was too 'room temperature though'. Would be much better had they been warmer.

Yum yum.

Sang Har Meen

2008-07-11T20:38:00.001+10:00

So I've been a bit lazy lately. But that doesn't mean I haven't been eating! I had (until this morning) two weeks worth of pictures sitting around in my camera, waiting to be uploaded.

But since I'm still feeling lazy right now, this will be a one picture post.

Last Sunday, Dad brought us to eat Sang Har Meen at this restaurant on Jalan Imbi. Restaurant Weng Choon (Soo Kee's Son), I think it was called. At first, I was a bit hesitant, as I remember having the same thing at this Restaurant Green View somewhere in PJ (Look here for a review of the Sang Har Meen at Green View; no idea who that is, and did not ask for permission to link, so, sorry), and I wasn't too happy with it, and it also cost quite a lot.

That's why I was a bit hesitant.

But this one, was sooo good. So good that its now on my list of 'must eat once everytime I'm back for holiday' foods.

I personally prefer this sauce to the one from Green View. This is not as dark, and perhaps more orangy (in colour, not taste) compared to the other one. And it was huge!

Simply splendid.

p.s. You can compare this with the other 2 seafood noodles I had in Melbourne a couple of months ago.

Jogoya, again

2008-06-30T19:19:00.001+10:00

What kind of buffet doesn't serve you white rice? Why, Jogoya of course. Although, the last time I was there, I managed to get white rice from somewhere, but this time, even that avenue was blocked off. So, no white rice.

"But who wants to go to an expensive buffet and eat white rice?!"

"Me la, of course! Can do so many things with white rice you know? From the dishes I'm going to show you here, so many of them could be vastly improved if only there was white rice."

To start off, I got distracted by the tempura counter while getting the coconut drinks (refer previous post).

And prawn tempura, is basically, prawn tempura lah. Deep fried prawn with batter, dipped into the radish sauce. Crispy and light. Yum yum.

Next up, raw oysters. Or as some of you would call it, 'Icky Raw Stuff'.

There we go. Two oysters with some lemon. There are people who like it, and there are people who don't. There are also people who don't like it but eat it for the novelty. I'm not too sure which group I fall into.

And then, more 'Icky Raw Stuff'!

The fish looks quite pink. I'm sure there's some hamachi in there somewhere. But realistically, I only liked the sashimi. Now if only I had some white rice, I'd be able to make some Salmon Don, a la Sushi Ten!

My meal then progressed from the raw food, to the cooked food. So.

Some unagi, which I was raving about the last time I was there. Only had 2 sticks this time though. Again, if only I had white rice.

I did find some fried rice though, and I also got distracted by some fried fish. So I put those two things together and came up with this.

The rice was pretty good, with plenty of prawn. But the fish was not good at all. Thumbs down for this.

After that, I remembered that I could request for handrolls. So back I went to the counter.

Unagi roll, and Crab Roe roll. Orange and green. Both were made fresh on the spot and put on the plate for me. And I think not many people knew about it, so I was the only one there requesting.

And thennnnn, because I so wanted to recreate the Salmon Don, I tried it with the fried rice.

Which turned out to be a spectacular failure, and should not be talked about anymore.

The next two dishes were ordered by my friend.

Looks like a dead fish, and probably is a dead fish. As much as I like steamed pomfret, I had to ask my friend, "Why come to Jogoya to eat this? Cannot get at home ah?" Oh yes, this would benefit greatly from white rice as well.

And a plate of garlic black pepper beef.

I tried a few pieces of this, and it was quite good. Like mini pieces of steak. If only it could be done medium rare, I think this could be one of the hidden gems on the menu.

It is a well known fact that no meal is complete without vegetables.

Upon the arrival of this dish on the table, I got hit by my own question from my friend, "Why come to Jogoya and eat this? Cannot get at home ah?"

Touche.

My other friend ordered some Soft Shell Crab, which, looking at the picture now, I probably should have ordered, but that thought did not occur to me at that time.

I'm quite sure it tastes as good as it looks.

And finally, dessert was some Haagen Dazs ice cream (they had Baskin Robbins and some other brand as well).

That egg tart was a separate thing that I just dropped into the ice cream cup.

Overall, I remember it to be a very enjoyable and satisfying meal. I did not overeat.

