Dinner @ Rice Paper Scissors

So if I got a free meal each time someone described the restaurant as 'the next Chin Chin', I would have had at least 5 free meals, and one of them would have been at Rice, Paper, Scissors.

Now, to be honest, I think the only feature of Chin Chin worth imitating is its cash flow. It is the epitome of the 'popular because its popular' circular logic of the Melbourne dining scene. So I am not going to compare RPS to it. What I am going to do is describe to you a nice, well priced, meal.

I went to RPS on a Tuesday night at 8pm and only just managed to snag two spots on a shared table. RPS serves tapas style dishes that draw their inspiration from all over Asia, but primarily from Thailand and Vietnam. Prices per dish vary, but cap out at about $18 for a large 'meal for one' salad. However, for $55 you can get a spread of any 5 of their tapas dishes.

The old school chum I was dining with thought that was the way to go, and I tended to agree. We ordered the Lamb Ribs in Mekong Whisky, Thai Fried Chicken with Siracha Mayo, Grilled Pork Neck, Masaman Beef Wrap and the 'Flying Tiger' Beef. We were both a bit worried about portion sizes prior to the meal arriving, but were very pleasantly surprised.

The lamb ribs (pictured above) were super soft and rendered to sticky perfection in a rich, sweet, whisky sauce. I would say they approach being the RPS signature dish and should feature on your table when ordering.

The Thai Fried Chicken was also great. The batter was as crispy as it was spicy and made for a crunchy fiery hit. The siracha mayo also hit he spot and I used it to add some extra kick to the next dish, the masaman beef wrap.

The wrap was the only real disappointment out of the 5. It wasn't bad, it was just quite blad. Ground beef, flat bread and salad, nothing much more to say - I wouldn't get it again.

Next up was the grilled pork neck. It was basically char siew pork with a Vietnamese twist. However, it was super chary on the outside, really moist in the center and spiced to perfection. The salad that it came with was also a nice twist.

The final arrival was the 'Flying Tiger' beef. It was steak that had been soaked in a spice and alcohol mixture and then grilled till it had a chard crust (but was still medium rare on the inside). It was served with a super hot dipping sauce and what were described as 'betel leaves' to wrap the meat in for dipping. They didn't look like betel leaves to me, neither did they taste like them, reminding me more of the bitter greens at Attica. However, the dish without the leaves was an excellent way to finish off.

I didn't make it to their extensive dessert menu, however I'm definitely going to head back for another round. Good work RPS, you lived up to the hype, and were better than Chin Chin to boot.

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.

Thailander, Lonsdale St and Dessert Story, Lt Bourke St Melbourne

Thailander is a fairly new and fairly hip Thai place in the CBD. There are two on them in the city, one on Little Collins and the one we went to, on Lonsdale.

Walking in the fit out was quite nice and well thought out, obviously targeted at a Melbourne audience. We were initially a bit confused as to whether we would be getting table service or whether we were to order at the counter as there was someone serving the counter with a 'order here' sign but also a couple of service staff buzzing around serving the tables. We got our answer when one of them came to take our order.

Our table of four went for a main each and a couple of things to share. To share we got some roti and chicken satay sticks. The satay sticks were pretty nice, decently charry and a nice satay sauce to accompany it. I liked that sticky rice came with the satay sticks but thought they were a bit undercooked and hard. The, however, roti was just plain disappointing. A good roti should be flaky and frankly quite oily whereas this one was doughy and not all flaky, more like an unleavened bread than a flaky pastry.

For mains, M and I chose the crispy pork belly with red curry paste and the pad thai in an egg blanket ($15 each). We love Thai style crispy pork belly which is first deep fried then stir fried in various ways. This dish was very tasty with the aromatic curry paste and the beans which were the perfect accompaniment with rice. However, the pad thai in the egg blanket was a lot more disappointing. The omelette was oily and uninteresting and the pad thai had similar faults: greasy, soggy and not at all charry. As usual with my Thai meals, I got also got a milk tea. Although this one was more generous in size than other Thai iced teas out there, I felt it had a little too much milk and needed a bit more of the fragrant Ceylon tea flavour that makes Thai iced teas so amazing.

Dessert Story
After dinner, we wanted to kick on so headed nearby to Chinatown to get some dessert. While one of us went for a dessert, the rest of us went for just some liquid and icy. M, being the coffee fiend that he is, went for an iced coffee. He described it as 'terrible', saying that it somehow tasted worse than instant and exceedingly unpleasant. There was also no cream or ice cream in sight. I went for a some winter melon bubble tea, a great favourite of mine. It tasted pretty good, but the problem with both mine and M's drinks were that they were barely iced. I went up to the counter to ask for some ice, got a pregnant pause and a few strange looks, after which they gave me half a seemingly dirty bowl of shaved ice. Not exactly what we were looking for and the fineness of the shaved ice did little to cool our drinks on that hot night.

Double Thai boat noodle dinner and N2 in the CBD

Me Dee
I've become a relatively recent convert to boat noodles, after discovering it at Jinda Thai. I've yet to have one as good as Jinda's but have been on an ongoing quest to find one. The latest one I was itching to try was at Me Dee in the food court of the Paramount Centre. This outlet is an extension of the Me Dee restaurant in Springvale, which I'm yet to try.

