#throwbackthursday roundup of a dozen quick photoless reviews (part III)

Melbourne

Shanghai Village Dumpling
SVD is one of those mainstays in Melbourne, somewhere almost everyone has heard of and almost as many have eaten at. Situated in the heart of Chinatown, this place definitely gets some very foot traffic, perhaps not as heavy as it used, but a lot of people nonetheless.  The popularity is quite understandable, given that they do decently nice dumplings and other Chinese food for a good price. I would rate the quality better than Camy but not nearly as good as somewhere like Shanghai Street Dumpling. The service is pretty bad, they are very abrupt and a high turnover of tables is the business model here. I wasn't expecting amazing service so wasn't so much bothered by that element but what did annoy me somewhat was the fact that the bill came to us non-itemised with just a number written on it for the total cost. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm fairly certain that's illegal.



Wonderbao
Finally came here not too long ago after wanting to try for a very long time but never actually bothering to go. Wonderbao is a clever little concept, Chinese-style bao in a clean and trendy setting with a nice mix of both traditional and not-so-traditional fillings. The prices are also really quite reasonable. I had gone there wanting to try their Kimchi bao but at the time they had discontinued them. I think they're back on the menu now, however. Instead we picked up a couple of pork belly gua baos with were pretty tasty—the pork belly was sticky and not too fatty and a good flavour throughout. We also picked up a couple of sweet taro baos, which were OK but definitely not earth moving. The dough in the buns was very soft and supple and had a good mouthfeel.



Shark Fin Inn
I've been here a couple of times before when Dad has been in town. This is definitely one of the better places in Chinatown. They apparently do a nice yum cha but I've only ever been here for dinner. As with any good Cantonese-style Chinese restaurant, they have plenty of live seafood swimming in takes. Let me tell you, there are, in my opinion, few things worse than the texture, flavour and mouthfeel of a lobster that wasn't swimming right before it was cooked. They have a pretty good selection of seafood here, including the aforementioned lobster, abalone, snow crab (!!) and of course, fish. The most recent time I came here we had a seafood hot pot. This hot pot didn't feature the stuff you might normally associate with a hotpot (e.g. fish balls) but we had it with lovely, straight out of the tank seafood. One of the revelations was the sliced green lip abalone, which actually tasted amazing in a hotpot. I'm not normally a huge fan of the green lip variety of abalone as I fine it quite bland and tasteless compared to the smaller black lip version but in the hotpot it tasted great. We also had a huge fish which was sliced up for us and for some reason the fish was sold by the unit not by the found as you'd normally get which actually made it very good value.



Indochine
The first time I'd been here was for a team lunch when I used to work in Box Hill. I've since been back a couple of times and had a good experience on each occasion. If you go, I absolutely must recommend getting the traditional hanoi spring rolls (nem ran/cha gio), made with rice paper and filled with pork and crab. It was here that I was first introduced to this dish and I've since had it many times, both at restaurants and making my own at home (which btw, is pretty easy). Indochine's is still the nicest I've had at a restaurant. What makes theirs great is that they're really evenly fried and super crispy and they use an abundance of pepper which personally I love. They also use these spring rolls in their grilled meat and spring roll buns, which I also highly recommend.



Schnitz, Queen St CBD
I don't know much about the history of the Schnitz franchise but this was definitely the first I'd ever seen in Melbourne. I used to work in the building right near where this little outlet is situated and I first got exposed to their food when a colleague bought a bag of their chips and served them with me. Of course we all know that Schnitz make some of the best tasting chips you could ever hope to try. The chips are as good as always here but the overall quality of food is better than the other Schnitzes, as is the value. If you get a schnitzel chips and salad here you'll get two schnitzels, whereas in the franchises you'll get just the one. Their salads are also quite tasty and substantial; try the caesar. While it might not look as outwardly cool as other Schnitz locations, the food and value here are definitely better.



Hanaichi
Before Rice Workshop, came along this and Don Don were about the only places in the CBD you could find sub $8 Japanese meals. As you can imagine, this place is very popular with students  but not exclusively. We've been here once and didn't have the greatest experience. We had a Katsu Curry don which wasn't at all great. The Katsu cutlet left a bit to be desired; it was very thin and dry. We also didn't like that the curry sauce came separate to the rice and cutlet. Part of the appeal for me of a bowl of Katsu curry is getting to mix everything together. I do however like their own brand of bottled drinks which you can get for something like $2 extra on top of meal. However, as long as something like Rice Workshop exists, Hanaichi will always be left in the dust.



