Two random entries

o.O its an hour to my tutoring class and i have yet to edit my paper but here i am! blogging about foodies once more! psst. its just a good excuse reason to slack relax ok! hee.

Random: Baker's Delight Hot Cross Buns - Chocolate Chip

okays. so it was Easter last sunday, and when you have Easter, (if you don't actually go to church like myself) one commercial item you can't miss besides wonderfully yummy chocolate easter eggs are hot cross buns!


~Hot Cross Buns
Hot Cross Buns
...
Hot Cross Buns~
i forgot how e song goes. =p

you see that lovely pictures of 4 HCB? it was initially half a dozen, but of coz i wolfed down 2 of them, leaving jayne 2-3 mouths of it. haha. nah im kidding. but they are seriously that good!

Baker's Delight offers two kinds of HCB, not just over Easter but throughout the year! Get them when they are just out of the oven and they are warm, fresh and simply soft and chocolaty to your tastebuds. very different from the traditional raisin/sultana/fruit filled HCB, but we opted for this flavour to try the difference.

its cross is chocolate laced on top, with bits of chocolate chip inside the soft bread. best to have fresh and warm! after we took it home, we had to heat it up again in the oven to attain its soft bouncy feel again, but it wasnt the same anymore. =( its rock hard if you are too lazy to even heat it up. pleh.

so yes. baker's delight hot cross buns, totally delightful! only when its fresh.

Review: Don Don!

Expedition: During the Easter break, jayne and i headed down to Victoria Market on a Tuesday, basically to hunt for bargains and for me to scout out some Ugg Boots. Bargains attained, but boots were a disappointed. Met one of my clique girls in the city and we decided to have jap food for lunch! jayne was trying to tell me that this place was recommended and that it was quite a dingy place. didnt really understood what she was talking abt..o.O until i linked it to Swanston St. hehe..

Location: Corner Swanston and Little Bourke St. Don Don! Note: quaint little shop, packed during lunch hours. seldom open for dinners. Excellent jap food at a cheap price!



that's the view you see the first thing you step in DD. the order counter is on the left with the small tiny kitchen (i really wonder how they manage to cook up so much orders so fast. -ponders) and on your right there are seats by the walls. there's seating somewhere to your left side for larger groups of 3-4. outdoor seating is available as well, although i wont recommend it for a cold winter's day with gigantic pigeons hovering above you to attack your food while you try to consume what best jap food it may be. -.-

so yes. its definitely a small place. not big enough for large groups unless you choose to take away and sit outside the state library's lawn on a sunny afternoon. but other than that, it wasn't veeery dingy in my opinion. just. quaint. =)

jayne's order. chicken teriyaki bowl. -hollers in a ching chong voice: only $5.50!

my order. apparently its their specialty. SUKIYAKI BEEF BOWL!

for those sgpreans. or msians too. you remember Yoshinoya? yeah? and you eat beef? good! High-Five~!coz this tastes exactly like it and at an affordable price too after you do currency conversions to Sing Dollars. the beef bowl is really quite good for beef lovers and its a must try when you go to DD.

I still remember my first time entering DD. I was in year 1 in Australia, doing my foundation studies. my first friend in school was japanese, and her name was michi. she told me that she had already been in Melbourne for quite a while and had a caucasian boyfriend as well. in terms of jap food, she recommended DD and said that along Swanston St, DD actually has one of the best jap food around as it is actually prepared by Japanese pple and it is actually up to the standard of jap food as in Japan. i was mesmerised by what she said and at the point of time i ordered the beef bowl as well. ever since then, whenever i visit DD, beef bowl has been my only choice. (ive always wanted to try the others too, but i just didnt get the urge to order them when i see e beef bowl. =p)

so yes. beef bowl. this time though, the beef was abit dry coz i think it was already waiting for a while after it got cooked. the beef bowl is served with plentiful amounts of rice and beef on top. with japanese ginger and spring onions on the side. you team that up with BOOST!blueberry blast! and its a great combination as shown in e picture above. =D

Rating: 6.5/10. Normally i would give 7/10 but that day the beef just wasn't all that salivating for me. Nonetheless, a definite must-try if you eat beef!

