Disclosure: Thanks to Lord of the Fries & Keep Left PR for providing the vouchers, as well as letting me taste test a burger and fries.
A haiku love poem to fries:
Dear Fries. I love you.
Crunchy, salty love. You are
Golden perfection.
(Right, I’ll stick to eating rather than poet-ing.)
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Disclosure: My first meal at Kedai Satay was organised by a friend of the owner who got a group of food bloggers together. It was a complimentary meal that I never got around to writing up. This post is about subsequent visits that I paid for.
My background is (Hong Kong) Chinese, but I grew up in New Zealand, which meant that I never learnt to read and write Chinese. When Alastair and I visited China many years ago, I felt like a real Failsian (Fail Asian!) because I didn’t speak Mandarin, most people didn’t speak English, my Cantonese is dreadful and they couldn’t understand it anyway! So last year I started Mandarin classes. I’m still Failsian, but I’m trying! 😀
After my Mandarin class, Alastair and Bro pick me up in the city, and we head somewhere cheap for a quick dinner. The past couple of weeks we have been going to Kedai Satay, an Indonesian restaurant on King Street.
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Thank goodness for the Melbourne Cup. If it wasn’t for the fact that in Melbourne we get the day off for a horse race, there would be a long, cold stretch between June and December with no public holidays to look forward to. The other good thing about the Melbourne Cup? Since it’s always on a Tuesday, taking the Monday off means a four day weekend. Hooray for long weekends!
Bro and I both took the Monday before Melbourne Cup off, so I suggested we go out for lunch. We headed to Naked for Satan, a newly(ish) opened bar in Fitzroy that serves pintxos. Pintxos are a typical snack of the Basque region in Spain, and are related to tapas – they consist of a mixture of ingredients on top of a small slice of bread and fastened with a toothpick.
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I had my four wisdom teeth out yesterday afternoon. The procedure went fine – it was under a general anaesthetic, so I went to sleep and when I woke up I had four less teeth! In fact, the hardest part was having to fast with no eating after 8am or drinking after 10am. Particularly not drinking – it was HOT yesterday. I must admit that I was naughty and took a few tiny sips of water to wet my mouth after 10am.
Today I’m not feeling too bad. The inside of my mouth is swollen and is a touch uncomfortable. The discomfort is not bad enough for me to take painkillers yet, although I do have some on hand if this changes. I also made soup to get me through the next few days – pumpkin, and beef and vegetable. Soup is okay, but I can’t wait until I can eat normal food again!
Before my surgery, Bro and I had another lunch together. I felt like cheap Asian food again, and we went into the Mid City Arcade on Bourke Street and came across Kaneda Japanese restaurant.
They had a good selection of bento boxes on the menu, so we both selected one.
I had the Unagi Tempura Set, which came with the unagi tempura, sashimi, fried chicken, a spring roll, green salad, miso soup and rice ($13.50). You can’t really go wrong with something deep fried – certainly not with me – and the unagi was great! The batter looks a bit darker than you normally see, but it was still nice and light. And it had that yummy unagi fattiness… mhmmmm….
Bro had the assorted sushi and salmon sashimi set, which came with salmon sashimi, assorted sushi, fried chicken, spring roll, green salad, miso soup and rice ($13.50).
With all the deep fried items it wasn’t a particularly healthy lunch, but it was quick, casual and a reasonable price.
Kaneda Japanese Restaurant
Shop 6
Mid City Arcade
200 Bourke Street
Melbourne
Phone: (03) 9663 8802
Bro had a day off recently, and came into the city to have lunch with me. We went to ITO Japanese Café on Bourke Street. When we entered I found that the restaurant was somewhat like the Tardis – it seemed much larger on the inside than the exterior suggested!
I choose an item that was on a specials sheet – the steak don set. The set came with miso soup, salad, a side dish and wafu steak on rice ($14.80). Good stuff.
The side dish was strange however – it tasted like it was soaked in tea or like pickled plums. I couldn’t quite place it, but it was oddness. Fortunately everything else hit the spot.
It was a stinking hot day, so I also had a green tea smoothie ($4.80). It was cool and refreshing, with that slight green tea bitterness.
Bro had the Nabeyaki udon which came with prawn, chicken and a raw egg in a hot pot ($12.50). He was sold by the raw egg!
After he finished his meal, Bro then proceeded to demolish everything that was edible on the table – the remainder of my salad, rice, pickles, AND the orange slice on my drink. I do believe he was hungry!
Japanese ITO Noodle Cafe
122 Bourke Street,
Melbourne
Phone 9663 2788
It’s good to have friends who go with the flow. We know people who, when we’ve taken them out for a meal and start walking through a food court, haven’t batted an eye.