DOC
DOC definitely do some of the best and most authentic pizzas in Melbourne. Situated in a street not far off Lygon, the quality here is much better than your standard Lygon St Italian place. The little restaurant is quite charming and is staffed by very friendly Italian waiters. They also have a very interesting selection of soft drinks, which is a pretty nice change. The prices are also reasonable for the quality of the food and ingredients used. There is plenty of San Daniele prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella on the menu which you'd think all places that charge $20-$30 for a pizza would do that but it's definitely not as common as one would like. Lots of people have cottoned on to the quality of the place lately so come here early if you don't want to wait a while for a table.



Canberra

PappaRich
It's a pretty sad reflection of a city's food when Pappa Rich does some of the best Asian food in town.  Alas, such is the case for our national capital. That is not to say that the food at Pappa Rich is bad—it's of course usually pretty tasty—but I would never go to a Papa Rich in somewhere like Melbourne because there are just many better and cheaper options there. However, for Canberra, this is excellent. I'd recommend the egg gravy fried noodles (not sure what they call it on the menu), the chicken with mee and curry sauce, the rotis and the excellent satay sticks. The prices are of course Canberra inflated (average of about $15 per dish) but that's not far off what they charge in the real cities anyway. Understandable given its relative quality and central location, this place gets very busy and doesn't take bookings so come early or be prepared to wait for a table.

 

Tak Kee Roast Inn
If you feel like Asian food in Dickson that isn't Vietnamese, I'd definitely recommend Tak Kee Roast Inn. This place is sort of in the style of class Cantonese BBQ restaurants which are pretty common in other Australian cities, but aren't terribly ubiquitous in Canberra. On this occasion I had a bowl of beef brisket noodle soup, which was very tasty. The beef brisket was very nicely cooked and unctuous like it should be. It was also well flavoured and went very well with the rice noodles that came with it. The service was also very pleasant and efficient and the prices reasonable by Canberra standards. Definitely a better choice than the nearby Dickson Asian Noodle House.

 

Penny University 
Came here with work for a farewell lunch not long ago. Ordered the cheeseburger which came with a generous serving of chips. It was also pretty decently priced from what I remember. Other colleagues meals looked less generously portioned, however. The burger I had was pretty adequate, definitely not amazing and could have done with more flavour. I would have also liked something other than ketchup to dip my chips in. Something like aoli would've been perfect, but that's a personal preference; I know plenty of people like ketchup with their chips.             

       

Autolyse
 I came here on M's recommendation after he discovered it wandering around the area when he was up here for a job interview. On that occasion he enjoyed the coffee and lime pie he had picked up from here after his interview. From the outside, Autolyse certainly doesn't look the part of a hip cafe/brunch venue. The facade is decidedly gauche, complete with an awkward, borderline fluoro sign. Inside, it's a bit better with decent interiors and a large section where you can watch the bakers at work. It's after seeing this and the descriptions on the menu where you realise that this place is definitely vying for the hipness factor. However, the 'Sous vide lamb shoulder sandwich with quinoa and pickled onion' was decidedly uncool. As if the eyeroll-inducing description, didn't make me want to throwup a little in my mouth enough, the sandwich that arrived turned out to be a bit of a disaster. It was very very bland and dry. A part of that there was too low a filling-to-bread ratio, but even when eating the fillings on their own they were decidedly bland. The dominant flavour was an unpleasant one: acid. The quinoa tabouleh was very acidic and the pickled onion on top of that just compared the unpleasant sourness. The lamb certainly wasn't very fatty or rich so it's not like it needed to be that acidic for a purpose.



Molly
I'd like to think this is named for the drug but in all likelihood it probably isn't. However, the bar does aim to be as transportive as a Molly trip. This starts with the location, it's 'hidden' underground behind a wooden door somewhere in Hobart Place. Their website only gives you coordinates to help you find your way. In reality though, most people in Canberra knows where it is. When you enter the place it's certainly obvious what they're going for: a dimly lit, small space in the style of Jazz Age speakeasys. The place certainly has its charms and while I didn't get to try any of the food, their menu certainly did look enticing, as did the various small goods hanging above the food station. Drinks are fairly pricey; the Virgin Mary I had was $10 (fairly expensive for a non-alcoholic drink) but I don't think anybody comes here for cheap drinks.

