A Few of My Favourite Things !

I went past the recently expanded Haighs store in the Block Arcade yesterday afternoon, thinking that I would pick up some of their solid milk chocolate eggs. There was a long line in front of both registers, quite a few empty shelves and no milk eggs. Guess I was a little too late.

I wandered over to the slightly less hectic Koko Black shop. They are selling Easter Bunnies starting at $35, so if you really want a treat…

Thanks to Matt for getting my photo editor back on track too!

I think we have just had some of the best noodles in town!

At Noodle Kingdom, of which there are two branches, they make all the noodles in-house. If you visit the one on Russell St, you can watch the chef ‘hand-pulling’ the noodles to order, dunking them in the rapidly boiling water to cook just before serving. We also saw some traditional noodle pieces getting made, the chef pinching the dough off and flicking them straight into the vat of water.

A. and I pored over the menu for some time trying to decide what to order. As always, the spicy minced pork noodles looked tempting but with the help of the waitress we decided to try the spicy pork and vegetable stirfried noodles and the traditional lanzhou beef soup noodles for something different.

The stirfried noodles were beautifully done – perfectly al dente, full of wok-flavour and erring on the dry rather than oily side. There were onions and capsicum pieces resting alongside the pork, all flavoured with chilli oil. You could tell the noodles were handmade, without that perfect equal thickness of each strand. This made our meal even more enjoyable because of the difference in texture.

The soup noodles were also quite exceptional. The beef stock was even more flavoursome than Vietnamese pho stock and the roast beef sufficiently salty to satisfy A’s tastebuds. The beef to noodle ratio would be a little higher but we’re going to use the leftover noodles for another dish later on in the week.

Two thumbs up from me!!!

Noodle Kingdom

175 Russell St, Melbourne 3000
(03) 9654 2828

51 Main St, Box Hill 3128
(03) 9899 3133

There are so many events on this weekend that one hardly knows how to spend one’s time – the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, the Antipodes Festival, the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show, the 12th FINA World Championships. As much as I love the latter two, I couldn’t go past the International Flour Festival that took place this weekend as part of the food festival.

The YUZU catering company does some really inventive and tasty food. We had the seafood okonomiyaki to kick off our afternoon and a side dish of sun balls (behind the prawns), which are like arancini with an asian kick – rice, shitakes, sesame seeds.

Next up, a ‘Paesan’ pizza from Pizza Farro who specialise in spelt pizza bases which are lighter in texture and great for wheat-intolerant pizza lovers.

I have never been a big fan of Mexican food but assumed that I hadn’t tried any authentic yet. Los Amates claims to be ‘the place where Mexicans come to eat’ however their Sopes didn’t do much to win me over. The handmade case is slightly sour in flavour and the refried bean, salsa and cheese topping tasteless. Is it just that my tastebuds are not tuned into Mexican food or is there a place someone can recommend me that would awaken them?

Alaysa Turkish Restaurant had a yummy looking stand filled with boreks and thick fluffy-based pizzas.

I had been craving naan and curry for some weeks now so it was fortuitous that Tandoori Den Camberwell was there. We shared a combination platter which had a scoop of each curry (butter chicken, dhall, vegetable, beef vindaloo), 2 samosas, rice and a piece of naan. Butter chicken is still my favourite but their beef vindaloo was up there too.

AMES had a stand that was selling curries and stews the like of which I had never come across. Unfortunately, we had had our fill and couldn’t try all these out

It was a great day overall but I can’t understand why there was pretty much only one stall representing each cuisine when Melbourne has some of the most amazing restaurants around. If it’s okay to have several bread stalls, then why not two or three Japanese food stands or more than one stall making roti. Surely there would not be too much overlap? Maybe that’s something to consider for next year…

On Saturday morning, we wandered across Carlton Gardens to Brunswick St in search of some coffee. that’s how we stumbled upon Mario’s, which we now know is a bit of an institution having been on Brunswick St for over 20 years.

The french toast was made with a multigrain bread, which gave it an unusual crunch, and served with real maple syrup. We also had bacon on the side to off-set the sweetness of the maple syrup.

The prices are really reasonable here and they do a fantastic cofffee.

Mario’s Cafe: 303 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 3065

A few weeks ago we made our way down along the Yarra River, from the city to Chapel St, on a sunny Saturday morning. We decided to break our fast at Kush Bar Restaurant with some poached eggs on toast and porridge with berries before visiting our beloved Monsiuer Truffe at Prahran Market.

