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.

Cookbook Challenge: Lemon and thyme roasted chicken with baby potatoes [Week 2, Citrus]

I substituted some of the potato part for some other vegies because variety is good. Overall this was a pretty tasty dinner except I believe I blasted the juices out of the chicken by roasting it at 200 degrees in a fan forced oven, but dinner was already running late, I couldn't care less at the time. I will work on sticking to the recipe word for word next time. It didn't take too long to prepare, just shoved everything up the chicken's backside and chucked it in the oven.

Donna Hay's Lemon and thyme roasted chicken with baby potatoes

(anything in brackets is not written in the recipe but I believe should be added)

Ingredients: 1 head of garlic, halved. 5 sprigs thyme. 1 lemon halved. 1.6kg whole chicken. 30g butter, softened. 1kg baby potatoes. 2 tbsp lemon juice. 2 tbsp olive oil. salt & pepper. 1 cup chopped flat leaf parsley leaves. 1 garlic clove crushed (it says extra but it won't make a difference if you just take one from the bulb of garlic before u shove it into the chicken). 1 tbsp finely grated lemon rind (you want to do this before you cut any lemons up for shoving into the chicken or juice).

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees (probably 20 degrees less if fan forced).

2. Place the garlic, thyme and lemon inside the chicken cavity and tie the legs together with kitchen string. (next time I think i would probably stab the lemon a few times, squash each clove of garlic and shove a bigger bunch of thyme up the chicken as the flavour didn't really come out very well)

3. Gently loosen the breast skin and push the butter underneath.

4. Place the chicken in a roasting pan with the potatoes. 

5. Place half the lemon juice half the oil and salt and pepper in a bowl and stir to combine. Spoon over chicken and roast for 1h 15mins or until chicken is cooked through the the potatoes are tender.

6. Place the parsley, extra garlic, lemon rind and the remaining lemon juice and oil in a bowl, stir to combine and potatoes to serve. (I found that this sauce wasn't really a sauce, just like a salad of parsley so I added the chicken juices and fat from the bottom of the pan into it, it was delicious!)

Roast chicken, veggies and a beer for dinner =] Should I be advocating teenage drinking? It's just one beer and I'm legal. And hey it was the night before Australia Day. Celebrate in true aussie spirit *cough cough*

The recipe is supposed to serve 4 but I bought a smaller chicken as it was just my brother and I eating dinner that night. And like we always do we ate in front of the tv. This time we watched man vs food, do NOT watch this show when you're eating, it is gross. 

Eating Out: Wong's Lucky Bar 旺旺幸运吧 [921 whitehorse road box hill Box Hill, 3128]

$98 4 person LOBSTER BANQUET or $28 a pound. I think this is still valid.

Lobster on egg noodles

One lobster. The meat was burning hot. Firm but not rubbery and flavoursome. The lobster was pretty fresh. Overall it wasn't bad except for one minor thing. The sauce was quite thin and didn't coat the noodles and lobster very well. Seasoning was perfect. Plenty to share around for 4 people.

Pork Ribs in Spicy Salt

Crunchy batter which was a little too thick in my opinion. Also could have had a little bit more spiciness to it and more meat.

Stir Fried Seasonal Vegetable (Bok Choy when we went)

Very large serving of vegetables. Crunchy and juicy. 

Hainanese Chicken

My favourite dish and also their signature dish. Large amounts of meat. Smooth, silky and the skin still has that springy crunch if you get what I mean. The chilli sauce wasn't too chilli and was quite sour whilst the spring onion sauce had a little msg or chicken powder or something similar added to it. Hainanese chicken rice is only $6.90 here.

Stir Fried Beef with Bitter Melon $12.80

We added this on top of the banquet meal as we had 5 people. Wasn't too bad except for once again a runny sauce which the stir fry bathed in. Good thing was the bitter melon wasn't bitter at all.

Food: 8/10 Overall it was pretty average chinese food. Hainanese chicken was above average. 

Service/Environment: 6/10 Wait staff were stretched to the limit and there were 4 or 5 wait staff for a classroom sized restaurant. Not the cleanest place and very cramped. It is insanely busy at night.

Value: 8.5/10 The lobster here is probably on of the cheapest in Melbourne at the moment. Good quality. Except other dishes are pretty average. Hainanese chicken rice is probably one of the cheapest as well, but don't expect the best.

