Friday, February 17, 2012

Liar, Liar [at] Hawthorn

Caught up with two amazing women for lunch last weekend. I was going to be in Hawthorn to frame up a few paintings we had bought in Tanzania.

Really like the interior of the cafe, but unfortunately no photos as we were seated in the corner, hidden from the rest of the cafe.

A. had already eaten with her hubby and bub earlier, so only ordered a juice, but K and I were keen to order.

Pea and fetta fritters w/ salmon
 
This was nice, but a bit too soft inside for my liking. I haven't had many (if any) pea fritters, so don't know if it was meant to be like that. Flavours were okay though.

Pants on Fire

This was some sort of beans and sausage in spicy tomato sauce. I very much had food envy when I tried this - flavours were rich but not too intense. yum!

Overall, I would not protest to coming here at someone's suggestion, and would be happy to come here if I was in the neighbourhood, but don't know if I'd travel all the way to Hawthorn just to come here.

Liar, Liar on Urbanspoon

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Chillipadi Mamak [at] Flemington

Just a short post - Had the opportunity to catch up with my cuz this evening. Feeling like some roti and not wanting to travel too far.

Mamak Mee Goreng

I quite liked this dish - it wasn't too sweet; some 'mamak mee goreng's I've eaten have been too sweet for my liking.

Roti (2) with Chicken Curry ($9.9)

The roti was sweeter than usual, but I didn't mind it at all. The curry was okay; it was flavourful, but it wasn't a biggest wow.

Nasi Kandar w/ (From L-R) mixed vegetable curry, beef (?rendang?) and lamb curry

The lamb curry and beef rendang were quite nice, but it was extremely disappointing that the "mixed vegetable curry" was made with frozen vegetable mix - peas, carrots, corn. Ugh. The Husband ordered this dish and was so unimpressed.

We then tried to order dessert, but for some reason, could not get their attention, despite some loud "YOOHOO!"s and despite the fact that we were one of the two group of customers. I ended up having to get up from my seat, walk up to the back counter and order our dessert. The ice kacang we ordered was decent, but the service to order it wasn't.

Overall, I wouldn't mind popping by having a quick, quiet meal here if I am in or around the neighbourhood, but don't think it's worth any more effort than that.

Chillipadi Mamak Kopitiam on Urbanspoon

Monday, February 13, 2012

The Hardware Societe [at] Melbourne CBD

Man, they are strict, when it came to Breakfast vs. Lunch.

A friend was going to meet me for brunch (ha-ha! Take that, Hardware Societe!) at 11:00-11:30am. I got there a bit early and got a couple of coffees while I waited for A. to turn up. While we perused the menu, we quickly realised that it was a cash only, which is a turn-off (BOO TO CASH-ONLY FACILITIES! Unless your mains cost <$10 you should not be cash-only!). Soon after the Husband dashed off to the ATM to withdraw money, the wait staff came over to inform me that they will NOT be taking ANY orders from the breakfast menu at 11:30AM SHARP. Despite telling her that my husband had gone to get money, and my friend had just parked the car, she insisted that I had to order then and there at ~11:29:29am if I wanted to order from the breakfast menu.

Because I can tell my husband what to eat (and because I kinda know what he'd like) I decided to order our meals from the Breakfast menu:

Baked Eggs w/ merguez sausage, almond pistou, black olives, manchengo ($15.0)

Cocette Eggs w/ crab meat, salmon pearls, spinach, creme fraiche, lemon ($17.0)

I ordered the baked eggs for the Husband; we remembered it being nice, but honestly don't remember much about it. We were, actually at the time, extremely upset upon receiving a phone call from our home builder (about needing to fork out an additional $6000) so our lack of memory could be more due to that.

My Cocette Eggs were really nice though. It's not an intense dish as it sounded; quite nice and easy to eat.

My dear friend A. had no choice but to order from the Lunch menu, which ended up being excellent:

Seared scallops - salted cod cakes, saffron rouille, fried capers & cress ($17.0)

I ended up having partial food envy - I really did enjoy what I ordered, but who would say no to scallops for lunch?

The Husband came on another day with a friend of his and really enjoyed lunch, though I had no idea what he ordered.

Overall, the food is enjoyable, not your usual "big fry up" brekkies, not expensive, but still a big thumbs-down to the CASH-ONLY policy.


The Hardware Société on Urbanspoon

I'm so behind!!!

Arrgh! I haven't stopped eating but I've stopped blogging.

Now I feel I just can't keep up!

It doesn't help that Urbanspoon still hasn't posted my last post; I suspect it's because I've changed my blogsite without telling them. Grrr....

Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of what I've eaten recently!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Chin Chin [at] Melbourne CBD

At long last we were finally able to be seated at the impossible-to-get-a-table Chin Chin. We were essentially fourth time lucky - first couple of times we tried to get a table, it was a 3 hour wait, the third time was only an hour's wait (seeing it was a Monday evening) but we were starving.

So that leaves us to lucky-number-four.

Actually we weren't lucky - we were just prepared to wait this time round!

It was my birthday and The Husband and I had taken the day off, and so we planned to be at Chin Chin at 5:30pm on a Thursday evening. That should get us a table, right?

No.

We got there at 5:45pm and were told it'd be a 1.5-2.0 hour wait! As we knew our dinner companions were running late, and seeing it was my birthday, we thought that heading down to GoGo bar downstairs would be a good idea.