#throwbackthursday roundup of a few quick photoless reviews (part II)

Melbourne

Seddon Deadly Sins
I was excited to try a brunch place that was located somewhere other than the city, inner North, South or East. Having rarely ventured into the west side of the city, it made for a nice change of scenery. The place itself was very charming, with a very cute little courtyard out the back where customers could dine alfresco. The menu also read nicely and the prices were reasonably, noticeably less expensive than many brunch places not in the west. I went for the chicken parma, which I rarely if ever order. This one was nice, a very generous serving with nicely crispy crumbed chicken and an abundance of ham, tomato sauce and cheese. However, as I cut towards the middle of the chicken, it was clear that it was fully cooked as it oozed blood and still had that undercooked chicken texture which is very distinctive.While I rarely send food back, on this occasion I made an exception since it was you know, raw chicken. What happened next convinced me never to return to this place. After a few minutes the dish was returned to me with the embarrassed looking waitress saying that the chef had taken a look and that it was in fact cooked. So if you're willing to go to a place with arrogant chefs willing to put their put their patrons' health at risk, try Seddon Deadly Sins.



Westlake
For some reason, I've found that the yum cha in Melbourne is not as good, and not as cheap, as those in Perth. For a city with such great food and a high population of Chinese immigrants, I've always found this odd. Westlake in Chinatown is no exception to the below-par yum cha experiences in Melbourne. The food was average and the prices were OK, but still more expensive than what you'd pay for the same stuff in Perth. The service, however, is terrible. The three of us were chatting at our table after finishing our food when the wait staff literally came up to us and told us to leave because other people were waiting. Still the rudest experience I've had in a restaurant.



Binh Minh
Of all the ridiculously busy and popular Vietnamese places along Victoria St, Binh Minh is definitely amongst the busiest and most popular. I can only put its popularity down to its prime location at the beginning of the street, because, hell, it can't be due to the food or service. On the night we went there was a ridiculously loud and raucous children's birthday party happening which while it made the experience unpleasant, wasn't exactly the fault of the restaurant. The setting, however, was bad enough on its own. The upstairs area where we were seated looked semi abandoned and like it hadn't been refurbished in yonks. This would have been forgiven if the food was any good but it was very mediocre. The pho that I ordered was bland, not to mention a small portion and more expensive than what you'd pay at many other places along Vic St. The service was also pretty non-existant. There are definitely much better places along Victoria Street.



Chimac
West Melbourne is positively a mini mecca for Korean food in the city and Chimac is no exception. Tucked away on Peel St near the Queen Vic Markets, you've probably passed it a number of times. Do yourself a favour though and walk in for a bite when you're next in the area. Walking in, the place is definitely hip and well thought out. Upon sitting, you get some complimentary fried spaghetti to nosh on while you wait for your food. The KFC served here is DELICIOUS and very flavoursome. The bulgogi we had here was also very tasty. The only slight complaint is that I don't think they offer unlimited banchan.



La Cantina
Staying with the Queen Vic Markets theme, inside the markets themselves you'll find a surprisingly good Mexican/Latin American eatery. La Cantina is only open on the days the market is open, so not on Mondays and Wednesdays and I believe only for lunch. We've been here a couple of times and enjoyed it. On the most recent visit, I went for a very tasty chicken borrito, having not been a fan of their beef (which I found too chewy). This burrito was nicely sized and the addition of the spicy sauce you can help yourself to really gave it that extra oomph. Prizes are also reasonable and the staff are friendly.



Canberra

Saigon Fresh
While banh mi is a common sight in the likes of Melbourne and Sydney, this is certainly not the case for Canberra. Unfortunately you have to the places like Gungahlin and Mawson to get a decent one. When work sent me to Gungahlin for the day, I took the opportunity to try Saigon Fresh. The little shop is sort of hidden away in one of the Gungahlin malls but it was worth the little search. The rolls are fresh and tasty and it was actually the first I had a cold pork roll, as I normally go for the grilled meats. It was surprisingly tasty though and at $6(?) it was good value for Canberra. Yes, yes, we all know you pay $4 for them in Melbourne but $6 for a nice sandwich is still good value, no? If you're a banh mi purist you might take issue with the fact they use red onion instead of spring onion, but I didn't mind, it still made for one might tasty sanga.