And I would have been happier had I found some white rice.

On Top of Spaghetti ...

2008-06-26T23:00:00.001+10:00

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out the front door.

Today, we shall talk about contrasts. Two dishes were made for dinner today, both taken from Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie at Home' book. A soup dish and a spaghetti dish. What resulted is an excellent study in contrasts.

This soup, which does not look so good on camera, was awesome. It was excellently seasoned, and the egg was ingenious. Jamie Oliver used poached eggs, which till now, I cannot replicate, so, I made replaced them with half boiled eggs instead.

Unfortunately, the spaghetti went horribly wrong. The only thing going for it is that it looks good. After that, everything fell apart. Firstly, I couldn't find the correct type of pork sausages to make the meatballs. So, we substituted it with minced beef instead, which, unlike the half boiled eggs, was not a good idea. The taste of the beef was too strong, and the flour used to hold the meat together made the meatballs too powdery.

Couldn't get fresh peas as well, in Malaysia. And the sauce wasn't enough, was also too tomato-ish, and got comments of 'bland' and 'sour' from two different family members.

Tsk tsk.

Italian(n)ese

2008-06-23T13:52:00.001+10:00

I've been to Italian(n)ese twice in the last 2 weeks, this Italian franchise that's available in most shopping complexes around KL. Personally, I enjoyed the food there, most especially the free flow of bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil dip. But on both occasions, I overdid it with the bread, and was too full when the meals actually arrived. Bad move. Twice.

Anyway.

Here's the food.

Fried calamari. Can't go wrong, but somehow did. Very average. Bleh. Maybe I was too full from bread. But. Bleh.

This was very very very good. The mangoes and grapes were very sweet, which was a nice contrast to the saltiness of the dressing for the vegetables. I ordered this salad on both the occasions that I was at Italiannese.

This was quite well seasoned, but not very spetacular. Tasted good, but that's about it.

Again, same comment as above. Tasted good. But did it wow me, well, no, it did not.

But you see that drink behind it. The purple colour drink? That was some form of grape drink. Which did wow me. And it went very well with the chicken salad as well. Love it.

Bye!

Psht.

2008-06-19T13:50:00.001+10:00

The meaning of 'Psht', from... Urban Dictionary again:

psht

A word you can say to blow off or show disregard for something someone just said.

Person 1: I am so good at throwing rocks!.
Person 2: PSHT!! Your aim's lousy!.

HAHA!

Ayam Goreng Mc D

2008-06-15T11:39:00.001+10:00

AAAAAAA!

Mc Donald's Fried Chicken?

Yes yes yes!

Sushi Zanmai

2008-06-12T11:33:00.001+10:00

I finally had the opportunity to eat at Sushi Zanmai in Gardens. Ever since eating the platter of sushi rolls at Koko in Crown in Melbourne sometime last year, I've wanted to go to a Japanese restaurant and just order rolls again, but never had the opportunity. And Koko was too expensive to go again without a special occasion.

So, Sushi Zanmai in Gardens it was for me. Its not an expensive restaurant, certainly, they can't achieve what Koko achieved, but then again, you can't compare apples with oranges. A more accurate comparison would probably be with Sushi King, or maybe Genki Sushi, as they all have a sushi train.

My grandma wanted to try the green seasoned seaweed thingy, so we ordered that.

And then I went to town with the rolls.

Why this is called Stamina Roll, I do not know, but my grandma and I both agreed that this was the best of the lot, so we actually ordered two plates of this. As you can see, unagi on the top, egg in the middle.

Coming in a close second, and maybe my personal favourite, this Caterpillar Roll. This time, unagi in the middle, avocado on top, and some egg somewhere in between.

Although this Coral Roll looked good, it didn't taste as good. Smoked salmon with salmon roe on top. So-so only.

Dragon Roll. Fairly straightforward. Avocado and prawn roe on top, deep fried prawn in the middle. Comparatively, although all the rolls cost me RM 12.80, this one only had four pieces, as opposed to six on all the other dishes.

At the end of the day, we were quite pleased with the meal. Unfortunately, they can't put all the rolls in one huge platter, like they did in Koko.

Poached Eggs

2008-06-07T12:47:00.001+10:00

Tried making poached eggs a few days ago, and this is what I came up with.

