Eating Out: China Red [Shop 6, 206 Bourke St Melbourne, 3000]

Am I the last to visit this place? Came here after my friends and I got out Uni offers =O yes this post is beyond late. We managed to get the room to ourselves all night since it was Monday, however I was surprised at how filled he restaurant was on a Monday night. Service is quick but not without it's issues. Our first dish arrived before we had even finished ordering. I don't remember exact names of dishes or prices. Most dishes were around the $20 mark and the dumplings under $10.

Seafood Vermicelli Hot Pot 海鲜粉丝煲

Likes: Variety of seafood.

Dislikes: Don't remember anything bad.

Crispy Skin Chicken 炸子鸡

Likes: Serious crispy skin

Dislikes: Portion size given price

Chicken meat was a little dry

Pumpkin Stir Fried in Salted Egg Yolk

Likes: Strong salted egg yolk flavour

Good with rice or by itself

Dislikes: PRICE $17 =.="

Oily

Not crispy

Beef Slices cooked in Chilli Broth 水煮牛

Likes: Serving size

Lots of aromatics

Chilliness

The serving spoon

Dislikes: Flavourless beef

Boiled Beijing Dumplings 12pcs

Likes: Lots of filling

Fresh skin

Dislikes: A bit plain on their own

Vegetable Dumplings

Don't remember the taste

Likes: Presentation

Dislikes: Don't remember

Food: 8.5/10 The food here is of pretty high level. I guess slightly above average chinese food.

Service/Environment: 8/10 Service was a bit of a let down as we had to ask for water about 3 times before someone actually got us some. Also communication problems so we had to resort to speaking in Chinese, which was still a bit of a problem as some waitresses spoke Mando and some Canto. But hey, there was at least one of us who could speak either or both of those languanges. Environment is very good, room to ourselves, only complaint would be the crappy music that makes you feel as though you are in the bathroom.

Value: 8/10 Some dishes overprices but since it's in the city it is acceptable. 

Accessibility: 9/10 In the city, maybe a little hard to find for those unfamiliar to Chinatown and surroundings.

Verdict? I'm a poor student. And you can get the food offered there a little closer to home.

Eating Out: BBQ King [18 Goulburn St Sydney, 2000]

We didn't plan to come here. Originally planned to go to Gumshara Ramen but when we got there IT WAS CLOSED!!! From Jan 1st till 14th =[ And it was Jan 1st. I was sooooo bummed. So dad took us to BBQ King because he was like all the gweilo's go there.
We walked in and it was really old school chinese restaurant. There was a really awesome feel to it, the waiters and setting all fitted into the environment. I don't have a menu so I'm just making up names.

 Complimentary Soup

Nothing special, except that it's made from duck bones.

 Chicken Hot Pot

Really nice, lots of chicken with mushrooms and LIVER (ewwww).Galicky and fragrant. Only issue was the bones.

 Famous Roast Duck and Char Siu

Char Siu was dry and salty. Duck lacked flavour and had a chewy skin. I don't get how it's famous.

Stir Fried Water Spinach in Fermented Beancurd Sauce

Pretty average although it was a large serving.

Food: 7.5/10 Average chinese food. Chicken was alright though.

Service/Environment: 8/10 Staff were attentive and atmosphere was good. Hygiene questionable. Staff treat the gweilo way better than the asians =[ I guess cos they're willing to spend the $$$$

Value: 7/10 Overpriced by a mile. Half a duck for 20 something dollars????? And it wasn't even good =[

Verdict? Tried it once and never again. Rather spend that money at Mamak or on ramen. How does it have such a high percentage on Urbanspoon? Was it just our experience? Did we order the wrong things? Or are the gweilo just getting ripped off and don't know it?

Eating Out: Shanghai Yangzhou House [177 Forest Road, Hurstville 2220]

Dad took us to Hurstville on New Years Day because I guess some asians don't take New Years off and therefore we could find some food to eat. After walking around checking out different places in Hurstville we decided on this place because we could not be bothered trying to find another place in the heat. We obviously chose the wrong place as the air con was a little screwed here =.="
We saw another table eating really yummy looking crab so we assumed that crab was on special but it turns out that the crab was $40 something dollars a pound!!! I thought I heard wrong due to my poor mandarin skills so we asked another waitress who spoke cantonese and confirmed it was $40 something dollars. That's like more epensive than lobster (at the time).

 Hot and Sour Soup Medium $9.80

There was enough for 6-8 bowls. This soup was really deceptive. First few mouthfuls it just tastes sour but after a few more your throat is burning from the chilli. The broth was not too rich which let the other ingredients be tasted. I found the soup the perfect consistency. Really yummy, only problem that it's not the best choice for a hot summers day.

