Eating Out: Petaling Street Revisted (Afternoon Tea Special) [600 Station St, Box Hill]

Hungry after a day of orientation at uni K仔 and I decided to head down to Box Hill to try out the afternoon tea specials at Petaling Street. Twice we did this.
There are 10 dishes to choose from, all of which are $6.80. YES $6.80!!!!!!!!!!! May I add that includes Teh Tarik hot/cold OR a can of soft drink. But do go for the Teh Tarik, very frothy but sweet.

On the first visit we shared a Hainanese Chicken Rice. No picture because we were just too hungry to care. The skin was very springy. Only issue was the soya sauce underneath was quite salty. There was about 5 decent sized pieces of chicken.

The second time we went we both ordered separate dishes, at $6.80 why not?

Traditional Malaysian Roast Chicken with Rice

Likes: 

Whole maryland =] with super crispy skin

Moist chicken (I don't get how it can be so moist if the chicken is roasted, really raises suspicions.)

Chicken rice was quite chickeny

Dislikes:

Skin was extremely salty, like they dipped it in salt. 

Char Koay Teow
Likes:
Very generous serving.
Everything was there (crispy pork lard, fish cake, prawns, chinese sausage, egg, beansprouts, garlic chives and COCKLES)
Just right for chilliness (not for K仔, he added a massive dollop of sambal onto his share)
Dislikes:
Cockles tasted like the sea, sooooo fishy.

By the end we were both completely stuffed. Although this is their "afternoon tea" set we had it for lunch. I wonder how anyone could eat the much for afternoon tea.

Food: 8.5/10 The chicken dishes were average but the char kway teow was the best I've had all year.
Service/Environment:  8/10 Clean. Alright service, English is obviously not the waiter/waitresses first language but it is better than a lot of places in Box Hill.
Value: 9.5/10 Exceptional value. To get a 10 the dishes would have to be perfect, close but definitely not perfect.
Accessibility: Train, tram and bus.

Verdict? Wonder if I can try out all 10 dishes offered. 3 down 7 to go. Ipoh Hor fun sounds good, as does Petaling Street Style Short Rice Noodle in Claypot.

Eating Out: Red Lantern Chinese BBQ 327 Doncaster Road, North Balwyn, 3104

Ate lunch here with mum yesterday. Since they're extending/expanding one would assume that they are doing quite well which means that they serve decent food. And in my opinion, my assumption was right.

Char Kway Teow $9.50

Full of ingredients, however the only seafood present were these extremely crunchy prawns (with no flavour). Is CKT supposed to have fishcake and lap cheong? Because neither were present. Lots of crunchy beansprouts. Hardly chilli at all. Some egg, some char siu like stuff and little tiny pieces of something which I assumed to be pork fat but didn't taste like it...not sure what they were. Capsicum and carrot were some unusual additions. It was slighty brown but not as dark as what I'm used to seeing. Altogether it tasted pretty nice but not really like char kway teow, tasted a bit like singaporean noodles (星洲炒米) with hor fun(河粉/wide rice noodles) instead of rice vermicelli(米粉).

Roast Duck and Soya Chicken Rice $10.50

Just one selection is $9.00 but I couldn't decide between the two so we got combination. The soya chicken was alright, used to be better. Large pieces of meat, smooth elastic skin with soya sauce flavour. The roast duck on the other hand was surprisingly good. Also large pieces of MEAT, not just bone like some stingy places. The skin was crisp but there was only a thin layer of fat. Good for the health conscious, bad for the fat lovers like me. However encountered the same problem as we did for the take away roast pork last week, the BBQ meats were cold. 20 secs in the microwave won't do any harm right?

Food: 7.5/10 Pretty good, one of the top places around my side of town for Chinese BBQ meats. Extremely generous servings, Mum and I had trouble finishing both plates. A tad on the oily side.

Service: 8/10 No complaints about this. Waitress was nice (she had blue eyelashes o.o) Food came really quickly. And you are left to eat in peace.

Environment: 7.5/10 Contemporary Chinese furnishing. Not sure whether the open kitchen really works. Looks organised but cluttered at the same time. Though the ducks hanging in the kitchen to dry look pretty cool.

Verdict? I'd come back. Since they are so quick and serve decent food. Also it's along the way back from school so it's convenient. 

Look at that skin!

Drooling yet?