Verdict? Probably only for cheap lobster, hainanese chicken rice and the stir fried pipis. YUMMY

Eating Out: 1228 Tea House [936 Whitehorse Road, Box Hill 3128]

One more exam to go!!! Then 3 month summer holiday. I can't wait.
So just a quick review.
I don't remember the last time I came here and I wonder if I ever have. I think they're supposed to known for making a good bubble tea but I didn't order one and it was a sunny hot day, what was I thinking? So after flipping through the menu many times I decided on Korean Chicken in Special Sauce but it turned out that it didn't come with rice and rice costs $2 extra. It wasn't exactly the price that made me change the mind but the fact that there would be a large serving of fried chicken that I was certain not to finish. Changed to the Taiwanese Pop Chicken Rice instead, little did I know that that serving would be quite large.

 Taiwanese Pop Chicken Rice $8.90

I know it doesn't look like a lot but it was, just have a look at all that chicken compared to the egg underneath. The chicken was crisp and well seasoned. It wasn't too oily tasting which made eating a lot of it easier. Underneath the chicken lays a soy sauce egg and some preserved vegies. The rice was really plump and oily from the chicken, did I mention there was a heck of a lot of it? In the end I only managed to finish half  and doggy bagged the rest home. K仔 couldn't help me as he conquered his own mound of rice.

Korean Spicy Squid Rice $10

I just made up that name as I have forgotten it. So pretty much it comes on a sizzling plate filled to the point where its going to fall everywhere. The squid was tender but probably out of a frozen packet. The sauce sweet and a little spicy but not as chilli as it looks. It came with kimchi and some potato cubes on the side. 

Food: 7.5/10 Nothing out of the ordinary. Could cut back on the oil.

Value: 8/10 Pretty good considering serving sizes.

Service/Environment: 7/10 Looks relatively new except could be cleaner. 

Verdict? I'd come back to try the bubble tea. It's Box Hill, the list of restaurants I have yet to try is endless.

Cooking: Dead simple viet style chicken noodle salad

I love Vietnamese food.  So many fresh flavours. Sweet, sour and salty. To rank my favourite viet dishes is pretty much impossible. Viet pork rolls, viet noodles soup, bun bo hue, rice paper rolls, typical stuff because I haven't really explored much further than that although I loved reading Pauline Nguyen's cookbook.

So last weekend (yes, a little behind in blogging) parents when to Prahran Market and came back with a box of 12 jam filled doughnuts and a roast chicken. Doughnuts were really good and delicious. Coated in a little sugar. Pure deliciousness. Anyways made a simple refreshing lunch with the roast chicken.

Ingredients: Rice vermicelli. Cucumbers and carrots julienned. Roast chicken. Nuoc Cham/Dressing: Sugar. Warm water. Chilli flakes. Fish sauce. Lime juice.

Method: Cook vermicelli noodles according to packet and leave to cool unless you want a warm salad. Make dressing by dissolving sugar in warm water. Adding chilli flakes, lime juice and fish sauce according to taste. Arrange shredded roast chicken and vegetables on top of the vermcelli. Pour some dressing over it and mix and enjoy. 

I removed the breast of the chicken and cut them into slices (hence why there is a chunk of chicken on the top) Managed to shred the chicken with a knife and one hand. It was pretty fun to do (probably because I kept sneakily eating it =] )

Eating Out: Don Don 321 Swanston St

Wanted to come here since reading about how cheap and quick their food is, however every time I go to the city I can't seem to find it. Therefore I decided to google map it and it turns out that little bit is not on good maps cos it's Swanston walk? However I did find it on flickr and when I walked by today I realised why I never noticed it. It is like a black hole in the wall.

So we had about 30 mins to find some lunch before our movie started. Went there and got lunch in about 1 min? It was insane, like life was in fast forward. We decided to get takeaway as there was no way all 4 of us were going to fit inside that tiny place. So we crossed the road and sat on the lawn of the state library under the full afternoon sun. Chatting whilst eating our lunch from takeaway boxes.

Curry Chicken Don $6 or 7 

(it was so rushed I don't remember)

I know it doesn't look too flash. But trust me it tastes better than it looks. The curry sauce is sweet and mild but there is definitely curry flavour. The chicken pieces are large, boneless and tender. Brocolli was crunchy and not mushy, gotta eat your vegies. The radioactive red stuff is pickled vegetable of some sort, crunchy, sour, really good contrast to the curry. 

