Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

It was our 2nd wedding anniversary and since I was off work, I was tasked with choosing a place to dine to celebrate such momentous occasion (I mean, deary me, we must celebrate! It’s not like we have an anniversary every year!)

(menu)

Being heavily pregnant, I was too tired to basically bother to stick with my original intention of putting together a really lovely meal. And I didn’t really want to book somewhere really expensive and really special because a) I couldn’t eat much and b) I didn’t want to go into labour half way through a, say, Jacques Reymond dinner.

(steamed pancakes for Peking duck)

So Simon’s Peiking Duck Chinese Restaurant it was. It wasn’t far from home and it was more interesting than dumplings. The restaurant was supposed to be newly opened but I made a booking anyway just in case as the Age recently had a write up on them. Simon is, of course, the famous duck nazi (err… not sure why he’s called that, he’s not exactly one but someone has to sell the story) from Old Kingdom in Fitzroy who came out of retirement to open his own restaurant in good old Box Hill.

The place was already almost packed by the time we rocked up at 7pm and as they only took cash, we had to go back out to hunt around the neighbourhood for an ATM. There wasn’t one. But there was an Australia Post outlet at the bottle shop nearby who gave us a withdrawal from our NAB account. Phew!

The menu consisted of your typical suburban Chinese restaurant populars with a slight Malaysian slant but we weren’t there for lemon chicken or hor fun, oh no, we were there for the duck! We ordered the duck course (option 1 – $55) which is exactly what is served at Old Kingdom. Option 2 consisted of additional noodle course (or in place of beansprouts, I’m not too sure) and was slightly more expensive. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m beginning to think these random posts are a really good way to use up all these photos I would never otherwise make a blog post about. Let me know if you think they’re insubstantial. Not that I would stop. I love to show off what I ate. Hehe.

This was a random beetroot and fetta salad at some launch/opening party I crashed. No I wasn’t invited. I was just there for the food. This beetroot thing wasn’t bad. Or was it the beers I had before it?

Tuna sashimi, cucumber and black caviar. Didn’t taste like much to be perfectly honest. Yes, the same picture as the one on my Twitter page.

Crispy banh xeo (Vietnamese-style crepe with prawns, beansprouts and all the yummy things) from Tien Dat. So good. Does anyone have a recommendation for banh xeo? I love the dish and would like to try other restaurants. Read the rest of this entry »

(My ‘main’ – which was rice, fried egg, various other side dishes  and beef)

We ended up in Box Hill one night since I felt like lots of meat. I’m really not a big meat eater generally and I tend to stay away from all-you-can-eat because I have this bad habit of killing myself at all-you-can-eat. It’s a serious bravado thing. It is fortunate that Josh is not competitive (I can out-eat him by about three times) when it comes to eating otherwise I would probably be dead by now. Anyway, on the night I figured we should try the all-you-can-eat deal, just because.

(grilling pork belly slices)

We got there at about 7.30 on a Thursday night and the place was absolutely packed. It seemed like the all-you-can-eat barbecue ($27.50 per person) was very popular! We previously visited one late Saturday afternoon and we were the only people there so we didn’t think to make a booking. Because we weren’t that hungry, we left our name as a reservation and they promised to call us when the table became available. So we went and did some grocery shopping in the mean time. I suspected we went behind a queue of other reservations because we didn’t get a table until 8.15!

Since we already decided on the all-you-can-eat, we quickly ordered that. The all-you-can-eat menu consisted off various meats, side dishes and a ‘main’ meal.

Our side dishes arrived. First up was mixed green salad leaves. The salad was nice and fresh with a touch of dressing. The sides were complimentary even if you don’t order the all-you-can-eat. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: Prices are guesstimates from my hazy recollection. All dim sum were about $4.20.

(I think this was taro roll or wu kok – $4.20)

After a bout of Twitter exchange bitching about how hungry we were, how hung over she was, and how much I wanted dim sum, Nat had decided that we were going to actually go to Vegie Hut in Box Hill. Nat had been raving about Vegie Hut as a vegetarian paradise for quite a while. Everything there is vegetarian (despite being called ‘beef’ or ‘chicken’) Time we gave it a go!

(fried vegetarian scallop dumpling – $4.20)

Being a vego, she misses out on all the good dim sum (yes, she does!) but fear not! We discovered to our delight that Vegie Box does vegetarian dim sum every Sunday.

(veggie pancake of some description – $4.20)

We dropped off Nat and Mat at the restaurant while we went in search for parking (swap meet was on, ick). We were running pretty late as the kitchen was about to close (I think it was almost 3pm). They had ordered some dim sum and fried noodles . The taro rolls (I think they were anyway, I’m working backward by almost a month here) were nice and crunchy. The veggie pancakes were  really good. The filling included glass noodles and various veggies. The scallop dumpling was strange to me but not in a bad way. Didn’t really taste like scallop but close enough.

Because we ordered more than two dim sum, some plain rice congee was served as the starter free of charge. It was anything but plain. The stock used to make the congee was very flavourful and sprinkling of salted daikon and herb made it quite special. Nat loved it because it made her feel better almost instantly.