Now normally, I wouldn’t be recommending that you take your friends to a food court (not in Australia anyway). But there is always the exception and ecpot is it.
ecpot is a little restaurant that opens out to the food court in the QV building (it’s next to Officeworks and across from Dan Murphys). If you’re lucky, you get to sit in the restaurant. If you’re unlucky, then you sit in the food court! Despite the location, it’s not food court food.
There’s quite an extensive menu, but we go mostly for the clay pots. Clay pot cooking is a traditional Chinese way of cooking where clay pots are lined with raw rice and then ingredients are added on top. These are then cooked on a low heat. They take a bit of time to cook (a minimum of 15 minutes) but are well worth the wait. And if you order a couple of non clay pot dishes, you can request for these to come out first.
On our last meal there, we had several clay pots, plus other dishes off the menu.
This was the stir fried rockling fillet with chinese broccoli ($15.80). The fish was tender and flakey, and the chinese broccoli still had a pleasing crunch.
The stir fried kung po chicken ($15.80) was packed full of dried chilli and onions. With all the chillies, it looked like this dish was going to blow our heads off. Fortunately, it wasn’t too spicy and gave the chicken a slight kick.
The chinese sausage on glutinous rice clay pot ($10.80) is one of my favourites. Chinese sausage (lap cheung) is a dried, hard sausage that is normally made from pork. It has a high fat content, is normally smoked and is sweeter than a normal sausage. This dish does benefit from some soy sauce. Sometimes the staff will automatically bring soy sauce, but sometimes you have to ask.
The curry beef on rice clay pot ($10.10) is beef and potatoes on top of rice in a mild Japanese style curry. It’s so fragrant and moreish.
This is the clay pot with beef in black pepper sauce ($10.10). The tender slices of beef and snow peas come covered in a peppery sauce on top of the rice.
The best part about clay pots is the layer of rice that cooks on the very bottom. It crisps up and becomes a crunchy rice cake. When you’ve reached the bottom, you must pry off the crunchy rice – it’s delicious!
This was the deep fried calamari and scallops in spicy salt ($18.80). It’s hard to go wrong with anything deep fried and covered with a spicy salt! The calamari and scallops were tender and with a right amount of salt – not too much, not too little.
Char kway teoh ($9.20) is one of my favourite things to eat. The version at ecpot is full of chinese sausage, prawns, fish cake, squid and bean shoots and normally it’s a fairly decent version. The one we had on this occasion wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. I found it a bit lacking in spice and seasoning when normally it’s pretty spicy and tasty with the smokiness from the wok.
There’s no desserts, but there are some fancy (or odd) drinks (pictures of them are above the counter). We always finish off the meal with a mango sago drink, which is made with mango nectar, coconut milk/cream and sago which is a better combination than it sounds. Although, it has been remarked by others that it resembles frog spawn, so I think you need to like bubble drinks. Or else you enjoy sucking down frog spawn after a meal!
ecpot
QV Urban Market, Shop 7, Level 1, 210 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne
Phone: 9663 8319
On one of the laneways down to the Melbourne Central train station (off Swanston Street) is Ichipan Crepes. Brightly lit, with a red colour scheme and plastic food in the window, they sell crepes – savoury crepes, sweet crepes; hot crepes, cold crepes.
If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s a number of savoury crepes – tuna, ham, or curry chicken might appeal (or not). I reckon that the sweet crepes are far more worthy of stomach space. The sweet crepes are divided into hot and cold, with a selection of fillings such as fruit, custard, ice cream, whipped cream or nutella.
Crepes range in price from about $4.50-$7.00. There always seems to be many people loitering around in the small shop, so after you order, you get a number and wait a couple of minutes while they make the crepes to order. The crepes are made, filled, and then wrapped up tightly in a paper cone.
My favourite fillings are ice cream, custard, and fruit – normally banana (which is, out of interest, priced higher than the other fruit fillings). I really like the cold sharpness of the ice cream in the soft crepe. The crepes are sweet and spongey and quite large. The size, plus the fact that they’re quite junky, make them good to share (unless you’re feeling particularly hungry!). They’re a good occasional, guilty treat on the way home.
Ichipan Crepes
L1, Shop 148 Knox Place,
Melbourne Central, Melbourne
Whenever we have visitors, we mostly let them sort out their own sightseeing. I love this city, but I find it hard to think of interesting “touristy” things to do. Unlike other cities that have several must-see sights, Melbourne has charms that grow on you over time.