Although it doesn't look too bad, the whites tasted absolutely horrible as the vinegar water got mixed into it somehow.

Will need to try it again sometime.

JM's Dinner Party

2008-06-04T13:26:00.000+10:00

JM decided to treat a few of us to a 3 course dinner the other night. He cooked. Unfortunately, one of his original two guests ffk-ed ('Ffk' means 'originally agreeing to attend some event but cancelling at the last minute. Don't even bother Urban Dictionarying 'ffk' as the result given is wrong) him, so he invited a few replacements. However, due to him inviting two replacements for the one who cancelled, we ended up with five people but only four plates. And the dinner host refused to use plates that did not match.

For the first course, we had a Smoked Salmon Baby Rocket Salad with a dash of Balsamic Vinegar and a drizzle of Hollandaise Sauce. For your information, our host ate his in a bowl.

Although Hollandaise Sauce isn't normally associated with salads (at least, not to my knowledge), but it worked very well in this dish, adding extra flavour to the natural zestiness of the rockets.

The main course was Angel Hair Pasta with Prawns.

My first time having Angel Hair Pasta, and we all commented that it was very much like Mee Suah. Maybe Mee Suah is Angel Hair Pasta. Lol. Some chillies and onions gave the pasta a tinge of spiciness; very good and very filling indeed.

The dessert was Strawberry French Toast.

This was very good. The strawberries and the french toast went very well together, and was the perfect end to the meal. The funny shape of the sauce at the top was my - oh wait, not mine, but Yi Wen's - attempt at presentation a la Top Chef, which failed.

A very good meal, thanks to JM.

Wuliao

2008-06-02T12:37:00.001+10:00

Yet another post lifted directly from Urban Dictionary.

"Wuliao" is Chinese meaning boring/meaningless/uninteresting/tasteless/lame etc. Also known as "wu liao".

e.g.

"So last week I decided to write to my crush and tell him I am no longer interested in him-HAHAHA (forced laughter)."
"You are so darned WULIAO."

Happy Birthday Mum!

2008-05-30T01:11:00.000+10:00

Bah. Am one hour late, but nevertheless, Happy Birthday Mummy!

Sorry I forgot.

I miss you.

Tom Phat

2008-05-28T20:27:00.001+10:00

So our theses were handed in last Friday, and being in a celebratory mood, we decided to head off to Brunswick for lunch. After spending nearly an hour looking for the restaurant, we finally found it; Tom Phat.

Tom Phat is yet another one of those quaint little cafes found in Brunswick, something in the vein of Ray, albeit with a slight Asian flavour to it.

Although we went around lunchtime, we still ordered items from their breakfast menu.

So.

This is what I had, called Uncle Ho's breakfast. Its basically a pork chop, a fried egg, and rice on a plate, although I must say that I loved the egg being so puffed up.

This here is Tom Phat Breakfast, with a choice of poached or scrambled eggs. Looks fairly basic.

And finally, Claypot Baked Eggs, which is, exactly what it is.

Did I enjoy the meal? Well, yeah, you could say so. It wasn't very spectacular, but it was a hearty meal for 13 dollars, so, not too bad, I would say.

GG

2008-05-26T10:38:00.001+10:00

For the people who have asked me what the term 'GG' actually means, I have here a list of definitions for you, together with some examples. Again, taken from Urban Dictionary.

GG:

"Good Game"

1) A polite remark uttered after the end of a round, game, or other measured interval to indicate that a match was fair and enjoyable. Usually uttered collectively by the occupants of a game server.

e.g.

At round end:
<Volmarias> gg
<Rill-a-roni> gg
<Dagashi> gg
<Asno> gg
<Tard> gg

2) A condescending remark, often uttered by somebody who does not know meaning 1, and is simply repeating what others have told them.

e.g.

"OMG WUT DO U MEAN IM CHEATIN U JUST SUK FAGS HAHAHAHA GG UR SERVER IS GAY"

3) Overused to the point of vulgarity abbreviation intended to stand for "good game." When people say it no matter what (especially when the winners say it), it dilutes the phrase to the point of meaninglessness. They might as well just say "hahaha we kicked your asses."

e.g.

<Everyone on winning team> gg
<Cowclops> Shut the F*** up. That was NOT a good game. You f***ing slaughtered us. YOU played well, WE did not, so don't patronize us with halfassed "pleasantries" when you're really just being dingleberries.