Pho Phu Quoc
I've said before that Vietnamese cuisine is actually pretty decent in Canberra and Pho Phu Quoc is no exception. I had first came here when I came up for the weekend to inspect apartments before my move over. You know, the good old days, before I actually had to live here. Anyway, I've seen been back here a few times as their they do a nice bowl of pho, nice chewy noodles and a very aromatic broth. Be warned though, it is a pretty small serving and I dislike the fact that it's served in a shallow bowl, which to me takes away from the experience of eating a bowl of pho.  I also always ask for less beef and extra noodles, because I'm weird like that. Service here is very variable. They were nice when I came here with colleagues but can often be rude and inattentive. You usually have to ask 3+ times for some water.



Griffith Vietnamese
M recently had a conversation where the gist of it was that when something is described as a *insert city here*  institution, it usually means the place isn't very good. However, I'm glad to say that this isn't true for Griffith Vietnamese. The place is partly famous for all the messages left on the wall by politicians. My personal favourite is the one from the Member for Isaacs, Mark Dreyfus, because he made the effort to write a bit in Vietnamese. The couple of times I've been here has been with a group and inevitably, as is the done thing here, we ask the kitchen to simply give us a few dishes and some rice to share. These tend to be Chinese-Vietnamese style stir fries which are mostly very tasty. Personally, though, I prefer more Vietnamese-Vietnamese fare. I've always found it odd that they don't serve pho. Do try the caramel pork, though, it's delicious.



Iori Plus
Came here for a celebration lunch with my team. I was in charge of booking and organising for the large group (25+) and the staff were very accommodating with my requests and all the back and forth. Service was very good, as is pretty typical of (Japanese run) Japanese restaurants. Most of us got the banquet, which although normally $60, was being promoted for half price. It was definitely worth the money in terms of quantity. Believe me, I eat a lot of food, and there was plenty of it on offer. The quality, though, was a bit lacking. The sashimi wasn't super fresh and the quality of the beef used for the tataki left a bit to be desired. However, I really enjoyed the grilled squid and the agadashi tofu. 



Parlour Wine Room
Came here for a lunch with my colleagues after one of us had seen the place recommended on another blog, especially recommending the pork pappardelle dish and their lunch set menu (I wanna say $16 for a dish plus a drink). The people who chose the pappardelle dish seemed to enjoy it but I went for something else, a dish of fried eggs with pepper and jamon. It wasn't the best choice. The eggs were nicely cooked but they were just eggs. The peppers weren't weren't as smokey sweet as I would've liked and I could barely find the jamon. As sorry as I felt for myself, I felt more pain for my colleague who chose the 'cassoulet'. I use the term very loosely because what arrived at the table was nothing resembling a proper cassoulet. The dish looked literally like a couple of sausages (I think they used chorizo which of course is not traditional) with a few beans swimming in a bright red sauce. Definitely no sign of the confit duck, pork belly chunk or toulouse which I'd expect in a good cassoulet. 

 

Up 2 U
I had wanted to try this place for while as they are one of the very few places in Canberra that does one of my favourite things in the world: hotpot. When my friend asked whether I wanted to come along as she had bought half priced Living Social vouchers, my answer was a resounding yes. With the voucher, I think it was $15 for all you can eat hotpot (normally $30). This made for good value even though the range of ingredients wasn't super extensive. We each got our own little pot to ourselves, which was nice and the food was better than the last hotpot place I'd been where we got individual pots. We also got to choose from a range of soup flavours and I went for the mushroom while others went for interesting ones like laksa. The only slightly annoying thing is that while the vegetables are free for you to take at a buffet table, you have to ask for the seafood and meat. They were strict with how much they gave you, making sure you'd finished what you had at the table before they would give you more. While it was a bit inconvenient, I didn't mind too much as I hate food wastage.



