Food 101 Melbourne (Part 2)

Last night, I had a chance to travel into the suburbs of Melbourne for real chinese food. Andy, friend of Melven, organised a dinner at the Malaya Inn at Doncaster. I've heard Andy telling us how much similar the food tastes at the Malaya Inn so this has got to be a fabulous night. Here's a blow-by-blow account of the dishes:

Braised Tofu with Seafood in Claypot: Tastes exactly like the tofu dishes you get when you order from the neighbourhood "Cze Char" hawker, which was a good thing, considering that one is in Melbourne. The seafood consists of very fresh squid, prawns, fish and crab meat (I thought I tasted some but I wasn't sure as I wolfed down the tofu with my rice)

Curry Fish Head: Unlike the Singaporean styled of presentation, the presentation of this dish was disappointing. I was expecting a whole fish head but it was not to be. Overall, the curry is palatable but the lack of meat in the fish head had me disappointed. The only excuse I can find for the restaurant is that the usual meaty Red Snapper fish head that are so common in Singapore is not common in these parts of the world.


Oyster Omelette: The Oyster Omelettle is fantastic and can be compared to the better ones found in Singapore and Malaysia. Oyster was fresh and so were the eggs. I could not find a single flaw in the dish except that it was served with chilli meant for Hainanese Chicken Rice.


Crispy Yam Ring:
The chicken chunks were not plentiful but fresh and tender and the cashew nuts were crunchy. The yam ring was disappointingly smaller but overall, it was a flavorful dish.

Fried Carrot Cake: The Black Fried Carrot Cake was highly recommended by the waiter who took our order. It did not disappoint as well. The sweet black sauce gained its crispiness after frying with the egg batter and the carrot cake.

Guinness Pork Chop:Yet another dish recommended by the waiter, I find that the pork too tough to chew though. It does taste like Sweet and Sour Pork Chops and so full marks for the sauce, negative because the pork wasn't tender.

Sambal Kang Kong: The trick to good Stir Fried Kang Kong with Chilli is a good chilli paste. The chilli was good and this made the dish very tasty, that was until my teeth tried to chew on the stem and it would not break. On closer inspection, it was the stem that was very, very close to the roots. A definite no-no but the dish was saved by the fragrance of the sambal belachan.

Paper-wrapped Chicken:The usual paper-wrapped chicken in Singapore are small pieces of bone-y chicken bits wrapped in paper and deep-fried to the point that the paper drips oil by the barrels. It was still oily when the dish arrived, however the chicken pieces were very big,tender. Another plus point, they were de-boned. They were also juicy and I soon found out why: the chef added vegetables like mushrooms and carrots into the paper so the moisture from the vegetables must have added to the juiciness of the dish.

For desserts, I had the "2 scoops of Sesame Ice Cream" The sesame taste was strong, owing to the fact that each spoonfuls of the ice-cream carried bits of sesame with it. Alas, my dessert was served later than everyone else so I quickly tucked in and forgotten to take a picture of it.


The total bill for 10 diners was A$220.20. It was expensive (compared to hawker prices in Singapore and Malaysia) but overall, money well spent if you have a craving for Chinese Singaporean/Malaysian food in Melbourne.

Highly recommended: Oyster Omelette and Black Fried Carrot Cake, Braised Seafood Tofu

Recommended: Sambal Kang Kong (ignore the hardy stem), Paper-wrapped Chicken

Yet to try: Hainanese Chicken Rice, Satays (half a dozen chicken/beef satays costs A$8)

Location:
25, Village Avenue, Doncaster VIC 3108
(approx 22Km East of Melbourne CBD)