 Seafood and Chinese Green Vegetable Rice Porridge $14.80

Parents were delighted to see they offered 泡饭 (special kind of rice porridge) as they haven't had it since coming to Australia. It is not congee, it's rice and stock separate. The stock was amazing, sooo rich (with some MSG). But I really liked this, the kind of food you want to eat when you're under the weather.

 Shanghai Style Chow Mei $7.80

Probably one of the cheaper shanghai noodles around but not the best unfortunately. Too oily and where's the cabbage?

Pan Fried Pork Buns $8.80 for 8

Unfortunately burnt on the bottom and extremely filling. Not the best I've had. I don't think their meat here is very fresh which is a let down.

Food: 7.5/10 Hot and Soup and rice porridge was good, the rest was a let down. I'm sure the crab tastes nice.

Service/Environment: 7/10 Typical asian service, more smiles please. Thank god the menu had a picture for every dish which made it easy to just point and order.

Value: 7.5/10 Yes it's cheap, you get what you pay for.

Verdict? Sooooo many places in Hurstville, if I was in the area again I'd try out a different place. Saw a place with a 4 person set menu for $118 with LOBSTER, SCALLOPS,  FISH and other dishes. Except we weren't that hungry. Hurstville=cheap asian food =D

Eating Out: Fook Yuen Seafood Restaurant [7 Help St Chatswood, 2067]

New Years Eve dinner. Nice restaurant, nice food, good way to send the year off. We had a banquet meal which came to almost $50 per person which I thought was a little overpriced but oh well. It was a nice environment. Don't remember the taste of every dish and I don't have any dish names as I didn't order therefore I shall make them up.

Peking Duck

Lots of skin, thin pancake. Soooo yummy.

Soup

 Lobster

 Steamed Fish

look at it's mouth o.o

 Duck meat from peking duck

would have been nice with some plum sauce as it was quite dry

 Bitter Melon Omelette

 Chinese Vegetables with Braised Mushroom

 Braised Tofu?

 Orange Spareribs

 Dessert

Don't remember the names of the two desserts

But parents were like WAHHH it's *insert dessert name here*

It's a good change from the usual fruit platter and sweet soup (I don't like sweet soup)

Whole peaches for fruit, one for each person =]

Food: 8/10 Typical Chinese Food

Service/Environment: 8.5/10 I really like environment, service wasn't bad either.

Value: 7/10 Not cheap considering quality. Oysters were on special for $4.50 each! What kind of special is that? In Melb oysters on special are $2 each. 

Verdict? Not that into chinese food, rather go to Mamak 100m up the road. 

Eating Out: Bellagio Chinese Restaurant [947 Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill]

There are soo many places to eat at Box Hill and we decided to choose somewhere we don't normally walk past and consider. We walked along Whitehorse rd but not the DarkZone side. And chose this Chinese restaurant. It's got a nice atmosphere.

Handmade Pork Pan Fried Dumplings (8) $8.50

Very surprised at how nice they were. Very crispy bottom, delicious pork filling. The pleating was beautiful.

Chicken with Special Ginger Sauce with Rice $8.50

Not what I expected. The special ginger sauce was special indeed. It had a chinese medicine taste to it which I hated, my parents didn't mind it though. Acquired taste I think. The chicken itself was pretty good except for the many bones.

Beef Noodle Soup $9.80

Not bad but not spectacular either. Generous serving of beef. The chilli helped the otherwise plain dish.

Taiwanese Fried Noodle $8.80

Didn't particularly like this one either. The noodles were sooo dry that a lot of tea had to be drunk.

Food: 7/10 Mediocre. It's Box Hill, mediocre isn't good enough.

Service/Environment: 8.5/10 The waiter was nice and helpful despite the minor language barrier.

Value: 8/10 Seems like good value but considering taste it wasn't really. Also you can get some pretty cheap good food in Box Hill.

Verdict? Ummm, probably won't be back for  while. 

Eating Out:Ants Bistro [9 Corrs Ln Melbourne, 3000]

Friends and I went out to celebrate the conclusion of our year 12 exams. Ended up at Ants Bistro where I re learnt why I never went back again after a visit a few years ago. Okay, it wasn't that bad but there is better, a lot better.

Most of the lunch dishes of rice and noodles are under $10.

Shanghai Fried Noodles

There wasn't really much that was wrong with the dish except that it was really over seasoned. However there were good things too, lots and lots of different types of mushrooms. Although some were the canned type they still were nice.

Food: 6.5/10 No one really said much about their dish. However a lot of tea was drunk after finishing our dishes.
Service/Environment: 7/10 Surprisingly it wasn't too cramped. Staff were helpful and efficient.Food came out at various times, but fairly quickly. However there was a slightly disturbing painting on the wall.
Value: 8/10 Lunch for under $10 in the city. Except quality could have been a lot better.