4) Exclamation: A way of resignedly expressing one's own defeat or disgust with a situation. Often followed by the object in question.

e.g.

*Person 1 hits a pole*
Person 1: gg :(

5) (Made this one up myself, modified from 4) Exclamation: A way of laughing (good naturedly) at another person's (minor) misfortune.

e.g.

*Person 1 walks into a pole*

Person 2: Ha! Ha! GG You!

6) Taking it a step further from 5: Used to insult someone who has preformed an incredibly stupid act.

e.g.

*Doctor Olayer falls off edge of map.*
TFox: GG.
Olayer: STFU.

So many different meanings for one tiny two letter phrase. This last one here sums up the meaning for 'gg' in gaming terms, quite succinctly.

7) Phrase said at the end of a match, either online or in person. Means "Good Game", and indicates one of two things: Either it was truly a good, fairly played and close match, or one team got slaughtered.

e.g. 1

*Red team wins, 50 to 47*
Red Team: GG
Blue Team: GG

e.g. 2

*Blue team wins, 50 to 7*
Blue Team: GG!
Red Team: Shut it.

Mark's

2008-05-24T16:53:00.001+10:00

This here is a Volcanic Pizza.

Actually, I kid. Its a half-and-half pizza, so, half Chicken Something Something, and half Volcano pizza. I liked the chicken one, but the Volcano one was a tad bit spicy ;p

Mayhaps

2008-05-23T00:09:00.001+10:00

Since someone found it unbelievable that the word 'mayhaps' actually exists, I'll list out a few examples of how to use the word 'mayhaps'.

Taken from Urban Dictionary:

Example 1:

A term combining the best qualities of the terms "maybe" and "perhaps" into a single superior word.
Often used when planning something mischievous or pretending to be British.

"care for a spot of tea?"
"mayhaps a bit later"

Example 2:

When 'no' is too strong and 'maybe' or 'perhaps' is too weak, try this noncommittal word on for size.

"Dad, can I get a new laptop?"
"In 23.2 years mayhaps."

An Unhealthy Weekend

2008-05-18T14:56:00.001+10:00

This here is a list of things that I ate this weekend which I shouldn't really have eaten at all. What I'm getting at is, this is what I ate in addition to what I normally eat:

1) Half a bottle of 2L Sprite

2) Half a bag of Smith's chips

3) One can of Coca-Cola

4) One can of Sunkist

5) One can of Coke Zero

6) One handful of candy (jelly snakes and what-not)

7) Three biscuits/cookies (I dislike biscuit/cookies)

8) Some handful of chips (in addition to the half bag of Smith's chips above)

9) Hungry Jacks Triple Cheeseburger (Why did I ever eat this?)

10) Regular fries (came with the cheeseburger)

11) Storm in a teacup (Icecream with Oreos called 'Storm', that came in a cup, together with the cheeseburger)

12) Regular coke in a paper cup

AAAAAA!

Pie & Eggs

2008-05-15T09:59:00.001+10:00

I've been watching too too too much Top Chef lately, and am loving how they put a nice perfect sunny side-up egg on top of their dishes. I thus decided that I'd do the same as well, since sunny side-up eggs aren't that hard to make, right?

So this, is what I call, Pie & Eggs.

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-11T02:31:00.001+10:00

One thing that my dad did during the last few weeks of my mum's life was to buy her two diary-like books, and asking her if she had any things that she had wanted to say to him and to us (my brother and I), she could write it down in those books. Till now, everytime I think of those books, I feel a sense of regret (and I think my dad feels it more than I do), for they were (nearly) empty. She did not write anything in those books, save for a few lines, in that usually incomprehensible writing of hers (haha), of which one struck me, and has stayed with me ever since. It was along the lines of, "Weakness: must not always think I am right". Its something that has been the source of countless arguments between us down the years (some of which were my fault too), and I know how difficult it must have been for her to admit that, and I cannot imagine how she must have been suffering then, and how strong she was not to utter one word of complaint, and always trying to appear strong and cheerful, and never once did she give up.

Because as much as I regret that you didn't write anything in those books, and that I didn't get a chance to speak to you at the end, I realise that it must have been that much more difficult for you to write there. Because I think that had you done that, you would be to giving up, and I'm sure you never did give up, and I'm glad that you fought till the end.