I’m not one to insist upon plating food with overly fussy attention to detail every single time but would you agree that these are not the most appealing of breakfast dishes? Certainly, the taste left something to be desired too. The poached eggs didn’t come with the soft runny centre which I adore and the porridge tasted like it had been made with cream. Maybe we will try Cafe Siena next time…

My brother came back from London for three weeks over Christmas & New Year (Yay!) and, subsequently, we ate out a little more than we normally would. All three of us LOVE Japanese food so the choices were easy to make.

One evening, after drinks with friends at ‘The Apartment’, we headed to Ito, Bourke St, where A. had a spicy ramen that was choc-full of flavour. In fact, so good that he went back a second time a week later.

We also took my bro & bro-in-law (who learnt how to use chopsticks that night!) to dinner at Hanabishi, Queen St. Expensive but excellent quality. The sashimi was incredibly fresh, and we had fun cooking the prawns & calamari on the hot stone – 20 seconds each side. Mmmmmm, I’m drooling just remembering this meal:

Cracking the salt crust of the baked fish:

We only spent 1.5 days there but I think we manage to fit an admirable amount of food in during this short period! On our first night, we visited Guerney Drive. It was pouring with rain so we wandered through the shopping centre next door until the skies let up. As soon as the rain eased, we were out of the shopping complex and in amongst the stalls. Good timing because we managed to get seats just before the crowd descended.

We started with Assam Laksa, one of A.’s favourite dishes, and boy was it good. Fantastically sour and spicy, the only thing it was missing was the black sauce – what’s that called again? We also tried a cuttlefish salad (Ju Hu Eng Chai) and I cannot recommend this dish highly enough – I just couldn’t get enough of it!

Of course, after reading so much about Poh Piah, we had to try this as well. Nyeh, wasn’t the greatest poh piah that I’ve had. A little on the soggy side.

This was washed down with soya bean milk, which we kinda had to order whether we liked it or not because the tables belong to that stall. Good thing that we did like it. I was told off at another table because I didn’t want to order freshly squeezed fruit juice and the guy grumbled that I couldn’t just sit there and not order from them! Ooops!

A. decided that he couldn’t leave without tasting the satay too so here’s the picture.

We came back to Guerney drive another night, after spending a couple of days in Langkawi, and ordered the Assam Laksa from another stall. This one did come with the black sauce but A. thought that the Laksa from the first stall was better.

The ice kachang served in Penang is also slightly different, made more decadent with the addition of ice cream. The one you see here had peanut icecream. Yum, I love ice kachang. I used to just eat the shaved ice sweetened with rosewater and evaporated milk from the top and leave the other stuff at the bottom of the dish for dad. Naughty, huh? I didn’t like all that red bean, corn and attap although the grass jelly was okay. Now, I’m happy to try some of it but my favourite part is still the flavoured ice.

One of my other favourites is Ban Chang Kueh, a pancake sprinkled with crushed peanuts and sugar. I had a really hard time tracking them down both this trip and the last, especially the thin crispy ones, so when we came across this stall selling Apong Manis and Apong Balik, we got a serve of each. The Apong Manis just consisted of batter spread very thinly over the little wok so it’s very light and airy. Didn’t love it. The Apong Balik was better though and I think it was filled with corn and coconut.

A. loves anything with peanuts so we tried these thingys as well. I cannot remember what they are called although I’m sure some Malaysians could help me out with this. We really liked this version cos the pastry was really thin and it was choc full of peanuts (makes it sound like a Snickers bar, doesn’t it?).

We have been home for more than 2 weeks now and I still have not posted anything from our Malaysian holiday. Why not? Well, we had so much wonderful food that I have no idea where to begin. How’s that for an excuse?

I suppose I could start with one of our more memorable meals. Our two week visit coincided with two festivals, one of them being Diwali (Deepavali) the Hindu Festival of Lights. Deepavali is celebrated as a public holiday in Malaysia and traditionally small earthen lamps are lit to commemorate the victory of brightness over darkness, good over evil. The city was decorated brightly for this festival and we saw a number of colourful images like these in the shopping centres:

The night before the Indian community went on holiday, we visited a banana leaf restaurant with some new blogosphere friends. K.L. from Masak Masak had kindly offered to show us around when she found out that we were visiting. We made plans to dine at this restaurant but instead of just meeting there, K.L. and her boyfriend came all the way into the city to pick us up – typical Malaysian hospitality!

After selecting a few marinated seafood items that we wanted to try, we sat at the table in front of our banana leaf plates. The waiters then start piling white rice, pickled vegetables and potato curry onto the leaf – as you can see, my waiter got carried away scooping rice onto my ‘plate’ while I was busy taking photos!

A trio of curry sauces – fish, chicken & dahl – served in silver canisters are also placed on the table for you to pour over the rice at your leisure. We were also served papadums and deep fried bitter gourd (if I remember correctly).

