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)

Musings by the Groom (Part 2)

It has been a week since I'd arrived at Melbourne. There's never a day I'd stopped thinking about my lovely wife-to-be. Every sight and sound, every interesting thoughts and ideas that I've come across, I will think of my Boo. And how much I wanted to tell you about the sights around the Yarra River, the guy standing on the middle of the bridge, playing his bagpipe, the street break-dancers, the beggars (who can afford a McDonald's meal by the way)

I've moved into the long stay apartment yesterday. The only windows in the apartments are the 3 sliding doors that leads to the balcony, which is west-facing. I received a free upgrade from the long-stay apartment establishment. They gave me a 2 bedroom apartment. Sometimes, these companies just don't get it. I'm single, working in Melbourne, and what I need are free washing/ironing/cooking/sports channel with live soccer/fast speed internet access and the lot. Apart from the queen sized bed in the master bedroom, I do not need the additional 2 single beds in the next room.

Speaking of soccer, I'm having withdrawal symptoms from not having seen a live game for more than a month. I do get the occasional snipplets through the free-to-air channels when the sports section is on the news. However the snipplets are much like 5-10 seconds each day. Like a smoker switching from cigarettes to nicotine sweet/chewing gums, my daily dose of sports action are ARL and NRL. In between their matches, I am trying to figure out the rules of the games and all other miscellaneous stuffs. The difference I've noticed so far, ARL players wear sleeveless jerseys. Also, Melbourne has a team that's last in the ARL but joint-1st in the NRL and I can't help but wonder why there's so much disparity between both teams.

Work is slowly creeping up but still manageable. I keep getting invites to meetings but they keep getting cancelled at the last minute. Hopefully, work won't consume me like it almost did in Singapore.

Today also marks 2 months and 22 days to our wedding! In Chinese numerology, the number '2' represents "shuang" or double and is meant to represent a pair, which is a good thing. :)

83 days to go!

Star Treatment

Today Boo went for a spa treatment @ SK-II Scotts using the gift voucher from the very sweet groom :) Boo had body polish and the signature aromatherapy massage. It was not as fantastic as one'd expect though. The masseur is an auntie who claimed to be from Bangkok but spoke fluent Mandarin. Her strokes were too gentle for my liking. Banyan Tree is still the best :P

Boo also had her hair colored and hair treatment done a week ago in preparation for the wedding:

Food101 Melbourne (Part 1)

Food in Melbourne: A side-dish for this blog with regards to food.
After my run last night, I went up to the hotel and took a bath. Tried contacting Melven, my colleague who's putting up at the same hotel as me, in vain. (turns out he was out drinking with the rest of the colleagues)

So I wandered off on my own, in search of good food in the city of Melbourne, or so I thought.

I saw this restaurant that had named itself "Singapore Chom Chom". Now of course, in Singapore, the correct spelling would have been Serangoon Gardens Chomp Chomp. So I entered the restaurant and ordered myself a Sweet Barbecued Pork with Rice.

The picture here depicts the expected color/texture of the Barbecue Pork which I was expecting:

However, when the food arrived, it looked like barbecue sliced pork with sweet barbecue sauce.

Nevertheless, the A$7.50 wasn't worth it although the serving was huge and the presentation was "upmarket" compared to Singapore's SGD3 plate of "Char Siew Rice"

General tip #1: When eating in Melbourne. Never order food with reference to "Singapore". (E.g. Singapore Fried Rice, Singapore Chom Chom) (Tip courtesy from Melven)

On another note, I noticed that after dinner, there are more restaurants serving Cantonese Roasted pork and chicken in Little Burke Street (a.k.a Chinatown) and their Char Siew (hanging from the display) looked more authentic than the display.

General tip #2: When looking for Cantonese Roast Meats, do not rely on photographs. Look for the actual display.

Musing by the Groom (Part 1)

The groom-to-be had to leave behind his dear wifey and fly to Melbourne, Australia to work on a project for 4 months. In between, he will fly-back two times, one of them for the wife's birthday.

The trip is a good opportunity for me and both of us can understand why I should take up this posting. However, the timing could have come at a more appropriate time. That's life. We take what comes and we have a go at it.

Thus far, I've touched down, faced a long string of questioning by the immigration officers, almost lost one of my luggage when the baggage services misplaced it, booked dinner at the Flower Drum and attempted a trial run at 7pm at Tan Track and the Yarra River last night.

There are many other things to do. So I must not be lazy and keep going. Ganbatte!

The groom is not happy to be away from his fiancee...

Today marks the first day of my life away from my sweetheart. Not just for a day or a week but for many weeks to come.

I asked myself, is this worth it? To leave behind the love of my life to a foreign land to work for a pittance of a per diem that's barely enough to cover the inconveniences of my life.

At the end of the day, we should be able to look back at this period of our life as a positive form of separation. Love conquers, love strengthens, faith in me, faith with me, love perishes only when the faith is weak.

Groom left....

The groom left for Melbourne last night for a 4 months project work, leaving the bride to take care of the nitty gritty details. Sob sob...

Food Tasting

Today, we finally went for the long awaited food tasting held at the Raffles Culinary 2 days before Bear leaves for Melbourne. Before the food tasting, we were so worried that the guests might not be full as we are going for the 4-course fusion / western set. But it turns out that we were so full (maybe from the bread haha...). It'd be fun to come here for a couple cooking class sometime.