(soup dumpling (xiao long bao) soup with vegetarian shark’s fin $4?)

Mat ordered soup dumping soup. I didn’t think too much of it especially the fake shark’s fin bit. But Mat really liked it (but you know, he’s a vego. Can’t really trust him. He’s not used to flavours. Haha.)

(Stir-fried rice noodles with beef aka beef chow fun – $8.00?)

The rice noodles were stir-fried in dark soy sauce with some mock beef. It pretty much tasted like other beef chow fun* dishes you get at other dim sum restaurants. Wasn’t anything special. But it was special I guess because it wasn’t really beef. If you have never tried Chinese mock meat dishes, give them a go. They are quite amazing. I also liked that Vegie Hut food, although weren’t any less greasy than your usual Chinese place, didn’t feel quite as heavy as usual.

(Sizzling Szechuan ‘Beef’ – $13.00?)

Nat recommended a sizzling dish so I ordered the sizzling Szechuan beef. I asked the waiter if the dish was spicy, he said yes. I would eat my hat if there was any real chilli being used in this dish! But it was good nonetheless. It wasn’t exactly sizzling though.

(special fried rice – $8.00?)

Josh likes his special fried rice so we ordered one. Nothing special saved for the fake char siu pork. To be honest, if you weren’t paying attention you wouldn’t have realised it wasn’t real pork.

We also had some tea (quite nicely brewed, worth a mention) and the waitstaff were very sweet to us. We were the last table to leave and we stayed well past closing time. They didn’t pressure us to leave at all. They were quite happy to let us stay. For that, I tipped well. We left with very full happy tummies. Will definitely go back.

Vegie Hut, 984 Whitehorse Road, Box Hill
Yum cha specials every Sunday

* see my version of Beef Chow Fun

(Grilled Pork and Spring Rolls Rice Vermicelli Salad – $ 11.00)

I am such a fan of Vietnamese food here in Melbourne. I was very surprised when a friend of mine who went over for an assignment in Vietnam came back and said food was total rubbish compared to the Vietnamese food you get in Melbourne! Vietnamese beef noodle (pho) is one of my all-time favourite dishes. I can eat it pretty much everyday and won’t get sick of it.

(Vietnamese spring rolls – cha gio)

The Age Cheap Eats guide and various websites rated Tien Dat in Box Hill quite highly and since I was in the area, I thought I might give it a go. I rocked up there at around 1.30pm on a Friday and it was absolutely packed. I managed to snag the last table (the waiter didn’t seem to thrilled with me. I assumed because there was only one of me and the table could have seated two?)

(the salad was underneath!)

I felt like a bit of the good old Vietnamese noodle salad, so I ordered the Grilled Pork and Spring Roll Rice Vermicelli which isn’t really vermicelli at all. It bothers me slightly when the word vermicelli is used completely incorrectly but I digress. The noodles were of the thin rice variety which were served cold.  The pork was ‘char-grilled’* and well flavoured with lemon grass. There was almost no need for dressing. I loved the crunchy bits of peanuts that were sprinkled on top of the pork. It was delicious. The spring rolls were freshly fried and piping hot. Nothing is worse than cold, chewy spring rolls! At first glance, I couldn’t see any salad – just a bit of pickled carrot and daikon (see the first picture) but once I dug into the noodles, the salad presented itself. The salad was made up of iceberg lettuce, beansprouts, Vietnamese min and mint. I love the fresh herbs used in Vietnamese food. This dish is definitely a must-try.

(Steamed Pancake Rolls with Prawns – Banh Cuon – $5.20 for 2)

I also ordered Steamed Pancake Rolls with Prawns (banh cuon) which was basically prawns in a bit of chilli and seasoning soy sauce wrapped in thin sheets of rice noodles. The rolls were served on top of blanched beansprouts and topped with crunch fried shallots. It was basically like the Chinese chee chong fun (the type you get for as a dim sum) but the filling was slightly spicy with that very distinct seasoning soy sauce overtone. It was served with fish sauce dressing rather than the soy sauce. The noodles were silky and soft and the fillings not at all what I expected. I was much impressed with it.

(a close up of the filling – not a very good one, mind)

Too much food for one person though. I almost died. The lady next to me said to her lunch partner ‘I’m so full!’, and this was when I was half way through my noodles, struggling, with my rice rolls untouched. She caught me rolling my eyes at the amount of food I had to go and started giggling. The tables were wayyyy too close together for my liking (about a foot) I have to say! The service was quick but passable. I had to ask twice for water everytime I was there but at least I got it eventually – which, to be honest, is adequate for a Vietnamese restaurant since my expectations were not high**.

Tien Dat, 3 Carrington Rd., Box Hill

* Vietnamese restaurant speak for ‘fried to the buggery’.  In a very good way though.
** My favourite pho place in Springvale requires me to literally walk up to the counter and ask for water (again) and wait there until they give me one otherwise I wouldn’t get water. Why do I put up with it? Because it has the best pho in Melbourne!