I had a small beef boat noodle and as usual asked for no beef balls. We also got a Thai iced tea each, M the milk and I the lemon version ($3.50 each). These were alright but definitely not the best I've had. The boat noodles themselves were also not super impressive. While it was pretty tasty, I found the broth lacked the punch and extra dimension of flavour I've come to expect from boat noodles. It is however pretty good for food court food.

Rim Thang
Afterwards I still had a bit of a hankering for boat noodles so we headed out to Rim Thang on Elizabeth St, the sister restaurant to Thai Culinary. We've passed Rim Thang a number of times but before tonight had never actually pulled the trigger and gone in.

As previously discussed the boat noodles at TC aren't as good as they used to be. However, the version here are Rim Thang are like the TC boat noodles of old: a generous serving, nice quality meat and plenty of basil. You also get to choose your noodles here. I chose the egg noodles after being advised the fresh rice noodles were sold out. The broth was lovely and fragrant and with a few chilli flakes, it definitely makes for a delicious bowl of noodles. Also at $8.50, it's definitely excellent value. We'll definitely switch from TC to Rim Thang from now on; the decor, the service and the food seem to all be better.

N2 (CBD)
As if double boat noodles weren't enough gluttony for one evening, afterwards we headed out to the newly opened N2 in the city for some nitrogen ice cream. We've been to their original outlet in Fitzroy a few times and have found it inconsistent. Some of the flavours are delicious: creamy and not too sweet whereas others are more like standard Australian gelato (ridiculously sweet). Their latest menu seems to take their name from tennis players' names and we chose the Red Venus (velvet) Cheesecake to share. It was a great choice because this flavour fell squarely in the 'delicious' category. We both enjoyed every mouthful as the ice cream was tangy, well-balanced, creamy and not too sweet.

Noodle reviews: ramen @ DonToo and boat noodles @ Thai Culinary, Melbourne

Miso ramen with extra egg $10.80

 The money shot

The gory ending

DonToo

This is our pick for the best tasting bowl of ramen in Melbourne. While others will disagree and while it's certainly not the most authentic ramen out there, it's the one we consistently go back to. So why is it the best? Firstly the price: at $9.30 their miso ramen is ridiculous value, especially considering that other ramen joints easily charge you $15+ to get the sorts of topings you get as standard in DonToo's version. It's also just super yummy and ridiculously comforting: the homemade noodles are always lovely and chewy (and you get to upgrade to 300g worth for no extra cost), the broth is delicious and flavoursome, something I have found lacking in other bowls of ramen, the pork is super flavoursome and not too fatty (although this is a personal preference, others prefer a fattier cut of pork like the traditional rolled pork belly), there are plenty of vegetables including my fave—the corn, the marinaded egg is absolutely delicious, well flavoured and gooey in the middle (so much so that I almost always order extra egg), and last but not least free condiments!!! At the counter you can pick up cute little jars of garlic, chilli, pepper and sesame oil. I add all of them in abundance to my broth while M prefers to go au naturale; but hey, it's nice having a choice, right?

Beef boat noodles (no beef balls at my request) $9

Thai Culinary

As previously alluded to, when the hankering for boat noodles hits, we generally go to Jinda Thai in Abbotsford to quell the craving. However, like the last time we wanted some Thai, Jinda was booked out. Instead, we headed round the corner to Thai Culinary, which is usually pretty good if you want a quick meal on the cheap. I've ordered the boat noodles a few times at TC now, after changing from my previous fave of pad see ew. The first time I got the boat noodles here, it was a huge serving, with really nice soft meat and bits of crushed whole garlic cloves for extra flavour. Nowadays, the serving is definitely less generous, the meat not as nice and no more garlic. That said though, the flavour of the broth is still really nice and even though it lacks the blood which is traditional, it's still very very flavoursome so I'd still recommend it if you have a hankering for a hot bowl of spicy and fragrant noodles in the CBD.

Tom Toon Thai Noodle Cafe, Melbourne

After unsuccessfully trying to get a booking and subsequently trying to walk into Jinda Thai without success, we decided to head around the corner to Tom Toon Thai Noodle Cafe—a restaurant we'd walked past many times but never ventured into.

Like at Jinda, the service is friendly and inviting but unlike Jinda, the place isn't packed, which actually makes for a nice change.


M and I chose a dish for ourselves and a couple of others to share. We also each got a glass of our favourite Thai milk iced tea. I chose a bowl of boat noodles (although they call it something else on the menu), something I get whenever I see it on the menu at a Thai restaurant. He went for the crispy pork with Chinese broccoli, one of his favourites. My boat noodles were pretty good, flavoursome and generous. Even though the stewed beef in it was delicious, I didn't touch the sliced beef which was bland and not the greatest quality. I couldn't detect any blood added to the soup, which while a bit disappointing, isn't a deal breaker for me. M's pork was tasty and a very generous serving of nicely crispy pork belly, but the capsicum was a bit of a confusing addition which didn't add anything to the dish.


To share we got a spicy beef salad which was abundant with the same sliced beef which I was ignoring in my noodle soup. However, the salad itself was very tasty with plenty of spice and herby flavour. The dish I was perhaps most looking forward to was the Thai fermented sausages, something I had been wanting to try for ages and something that (I don't think) is on the menu at Jinda. These were very yummy, tangy and nicely flavoured meat (and rice?) in a crunchy sausage skin.

For dessert M got his favourite pandan layer cake which he thoroughly enjoyed. Although I had been wanting to their sticky rice with mango, alas even my stomach has its limits so we'll save it for another visit.