Don Don DOn DOn! whee~

Glen Waverley Galore - Round 2!

Ok. I'm on a roll.

So, after J.G Dumpling the girls decided to head off for dessert. Someone contemplated Gelati but no way was I going to have gelati out in the cold. Someone then suggested PP, and off we went!

Pancake Parlour Restaurants, The Century City Wlk GW

I think it was Wendy's first time here. lol. should've let her handled the review.



Dessert Summary: If you haven't had a chance to try organic dairy, this is probably a good place to start off. To give a rough idea of pricing, the ice-cream was approximately $10. The mains in PP are not bad, and they've got dinner and lunch specials going on now. Will do another review if we end up going for mains there. However, returning to the dessert summary - the ice-cream was just too delicious for words. Not entirely sure about the calories gained from it though.

Ratings:

• Service: 5 1/2 - PP seemed understaffed.. or if there were waiters, we didn't have it easy trying to get someone's attention to order. Even after we said we were ordering to share they didn't give us enough spoons.
• Food: (dessert) 7 1/2 - Can't rave enough about the organic ice-cream and whipped butter..
• Layout: 7 - Interesting paintings and glass stencils. There's also a table where you can play giant chess. Would've loved to give it a go, but the table was occupied when we got there.
• Overall: 7 - Desserts-wise PP did a good job. Slightly pricey for poor uni students, but a friend had a buy one free one short stack voucher, so it all turned out good. lol.

Glen Waverley Galore - Round 1!

All of 3M's contributors have been hard at work, except me! ;__; here's some reviews to make up for my disappearance..

J.G Dumpling, 78 Kingsway Glen Waverley
We went to JG for a farewell dinner about 2 weeks ago. Wendy & I have been there just a week before after a club activity and at that point in time thought the restaurant was really good.

We basically ordered a majority of what we had from the previous meal:


Mains Summary: Prices are pretty cheap compared to other places in GW. A main is priced from $6.50 onwards. They cut out a number of items from the menu though, which is a bit of a let down. Also, they don't seem to have that many choices of mains to share - I have a feeling JGD's menu caters more for individual eating, but I'm sure you can request for a bigger portion to share.

Ratings:

• Service: 5 1/2 - not sure if it was due to the pending Easter holidays, but staff seemed edgy and weren't very friendly that day.
• Food: 6 - the fried dumplings were the best main we had in JGD. The rest were just major disappointments. The portions given for extras (eg: ginger and cut chilli) were ridiculously tiny and the chilli looked as if it's been soaked for days.
• Layout: 4 1/2 - nothing great about the layout. they don't have shades in the front of their shop - wendy was blinded by the evening sun both times when we were there. also, i can't get over the green paint on the walls. it's such a bland colour! i thought green was supposed to be soothing, but this particular shade makes you feel a bit sick. especially once you've eaten too much..
• Overall: 6 - ok place to go to for cheap food (ie: yummy fried dumplings!) the previous experience in JGD helped the overall rating. I hope the restaurant bucks up its food quality again soon!

Labels: Chinese, Suburbs

a post and two reviews

okiees. i have had a lack of updates on reviews! been so busy and did so much eating over easter break. its already over! boo-hoo~ e life of a student it is.. look at jaayne's hardwork though..loooookkkk! e site is soo nice n yummiliciously strawberry-pink. =)

so yes, there are going to be two reviews here.. both short and sweet i hope. coz theres just somuchthingstodo and yes. not enough time! grrz. im gona take jayne n hide her with me to start studying soon. okays. enough rant and back to foodies.