And on this Mother's Day, I would just like to say how much you're always in my thoughts, and how much I love you, Mummy. Happy Mother's Day.

Pancake Parlour

2008-05-10T18:54:00.001+10:00

About 2 Sundays ago, a few of us wanted to have crepes for breakfast somewhere in the city. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances which resulted in the restaurant not being open, and not only that, it wasn't even the correct restaurant, we ended up in Pancake Parlour instead.

Now, some of you may remember my disastrous breakfast outing at St Kilda quite recently, where I decided to order pancakes when my friends all went with bacon, sausages, and eggs. I made sure I did not make the same mistake this time =).

This here (not mine), is a basic stack of pancakes, with butter on top. That may look like ice cream, but its butter.

This, is what they call a Double Eggs Benedict (not mine either). This actually cost 19 bucks, while a single Eggs Benedict would cost 14 bucks (poor Rena). I think its a rip-off.

Because this was so long ago, I cannot remember what this dish was called, but I do remember that it was definitely not my dish. No way I'm making the same mistake again, however appetising and nice this may look and taste like.

And finally, to what I ordered. I think it was called Country Breakfast. But it was so fulfilling for 14 bucks, with eggs la, bacon la, mushrooms la, and I even get pancakes with butter as well.

A very good breakfast indeed =).

Mercadante Woodfired Pizzeria

2008-05-05T18:01:00.001+10:00

Considering I've been in Melbourne for 3 years plus already, and have been living not that far off from Lygon Street, and now living much much more closer to Lygon (only one street away), its a shame that I've only been to 2 of multitude of Italian restaurants there (Corretto's and Villa Romana), Vina Bar and Lambs notwithstanding. So, I've decided to embark on The Quest to Sample More Italian (or Non-Asian) Restaurants on Lygon Street.

And the first one on my hit list is Mercadante Woodfired Pizzeria.

And how was the food, you might ask? Well, nothing was really spectacular. What you see here is what I got then. Perhaps I ordered the wrong things. Reviews on the net seem to be very highly in favour of this restaurant.

Oh wells, I'll have to try it again some other day.

Breakfast

2008-05-01T17:30:00.001+10:00

Hello.

The other day Jian Ming made breakfast.

The breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, mushroom, tomatoes, and toast.

And maybe some salmon with avocado.

The breakfast was very good.

And it looked very pretty as well.

Good bye.

Hsiang's Birthday, Koko Black

2008-04-28T19:47:00.001+10:00

I say, this funny (pretending to be somebody you're not) business has to stop.

Anyway, Hsiang had his birthday 2 weeks ago at Koko Black. So I'd wish him happy birthday now, but I already did that 2 weeks ago. And no, I don't have a picture of him.

What I do have, are some pictures of chocolates.

The Koko Black Iced Chocolate. Used to be $5.50. Now $6.50. For $5.50 I'd say it was worth it, as it comes with 2 large scoops of ice cream as well. For $6.50, well, lets just say that for $6.50 I can get a plate of rice and 3 dishes from Norsiah's. This was also the drink that spoilt my meal of all-you-can-eat ribs at Hard Rock Cafe sometime last year, when I had it at 4pm, forgetting that I was going to eat a lot of ribs that evening.

This is a normal hot chocolate. I don't know how it tastes like because I did not drink it. I suppose it would taste like the iced chocolate, except hot. But then again, the iced chocolate has ice cream. Hot chocolate can't have ice cream, can it?

And finally, a Belgian Spoil. As you can see, its a platter of chocolaty stuff. I did eat some of this, but it was a tad too heavy for me.

Now, if only my digital camera can churn out pictures like Chang Yang's DSLR does, I'd be happy. That last picture looks especially grainy to me, for some obscure reason. I thought it was okay at the time I took it.

LOL's Birthday

2008-04-25T02:26:00.001+10:00

Helllooooooo. So its Renata's birthday today.

There she is. Hello Rena!

I did not do that to her. I just happened to be there.

I got nothing to say la. She looks like Batman. Anyway, Happy Birthday to her.

GG and good night.

Hmph.

2008-04-22T10:26:00.001+10:00

While procrastinating, I was looking up the meaning of the word 'hmph', and I came up with some quite hilarious answers from Urban Dictionary. This here, is one of them:

hmph

The noise one makes after proving something wrong, as in to show the other inferior.