Broddogs
We came here when the little red food truck was still located in the carpack of the Belconnen mall. It's sinced moved on (to Braddon?) but it's fact we're not entirely cut up about. Being fans of Brodburger, we were keen to try out Broddogs, owned by the same people. However, while Broddogs do some of the best burgers in Canberra, I was less enamoured with the hotdogs. The issue wasn't that it was tasty, it was tasty enough. However the dogs are a pretty small serving for their price (mostly over $10) and the sausages in particular are very thin and small. While is was decently nice for a hotdog, it definitely doesn't match up to other gourmet dogs out there.

Quick Dinner @ Red Silks, Melbourne

Red Silks is one of those restaurants which I had been wanting to try for literally years and which we've passed numerous times but never eaten at. You've probably been past it too, it's the big bar/restaurant in the same arcade as where Sushi Hotaru is located.

The place is definitely well planned out to maximise the sale of drinks and therefore maximise profit. The drinks appear at the front of the menu, followed by the more expensive food items. And you feel like the empty alcohol bottles which decorate the space are there to encourage you to empty some bottles of your own. However, M and I are generally to immune to such sales tactics and went for some one dish meals and some softies. I went for something I had been craving, hofun noodles with egg sauce. Red Silks' version comes with beef and was a generous serving and very tasty. They were also generous in giving me my requested chilli, in the form of both very fragrant chilli oil and fresh cut chillies. Mark's Thai green vegetable curry was also very flavoursome with a nice amount of basil through it. I was quite amused by the giant quenelle of rice that came with it.

As for drinks, I had an iced lychee drink which seemed to just be the syrup from a can plus a few lychees and some chilled water. M's wasn't super impressed with his teh tarik either. The service was decent but our waitress seemed a bit inexperienced and nervous but that's definitely not a deal breaker. The setting is also nice, sitting on a large balcony alfresco area over Bourke St. I'd be keen to come back to try their other dishes.

#throwbackthursday roundup of a dozen quick photoless reviews (part I)

Melbourne

Grain Store
This is definitely one of the most hyped brunch places in Melbourne and we were very much looking forward to our visit there. After a very long wait to get in, a possibly an even longer wait for the food, what arrived at the table certainly wasn't all worth the drawn out anticipation. I had the polenta corn fritter dish and added bacon while M went for something sweet. I was very unhappy with my dish which was bland bland bland; not even the bacon was enough to lift the dish. M was also pretty disappointed with his choice and was uninspired by the coffee, which he described as 'average, not terrible but definitely not great'. Worst of all, we both got sick (an upset stomach) afterwards, which we suspect may have been due to brunch. 


Hardware Societé
M very highly rates the coffee here, which I guess is half the appeal of these brunch places for a lot of people. However, when I came here with a friend we had a terrible time of it. After the inevitable (for these hyped brunch places) we were hastily seated. I had a disappointing iced coffee and baked eggs which were bland and overcooked. My poor friend T got a duck confit, a favourite dish of ours, which proved to be very dry. Honestly, you know you're not doing very well when you manage to make duck cooked in its own fat dry.


Bowery to Williamsburg
According to M, the coffee here isn't amazing: very American, well expressed with a lot of crema but not the best roast for a black coffee, much more suited to a sweet latte or the like. However, this is definitely one of our favourite brunch and sandwich places in Melbourne. The sandwiches here (including the meatball sub and reuben) are always very tasty and very good value at $10. The options sides you get are also great, particularly the ridiculously tasty mac n cheese. M also loves the Shashoukas here, which are only available at breakfast time. We've been here on several occasions and the only thing that's been a bit disappointing was a hot smoked salmon in a pumpernickel bagel.


Chez Dré 
Like other hyped brunch places, the way here is long and you can't book but unlike some of these other places, the wait is worth it.Pretty well everyone in town knows that this place does some of the best cakes in Melbourne. You can't come here without at least checking out their gorgeous cabinet full of beautiful cakes and macarons.  The savoury food here is also very good; the reuben sandwich I had here was very tasty, albeit overpriced at $19. The mushroom with polenta we had here was also amazing.
 

Hammer & Tong
Another very popular lunch place in inner city Melbourne, and another one not worth the hype in our opinion. The pork belly dish we had here had pork belly which was very fatty and poorly rendered, soggy 'crackling, and the promised 'chilli jam' legit looked and tasted just like sweet chilli sauce. M wasn't crazy about the coffee; he said it had a nice crema but the roast itself was too bitter for a black coffee. I hated the drink I had; their housemade orange fizz which tasted like it was made with oranges which weren't very fresh. You know when you eat an orange and part of all of it is very dry and its taste has distinctly musty overtones? This tasted like that in liquid form.
 