Friends had Sashi Don which was a let down. One friend didn't realise it involved raw fish (which she doesn't eat) and therefore I ate it for her, and boy was that weird sashimi. Looked fine but tasted like nothing. No salmon flavour whatsoever, texture was about right though. For $8.50 is seemed like a bargain but I'm not too sure. Maybe we went on a bad day. 

Another friend had the udon noodle soup. which looked pretty good. Only downside was it is quite hard to eat noodle soup from a takeaway container in your hand.

Food: 7/10 You get what you pay for.

Environment: 6/10 Extremely cramped. 

Service: 8/10 Quick and to the point. You order, collect change and your meal will already be there on the counter for you, even maccas can't beat that. 

Verdict? Sure I'd come here again, might avoid the sashi don though. Best place for REAL fast food.

Eating Out: Straits Cafe 694 Doncaster Rd Doncaster 3108

Went to Straits cafe for lunch. This place is great as you get to watch the chefs make your meal in the awesome woks.

Hainanese Chicken Rice $10.90 (I think it was $10.90)

I must say a lot better than any chicken rice I've had recently. Msg soup was very yummy...I wonder why. The rice wasn't as chickeny as it could be but rice is good as it is. However the chicken was sooooooo smooth and tender and ohhhh soooo delicious. And it was deboned and portion size was very generous. Thinking about it is making me salivate. The soy sauce was really addictive for some reason, may have something to do with msg and oil. The chilli sauce wasn't chilli unfortunately but did provide a garlicky, sweet and sour hit. 

Assam Laksa $9.90

I've had a bad experience with assam laksa, I feel it is an acquired taste and I can't say I dislike or like it. Feelings are neutral. This assam laksa looked very different to the one I had at Petaling Street last year. Looked a bit sloppy and no exactly the most appealing bowl of noodles in the world. But K仔 slurped it up pretty quickly, whether it was cos it was really yummy or cos he's been craving it for ages or cos he was sooo hungry I'm not sure. 

Food: 8/10 Good honest food, freshly cooked, generous portions. 

Environment: 6/10 The place is cramped, and a tad shabby. 

Service: 8/10 Quick service, leaves you alone to enjoy your meal. 

Verdict? I would come back here again, over and over although they only have a double sided menu. Supposedly they Sar Hor Fun is amazing, must order that next time I'm here which hopefully will be soon.

Eating Out: Nandos. Franchise all over Australia.

Went down to Doncaster Westfield again today. Shopping with the girls. Been craving Nandos for a little while now. Used to eat it quite regularly but now its about once every couple of months.

Why is it so good? One, the marinade is spicy and jammed pack with flavour. It has the nice charred flavour without the burnt flavour as well. Two, the chicken is soooooo moist and fatty, not dry and disgusting unless you get the breast but its not too bad.

One downside to nandos is the price. This piece cost me $5.90. Burnnnnnnnnnnnnn. And it didn't make me full but it did taste delicious and I was happy. Had to get a roll of sushi after to fill myself up. So lunch ended up costing $8.20. Not too bad I guess.

Eating Out: Little India, Foodcourts at every shopping centre

Special post today. Done by K仔(the boy). Anything written in this font is by me(teenagefoodie).  Pretty much headed down to Doncaster Shoppingtown/Westfield after a very very depressing Specialist Maths sac/test. Food makes me happy again, hopefully it does for the boy as well.

"twas a cloudy day in melbourne when we decided to eat some fooood! mainly because we were hungray. and westfield being westfield had many choices of FOOOD to offer. so we set off around the drum (why they call it a drum??) in search of a meal to appease our hunger. walked past nandos....but....nandos....is expensive!! and they were going 2 eat it anyways (might be eating it tomorrow).... and further down we walked.....the more outlandish the prices got -.- ("who pays 10dollars for a slice of pizza, chips and coke? i can make two pizzas for less than 10 dollars"(yes i said this, but come on it was $10) and thus we arrived at an indian resturant and decided to have INDIAN. because someone was quite peckish and desired some tandooooooooOOooori chicken(hehe i wonder who...=). 
So ended up ordering a rice with two meats coz...lets face it, we don't exactly LOVE our vegies..... (vegies are nice, just that chickpea curry doesn't sound as nice as a meat curry)
Picked tandoori chicken and butter chicken....becoz...i mean...COMEON!! its CHICKEN!! (chicken is supposedly the healthier meat option yes?)

butter chicken was....very buttery and the sauce is the best part because you can add it to your rice and its SOOOOooooo buttery!! *droools* (i've learnt how to please this boy, give him some curry sauce and some rice or even better roti and he'll have a big smile on his face)
 tandoori chicken....does not taste like most tandoori chicken i've eaten. probably because being malaysian my mum jst chucks a LOT of spices which make it uber spicy. but this one wasn't. looked like CHAR SIu tho. very red =S maybe lacked a bit of flava, but thats my opinion.

