Peking Duck

I don't really like duck of any nature, but there is one exception where I can't get enough of it. That exception is Peking Duck. Unless you are very well off and can go and eat it all the time at Flower Drum, the next best option is to make your own I reckon. It's so simple but oh so tasty.

First, you need to go and buy yourself a Roast Duck. Rock Kung in Glen Waverley do a good roast duck. Go there on a Saturday and you can pick one up straight out of the oven (or whatever you call the big thing they cook it in). Then while you are in Glen Waverley, go to the Asian store and pick up some Peking Duck wraps, which are made of flour or something. Then all you need are some cucumber, spring onions, pickled vegetables and hoi sin sauce.



It is then just a matter of steaming the rice paper until they are cooked through. Then peel off each piece and spread a generous amount of hoi sin, put in a few pieces of duck, some of the vegetables and fold together.



Once all assembled, grab it and chomp into it. I don't know what it is about these simple combinations of flavours but I just love it. I ate about 10 of these parcels.

Oyster Recipes Part 2

After last times oysters post where there were quite a few suggestions for different recipes, I wanted to try some more flavours.

From left going counter-clockwise, I tried the following:
* Soy sauce with wasabi - this was ok but the regular soy sauce is too overpowering. I need to find some lighter soy sauce or cook the soy with some sugar or something.

* Lemon with tobasco - this was suggested by a couple of people and I have to say that I love it. I have eaten about quite a few with this flavour combo. The sour, salty and hot flavours work together so well.

* Lime, palm sugar, shallots, garlic, chilli and parsley - this combo is fantastic as well. So many flavours going around your mouth all at once. You definitely need palm sugar though in my opinion. It adds this extra dimension to the sauce that white sugar just doesn't have.

* Garlic, butter, shallots, lemon and pepper pan fried - A slight twist on the traditional garlic butter, but still very good. Eat it quick before the butter starts to harden though.

* Lemon and pepper - just a classic combo that you can never tire of.

Cookies Chicken Part 2

When Kin and Jo did their last Cookies Chicken cook up, Paul didn't get to try them so they did another one. Rowena and Son also came along to eat some chicken.

Having learnt from the last time, this time we mixed the spices more thoroughly so that the salt would be mixed through. This gave better results as the chicken wasn't as salty. It was still good but I still preferred the chicken wings from last time. There are now Cookies Chicken store popping up around the place, such as in Ferntree Gully, Ringwood, South Yarra and other places I think, can't remember exactly. Look out for a store near you and try some.

Aux Batifolles

After going to watch the footy, Hawks versus Lions, with Justin and Adrian, we then met up with Kakada for dinner at Aux Batifolles. Previously I had written about my chance encounter with Kakada on MSN. Well we have since chatted some more and I suggested that we should meet up for a meal, which is what we did. I brought along my grade 2 and 3 class photos to see if Kakada really was in my class.

Lets see how good you all are at picking people from their younger days. Firstly, here is what Kakada (right) and myself look like as of today.


Here is our grade 2 class photo from Cabramatta West Primary School in New South Wales. Click on the photo to go to Flickr for a larger version.


I showed Kakada my grade 3 photo and she was surprised to find that she was in my class then as well. She left shortly after the start of grade 3 to come to Melbourne. I left early grade 4 to come to Melbourne. Again, clikc the photo for a larger version. I'm hopeless and couldn't pick Kakada, I could hardly even pick myself. Unfortunately the class photos back then didn't have our names, so I can't remember any of my old friends names, but I do remember some of the faces.


Back to the restaurant and food. We got to the restaurant about half an hour early, around 5:30pm. Justin had made a perfect parallel park, but when we found the restaurant was a bit further down Nicholson Street, he moved his car. Only this time, it took him about 3 gos to go straight into a car park about 3 spaces wide head first. When the restaurant opened at six, we went in after another couple had gone in. The waiters in their French accents seated us. Kakada arrived a few minutes later, so we were given menus. While we started to look at the photos, the waiter kept coming to get our orders, so we decided we better order first. They looked like they were in a bit of a rush to get us out, as we had been informed that we must leave by 9pm. For most of the night, we were rushed quite quickly through our meal.

