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: Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House [251 Swanston Street Melbourne, 3000]

On the dreaded day of the release of our ATAR scores, my friends and I went out to try and keep our minds away from it. We ended up here for lunch at around 2pm and it was still a little busy which is a good sign right?
Took me a little while to choose, I wanted the bun bo hue, pho and the vermicelli dish. I ended up choosing the vermicelli dish as I haven't had it in a while and it's SUMMER. In my mind bun bo hue and pho are more winter dishes.
Also their chinese on the menu is completely screwed. 75% of the menu is listed as 特别牛鸡粉 even for non noodle dishes.

Sugar Cane Prawn and Spring Roll Vermicelli $9

After mixing in all the nuoc cham (sweet/salty/sour/spicy sauce) I found it the vermicelli very sweet. Surprisingly it tasted good sweet as the sugar cane prawn was quite salty. Unfortunately they took the sugar cane out before serving the dish =[ I like chewing sugar cane. The spring rolls were crispy and filled with a pinkish paste.They were mediocre, not what I was expecting. I really liked the addition of peanuts as it gave it some more flavour. Overall a good dish but not spectacular. 

Food: 7.5/10 No one really said much about the food. I think it was average, nothing to shout home about.

Environment/Service: 8/10 Everything came on time. The place was clean. 

Value: 8/10 Lunch for under $10 in the city, not bad. Serving sizes were on the smaller size.

Verdict? Might come back for pho. MIGHT

Eating Out: Pancake Dessert House Eatery (Mid-City Arcade 18/200 Bourke St Melbourne, 3000)

After attending the filming of iron chef friends and I went out for dinner. After some epic discussion we chose to eat at Pancake Dessert House Eatery. Whilst we waited for our table we were given a menu and expected to order. 

Baked Chicken with spaghetti (Portuguese sauce?) $10.30

I chose this because I miss eating this. Typical Honkie style meal if you eat out at the 茶餐厅. Had the choice of rice or spaghetti. It's good with either. Chose the Portugese sauce because I hardly get to eat it here and it tastes awesome. It's nothing like peri peri although that is also portuguese. It's like a coconut sauce with a hint of curry. Just really really yummy. It's popular in HK cos of Macau and their portuguese population. Overall I really enjoyed this dish except it could have done with a few more vegies than just frozen peas for that price. Decent serving just like in HK. 

Spicy chicken on rice $8.80

Very crispy chicken. Salty and hardly spicy. Not bad if you like your fried chicken asian style.

Steak in special sauce with noodle soup? $9.30

I actually don't know the name of this dish. It says steak noodle soup on the docket and I know it is the "special sauce" I didn't taste this but just looking at it the combination is certainly weird. The person who ate this complained about it's combination of flavours. 

Food: 7/10 Nothing spectacular but it certainly tastes like HK, damn I miss HK. 

Service: 7/10 You are ushered in and out as quickly as they can. I don't blame them it was Friday night. But not the friendliest service ever. 

Environment: 6/10 They have literally arranged this place like tetris. Even the waiters can't get through. You share a table with however many people they can fit onto the table. Seriously this is a fast food restaurant.

Verdict? It I was in a rush and wanted honkie food I would definitely come here. Good value for money. Next time I will definitely try the pork chop on rice which is their signature dish and probably the quickest one too. Looked super super super yummy. 

Eating Out: Old Town Kopitiam Mamak, QV, Melbourne

Another place to cross off the list of places to visit, however I would like to come back here to try other dishes. The day started off with meeting K仔 in the city, getting everything sorted for Sam's 18th in the arvo. The patch of synthetic grass upstairs QV is such a nice place to just sit and relax. Except that it was Saturday morning and tonnes of little toddlers were running around full of energy. After sitting back and relaxing for a while we decided to go to Old Town Kopitiam Mamak for lunch since it was 15 metres away.

I have to say this place has this really awesome feel to it. It's just the way it has been designed, very casual and relaxing. It is very busy especially during lunch hour. I love the back wall of shelves of milo tins, holicks tins, evaporated milk tins and every other tin they use. Which made me wonder whether those tins will ever be used considering there are in perfectly even rows with no sign of usage. On the adjacent wall is the kitchen, open to view. You can watch them make roti and everything. There's just a sense of organisation and professionalism when you look into the kitchen, gives you peace of mind. K仔ordered since he actually knew what half the things were (being malaysian).
Sorry about the photo quality.

Roti Telur $4.50

Only found out what telur means after it came and was told it was EGG! Okay, eggs are not my best friend, I've never actually really liked egg at all throughout my whole life. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Roti was so yummy (especially compared to what I made the other day) however I have yet to try roti in Malaysia so I cannot compare. Curry sauce was nice and the sambal tasted really weird to me. It was surprisingly sweet and super chilli =.=" But K仔 really liked it, is it an acquired taste? K仔 complained this dish would only cost AUD$0.60 in Malaysia, but we're not in Malaysia so it's going to be $4.50

I can't remember the name of everything in this dish as I had an acute eye problem just as this was ordered.

It was part of this menu of where you get rice and a choice of various curries/accompaniments, price depends on how many you choose. This one was the most basic at $8. The rice had a strong lemongrass flavour which was a bit different. The mutton curry had a very very strong star anise flavour and the calamari was cold but still crunchy. Bit of a weird dish.

Food: 8/10 Quite a few things were quite unusual as I'm not used to Malay food. But lots of people ordered roti of some sort.  

Service: 7.5/10 Not bad, I think majority of the waiters/waitresses were Malay. Service was quick as there were many staff.

Environment: 9/10 Personal opinion but I really like the feel of this place. No you don't get super comfy chairs, and yes you may have to share tables with strangers, but it is part of the experience I guess. 

Verdict? I would certainly come back again. So many things I want to try on the menu. Sure it might seem a tad pricey of simple food but it is worth it. Not exactly food you can get anywhere. Also you know the people working there are genuinely dedicated to delivering good food and making it a good restaurant. 

After lunch sat on the synthetic grass in the sun again waiting for time to pass. Soon to be followed by a long night of Wii, PS3, Mahjong, Twister and Poker. 

The rest of the night sort of became a blur, the effects of a few drinks and fatigue started to settle in for a few.

Only managed an hour or two of sleep due to constant chatting and a hard tile floor. It was a good night.

Gotta power through the rest of the day now, hopefully make it to night time. 

I have a big stack of holiday homework waiting for me. 

Back to work now.