Service: 6/10 its a food court.....though the guy did come buy and pick up our plate........so not bad

Atmosphere: 6.5/10 again...its a food court...but the view outside of shopping town wasn't too bad....except...couldn't see the city -.- too bad there was no awesum sun set

Food: 6.5/10 becoz...again=.=" sorry im repeatin myself, but its a food court. and i dont think tandoori chicken was too my liking, therefore the low score. though rice is really nice, apparently it's saffron rice. very buttery, but extremely DELICIOUS With the butter chicken sauce!!*DROOOOOOLS*

I love his writing style. Hope you enjoyed the post =)

Eating Out: Malaysian Kitchen, 910-912 Doncaster Road Doncaster East

Been wanting to try out this place since it was renovating. Finally got to go there with mum for lunch today. Looks pretty decent on the outside, inside is pretty nice. However I seem to get this feeling like it's a bistro....I don't get why though. Took the waiter ages to figure out whether we should sit downstairs or upstairs...which was a bit awkward as we just stood there watching her look at the downstairs area and then look at the stairs a few times...
Lunch special is $10.80 with about 15 different choices and either a soft drink or coffee. I don't remember all the choices but there was Nasi Lemak, Curry Laksa, Wonton noodles, Fish head noodles, Assam Laksa, Hainanese/Roast Chicken Rice.
They have some pretty authentic stuff on their normal menu, serious not so famous hawker food. However if you aren't eating there at lunch a bowl/noodles will set you back about $12. I know that sounds pretty cheap but considering the prices of Malaysian food in Melbourne, that's starting to enter the higher price end.

Fish Head Noodle Soup $10.80 with drink (latte)
I'm not a fan of fish head, so many bones. I tried some of the soup and it was like really comforting, a little under seasoned by I think it's better that way. I wouldn't mind a bowl of that soup with noodles for when I'm sick.

Hainanese Chicken Rice Set with soft drink $10.80
I was rather disappointed with my lunch. The rice was almost a highlighter yellow, lacked chicken taste, the chilli sauce lacked garlic, there was so little chicken (don't be fooled by the picture) most of the chicken was bone. The pickled vegetables didn't seem to go that well in my opinion and the soup was pretty average.
Mum asked for Sambal to dip her noodles in. The sambal tasted very good, really good flavours except lacked one thing. It was not chilli AT ALL!!!??!!

Whilst ordering my drink, I asked whether they had Teh Tarik and got a puzzled face from the waitress. Asked her in Chinese and she replied "no, we don't have that".
Now what kind of authentic Malaysian Restaurant doesn't have Teh Tarik??

Food: 7/10 Nothing special, could have been better but it wasn't bad. Very ungenerous portion of chicken, very generous portion of chicken bone.

Service: 6/10 Didn't encounter a single Malaysian waiter/waitress. Okay they can't be faulted on that. The waitresses do not speak a common language, some mando, some canto, no fluent english. No drinks served until you ask. Waitresses did not know which table was which, serving food to random tables. For some reason an old man with a walking stick had to sit upstairs, absolute inconvenience, what were the waitresses thinking?! Halfway through the meal I saw the waitress turn into the dish washer....in the sight of all the customers. In short, I dislike their service. 

Environment: 6.5/10 Feels like a bistro. They have those little round bar tables up against the wall (out of the way). Noodles on the floor. Lack of lighting, only had natural light that was coming through shut blinds (which makes it very hard to take a decent pic of your food).

Verdict? Pretty average. It's not bad but it's definitely not good either. If I was given a choice, I think I probably would choose to go to Straits Cafe 3 mins down the road. Just my personal opinion.

Eating Out: HAPPY MEAL!!!!

I HAVE FOUND A FLAW IN THE MACCAS MENU!!!! Okay, I don't think I'm supposed to be excited over this but being a very asian person, any saving of money counts. Been craving McNuggets for a while now and today I finally got to eat it. However whilst looking at the menu board, it said a small 6 pack nugget meal would cost $6.75, however when I went to look at how much a 6 pack nugget happy meal was it was only $6.45, essentially you get the same thing except you get a toy with a happy meal and its still cheaper...how does that work?
So I decided to get a Happy Meal!!!! Brings back good memories =) Must have looked a bit weird, wearing my Year 12 jumper whilst eating my Happy Meal at the Shoppo food court.

