San Churro

Day 3: Melbourne

So what does one do after a big hearty Simon's Peiking Duck meal? Heheh, well... the three of us drove to Lygon Street looking for durian gelato but it was closed.

So we went to San Churro instead.. and O M G... it was freaking fabulous! Heheh! Sigh!!! I could easily live in this city!! Sob sob sob..

The hot chocolate was hot and chocolatey without being too sweet! And the churros are so yummy! I wished I wasn't so full from duck....I could easily demolish the whole plate and more! OMG! I am so buying a choc fondue when I go home, although it will probably not be as good as San Churro's

Chillipadi Kopitiam

Day 2 in Melbourne :

Lin and I went to Chillipadi Kopitiam on the Sunday nite. To be honest, we were still feeling a bit full from the delicious afternoon tea at LuxBite in South Yarra. On top of that, earlier on, we had gone to Tien Dat for lunch. Yes, we are crazy hungry people!

Oh well, I have a blog to write and I leave Melbourne on Tuesday and so, the show must go on. We must eat till we drop! POW CHAH!!!!!

We drove slowly to Kensington. It's so funny, Lin wanted to park a little further away so that we can walk to the place. But what do you know? A park right in front of the kopitiam.

The poor waitress had to come back several times because we weren't ready and was too busy reading and laughing at the menu. The translation was in Hokkien dialect. It was hillarious! Someone has an awesome sense of humour!

We ordered just one piece of roti to share between us. I got the chicken satay and mamak rojak. Thank God the satay sticks were bite sizes, five for entree. Lin ordered the Ayam Percik as a main. No rice for us. I think we were both struggling to finish because we were full. So we took our leftovers home.

I must mention that the curry that came with the roti was spicy and creamy. Very tasty. I cannot fault the curry, it was really good quality, like home made. The pasembur ( mamak rojak) was hot and spicy and I love it. It was refreshingly light. I love the prawn fritters too. Pasembur is one of my favourite mamak dishes and it always bring backs fond memories of my weekends in Penang. I could literally drink the sauce, spicy hot and all. Love it!

We went back to Chillipadi at Melbourne Central the next day to say hi to Li and Robert, the owners. We had missed her that nite as she had a catering function on. I should have pitched harder to Uncle Robert to open up a Chillipadi in Wagga Wagga. All in favor, please comment. ;) LOL

Movida Aqui

I made this booking two months ago and I was really looking forward to trying out new foods with my friends in Melbourne. I have never had Spanish food before, not even with my previous travel as a cabin crew.

So this is pretty exciting, no?

It's really hard to review foods that I am unfamiliar with, so I shall try to describe the dishes and post lots of photos. Let's just say it was an explosion of flavours in my mouth.

We began with some cocktails and shared the tapas.

Anchoa
Hand-filleted Cantabrian Artisan anchovy on crouton with smoked tomato sorbet. The sorbet took away the very salty taste of the anchovy, I don't mind it at all. I like it.

Sardina
Imported Spanish Artisan ‘Cuca’ sardine with tomato on toast. Wow, we were eating tiny miniature sardines. It tasted just like sardines! What can I say?

Carillera de buey
Slowly braised beef cheek in Pedro Ximenez on cauliflower puree. I have to say, this was absolutely beautiful! The beef melts in your mouth and who knew that cauliflower could be so magnificent as a puree?

Grant ordered the lamb sweetbread. Lin and I had a bit of taste each and I couldn't eat it. I tried, loved the chorizo and the chilli but I couldn't swallow the sweetbread. Where's that cocktail? I need more wine!

Serrano 'Montesano' artisan mountain ham 24 months. So I am guessing they aged this ham for 24 months up in the mountains? LOL... no? Aww, come on, that would make a good story!

Paella de Marisco
Finally, we topped it off with the Bomba rice cooked with seafood and saffron and it was superb!

However, it left my lips very dry all afternoon. Maybe it's the saffron? Or it's too salty? Too much wine? I really need a siesta after this lunch!

God Bless Those Siestas!

Simon's Peiking Duck

I was informed by my friend Lin that Simon used to own "The Old Kingdom". It is apparent to me that his new kingdom is doing well too ;) We went to his new restaurant in Box Hill called Simon's Peiking Duck. It is very busy, the place is crowded with practically every table been taken.