We had a prawn curry, fried calamari, two types of fish and roe. We managed to eat all this without any cutlery, trying very hard to neatly mould rice, sticky with curry sauce, with the fingers of our right hand and manouvering it into our mouths.

A. & I both thought the deep-fried roe was fantastic in all its salty and crunchy goodness!

Here is an ‘after’ shot:

Thanks, K.L. & Y., for being so generous with your time

While in Perth a couple of weeks back, the concierge at our hotel recommended that we dine at Funtastico. ‘An unusual name’ we thought. Well, we wanted to check out Subiaco anyway, so why not!

We ordered the Spaghetti Marinara al Cartoccio,which consisted of fresh fish, clams, calamari, prawns, scallops and mussels with Napoletana sauce, baked in a “cartuch” and served in the “cartuch” at the table. Basically, this required them to bring the bag that the pasta and seafood was cooked to our table and emptying it into the plate in front of us. Bold, strong flavours and we relished every mouthful of it. We also had another smaller dish which I cannot for the life of me remember now, but I do remember that it was good too We finished up with the sticky date pudding recommended by our waitress but the pudding got zapped for a little too long in the microwave.

Nevertheless, we had such a lovely meal at Funtastico that we dropped by again for lunch the next day! We had been eyeing the wood-fired pizzas that we saw delivered to tables surrounding us the night before, so we selected the kervella pizza – rocket, kalamata olives, goat’s cheese and cherry tomatoes on a puffed up, thin base. This was accompanied by a rocket & radicchio with walnuts and a blue cheese dressing. The rocket was still gritty from not having been washed thoroughly so this was sent back to the kitchen. Our pizza arrived not long after and it was FUN-tastic. Unlike the salad, the rocket on the pizza was fine but a beetle deposited on one of our pizza slices probably landed there when the rocket was scattered on at the end.

The manager (or possibly owner) absolutely refused to allow us to pay for the pizza despite our argument that we had enjoyed the rest of the pizza. That’s unusual indeed!We’re going to be back.

12 Rokeby Road, Subiaco, Perth

Phone Number: 9381 2688

Fax Number: 9381 8492

Email: eat@funtastico.com.au

Our friend waved to the maitre d’ who was at the next table with another waiter standing next to her, wanting to ask about a dish on the menu.

Maitre d’: (abruptly) “Wait! I’m busy here.”

Probably not a good start to our night here but we persevered with our order which was taken by the maitre d’ herself. After that, we were left with trainee waiters as she spent the rest of the night playing the sycophant to the guest at the next table, who appeared to be a food critic or restaurateur from Singapore, and his friends.

Don’t they train wait staff during the week anymore? It was the second night for one of them and his hands were trembling so hard when he was placing our plates and condiments down that I thought I was going to end up splattered with soy sauce.

We were presented with a amuse bouche of overcooked fried fish to whet our appetites… The sashimi moriawase, petit awabi sashimi (abalone) and salmon toro sashimi came out one after another. I had been looking forward to their sashimi all week, understanding that it’s meant to be of top standard at this establishment. I don’t think I’m being harsh by saying that I’ve had as good if not better at food courts.

The next dish turned out to be the gyu-tan koshu-ni, an ox tongue stewed in Japanese seasoning and red wine. However our waiter did not have a clue what it was when we asked him. There was no “I’m not sure but I’ll find out for you” -

Waiter: I don’t know…
Us: Is this the ox tongue?
Waiter: Maybe

Anyway, it was sliced thickly and eaten as a sandwich between a mantou bun was the best dish of the night – with or without the mantou. The scampi kinokoyaki, grilled scampi topped with some thinly sliced shitake and anoki mushrooms, was garlicky and sweet. Pretty perfect too. We were also delivered a plate of mapo lobster which we had decided against, but figured it was too much trouble to let them know. Deep-fried lobster pieces (slightly overdone) with cubes of tofu surrounding it, it wasn’t spicy enough for our tastes.

We even went so far as to order dessert -

P: I’ll have the black sesame and green tea ice cream
A: The black sesame and green tea ice cream as well, we’ll share (waving in my general direction)
T: The pannacotta please.

The four scoops of ice cream came out on a big platter, garnished with three slices of pannacotta. Silence. Then a request for the desserts to be separated. 10 or 15 minutes later (I think they were waiting for the ice cream which had already started melting, to harden up in the freezer again) two plates came out with two scoops of ice cream and only one slice of panncotta each. Sigh…it felt like a long night. The maitre d’ served us some complimentary plum wine at the end of the night but somehow this didn’t go very far in helping us feel better. So, my question is SHOYA you wanna try this place?

SHOYA Nouvelle Wafu Cuisine 25 market lane melbourne 3000 vic
tel: 9650 0848　fax: 9650 0950