Shanghai Dynasty
This is one of Dad's favourite places to go to when he's in town and I follow along so I can get my fill of snow crab. The snow crab they do here isn't as great as many of the Chinese restaurants in Perth, possibly because they are more familiar with the WA ingredient. However, it and the other seafood they make is still pretty tasty and fresh. Prices are also not as steep as one might expect given the over the top (in a good way), gilded decor. They also do a nice, and not too pricey, yum cha where you generally don't have to book.
 

Dainty Sichuan, Box Hill
We came here with a few friends for their famous hotpot, which the Good Food Guide had said good things about. I've long since learned that the Guide isn't necessarily the best authority out there for good food. One of the apparent  points of difference for Dainty Sichuan is that you get your own little hotpot instead sharing one with the table. While this was pretty convenient for a big table like ours, it's certainly not the only restaurant out there that does this. It's also one of the few places out there were you pay for your hotpot by ordering a la carte, whereas most hotpot is an all-you-can-eat deal. Hotpot is probably the only scenario/cuisine in which I prefer the latter, because it usually provides much better value. On this occasion even though we didn't order loads, it came to about $35 per person. This would have been fine if the meal was great, but we didn't enjoy it very much.

Something the Good Food Guide raved about were the homemade fish (and other seafood balls). I'm actually a big fan of the processed MSG-laden kind you buy frozen from the Asian grocery and the ones here didn't taste anyway near as good. That's not to say home made fish balls can't be good, I've had ones before (usually made with mackerel) which were very tasty. The problem with Dainty's is that they make theirs with what I strongly suspect to be Basa, a rubbery and awful fish which makes equally awful fish balls. They also almost certainly made their prawn balls with those shiteous frozen Vietnamese imported prawns. I'll stick to my cheap, all-you-can-eat hotpot, thanks.


Peko Peko, Fitzroy
Peko Peko in Fitzroy, not to be confused with the restaurant of the same name in South Melbourne, is one of those restaurants where we had two very contrasting visits. The first time we came here, we loved it. The dishes we had here the first time around, including the chicken makizushi and salmon don thing were very tasty. However, on our most recent visit we had a very different experience. The miso soup I ordered was frankly awful and the tuna maki we got was very stingy with the tuna and just not very good. The chicken karaage was also gristly, cloying and not very crispy. The teriyaki don we had was pretty tasty but not enough to save the evening. We also found the service here ambivalent at best and at times, abrupt.


Canberra

Smoque
A very popular location for  Canberrans; I know plenty of people at work who love this place. However, if you come, be prepared for dry and bland pulled pork, the same deal for the brisket, wings which were far too 'wet', flavourless and not at all charry or crispy. The corn bread was disgustingly dry. The chicken. however, was pretty tasty, juice and flavoursome. The service here is of about the same standard as the food. I suppose the banquets are pretty cheap if you want a lot of (not very good) meat.


Sanur's Balinese
Came here on the recommendation of a friend and because it's close by to my sprawling ducal estate. Ordered the bebek butuku which was described as roast duck on the menu but ended up being much more like a braised duck, definitely no crispy skin. However, the half a bird was very tender and pretty flavoursome, albeit not as amazing as we'd hoped given that it was a house specialty. We also had a pretty average beef rendang and some mee goreng which again was tasty enough but not charry enough and too wet for my liking. All in all pretty tasty and a good choice if you feel like Indonesian in Canberra, but we won't be rushing to go back.


Asian Noodle House, Dickson 
Had a very plain and greasy kway teow here, no wok hey. The laksa that M got was alright, very average especially in light of the fact their pride themselves on their laksas. The second (and hopefully last) time I came here I was dragged kicking and screaming here by friends; seriously, I was so reluctant to eat here it nearly started a fight. That time I had a chicken crispy fried noodle which was was predictably very mediocre and laden with large strips of ginger which rendered it rather unpleasant to eat. I live close to the Belconnen Asian Noodle House and needless to say, I've never bothered to eat there.


