Dissapointment

I was so excited to go back to the Vic night market. Little did I know that it would be closed. Our little group wandered around the empty streets like a bunch of lost sheep until we arrived at Coconut house, an apparently popular Malaysian restaurant. I ordered the BBQ and Hainanese chicken with rice. It took almost an hour to arrive, and when it did, it was luke warm.



This was not what I wanted! I was all set for honey dumplings, chorizo sausages and eating my way through vic market. This meal upsets me.

Next week. Night market. Its on.

2010 Xmas

Its not xmas until we stuff ourselves. This time round I actually contributed by supplying the spring rolls. It took FOREVER to make!

Pavlova

Is there a better way to celebrate xmas than with a home made dessert? My mother in law made this delicious Pav. Soooo good!

Breakfast in Williamstown

Delicious! There is no better way to start off a day (of shopping no less) than a warm muffin with some delicious thick cream.

Nunawading Peking Duck

Its not everyday that I am in the burbs of Nunawading, so when I heard that there was an amazing Peking Duck place I was all for it.

The place in Nunawading was alright, but expensive, and the duck was a bit dry. Unfortunately I have been too spoilt - after Old Kingdom there is no comparison.

Lets get nekkid! (for Satan)

Ok keep your clothes on, I'm talking about Naked for Satan, a tapas/bar in Fitzroy that recently opened. The food are all served on toothpicks ("Pintxos") which are available for you to grab as many as you like. Eat your fill, and at the end, bring up your toothpicks and pay at the counter. They are currently running a special where pintxos are 50 cents each during lunchtime on weekdays. Since I had Friday off, I took this as a Sign that I was meant to spend 2 hours eating as much food as I could on little toothpicks. Check out a sample of the pintxos consumed below.

So full!

Miyako Teppanyaki

I can't believe its taken this long for me to try teppanyaki! For a xmas get together I had dinner at Miyako Teppanyaki in Southbank. We each ordered the teppanyaki, which was a banquet course full of delicious food and games.


For entree I had the sushi. So delicious. It just made me miss Japan :(

If you order the trio of meat you will get lamb, beef and chicken. Look at the awesome cuts of beef!

Flambé!


The beef was soft and tender, and cooked to each patron's liking. There was a lot of butter used which made it all the more delicious. We also had to catch food in our mouths, which I failed dismally at. I was more successful at catching ricebowls, including one filled with fried rice, so that was lucky (for me and everyone else around me). Teppanyaki is great fun and warrants a return visit!

Night Market

Yay for the Vic Night Market! Here's a tip - go straight to the stalls with the most smoke, itll be from all the meat and fat and spices. In other words, it'll be delicious.


Kransky's are a definate.

As are spanish chorizos. It's got a nice spicy kick to it.

You don't necessarily have to follow the crowd either - a small stall was selling Hungarian Blue Danube sausages - which I ordered with cabbage and onion. It was very tasty and reminded me of souvlaki. There were no crowd around the stall, which was surprising and a shame. It was nice!


Conversely, I followed a crowd to a sangria stall. They seemed very popular so I tried one. There is no doubt about it. I do not care for any alcoholic beverage. I gave it a couple of sips and left the rest behind.

I also didn't get a chance to get any Honey donuts, but there'll be a next time :)

Food Safari - Yemen

It was a miserable rainy day, but nothing stops food safari's! This time round we went to a little place called Yemeni restaurant - the only one of its kind in Victoria. We had a room to ourselves, where we sat on the floor on a colorful rug in true Yemen fashion. We ordered a few meals off the menu, and dug in! We also tried the Yemen Chai Tea - very sweet but lovely and perfect for the weather.


Yemen bread accompanied a couple of our dishes and is awesome - a cross between roti and naan.

Delicous and tasty beef

Chicken with a really soft and flavourful basmati rice

The bread was also incorporated into the dessert - mixed with cream and honey and bananas. A tasty way to end the meal.

Yumcha!

Its been far too long since I had yumcha! As seasoned pro's, we had the table filled with dishes within minutes of seating.


The highlight is always the dessert! Egg tarts were very nice and fluffy

Tofu flower was very good too

One thing was missing - almond jelly. We were eyeing the dessert cart (also known as the gelatinous trolley) before it even came out of the kitchen. We made do with normal jelly and fruit, mango pudding and a red bean squishy sweet thing (probably not its actual name).

This was at Dockland's Gold Leaf, which charged a lot more for each dish than other places. The food was good, but for the sake of our wallets, we might just stick to the cheaper gold leaf from now on.

Butcher's Grill

Working late in the city gives us a good excuse to have a decent steak dinner. This is the second time we've been to Butcher's Grill and we were not dissapointed. The steaks were cooked perfectly.

Yum.

Best Cake EVA

Caught up with friends on Sunday afternoon, and we headed off to a coffee place in flemington for some post lunch snacks. Although normally not a big cheesecake fan, the berry cheesecake was very sweet and delicious.



It was also the place where the following cake was consumed - STICKY DATE PUDDING CAKE. This is my new favourite cake (sorry cookies and cream cake, you are a distant second to this).

I must return.

Food Safari - Latin Ameria (and French)

Our latest food safari was at the Cruzao Arepa Bar, where we had a very delicious lunch. We started off with a platter of the entrees (also known as pasapalos). The small fried arepitas (small arepas with a cheese filling) were so tasty. The guacamole sauce was good, but the garlic aoili was packed with garlic so was an absolute favourite for the group.



We ordered an arepa (with a different filling) each which came with a salad. The arepas are pretty small, but the flat corn bread has a very unique texture and when dipped in the aoili, was very satisfying :)

Even better though? The venezuelan style corn flan. Corn flan didn't sound all that appetising, but it was amazing. It was like a creme caramel but denser.

Since we were in the neighboorhood, we naturally had to have some crepes (post-desert desert) from the ONLY Breizoz French Creperie in Melbourne (my regular Williamstown branch is no more, which was devasting news). The crepes were just as good in Fitzroy.

Success!

Finally cooked some portehouse steaks a perfect medium well. I used the finger test to determine when to take the steaks off the grill, and got it right, horray! It was very delicious with some onion gravy.