Yumcha at Gold Leaf Restaurant
e housemates at no11 had this quite a while ago, so its pretty backdated. but oh wells, here goes:

Location: Springvale Shopping Centre. i nv knew a chinese yumcha restaurant existed in springvale so yeaaah. this was my first time there. e session we went to was e later one at ard 1.15pm. had to make a booking for it, coz lk all other yumcha sessions, its always packed.

the inside of Gold Leaf looked lk a normal chinese yumcha place..although its elevation on e 2nd floor did somehow make me feel lk we were near e ocean.. (i thk it was coz there were grey dark clouds outside tt made me feel e ocean was right below us like in a kelong) so yes. anyways, it was usually-packed with pple.. and we were sitting somewhere near e centre of the restaurant but more towards e entrance of e place..

Menu: Yumcha usuals - siew mai (assorted with scallop, mushroom and crabmeat), har gao, century egg porridge, char siew soh, fried paper tofu, soft shell crab, egg tart, mango pudding, some coconut lined dessert with sweet stuffing inside, tau huay, assorted fruit salad. there were more food that we ordered i believe coz we were so stuffed after we walked out..but i jus cant rem wad else we ordered right now. things we definitely did not get however were: char siew baos, red bean baos, what ever form of baos; and real prawns in har gaos.

yes. so actually wad we had there was pretty disappointing for yumcha. i didnt have my all-time favourite baos and har gaos! e har gaos there were like minced prawn. not a whole, full prawn at all! so disappointing. phleh.

Rating: On the whole, 6.5/10. the desserts helped improve e rating a little coz at least they were proper desserts that were good.

recommendation if you were to go Gold Leaf: apparently e egg tarts there were good..although i didnt try them myself for personal reasons..=p and the tau huay there isnt all that bad too.

that's e girls after yumcha. yes e table looks empty but that doesnt mean e food was reallie good. we were just hungry. =p



Dinner at Niko Niko
Niko Niko!


for those who know my email address, this place will actually strike some similarity due to its name. i was intrigued by the place when jayne first mentioned it to me.. furthermore its called niko niko! sth dear to my heart already! =)

Location: eerm. not sure exactly, but near Chadstone and beside Holmesglen TAFE.

so yes. i found out that it was a HK style eatery near Holmesglen TAFE which sold cheap good food to students. it had a very nice ambience with nice soft lighting, wooden furniture against warm amber-shaded walls.. nice chinese paintings hung on e sides and e music was nice reminiscent songs u used to hear when you were in ur teens.. so yes. already a good impression!

Menu: this is the best part yet. it has food that i crave for when im not in Sg and its cheap! one of e cheapest ive seen around, and definitely not a place that stinges on its quality!

The menu we ordered for that night was Yin Yang tea, Spicy Pork with noodles, Wanton noodles and my favourite - Wanton noodles (lk those they sell back home with char siew!). okays, so in all my current excitement, i would actually only review the wanton noodles that i had..coz well, basically i only had this that night!

Yin Yang Tea, cold. i only tried a sip of this, and its not really to my liking but i shallnt rate it. basically coz i thk i duno how to appreciate tea and coffee together.


Jayne's dinner. looks yummy doesnt it? really good picture btw.


the review for today. Wanton Noodles, Singapore style. Only thing missing was the extra tomato sauce mixed with e black sauce for the noodles, and green cut chilli.


First thing you'll notice is that here in Melbourne, when you order Wanton noodles, they DO NOT serve it with char siew. back home they do, but of coz, the sizing of e meal is totally different. this is like. huge. so yes, i had to add wanton with the char siew noodles. niko niko charged different prices for the noodles when they were with soup or dry. char siew, ie bbq pork, with dry noodles was $7 i believe, while e addition of wanton was about..$3? so in total it was $10 for that big plate of wanton noodles. it may seem expensive, but when you look at it, that one plate does look like three servings back home..