Verdict? Probably prefer to try a different place next time. I really think this is a hit or miss type of restaurant.

Why is the chinese name and the english name different? Ants bistro and red ants are quite different...

Eating Out: The Chinese Wok [Devon Plaza, Doncaster East]

Sorry I don't have an address for this place or proper names for dishes as I don't have the menu anymore. But it's 2 shops away from Nandos at Devon plaza. Now there are 3 asian restaurants at Devon Plaza, Lucky Hut which I have yet to try and quite frankly don't particularly want to try, The Chinese Wok been open for a few weeks and the sushi place which I would like to try some time.

The Chinese Wok is tiny, seats probably max 15 people? They could fit more but I guess they chose comfort over cramming which is good. First impressions were not so great as one look at the menu and it seemed like "aussie" chinese food. After pondering for AGES at the menu, finding out that the meat dishes actually came with rice and being told that they made their own sweet and sour sauce I went with the classic....sweet and sour pork DUH! Mum wanted something a little more asian and chose something along the lines of Noodles with pork? 爆酱面was the chinese name if I'm not mistaken.

sorry for the crap quality, taken with phone

 Sweet and sour pork $9ish

It wasn't radioactive red! The mound of rice was massive and I didn't manage to finish it. The pork tasted like pork and was battered and fried. The sauce was quite sour for my liking, maybe traditionally it is actually really sour, I don't know. It tasted like a home cooked meal made with love which is getting harder to find nowadays. The number of chinese places who do not give the shit about their food is quite scary and disappointing. 

Noodles with pork $10ish?

Okay the name for this was actually a lot better sounding that the one I just made up. The bowl didn't look very big at first but it was filled to the max with noodles and pork mixture. It doesn't look that awesome but let me tell you it tasted AMAZING. The noodles were special and I don't know the exact name of them but they were white and almost spaghetti like just thinner. The pork mixture has a special sauce that I suspect was bean paste but it was soooooo good. All in a light broth. Just like chinese street food. If I were to come back I would definitely order this.

Food: 9/10 Tasted just like home cooked meals. We talked to the chef who was this lovely chinese lady who was so passionate about her food and making it the best. Got some takeaway chinese side dishes for dinner that night and they were so delicious too.

Service: 8/10 All the waitressing if done by this girl. She super friendly and helpful. She knows all the dishes. Only problem was we had communication problems, she spoke chinese to me and I tried to reply but she didn't understand me (a 42 in vce chinese means nothing, she couldn't even understand me trying to say chicken), so from then on I just replied to her in English whilst mum talked to her in canto and she replied to mum in English. It was messed up. But she speaks decent English.

Environment: 7/10 It's not fine dining. If it was in China this would be considered pretty good.

Verdict? I want to go back and have the bowl of noodles all to myself =] Hopefully the food won't change much.

Eating Out: Ma Ma Sichuan Restaurant [483 Swanston St Melbourne, 3000]

So after a very disappointing muck up day because the teachers are sooooooooo uptight and restrictive my group of friends decided to out for lunch. I was going to wear my costume out but since if was already drenched from the insane non stop rain I decided to ditch it, soggy cardboard is no fun. Decided we wanted to eat buffet a few days ago but we had a bit of a dilemma choosing between China Bar Signature and Ma Ma Sichuan but since China Bar is soooooo far from school and more than double the price, Ma Ma Sichuan won. We're students who can't drive =.="

So pretty much it's $10 for lunch buffet from a bain marie + a can of drink. I can only sum it up by saying you get what you pay for. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I really couldn't be bothered as I was too hungry.

 There were two soups to choose from. Corn and egg or the one pictured. Both quite bland and unevenly thick. Some more chicken powder might help =P The corn soup was so plain that if you added sugar to it it would have made a good chinese sweet soup/tang shui....

Since we arrived at around 1:30-2ish I believe some of the food may have been sitting around for a while, especially the fried rice as it had become so dry and hard...good dosage of msg was used to flavour it just like everything else. Preferred the non vermicelli fried noodle, probably because it wasn't as dry except it ran out and they didn't make more =[ Other than that everything else was like stuff you find at a little chinese restaurant in outback Victoria...stuff for the gweilow...okay I shouldn't say that. But highlighter red sweet and sour pork with more batter than meat and you know what I mean.

Second round consisted of some better food. Vegies cooked in msg, chewing gum beef with a hint of soda/alkaline flavour (how does that work, isn't that stuff used to make beef non chewing gum like? Wonder what cut of beef they used, probably one suited to braising not stir frying) Spring rolls were crispy and what you're average spring roll tastes like, just don't ponder about what it contains. The honey chicken was extremely sticky to the point where BITS of batter would be stuck to your teeth but it was pretty good. But in my opinion the best was the fried chicken. Fried chicken can never really go wrong =] Didn't try some of the things like pig trotters and chicken feet, just not for me.