While we’re not good with the sightseeing agenda, we do have a food agenda. This is a list of must-eat items that our visitors need to experience. On the list are things like: dumplings at Camy, a hot chocolate at Koko Black, perhaps a claypot at EC pot (I need to go back and write a post on this place!), a parma, and a big bowl of pho.
On a recent visit to Footscray, we decided to try a different pho restaurant. We walked past one that was packed with customers, always a good sign, so we took our chances and went in. The restaurant was decked out in the usual style – brightly lit with mirrored walls, menu written on the wall, and inexpensive tables and chairs. There’s also two large plasma TVs mounted on the walls, providing something else to focus on apart from your reflection (which was a tad distracting).
The bowls of pho come in three different sizes – small for $6.50, medium for $7.50 and large for $8.50. The rice noodles and meat come swimming in a beef soup that has so much flavour, this is now our pho restaurant of choice. The one pictured here is a large – the Boys were hungry that night!
Apart from the 20 different styles of noodle soup, there’s also the usual spring rolls and pork chops on rice and vermicelli. I believe this bowl of vermicelli was $8 (the price isn’t written on the walls). It was a huge bowl of noodle, and while the sauce wasn’t as tasty as in other places, it wasn’t bad.
I had actually ordered it because I had a hankering for some crunchy spring rolls – and didn’t spot the springs rolls on the menu until after I ordered. I was a tad envious of the Boys with their bowls of pho.
The one disappointment is the tea tastes a bit strange. It may be due what they use to clean the thermoses. Both times we visited, the tea had an overwhelming taste and smell of detergent. But with three colour drinks cheaply priced at $2, and a big bowl of soup to drink after you’ve finished scavenging every last meat and noodle scrap from the bowl, who needs tea?
Update: they seem to have fixed the strange tasting tea! It has been fine in subsequent visits.
Hien Vuong Pasteur
144 Hopkins Street
Melbourne , VIC 3011
Phone: 03 9687 9698
A friend of my Bro’s came to visit over New Years, and during his visit we gave him many good eating experiences. One of those was to experience the wonder of a parma, as he had never eaten one before. Those who read superparma.com (sadly, it looks like the domain hasn’t been renewed) will recognise the Palmerston Hotel, a pub that held the #1 spot for a while.
The key to a good chicken parmagiana is a juicy chicken breast, topped with ham, a flavoursome sauce and melted cheese. At the Palmerston, a large crumbed chicken breast is topped with Virginian ham, Napoli sauce and melted mozzarella ($16). You can choose between chips and salad or mash and vege.
The parma is gigantic! The chicken breast was juicy, and the Napoli sauce, although there wasn’t much, was decent and even had real basil in it. The edges of the parma that weren’t underneath sauce or cheese went nice and crispy. The mash was good too – mostly smooth and buttery, and the boiled vegetables were acceptable. I didn’t eat much of the sides though, because I was trying to focus my efforts on the large slab of chicken in front of me (ultimately I was defeated). The boys had chips with their parmas, and these were good pub chips, thick and crispy.
There was some debate among us as to whether this was the #1 parma in Victoria due to the lack of sauciness. However, #1 or not, it would be hard to go home hungry or unhappy after eating this parma.
Palmerston Hotel
51 Palmerston Crescent
South Melbourne
Phone: (03) 9690 5749
Has this restaurant been around forever? It certainly feels (and looks) like it. Even despite closing for “renovations” last year. Perhaps this is code for something else, as when they reopened, nothing had changed!
Eating here is like being part of an efficient factory line. Get in, order, eat, get out. There’s no niceties here, no waiting for you to digest your food over a drink and conversation. As soon as your chopsticks have been put down, you’ll be asked if you’re finished. Yes? Then what are you still doing here?
Let’s be honest. Camy does not make the best dumplings in the world. But they’re quick, and they’re cheap and there’s something about the place that’s good despite the daggy décor, and the abrupt service. Most occasions that we eat there, the bill comes to less than $10 per person (this occasion we were slightly over, $13.50 each, because we ordered beer). And sure, you may wait in the queue for 10 minutes, but you only wait a couple of minutes for dumplings to start arriving once you’re ordered. This time, I swear, it took one minute for our first plate of dumplings to be delivered. Obviously they’re not cooking them all to order!
Although we didn’t have it on this occasion, the pumpkin cakes are also really good. They’re small, sweet, deep-fried morsels. We always order two plates and save them for dessert, managing to fit them in despite the plates of dumplings we have ingested!
Camy Shanghai Dumpling and Noodle Restaurant
25 Tattersalls Lane
Melbourne 3000
Phone: 9663 8555