Next thing that I observed in glee when my wanton mee arrived was that e soup was really good. e soup on e side was not super laden with MSG but it had a nice sesame oil feel with it. i dumped my wanton in it to make sure they didnt dry out and e effect reminded me all e more of home. =) e noodles. ohmygod. best noodles ive had in melbourne thus far. very good meekia for those who know wad im talking abt. its not soggy or soft, but very Q and chewable to the right texture. good taste too, not powdery or hard and it had a nice aroma to it too. e char siew. again. perfect with e noodles. abit fatty around e edges but enough to make it really nice n fragrant. wasnt of e fake, artificial red colouring and it was well done right down to e centre of the sliced pork. e wanton. WHOLE prawns inside! really good for wantons. huge as well. quite a mouthful when you put them in ur mouth but its all bitesized that it oozes out enough juice from its inside when you chew into it. and finally, e greens on e side. nicely blanched in hot water, topped off with soya sauce.

Rating: 8.5/10 Best Wanton Noodles I've had yet! and e closest style to home! =)

A definite must-go when my cravings for Sg food act up again. =)

21st April 2006 - Mecca Bah

First of all a BIG well done to + shopoholic + for the wonderful coding!! The site is definitely looking quite pro. Keep up the good work!!

We attended a friend’s going away dinner on Friday night at the Mecca Bah at Newquay Promenade down at the Docklands. A lot of reviews around town have always given this place a great rap and having previously dined there, I also have a fairly high opinion of them as well. Friday night provided a good chance to sample the lamb tangine and spiced chicken pizza.

The lamb was served with preserved lemon, green olive and harissa on a bed a couscous with a generous amount of herb and tomato based sauce. I could really taste the preserved lemon and the olives definitely complemented the dish. 8/10

The pizza is not exactly what you would imagine a pizza to look like. For one, our pizza was not round and cheesy like the ones you get from regular pizza joints. Our chicken pizza with eggplant, rocket & tahini sauce came on long oval plate. It had some sort of tandoori or curry like paste which was slightly spicy but was well balanced by two generous dollops of yogurt and rocket. The eggplant was yummo! 8/10

Mecca Bah has a warm, cosy, romantic ambience. With views of the waterfront and a fireplace in the middle of the restaurant, it provides a great place for an intimate dinner for two, groups of friends eager to catch up or a quiet corner for drinks. The only downside is that advance booking does not happen which means trying to accommodate for large groups ie. 20+ people will be a bit of a struggle.

On a side note, Mecca Bah belongs to the group of Mecca restaurants which includes Mecca at Southbank, Live Bait at Newquay Promenade and Bar Bosh at Knox.

16 April 2006 - Switch Lifestyle @ Knox

On a cold and crisp Easter Sunday evening, we ventured out to seek something yummy to warm up our tummies. We headed out to Knox, home to a few other delectable looking eateries but settled on Switch Lifestyle. Switch is a well lit, bustling restaurant with seating arrangements that includes booths, tables, benches and a lounge area. They also have a bar and grill section which has a wide selection of beers and other spirits and wine.

Tossing up between whether to have the pasta or the chicken, I settled on the roast chicken just to be different. It was surprising moist and that being said, I have found that most chicken breast tends to be on the dry side. The chicken meat seemed to be lacking something and perhaps should have been seasoned better? Overall, this dish was quite light in taste, relying on the caramelised onions and sauce to infuse the chicken, bok choy and gnocchi with a light sweetness. The bok choy was well done and not overcooked, whilst the most pleasant was the fried gnocchi which was slightly crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. 7/10

Michael had chosen the fettuccine with chicken. The creamy pasta sauce was, well, creamy but nice with a bit of help from the salt and pepper. There was a decent amount of mushroom and avocado but in proportion to the amount of pasta, there was a generous helping of roast chicken. The chicken did taste great, but was on the dry side. 6/10

Overall, the mains were of generous proportion and served on large dishes. Only downfall I found was that cutlery kept falling into my food due to the curved sides of my plate.