Did I mention that you get the option to change your soft drink for either small shake, juice, fizzy juice and all these other things? Love Strawberry Shake. WAY BETTER THAN JUST A NORMAL MEAL. Hopefully Maccas doesn't realise their price difference anytime soon.

Cooking: Tandoori Chicken Wings

Obsession with tandoori chicken started yesterday and mum bought chicken wings today which made me ask whether we could have tandoori chicken for dinner. And for some miracle reason we had a pack of tandoori paste in the pantry!!!! Just followed the instructions on the packet and grilled them in the oven. 

 Marinating

Under the grill, so hard to take a picture

They don't look like they're tandoori chicken wings.

The flavour wasn't strong enough, I think it's because we used chicken wings instead of thighs

Yesterdays tandoori chicken tasted so much nicer. 

Don't forget to eat your vegies. 

( I was bored waiting for the chicken wings to be done and I had the mini tripod out, so practicing camera skills.)

Cooking- Hainanese Chicken Rice

I have two obsessions right now. Photography and Malaysian Food.
Okay, Hainanese chicken rice is supposed to be from Hainan, China but like we all link it to Malaysia and Singapore.
Only took just over 1 hour to make. *Shock horror* yeah, supposed to take hours so the chicken is super smooth and delicious. But who has the time when it's 5:30pm.
Used the recipe from Steamy Kitchen as a guideline.

Making the really awesome chilli sauce, not enough chillies in my opinion.

I think it's the clearest soup I've seen ever. Nice clean taste. But no where near as good as the stuff you get at restaurants. One day....one day

All finished =)

Good dinner

Eating Out: Wong's Lucky Bar 旺旺幸运吧- Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill

Situated in the MIDDLE of the ROAD (in between the traffic light which connects box hill central and 7-eleven, where the tram stop is) is this little Malaysian/Chinese Restaurant. They've been putting a lot of ads in the Chinese newspapers about their $6.90 Hainanese Chicken Rice and "Authentic" Laksa.

Walked in to see WILL PAN on the mounted tv =D Sat down and ordered Hainanese Chicken Rice, Seafood Laksa and Nasi Goreng. Watched Jay's 2007 World Tour Concert whilst waiting. The dishes arrived very quickly and looked quite presentable....but looks aren't everything. Sorry no pics, totally forgot to take pics until everything was half eaten but I'm pretty sure everyone knows what Hainanese Chicken Rice, Laksa and Nasi Goreng looks like.

Hainanese Chicken Rice-I can't say it was exceptional. I would probably give it an alright. The rice was very fragrant, the 6 or so decent sized pieces of boneless chicken could have been "smoother" and I swear the chilli sauce was dyed red.....Overall this dish was like SALT on SALT on more SALT and that was without the soup....

Laksa- Made from quite bland seafood mix and seafood highlighter I have to say I was quite disappointed. I felt the soup base didn't have enough spices and not rich enough. It was a creamier colour than usual. If I were to come here again I wouldn't order the laksa again. But then again what would a honkie girl who hasn't been to Malaysia know about a laksa?

Nasi Goreng- What can you say about fried rice? It was pretty average. I'm not sure what is supposed to be in Nasi Goreng but it can't be brown special fried rice right?

Verdict? To be honest I wouldn't come back again considering all the other choices in Box Hill. Sorry, maybe for their Hainanese Chicken if they decide to go easy on the salt.

Cooking-Salad + New Utensils

Something extremely random but I'm just curious to know whether anyone else is like me. When you buy a roasted chicken from Safeway/Coles or similar sort of place, do you rip bits off to eat the second you get home? It's irresistable, the smell is just mouth watering.

So a couple of days ago we bought a roast chicken and had some left over which I decided to use to make a asian style chicken salad as it was sooooo hot that day.
Ingredients: Carrot, Celery, Beans, Spanish Onion, Lettuce, Chicken.
Utensil Number 1: Bought in HK :) Juilenne Peeler? No clue what it's called but it looks like a vegetable peeler but it also cuts it into strips as well. Very good tool, makes life a lot lot easier. So you pretty much just use it like a vegetable peeler and the carrot (or whatever you are peeling) will became thin strings of carrot. Saved me sooo much time. I don't really see any bad points...cept for it doesn't peel vegetables...but it's not supposed to I guess.