Ka Sushi Ramen
Came here once with Mum on a Sunday when many other restaurants in the vicinity were closed. Mum ordered the tonkatsu ramen which, from the morsel I tried, didn't agree with my palette at all and she definitely wasn't crazy about it herself. I ordered the small beef rice bowl which didn't taste at all how a good Gyudon should; it didn't seem to use the right ingredients, resulting in a flavour imbalance. The resulting flavour, while not completely horrible, did taste rather odd and overtly acidic, as opposed to the lovely sweet flavour a good Gyudon ought to possess.

Yum cha @ New Royal Garden, Glen Waverley, Melbourne

 Decided to come here for yum cha one weekend as it was near to where we were meeting friends and our first choice, Gold Leaf in Burwood East was booked out.

And it wasn't a bad choice: the food was tasty enough and the service was amiable and fun. It was also pretty good value it came to about $22 per person, which for yum cha in Melbourne, is very good.

As one does at yum cha, we ordered a range of dishes. There were a few whiteys at the table so lots of dumplings were ordered, something I never go for at yum cha. I'll be the first to admit that the Cantonese aren't the best at dumplings. I didn't try any the dumplings here but the people around the table seemed to enjoy them. Two things I do always order at yum cha are the lo mai gai and Malay sponge cake. Both dishes are nicely done here, in particular the lo mai gai which was flavoursome, with plenty of filling. The salt and pepper squid tentacles were also well done, a welcome relief from the often very plain versions served up at other yum cha joints around town.

The people serving also seemed to be having a good time, a welcome change from the grumpy and acerbic servers at many other yum cha restaurants. Here they were friendly, game for a laugh, attentive and not pushy.

 

Shanghai Street Dumpling, La Trobe St Melbourne

 Fried pork mini buns ($8.50?)

Veggie dumplings in chilli oil soup

 Pork XLBs $8.50

This is another of our old faithfuls. There are now at my count three of these around the city, the original on Little Bourke St, this one and one in Chinatown. This is our favourite to go to simply because it's the quietest—while there are frequently lines snaking outside the door of the other two, here it is usually easy to get a table perhaps due to its slightly removed location and the large number of tables the space holds. Nonetheless the quality is definitely up to scratch with the other two locations. The service is always pretty nice too, which isn't always the case with these uber cheap Chinese restaurants.

We always tend to over-order here because we want to get a variety of things and it's so cheap! Not so great if it's just two people eating though because we usually end up with a lot of leftover food. Would definitely recommend coming here with a table of four or something to make the most of the experience.

On this visit, we showed some restraint and only ordered three dishes: the fried pork mini buns, the pork xiao long baos, and vegetarian dumplings in chilli oil soup. Everything was super delicious and we even got close to—but didn't quite succeed—finishing all our food. A word of warning though, be super careful with the XLBs and mini buns because they will squirt scalding soup in your face/eye/hand/tongue; the trick is to carefully pierce the skin first to slowly drain some of the soup and let it cool slightly. Even with some care taken you will inevitably get at least a mildly burnt tongue, but hey, that's half the fun.

Photo of the week: hot pot @ Home Taste, Edinburgh

Our visit to Home Taste holds so many great memories for me. We found it after wandering the streets of Old Town looking for a feed since I didn't want to go for a pub meal. After circling a few times and finding nothing else that took our fancy, we settled on a little Chinese restaurant with steamed up windows. The steam was actually very inviting on that night since it was a typically frigid Scottish January evening. The restaurant's awkwardly endearing name may have also helped win me over.

Once in there I was instantly glad of my choice because it turned out (as hinted by the steam) that they served...HOTPOT!!! One of my favourite things in the world and certainly a top candidate for my death row meal. Another pleasing sight was that the restaurant was filled with Chinese students who were clearly craving a bit of 'home taste'. And the meal itself was fantastic: the condiments, the broth and the ingredients used were what they should be for a good hotpot; and they didn't scrimp when topping up the ingredients. The chef also adorably came out and offered us some fried dumplings while tentatively speaking Mandarin to me. At £15 per person for all you can eat including a drink (we chose hot tea) it was a bargain, especially given the favourable exchange rate at the time. As cheesy as it sounds, the restaurant definitely lived up to its name, serving up a warm taste of home on the other side of the world.