A few rounds later they decided to shut down the station although we hadn't finished eating. We planned on staying as long as we could to get more than our monies worth and to chat but I guess that's not what the workers wanted and I don't blame them.

Food: 5.5/10 AVERAGE. At least all the dishes were edible. 

Environment: 7/10 Pretty clean and spacious. 

Service: 6.5/10 Waitresses spoke chinese to us ABC kids, we replied in our broken chinese 3rd language. They realised we were ABC and spoke to us in English after. Dishes were not taken away at all...it's a buffet though...

Value: 9/10 $10 with drink. If the food was a little better then it would be the best.

Verdict? Probably won't come back for lunch buffet but I want to try the sichuan hot pot buffet for $22 a head which is actually what this place specialises in. If you like dodgy chinese takeaway then you will like this place.

Do you feel ashamed when you hear a Caucasian speak Mandarin and Cantonese better than you can?

Eating Out: Kambo Chinese Restaurant, Cnr Canterbury Rd, 1 Mahoneys Rd, Forest Hill

Booked a table for 8pm at around 6pm on Friday night. Chose this place because of their special "If your birthday is in August, get a free oyster for you and your friends/family". And hoped that we could get 2 oysters each for free since both my dad and I are born in August but its only one birthday person per table.

Ordered the "live fish" set. You can't choose the dishes, they are already set. Can't exactly remember the names of dishes so I will describe them instead.

Complimentary Soup

This came literally straight after we ordered. The lady scooped it in around 10-20 seconds before attending other tables. Typical complimentary soup. I believe it was dried vegetable/cai, carrot and pork soup. And probably some added flavour enhancer/msg.

XO Oysters

Yes only 4 were free. That's how they make money from this offer. Most people don't just get one oyster each, they want at least 2 and therefore buy more for $2.50 each 0.0 Initially ordered 4 XO chilli ones and 4 spring onion and ginger ones but when they came it was 8 XO Chilli ones with spring onion on top. Not sure what went wrong but we didn't bother asking, they looked so yummy. The oysters were massive, though not strongly flavoured the XO sauce really helped. Though I feel a better quality XO sauce would have been better. The oysters were just undercooked which is fine because it retained its creamy squishy part. And the second all the oysters were taken and eaten from the plate, a waiter had come along and collected the empty dish. It was amazing. 

Lemon Grass Pork Chops?

Like most Cantonese cuisine you find in restaurants now, the pork had been deep fried before being put into a sauce, but no batter. The sauce lacked lemongrass flavour and had lots of honey in it. Don't think I've ever tried a dish like this before. Also they could have used cleaner oil as there were little specks of the stuff that sinks into the oil all over the pork. I guess we went later in the night and they've been frying all day long so the oil couldn't have been cleaned. 

Stir Fried Garlic Baby Spinach

Didn't expect this much spinach. It was really packed onto the plate. It was a little too oily that ever leaf was shiny. The garlic could have been a little stronger, otherwise it was a fine dish. Can't really go wrong with asian vegies.

Scallops on Tofu

Not a fan of tofu, especially when its super big to minimise the amount of scallops required. The tofu was bland and you had to cut it down the middle and pour the sauce into it. The scallops were typical chinese restaurant ones...if you get what I mean. Something out of a packet possibly. Still had some scallop taste to it.

Steamed Live Barramundi 

I love fish, especially when it's steamed asian style. The flesh was soft and just cooked. Good flavour and was really delicate. Sooooo delicious yet simple. 

Fruit platter

Seriously it's very hard to make fruit platter look good. Straight of the fridge to you fruit platter. Wafer thin slices of watermelon and orange. Both sweet. 

Sweet soup-mung bean?
Not a fan of warm sweet soups, I like cold ones. This wasn't too bad, typical honkie style.

Food: 7/10 Nothing spectacular, everything was average and expected. 

Service: 8/10 Quite impressed. Don't expect to chat to your waiter. This place is to the point, and done asap.  Tea pots are refilled before you know it. Dishes come quickly and go just as fast. Amazed at how quick everything was done with only 4 waiters for the entire restaurant. 

Environment: 7/10 Once again, a typical chinese restaurant. Don't expect sparkling dishes. Or quite surroundings. 

Verdict? If I was in a hurry or if it was late at night I would come since they have a different menu past a certain time of night. However only if I was in the neighbourhood. There are other places closer to home with similar food. Sat down at 8pm, finished dinner just after 9. Impressive.