The restaurant interior looks great and I love the photos on the wall and the artwork and mirrors. The whole place has a really comfortable feel with the brick walls and good lighting.


For entrees, I said we had to try the snails, since I've never tried them before. We got that as well as the Tasting Platter. I didn't know what to expect of snails, but in the end they tasted much like a mixture of clams and oysters. The snails in garlic butter tasted nice and I had more than my fair share since Kakada and Adrian didn't eat many. I was put off by them at all as I have written in my post about weird foods, I will try anything.


The Tasting Platter was good, with a salad with mustard dressing, smoked salmon on crispy bread, prosciutto, liver terrine, dill gherkins, cheese, jam onions, salami and roasted vegetables. The tasting platter was good, but I liked the one at EQ Cafebar more.


For mains, I got the Rabbit with pasta. Unfortunately, the rabbit tasted more like stewed beef. It was not half as good as the rabbit that I had at Enoteca Vino Bar, which had the flavour of rabbit and the texture to match.


Kakada had the Steak with red wine sauce which was served with baked potato cubes (not shown). It looked and smelt great but I didn't try any so don't know how it tasted. Kakada did eat it all so it must have been good.


Justin got the Venison with polenta. Again, the venison tasted like, of all things, Chinese Char Siu (roast pork). We both agreed that it was probably the star anise that made it taste like char siu. The texture was good, but seeing as I don't like star anise or char siu, I didn't like it much.


Adrian had the Spatchcock with mash potato (dish at the back). The waiter did the hard sell on this special and kept insisting that we try it. Kakada, Justin and myself would not be swayed as we already knew what we wanted, but Adrian decided to switch from his other dish to this. It turned out the spatchcock was quite good, but did taste a lot like chicken to be honest. The Green Salad with walnuts and the same mustard sauce as the salad from the tasting platter helped to break up all our meaty dishes.


We got desserts to share. Justin chose the Upside Down Apple Pie. It was surpringly good, despite the appearances. There was a caramel type taste but you could still taste the apple. The honey helped to add another dimension to it.


My favourite dessert was the days special of Banana Pudding. Kakada had asked if there were any special desserts as the menu said there was. Despite the waiters inital assertion that there was none, she asked if he was sure. He went to check and came back to tell us there was the Banana Pudding tonight. The pudding didn't really taste like banana at all, but instead like toffee, which was equally good.


The most disappointing dessert definitely has to be the Profiteroles with chocolate sauce. The profiteroles were so stale and had gone all hard. They tasted worse than the on sale specials at Coles like Justin said. And what's worse, the vanilla ice cream was really bad too. It had huge chunks of ice in it. All the desserts were ruined by the awful vanilla ice cream. If you aren't going to make any effort with pairing up the desserts with something different and decide on using vanilla ice cream, at least use good vanilla ice cream. I know that even Peters Extra Creamy Vanilla Ice Cream from the supermarket doesn't form ice chunks even after repeated outing away from the freezer.


The service was quite good, and the waiters joked with us about Justin's attempts at using his limited French training and pronouncing the menu items in French. However, this was balanced by the waiters trying to rush us at every course. Even at the end when we didn't ask for the bill, they just gave it to us. I understand their need to turn over the tables, but they really were rushing us a bit too much.

In contrast, this table of 6 behind us consisting of more elderly patrons did not get rushed at all. Four of them arrived first and sat at the table for a good 40 minutes talking before the final two arrived. They then talked and drank for another 20 minutes before even looking at the menu. Also, they were rather posh too, in a bad way. When they first got to their table, one lady was like "There's no room here at all, I think we should rearrange the furniture". Then when she got seated, she asked Justin to move in a bit. But when she sat down, she never bothered to push her chair in. Her husband did the exact same thing and squashed Adrian right into the table. We ended up moving our table back a bit. We didn't take it too seriously, but it just shows how inconsiderate the other table were, thinking they were too good for everyone. Even when we left and were trying to get out, they clearly saw Justin and Adrian trying to get out but didn't bother to move their chairs in for a while at all.