This is the best way to throw a rock (rock lands 30 feet away).
No, THIS is (rock lands 40 feet away).
HMPH!

HAHA!

Merlin's Company

2008-04-21T13:53:00.001+10:00

I've created the new label 'AAAAA' for my posts. This is for stuff that's random, which may or may not mean anything or something to different people. Examples of previous posts that could be 'AAAAA' would be this one here. But that doesn't mean that all posts labelled 'AAAAA' must be as wuliao as that. No.

Anyway, Days of Wonder has just announced the expansion to their Shadows Over Camelot game! That's the game where we played for 10 hours straight some time ago. Interesting bits include 63 new cards, and TWO possible traitors! We'll now be able to see mega-taunting of the honourable knights lol.

Awesome; can't wait for it.

Squire's Loft

2008-04-18T22:55:00.001+10:00

Steak. Ahhhh. What can I say about it? A chunk of meat on your plate, what can go wrong?

So we went to this place called Squire's Loft yesterday. You can look at their website here. Includes their menu as well.

Anyway, I only have pictures of half eaten food, as we were too hungry that I forgot to actually take pictures of the food before eating them. So here they are.

There is a 3/4 eaten pork rib. Oh how I wish I could have a picture of the whole platter of pork ribs. That would be so much more exciting. Nevertheless, the ribs were excellent, fall-off-the-bone, perfectly marinated ribs. There were so good.

And this here, is a half-eaten piece of Porterhouse Steak, with half-eaten chips as well. Lol. I actually found the meat to be so-so only. After all, its just a chunk of meat. Not that I'm saying it was a very bad steak. Maybe steaks are meant to be like that. I don't know. But I sort of expected more. I loved the chips though, and coming from a person that doesn't really like potatoes, that's saying a lot.

All-in-all, a very satisfying night, nice cozy little restaurant, I'd definitely come back again someday.

AAAAAA!

2008-04-17T16:03:00.001+10:00

AAAAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

Ray

2008-04-06T12:58:00.001+10:00

Last Sunday, a few of us (that being Jian Ming, Sherreen, Meisze, Charles, and I) decided to have an early outing for breakfast somewhere in Brunswick. But due to one of the Nokia handphones trying to be too smart and actually changing its clock back one hour thinking that it was the end of daylights saving already even though it was not (its actually today), we ended up being half an hour late.

Regardless, got there we did, by taking tram 19 up Elizabeth Street and then stopping somewhere (sorry, I wouldn't be able to find it again), and heading to this place called Ray.

It was a quaint old place, with plastered walls, and actually looked run-down, but I think that was part of its charm.

Most of us (except me) started off with some form of hot drink.

If I remembered correctly, this was a Flat White, whatever that means. And some of my other friends ordered Chai tea as well, although I did not take a picture of that. But you must admit that the leaf design looks really cool.

So for breakfast itself, I had this baked egg with some lamb(?) sausage thingy.

It looked really good and was quite well done as well. And the bread was absolutely warm and soft and fresh. If I have to say it, the dish was really well done. However, I wasn't too satisfied with it for some reason. It didn't really fulfill my eat-a-lot till full cravings. Some people might find it blasphemous, but I was more satisfied with what I ate this morning, which was 2 Kransky sausages bought from Safeway, fried in a pan, with some eggs (also fried simply in the pan), and 4 slices of multigrain bread.

And the rest of them had this muesli thingy. Didn't try this though.

And we also ordered some French Toast to share.

I didn't share this as well, but it looked unlike any French Toast that I've seen, and I'm fairly certain that, had I actually tried it, I would've been more satisfied than if I had made french toasts with the same multigrain bread that I have at home. But the bread of theirs is really good.

So, until next time, may everyone remember to set their clocks to the right time, at the right time.

J Cafe

2008-03-30T11:13:00.001+11:00

Recently, I had quite a few opportunities to visit J Cafe, which was supposed to be a pretty good Japanese place. However, the place always seemed to be closed whenever I decided to go. Once it was closed for the summer holidays, another time it was closed because it was a Sunday, the third time, it was Easter, and thus closed, and lastly, it was also closed on a Monday!

Useless!