Bailey's cheese cake

With 2 girls on an eating frenzy, how could we resist sickeningly delicious cakes? I've always enjoyed the cakes at Switch and of the two cakes we tried, I am to give my thoughts on the Bailey's cheesecake. I am not normally a huge fan of cheesecakes, but on this occasion, I drooled at the thought of Baileys. Accompanied by ice-cream, this cake was deliciously creamy. The Baileys was quite subtle and there was a hint of zesty orange undertones to the cake. The crust, although quite hard, was nice and reminded me of short bread. Even though I was feeling quite stuffed after the mains, this cake was definitely not a disappointment. 8/10

3 CHEERS! HIP HIP HOORAY!

coding all done. images all up. credits properly affixed.

*collapses in exhaustion*

layout = 1 . review = 0

i'm tired from coding. yes, very silly of me to take an incomplete layout and adventurously attempt to complete it by myself.

thanks to Blogskins; and Sodarnsweet5463 for the layout.
proper credits to be edited later once everything's done.

went on an eating spree over the long easter weekend and am still feeling full till today.
more reviews to be posted soon! :)

1st and a half post: Coco Red's desserts

okies. so jayne did e review on e mains and here's my review on e desserts we had at CR.

The desserts are actually quite little in variety, with only about 6 to choose from the menu. We had the warm chocolate pudding, and the mocha icecream with Belgian white and dark chocolate.


yes. so that's a picture of the desserts and my two lovely housemates. =)

The mocha icecream is the one in the foreground of the picture and it initially gave us the impression that we had ordered the wrong dessert 'cos it came out looking like slices of cake. Well, icecream cake la can anot? It wasn't the first bite of dessert that I took becaaause knowing me, I got greedy and took a big bite of the warm chocolate pudding first.

The icecream was well, mocha in flavour, and unlike the other girls, my first bite of it was actually quite good. It was creamy and coffee-ish to the taste, and if I were to liken my first taste of it, it was actually like (note keyword: like) HagenDaz coffee icecream. But of cos I was soo wrong. Thereafter spoonfuls of it, and you could taste the ice crystals in it (which btw always signalled a bad icecream to me) and the sweetness of the icecream wore off.

The dish was served with strawberries which were tasteless actually, and cream on the side. Can I just say, their cream was perhaps the loveliest thing we had from that plate.. Oh wells.

Rating for the first dessert: 5/10
It was so-so. Not even anywhere near satisfying for us sweet-tooths and probably ordinary to normal folk.

So, we move on to the chocolate pudding. OKays, so it was suppose to be warm and it was. But it wasn't pudding-ish. Erm, how do I explain it. It wasn't moist enough and basically, well, not PUDDING-ISH enough! Hehe. It was served with vanilla icecream, the same tasteless strawberries, cream and a solid circular caramel glazing. I was not impressed by this at all. Well, basically 'cos I've had better warm chocolate pudding/cake (like the one warm chocolate cake in BakerzInn in sg!) and this just didn't hit it with my sweetbuds.

Rating for the second dessert: 4.5/10
It was worse than the icecream, 'cos at least for a while I took some joy in eating the icecream. Probably not the best choice to have desserts in CR.

I would think, based on jayne's reviews on the mains and the reviews on the desserts, the best thing to have in CR would be the coffee; which we didn't get to try but have heard about from Amy. We'll have to give it a go someday to let CR redeem its status as the posh/upmarket restaurant in uni. =p

1st Random Post - The Tamarillo

You say "Tomaito" I say "Tamarillo". So what exactly is a Tamarillo? The tamarillo, also known as the tree tomato, is an unusual, exotic, subtropical fruit and is native to South America, specifically Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru.

Ever since I can remember, before I became an ABC in the land of OZ, I remember this sour, sweet, salty, slightly bitter fruit. I used to run around my relatives farm lands in Cameron Highlands (Malaysia) and pick at my aunty's Tamarillo tree. Now I have one in my very own backyard. The only name I knew to call it at the time was "Oi Qing Guo" meaning Love Fruit. Maybe because it embodies all the emotions of "Love" hence its Chinese name (I'm not so sure about the emotion 'salty' though).