Overall Rating: 12/20, The food was ok and didn't match the fairly expensive prices. Ambience and service was good, but we were a bit too rushed for my liking.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Blue Fire

There are a couple of Blue Fire restaurants but we went to the one in Melbourne Central. The restaurants looks very nice when you first step in with the modern twinkling ball lights to the big grill right at the front. The tables are wooden tables nicely laid with clean white table cloth. As opposed to our usual lateness, we were actually early, and since the table wasn't ready yet, we took a seat on their huge ottomans and browsed the drinks menu.



Upon being seated, we ordered drinks. The waitress took drinks orders and went away. In turn, another waitress comes over and starts to take away the wine glasses. We all look a bit confused as we just ordered a bottle of wine. So we waited to see what she would do, and the first waitress arrives back and says that we ordered wine. After taking a sip of our T'Gallant Pinot Grigio, we see the next tables having the “Churrascaria”, which looked very enticing. Churrascaria is like all you can eat meat buffet except the "passadors" bring the meat right to your table and cut a piece for you.

First a plate of dips, bread and bruschetta arrive. Oh and the olives that Jo absolutely loved and polished off in quick time. She went for a second serve of olives as well. The bread was nice and crispy, but the dips were ok. The tuna type dip was rather bland. The spicy salmon dip was very spicy which overpowered the other flavours. Finally, the potato mash type thing was creamy but bland.



After the dips, the vegetables are placed in the centre of the table. This plate also acts as a beacon to attract the passadors to come to your table and serve you. This saved us the effort of waving our green cards (meaning we wanted more food) constantly. Below is a photo of the vegetables plate sitting high above the table for the passadors to see. In the background is Trang doing her best model pose.



When the meats start to arrive, Kin and I dig into the lamb that is firstly offered. The lamb was good, with the classic flavours of lemon and rosemary covering the tender still red meat. However, it didn't get any better from that point onwards. The chorizo which I was so looking forward to was spicy but without the rich flavours normally associated with chorizo. It was just like a Thai pork sausage that you buy from Safeway supermarket. The chicken flavour was ok but the meat was too dry. Similarly the beef was overcooked and dry, with the pork exceptionally dry. The seafood fared better, with the calamari being my favourite as it was nice and soft with a hint of spice. The swordfish texture was also good, still firm.



Service wasn't exactly good. We were served drinks after quite some waiting. Then we were just left there wondering what was happening as we had already ordered and could see the passadors keep walking past our tables without stopping for us. Finally after about 20 minutes, a waitress comes over and says that the meats are a bit behind and that they would arrive soon. They could have served us the dips first but that didn't arrive till just before the meats.

The ambience is good, but I think the food, the Churascaria anyway, is not up to scratch. For $49 for the Churrascaria, the food does not live up to the theatre of it. Most of the meats were not tasty, and seeing as they specialise in meats, I don't think the rest of the normal menu items would be that good. This would be a good place for large group functions as its roomy and the theatre side of it is good. But for a serious meal, I think its too expensive for the quality of food.

Overall Rating: 12/20, Good atmosphere, good place for large group functions. Food is not so good and too expensive.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Oyster Recipes

I love to eat oysters. Like most people, I found these slimy things rather disgusting when I was young, but nowadays I try to eat as much as my salary will allow. Recently, I read a post by Derrick about an oyster recipe book. This piqued my interest in trying different toppings for oysters.

Usually, the only way I eat oysters are with lemon and pepper, or a soy based sauce with ginger, garlic, spring onion and black bean. This time, I decide to try a few other sauces. I still ate quite a few with lemon and pepper, as that classic combination of flavours just goes perfectly with seafood and you can never go wrong.

I experimented some oysters with combinations of salmon caviar, salmon caviar with wasabi, wasabi and soy, a Thai lime and palm sugar dressing, soy with ginger, spring onion and sesame oil. They all tasted great, even the ones with wasabi. I like wasabi so my view is probably a bit biased.