You have to book your duck and table in advance to dine at Simon's and be on time! If you are late, you might find yourself having to wait for another duck as he will give your duck away and fair enough too, the man is passionate about his duck and the quality of his products. So if you missed out on your duck, that's your own fault!

I met Simon for the first time that nite and he is a charmer, that one! He is quite a character and enjoys entertaining his diners. This is my first time having pancake ducks. His intructions are very comical. he throws the pancake at you, gives you a slice of duck and you are only allowed to put a piece of spring onion and a cucumber in it with a teaspoon of home mixed plum sauce. Then you have to fold it at 6 o'clock (direction wise)....he cracks me up!

It is an dining experience, you have to try it if you haven't. The duck is so juicy and moist and oh my God, you can easily eat a whole duck by yourself.

 

I heart LuxBite

After playing photographer for my friends, the GSD demo team at The Royal Melbourne Show, we took off to South Yarra for some afternoon tea. I had been wanting to go down to LuxBite to get me some macarons ever since Shellie from http://ironchefshellie.com/ blogged about it.

So we rocked up at the place and I was like "Wah... look at all those macarons and desserts, and look, they are piping some macarons in the kitchen.."

Yup! They don't let me out much... so we ordered out afternoon tea and sat down, grinning like little kids! Then Bernard came out with some complimentary macarons and I was like "skipping with joy on the inside"
I had to restrain myself from grabbing and hugging the man! ;) We love the flavours; kaya toast, peanut butter jelly was my favourite, creme brulee and watermelon was so cute!

Bernard and Yen from LuxBite are one of the nicest people, very hardworking and down to earth. They came out to say hi despite being busy. My friend had the bread and butter pudding with warmed pandan anglaise, it smelt heavenly. She said she could drink that every morning. I concur! It was like pandan milk, very delicious!. I had the caramel slice with caramel salted macaron on top. It was very sweet, love the salted macaron. I bought the EPIC experience box  ;) and they advised me what flavour was good for travelling and wrapped it with such great care. I put in the freezer overnite and lovingly hand carried it back with me on the plane. This was worth more than gold! I love LuxBite, I am going back! 

LuxBite on Urbanspoon

LUXBITE SOUTH YARRA

38 Toorak Road
South Yarra, VIC, 3141
Australia

P: +61 398 675 888
E: info@luxbite.com.au
Open Wed - Mon, 8 am - 8pm

Omah's Port Melbourne

I went down to Melbourne to visit a school friend for a gastronomic weekend. So we had planned in advance with a list of places to try out and I made all bookings necessary. I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed in Melbourne in the wee early hours. Lin met me at the airport.

Before I knew it, I was at an auction, watching a house being sold in Templestowe for 1.25M. OUCH!!! No way was I going to buy that house, it had no pool! And for that price, I would have to be living on kaya toast forever!

So eventually, it got to dinner time and we were both so excited and looking forward to eating some mud crabs. OMAHS is a Malaysian restaurant, there are two places, one in Hawthorn and another at Port Melbourne. We went to the one in Port Melbourne.

On entering, it was looked very busy and we were seated to our table. It tooks us a while to sort out the entrees, we already knew we had wanted the salty egg mud crab. Our waiter Issac, was busy running around, he looked a bit flustered, so we used our womanly charms to calm him down when ordering. Nice guy, he looked after us well throughout the evening.

I love the birdcages set up in the restaurant, the lighting was unique. We ordered deepfried soft-shelled crabs and mixed entrees to share. For our mains, we ordered salty egg yolked crab, ikan bakar and oyster omelette. The salty egg crab was outstanding, I love the batter, and are a convert now, me being not a big fan of salty egg yolk but this batter was superb! I even ate all the egg roe of the crab, there goes my cholesterol ;)
 

Love the oyster omelette. Similars to ones you get in Singapore, reminded me of my feast at Newton Circus, Singapore. The ikan bakar was a disappointment. I think I had high expectations that it would be like barbequed chilli fish or stingray. It was a different fish used of course but the "rempah" didn't taste right to me. It taste too much of a curry paste. Overall, I highly enjoyed my visit to Omah's and would definitely return when I am in Melbourne again. Thanks to super friendly staff and finger licking good crab!

Omah's on Urbanspoon

Omah's Port Melbourne
136-138 Rouse St
Port Melbourne VIC 3207, Australia

(03) 9676 9918