Note: To enter GoGo Bar, it's through the doors of Chin Chin and down the stairs on your left. 

I liked the ambience of GoGo Bar; it wasn't too ridiculously noisy when we were there, though the music was kinda loud. I liked the menu covers:

L- The Little Black Book; R- XXX R18+ Adults Only

We ordered a cocktail and a wine, and a couple of tapas:

Chicken Wings w/ Chilli and Coriander

I love coriander! The chicken wings were yummy, but not like the most spectacular dish. If you're feeling "chicken wings"-y, you won't be disappointed, but not quite a must-try dish.

Pork Slider

Wowzah - this was ex.pen.sive. At $8.0 each, it is double the price of Porteno's (or rather, Gardel's Bar) pork slider, from what I could recall.

But was it nice? Yes, it was - fortunately or unfortunately I can't decide
  • Fortunately: it wasn't $8.0 down the drain
  • Unfortunately: I may have to order it again next time, and be $8.0 poorer
We wined (wined for The Husband, cocktailed for me) and dined for an hour before they sent us a text message saying our table was ready - Hurrah Hurrah!

Finally seated in Chin Chin

Looking through my photos preparing for this blog post, I realised - damn we ordered a lot of food just for the four of us (but fear not - we still managed to consumed/inhale them all!). Be patient as you scroll down each photo of each dish:

 Kingfish Sashimi w/ Lime, Chilli, Coconut & Thai Basil ($16.0)

Yum! Flavours were so fresh and tangy! The sourness just brought out the flavour of the sashimi, instead of drowning it. yum yum yum!

 Chin Chin Pork "Roll Ups"- Red Braised Suckling Pig with Pancakes Slaw and Sour Herbs ($18.0)

Actually, retrospectively, I think next time I'd give the Pork Slider (mentioned above, from the Bar Menu) a miss, and order this instead, as I think these two dishes tastes similar.

Grilled Roti Madtarbak (where I come from it's just murtabak, ohkay)
filled w/ Indian spiced beef & a cucumber relish ($12.0)

We ordered this right at the end before dessert, as S was stiiiill hungry (*rolls eyes*). S and The Husband were mandated to finish this entire dish, or else.

I had a bit of a taste, but didn't fancy it too much. Either because I am generally NOT a murtabak fan, or because I was just too damn full. I vote for both reasons.

 Son-in-law Eggs w/ Chilli Jam ($8.0)

Now - how does a simple dish of eggs and chilli taste so goooood?
Nevermind the ingredients won't cost $1.0, it's worth a try ordering it.

Pad Thai Noodles w/ King Prawns. Banana Blossoms & Dried Shrimp ($27.0)
I'd be more than happy to eat this again. Pretty pricey, but the King Prawns were real king and barbequed. Flavours were there, and the noodles weren't soggy, but instead firm-ish. yum!

 Dry Red Curry of Soft-shelled Crab w/ Snakebeans, Thai Basil & Kaffir Lime Leaf ($28.0)

So gooooooooooood!!!!!! I loved loved loved this dish! I would have been happy just eating this with rice.  Loved the little round eggplants too - had a nice crunch to them! Must-try.

Crispy-skinned Duck Pickled Cucumber & Ginger Salad
w/ Sesame Salt and Fresh Lemon ($33.0)

Uhm... it's been about a month since we dined here, and I honestly couldn't remember how this tasted like or how it made me feel. I'm sure I enjoyed this dish, but I suppose it wasn't anything spectacular or worth remembering.

Crispy Barramundi and Green Apple Salad w/ Caramelised Pork, Chilli and Lemongrass ($26.0)

The flavours of this dish was good, but I thought the Barra was overcooked, a bit too dry and hard for my liking.

L- Palm Sugar Ice-cream Sundae w/ salted honeycomb and a lime syrup ($14.0)
R- Layered jellies of Coconut Milk, Passionfruit
w/ slow poached pineapple and toasted coconut ($12.0)

The palm sugar ice-cream was veeeeery sweet - I managed to plough through though; I never tasted palm sugar ice-cream before so thought it was pretty unique. But not for the sweet faint-hearted.
The other dessert was far more tolerable, thus enjoyable. Not overly sweet (or maybe because I had already tasted the other dessert so NOTHING else could have tasted sweeter). It was just nice.


Overall, there were some dishes that we weren't too keen on, and probably wouldn't order again, but they certainly tantalised our tastebuds enough to make us want to come again to sample their other dishes. Overall, we were happy with our meal considering the one-hour wait. Still not convinced about three-hour waits though!

Will have happy dreams about the dry red soft-shelled crab curry.....



A special shout-out to the fantastical M and S - No better couple to spend my birthday dinner with! Love you guys super heaps! Hug hug kiss kiss, Big hug, little hug, Big kiss, little kiss (A Nacho Libre reference: OOXX OoXx)

Behold - yet another blog just about food!

I was first adamant that I wasn't going to have a blog solely dedicated to food. I mean, c'mon, I have a life that is NOT just about food! I began to blog about eating out on my personal blog but soon realised that my personal blog, where I'm meant to post about my personal journey, was being FILLED with FOOD posts! Clearly my little hobby was turning to a slight obsession.

So alas, the time had come for me to choose to compartmentalise my (mild) obsession with talking about food into its own blog.

So, Welkum welkum! To yet another food blog with a background filled with colourful cutlery!