Next time I need to try even more flavours, maybe some oyster shots with some form of alcohol or something. Does you have any suggestions of oyster recipes that you like and that I can try?

Krataron

After my previous meal with my good friend Calvin, we both said that we will make it a point to catch up say once a month at least. Well, this was our first meeting since then, nearly a year later. Gee how time flies. Things just keep going forward and unless you make a special effort to organise a meeting, it just seems to get brushed aside by everything else that goes on in your life.

We walked around the very cold city and decided on some Thai food. Krataron is located on Lonsdale Street amongst the few remaining Greek restaurants. The restaurant is nicely decorated and was full at the time we entered. It has two levels, with the BBQ section upstairs.


Here's Calvin, having lost about 7 kgs of weight off his already thin body since we last met. His job is very demanding and he works overtime all the time, not by choice but because he has to. He recently got a new job with a large company and is going to get paid a lot more. I'm so jealous but also very happy for him. Plus he shouted the meal, which was great. We've arranged to meet again in a month just before he leaves his current job (which is near my company) and I said I will shout next time.


We ordered Tom Yum Seafood soup. The entree size was only a small bowl so I told Calvin to eat it since I don't like Tom Yum that much.


The Papaya Crab Salad was good but very different. I expected bits of swimmer crab meat to be mixed in the salad, but instead it was those tiny crabs with their shells intact that have been marinated in salt water for about a month. It gives the whole crab this salty flavour. Mum used to make that and we would eat it with congee when we were young, so that brought back memories. I like this spicy salad with the crab.


We had Red Curry Beef with coconut rice. The curry was good but the beef wasn't as good as some other Thai restaurants. It also needed some more vegetables in the curry rather than just a large bowl mainly of liquid.


The Pad Thai was good, with the noodles cooked through and the sweet sauce not bad.


I also had some roti, which was ok but it cost another $1 for peanut sauce to go with the roti, which seemed a bit ridiculous. We also had Thai milk tea, which was very sweet but had that interesting flavour as usual.

The service was ok. The staff were extremely busy and rushing all over the place, but they did the best they could. I don't blame them in this instance but instead the ownwer for hiring too few staff. We usually got what we wanted after two requests.

Overall Rating: 12/20, Food is ok, service slightly lacking. Prices comparable to other Thai restaurants.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.

Strawberry Muffins

So what do you do with the sweetest strawberries you have ever tasted, well for me, I first eat through a punnet, then I decide to make strawberry muffins. These strawberries were as sweet, if not sweeter than the ones that I have picked a few times from farms. Hence I put a bit less sugar into the mixture.



Strawberry Muffins

125g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar (I used slightly less than 1/2 a cup)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup milk
1 punnet (250g) strawberries

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the sifted flour and milk. Spoon into a 12-cup muffin tin, lined with paper cases. I then pushed the strawberry pieces in so that each muffin has a good amount of strawberries. Bake at 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean.



The muffins come out nice and smooth and you can definitely taste the strawberries. Very easy to make and I will definitely make it again with other fresh fruits.

EQ Cafebar

With his freshly purchase Entertainment Book, Kin was eager to put it to use, so asked me to pick a restaurant as the resident self proclaimed foodie. I flicked through the book and picked EQ Cafebar since the food sounded good and it was suppose to have a great view along the Yarra. The restaurant is located next to the Melbourne Concert Hall, around the corner from the Arts Centre.

We arrived to find a restaurant with a huge Q of purple lights surrounding the entrance. The restaurant had that mood lighting that I dislike, where its really dark. There were dark columns holding up a cavernous roof, a good three storeys high. There was modern paintings lining the walls surrounding round dark wooden tables.