Anyways, the Tamarillo fruit has an oval shape and an outer skin that is either red or purple toned, or yellow or orange toned. Additionally, the red or purple toned tamarillo fruit contains an inner flesh that is black while the yellow or orange tamarillo fruit contains an orange colored inner flesh. Although both types of tamarillos contain edible seeds, the flavor of the flesh within the two types varies considerably. Red or purple toned tamarillos have a more tart taste than their yellow or orange toned counterparts. Because of this, the red or purple toned tamarillos are more frequently used as a vegetable than as a fruit. It is also important to note that on both types of tamarillos, the skin should not be eaten and should be removed prior to using the fruit (Source).

I have discovered that the Tamarillo can be used in a variety of recipes. Instead of just scooping it out and eating it with a bit of salt or sugar to remove the tart taste, this fruit can be used in sauces, desserts, salads or any other dish to add an extra zing to it. For those of you who are curious to try this fruit, I recall Safeway selling it and should be in season now from April through to December.

For recipes, try:

http://www.tamarillos.orcon.net.nz/Tamarillorecipeone.htm

http://www.tamarillos.orcon.net.nz/Tamarillorecipetwo.htm

http://www.recipecenter.com/Recipe.asp?code=282175

http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/1999/archives/25?p=2279

1st Review - Coco Red, Monash Uni Clayton Campus

I first learnt about Coco Red from Amy, who claimed they serve the 'best coffee' topped with good service. She gets her daily fix from there and the manager is on a first name basis with her. I'll admit I was rather impressed on my first visit there (not to mention jealous! the only service-oriented staff that calls me by my first name is my ex-colleagues and the people from Boost.. after i give it to them of course)

Location: Coco Red is inconspicuously located in Monash Uni's Campus Centre, right next to the Asian Noodle Bar. Personally it's a bit too obscure and is easily missed most of the time if you're not really paying attention.

Expedition: Jac, Wendy & I decided to do lunch in CR last Weds. We sat on a table that's a bit too small cosy for 3 of us. The layout of the restaurant was quite fancy and posh. The concept reminded me slightly of the fancy Lygon St italian restaurants; but it could've been the red colours.

I read on the Monash Resource Student Guide that the Menu in CR was predominantly European. We settled for the specials of the day which were the Chicken, Pumpkin & Pinenut Risotto and the Butterfish.



Chicken, Pumpkin & Pinenut Risotto!
Rating: 7 ½/10

This dish was one of the nicer risotto's I've had in a long long while. It could be that, or that I was really hungry at the time the food came. The pumpkin was a nice touch, although I don't recall biting into any visibly chunky nuts. The rice was still moist and the cheese & spring onion was a nice touch.


Butterfish
Rating: 4 - not recommended!

This dish turned out to be a major disappointment. The portion was small and the worst part was that the fish served wasn't fresh. The lemon didn't help all that much and despite the three of us sharing only 2 mains, the fish was touched the least.

There were also small servings of potatoes, eggplants and sweet potatoes under the fish. It was nothing out of the ordinary, and the eggplant was slightly tasteless.

Mains Summary: To be honest, there isn't exactly a wide range on the Menu, so unless you have a specific idea on what you like, you might take a while with the menu. The prices for Mains start decently from about $14, appetizers a bit less. There's also a wine & dine set where you get a main course accompanied with wine. I believe the choice of main changes every now and then.

Ratings
Service: 7 ½ - waitresses were very friendly and quite efficient
Food: 5 - the risotto pulled up the ratings!
Layout: 6 ½- very posh settings indoors; outdoors is a bit more rough edge with big tables
Overall: 5 ½ - CR just wouldn't be my first choice for dining

Otiose Info:
* Incidentally, it used to be known as Wellington's Bar & Bistro before CR took over.
* You might feel a bit out of place if you lug in a huge backpack into the restaurant.
* The main for the Wine & Dine set on the day was Ravioli!
* I have yet to drink their Coffee, so will do a review when one of us does! =)

Testing Testing - MakanMakan Melbourne in Construction! =)