Anyway, I finally outthought the restaurant and went on a Tuesday instead (It was actually because Sushi Ten is closed all the way till April 17th (useless!). Thankfully it isn't permanently closed though, like Donna Monya. I seem to be very unfortunate in this sense. Any restaurant that I like always shuts down. First Donna Monya, then Ganbaria). This trip to the restaurant also coincided with Weishen's (it doesn't really matter who he is; if you know him, well and good, if you don't, then there's no point in me explaining who he is either) visit to Melbourne together with his girlfriend Leekeng.

That's her, sitting right there with her Bento box. Not Weishen, of course, but Leekeng.

And that's Weishen.

And this is my Ebi Ten Bento, which cost me $18.50. How was it, you might ask? Slightly pricey, way better than average, although not spectacular, but definitely satisfying.

Noodles, of 2 different kinds

2008-03-26T10:38:00.002+11:00

Recently, I've had the pleasure to try 2 different kinds of shellfish noodles here in Melbourne, both of which I would never (well, maybe not never) decide to go and get it on my own (because its too expensive, but not if you share it between a number of people, but then again, you get less if you share it with a number of people; its basically a no-win situation).

This here, is from Kum Den, conveniently located somewhere in Chinatown (off Little Bourke Street).

And this is from Pacific House on Victoria Street in Richmond (not the new Pacific House BBQ Cafe in the city).

Both of them looks absolutely delicious, and I can assure you that they definitely were delicious. While some people might actually prefer lobster over mud crab, I don't actually have any such preference, however, in this case, I think the mud crab noodles was definitely the more satisfying of the 2. And the reason for this lies in the fact that the lobster noodles was shared between 9 (can't remember the exact number) people, which the mud crab noodles was between the 2 of us, and I did not have to pay for it as well (Thank you Alex!). So while that may bias my views a tad, I'm going to say now that I might actually prefer mud crab over lobster (more meaty).

(This post was written using Windows Live Writer (why am I even saying this?), which Chang Yang was raving about a few days ago. As you can see, I'm able to use a different font (Calibri) [edited on 1/5/08: its not Calibri anymore, now its back to plain old Verdana] which Blogger does not offer, bypass Imageshack for uploading pictures (I hate the blogger system for uploading pictures), and I have 'Drop Shadows' on my pictures. All is not rosy however. It took me a while to figure out how to work this program (I suppose that is true for most programs), and I had problems with aligning the pictures and the words as well (same problem I got with Blogger's method of uploading pictures). Furthermore the HTML coding seemed to change (I don't actually know HTML, but I know don't want it to change by itself) without my consent. What this meant was that the font kept on changing back to the default font and size, the pictures and words kept on aligning themselves wrongly and I had to figure out a way to change it back to what I want. Thus, it took me much longer than I expected to post up this crappy post with only 2 pictures in it.

Therefore, I remain unconvinced that this is the way to go, and I'd have to try it a couple more times first before changing fully over to Windows Live Writer. While it does offer much more functionality, what Blogger offers is sufficient for my needs, and accomplishes what I want to do in much less time (but that's probably because I'm used to it). However, I'm the type of person that likes more functionality, so, barring any major issues with it, I probably would eventually just switch over to Windows Live Writer.)

2008-03-23T10:26:00.001+11:00

This is about 2 months and also about 1 week late.

St Kilda Beach

2008-03-20T18:09:00.003+11:00

What is it with the association between beaches and sunny days? With all the advice nowadays on not staying out in the sun so much, why is it that people still insist on going to the beach when the day is super sunny?

So it happened that 2 Sundays ago (when it was 40 degrees), my friends decided to head down to St Kilda Beach for brunch and then the beach. I was very thankful that my bag contained an umbrella that a friend got for me as a birthday present. It was the most practical present ever and perfect for the conditions.

This is Jon. I have nothing else to say about him.

I have nothing to say about these people either.

I do have some comments about brunch though.

I decided to order pancakes as I didn't feel like ordering any eggs or bacon or sausages since I can make those stuff at home anyway.

However, I also drank one whole glass of banana milkshake before that, and, I was by then already overloaded with sugar and was craving for something oily and meaty, but all I got was this, while my other friends all ordered bacons and eggs and sausages.

The craving was so bad that I actually traded one of my pancakes for half a small sausage.

I suppose this must be muesli.

And this must be coffee.