We are seated and the waitress pours us some ice water. This was a good thing, but then she proceeded to ruin her good work by asking what we would like to drink. Firstly we could decide what we wanted to drink if a)we were given drinks menu, but b)it is fairly obvious by the bottle of wine on the table that we would like to drink that. Instead of saying that she will go and get glasses, we had to ask her to open the wine and to get some glasses for us. She looked hesitant and we asked if we could bring our own wine. She went off to get glasses when a few minutes later, another waitress came and said "There's a ten dollar corkage, make up your mind whether you want to open the bottle." What was this, an ultimatum. Of course we were assuming that there would be corkage. So we told her that we would like to drink the wine. Despite trying to bill themselves as a fine dining experience, the youth of the waiting staff ruins this facade as their inexeperienced service cannot be hidden too long.

As the usual practice, we order an entree and then each pick a meal to share. I suggest the EQ Cafebar Tasting Platter, which turns out to be a great choice, with everything on the plate tasting great. The platter is huge and there is heaps to sample. From left and going clockwise, as far as I could identify, here was the contents: Strips of squid marinated on a lettuce leaf, candied onion (never had this before and it was really nice), fried cheese with yoghurt, pastry parcles of cheese and spinach, falafel with yoghurt and tabouleh, crispy herb bread on hommous, olives, pumpkin mash, chorizo, goats cheese and pickled vegetables in the centre.


For mains, Kin and Jo both chose the Pork Cutlet with veal and tuna sauce, anchovies, kipfler potatoe crisps, watercress and apple grapes (wow that was a long title). It was good but the sauce was a bit too much I thought. The grapes provided a good burst of sweetness.


I chose the Roast Rib Eye Beef with bone marrow, braised silverbett and a red wine sauce. This dish was excellent, with the beef full of flavour and cooked just right. I love bone marrow so sucked that straight away. The sauce was rich with the flavour of wine and I dried it off the plate with lots of bread.


Phuong had the very modestly portioned Calamari Rings, cooked with chilli, garlic, parsley and white wine. It was tasty and the calamari was cooked well and not tough.


Paul's Squid Ink Pasta with roasted red peppers, pig's cheek, chorizo in a tomato sauce looked great and tasted great too. I had never eaten squid ink pasta before and it is very good. I conjured up thoughts that it would taste bitter or something since that's what I imagine ink to taste like.


For desserts we got Sorbets that were served with a caramelised sugar thing. The sorbets were hit and miss. I loved the berry and passionfruit one. But the read bean one didn't do it for me. The texture was very good on all three, with a smooth texture rather than an icy type feel.


The Pear Tart with currants and spice with ice cream was surprising good. The warm pear inside the flaky pastry was nicely matched with the hint of spices just coming through rather than being overpowering. The walnut brittle in the ice cream was also good.


The most disappointing dessert was actually the one that sounded best on paper. The Chocolate Drowning, which is a liquer shot and hot chocolate that you pour over a chocolate brownie ice cream tasted like an iced chocolate. It looked much better than it tasted.


After dinner, despite it being such a cold night, we just had to go outside to look at the wonderful view of the Yarra and city. Here is Kin and Phuong acting silly.


Here I am almost fainting from the cold.


It was so cold that even the ducks came out to play.


The wonderful Melbourne skyline with Flinders Street Station and the Yarra in the foreground.


The Meseum which is currently showing the Guggenheim Collection.


The Arts Towers changing colour throught the night.


Isn't Melbourne just beautiful at night. It may not have huge skyscrapers like some other citys, but it has its own charm with unique buildings and a river that runs through it.

Too bad I can't say the same about all the people. There we were just happily laughing and taking photos when a group of "Aussies" walked past us and one guy yells out "We aren't in China or Vietnam." He then proceeded to turn to his friend and say "I'm more Aussie than all of them." If it means that you have to be a racist to be Australian, then I'm definitely not Australian. If it means you are proud of living in this country and contribute to it, then I will call myself an "Aussie".

Back to the meal though, the food was good and the view is excellent. The service could be a bit better. In terms of price, it is better with the Entertainment Book discount. Otherwise it would have been a little more.

Overall Rating: 14/20, Food is very good, service not so great. The view outside is beautiful, well worth a good look once you finish your meal.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.