Utensil Number 2: The sharpest knife I've ever used. Also bought in HK. CERAMIC KNIFE. Been around for ages but we never got one until this year. I swear this knife is amazing, it cut the onion so it was see through thin. Cuts through meat as though as it is soft cheese. However there is a downside, as it is extremely sharp, it is OUTRAGEOUSLY dangerous, you can slice your finger open just by cleaning it. Also it cannot cut through bone and is easily broken/shattered.

Doesn't look very nice yeah? Tasted alright. The dressing was too thick though, unfortunately we ran out of hoisin sauce, peanut butter, chilli sauce..everything I was looking for so I had to mix whatever I could find into a dressing. Used, last tiny bit of hoisin sauce, some sesame paste I found, sesame oil, sweet chilli sauce, chilli flakes and quite a bit of bottled lime juice to thin it out and to balance out all the sweetness.

Verdict? Refreshing in the hot weather and felt good to finally eat a tonne of vegies after a month of eating out every day in HK. Could be better next time if I can find the right sauces.

New Years Day-Claypot Rice, Yau Ma Tei

One of the last things on my list was claypot rice, looked online for a good place and found Four Season Claypot Rice in Yau Ma Tei. Went there at 7 ish, and the line was masssivee. Around 20 metres long but we decided to line up anyway even though you had to line up on the road. An hour later we finally got a table.

Beef Claypot Rice: I know it's a bad photo, had to be super quick as there was a massive line of people waiting for a table outside. So pretty much its beef on rice that has been cooked over a fire, it comes with an uncracked egg which u crack in and mix into the hot rice to cook it. Yummy!


Chicken Claypot Rice: I have to say this was pretty average, nothing special about it. I'm pretty sure there is better claypot rice in HK. I remember having awesome claypot rice in WanChai about 4 years ago, but they aren't allowed to cook their rice outside the shop as it was dangerous for pedestrians passing by.


Preserved Meat Claypot? All these claypots didn't have English names so I just make them up. So pretty much its just rice with Chinese Sausage, Liver Sausage and Preserved Meat? Also extremely average...

And then came the best oyster omelette EVER. I know it looks a bit weird but it was SOOOO YUUMM. Lots of little oysters that were packed with flavour in a duck egg batter with spring onions. Sure it was greasy but for some reason it was sooo nice fore some reason, I think it's because it's super freshly made with good ingredients. Very different to the usual oyster omelettes at Chinese Restaurants here.

The restaurant didn't sell drink so you have to go down the street to a little shop that sells drinks. The soft drinks come in bottles, every time my parents see them they talk about how when they were my age it was like that too. So after drinking my favourite soft drink, cream soda, we returned to the little drink store to RETURN the bottle and 2 bucks back :)

Verdict? The one hour wait was worth it...for the oyster omelette :) And good value, just over $100 for dinner for a pot of soup with homemade fishballs, 3 claypot rices, a dish of vegies and 2 serves (4 pieces) of oyster omelette. All that for $15ish aussie for 4 people :)

Afternoon of Shopping

Today after lunch we decided to go shopping at New Century Plaza in Shatin. Walked the entire shopping centre only to buy some MUJI pens. Love muji pens, sooooo awesome.
As it got late we decided to have a quick dinner at a random restaurant we walked by, why that restaurant? HK$78 (AUD$11) Peking Duck. That's 12 pieces of Peking Duck. So we ordered a 4 person banquet and a Peking Duck....for 7 people. But we weren't particularly hungry so everyone was full.

The banquet consisted of many dishes which you choose. Drunken chicken, fish, lamb, xiaolongbao(shanghainese dumplings), dumplings, pig stomach, shanghainese noodles, hot and sour soup.
The food was pretty good, not outstanding but still decent.
I love hot and sour soup. I have an obsession with sour food and chillies. Absolutely heavenly :)

Anyone else like sour food or spicy food?

Cooking: Fried Chicken

I know Sunday was 5 days ago but I kept forgetting to blog. So since mum used the fryer on Saturday, she decided to use it again on Sunday. That morning i watched a video on youtube on how to make fried chicken and therefore wanted to try it out. It was pretty easy to make and quite tasty but also a tad oily. Didn't exactly flour them enough so the skin wasn't all coated but all in all it wasn't too bad for my first try.

Dinner :D

Also tried out this method of de-boning a chicken wing after its cooked, its a great idea. Here's a link on how to do it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRcOY-PvOC8