Anyway, we headed off to the beach after that hung around.

Vegetable

2008-03-13T12:33:00.001+11:00

Can anyone tell me what vegetable this is, and what I can do with it?

Shadows Over Camelot

2008-03-08T16:20:00.002+11:00

Its been quite a while since I've put up pictures of people. Not that I didn't want to, of course, but rather I haven't been taking any pictures of people at all. Looking back at the pictures of my birthday about 2 weeks ago, I realise that I do not have a single picture of anyone, let alone myself.

Well anyway, today I'm going to insert one picture with people here. This is how it goes.

So recently I've been very in to boardgaming. Not the very well heard of games like Monopoly or Game of Life, nor those wordplay or general knowledge games like Pictionary or Taboo, but games like Ticket to Ride: Europe, Shadows Over Camelot, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Family Business, and of course, Bang. All out action games, with no knowledge required whatsoever, although, strategic thinking is indeed necessary to be able to survive.

I will not go into an extensive review of any of these games, there are countless of reviews out there already. My friend Supa has also wrote his thoughts on the subject. Let's just say, in terms of strategy, I put Ticket to Ride: Europe, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne on top of the list. However, there's more to gaming than just strategy. Ticket to Ride is just beautiful to look at, exquisitely produced, and very fun as well, in addition to being quite strategic. Family Business (a card game, not a boardgame), on the other hand, has no strategy at all, and its played purely to have some laughs. Bang, is very good for laughs as well, and thus good for people who just want to play to have some fun (basically means people who don't want to think), but also having that element of strategy that will attract people who want to play to win.

But Shadows Over Camelot wins hands down when it comes to theme. SOC is a cooperative game (which means good for people who are not so competitive) where players band together to try and beat the game. Its just like playing a computer game, where bad things happen every round, pushing you further to defeat. Players play as Knights of the Round Table (as per King Arthur legend) and must complete quests to win the game. What pushes the game above the rest is that there is a possibility that one of the players may be a traitor, and thus wants to lose the game for everyone else. Players just can't help but feel like they are really in the game, and events are conspiring to beat them.

Maybe that's why, last Friday, the group of 6 of us played the game from 9pm at night, till 7.30am in the morning. Because we couldn't beat it. We kept on losing and losing until the last game, when the first streaks of sunlight were beginning to stream in through the window, we finally beat the game. We were all so tired by then that we just played by assuming there was no traitor in the game, and coincidentally, there wasn't.

And we all took a picture to commemorate our victory.

Villa Romana

2008-03-04T08:18:00.002+11:00

Had the opportunity to go to Villa Romana (I have talked about it before but for some inexplicable reason, I cannot find the link to my own post) 2 weeks ago (oh gosh its been that long?!~~~.........) with a (relatively) large group of people (friends from Ormond), which meant that we could order more, and there was more food to go around. The only problem was that lazy me forgot (or rather did not bother) to take down any names of the dishes that we ordered.

So here they are, in random order.

I quite liked this, although it wasn't supposed to be done this way. Apparently, the tomatoes were supposed to be diced and put into a separate bowl. But I think it tasted good, and when it comes to food, it should be all (mainly) that matters.

And this is a pizza. How do you pronounce 'pizza' anyway? 'Peetzah' or 'Peeza'? I did not get to try this, thus, I have no idea how it tasted.

Another pizza. If you must ask me, this one looks much better than the first.

And a large steak with vegetables.

Now this one, I ate (cos it was mine). And it was good. Not spectacular, but good. Filling and hearty. Just perfect. Meals don't need to be spectacular to be enjoyable.

I've never been a fan of chicken parmigiana, and this (although it does look nice, somewhat) does not change my opinion. I didn't actually try it, so I can't actually claim that it wasn't good, but it doesn't attract me, no, not at all.

This here looks like your basic carbonara, I think.

And finally, this is Villa Romana's special pasta. If only I could track down my old post, I could then get the name of the dish for you.

Regardless, it was an eventful night, with good food, conversation, and company.

2008-02-29T09:13:00.002+11:00

This morning I had a dream. I dreamt that my mum was still alive, although she was already sick then. And for some reason, she was ordering plenty of soft drinks to be bought, I think maybe for chinese new year. And I was sitting beside her, thinking to myself, what will we do when she's gone?

And then I woke up.