Eating Out: Honkie Breakfast at Jade Hong Kong Cafe [Carrington Rd, Box Hill]

Not many places serve honkie breakfasts here in Melbourne. You have to go to the asian suburbs and it is very expensive especially when compared to HK. In HK a honkie breakfast costs a few aussie dollars whilst here it's a minimum of $7 or so.

There are about 8-10 options for breakfast all include a drink.

 Cold Milk Tea

Worst idea of the day, felt sick all day long. Can't stomach cold milk tea first thing in the morning.

 Macaroni in Stock

Average honkie style macaroni. Don't expect al dente pasta or homemade chicken stock. You'll get neither.

Bacon and egg with a slice of buttered toast cut in half

Very generous amount of bacon compared with what I'm used to. Egg crispy. Didn't eat the toast, I was way too full.

Altogether it was $7.50. Be warned, the meals are quite large and extremely filling.

Food: 7/10 Average honkie breakfast. Nothing special. 

Service/Environment: 7/10 Quick. Not shining clean though.

Value: 7/10 A little on the pricier side.

Verdict? Unfortunately I'm not that into honkie breakfasts. Except my mum comes here every single week before she goes grocery shopping, that suggests that it is not bad.

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. 

Cooking: Mother's Day Brekky/Honkie Style Breakfast

Decided to make a Honkie Style breakfast for mum this mothers day. Honkie breakfasts have a Western influence to it. My mum's favourite is Macaroni in Soup, Scrambled eggs, Bacon, Buttered toast and a honkie milk tea. However breakfast turned into brunch due to two things. 1: It took a lot longer to cook than I expected, thought I could do it in 30 mins, ended up taking 1h 30 mins due to my poor time management. 2: got home at 1 last night and went to bed at 2, tried to wake up at 9 but failed, unwillingly got out of bed at 10 to make brekky.

今天是母亲节，每年我都会为妈妈煮早餐。今年选了做港式早餐给她。妈妈在外面吃早餐一定会叫火腿通粉，炒蛋，烟肉，牛有多士和港式奶茶。如果我有得选择我一定会每天吃港式早餐，可是每天早上没有那么多时间做。
HAHA, my fail chinese xD Hope it makes sense.

Ingredients:
Bacon, Macaroni/Elbows (200-250g for 4 people), Eggs, 6 tea bags (lipton is fine, strings cut off, for 4 people)), 1 big can of asian chicken stock, bread, butter, condensed milk, evaporated milk, shredded ham (not shaved).

Method: (the way I should have done it)
Fry bacon a little bit under. Whilst bacon is frying, cook pasta according to packet. Put the 6 tea bags into a pot of boiling water and simmer until you're just about to serve breakfast (i know it sounds insane but u need it to be as dark as possible). Drain pasta. Reserve about 500ml of the pasta water. Pour the can of chicken stock into the pasta water and bring to boil. Cook eggs (however you want them). Add a tsp of condensed milk into each cup. Add about 1/4 of a cup of evaporated milk on top of the condensed milk. Stir to combine. Lightly toast the bread (honkie toast is always just toasted so it is barely even golden/yellow) and butter. Place pasta back into boiling stock. Place bacon back into pan to heat through. Ladle pasta and soup into bowls. Sprinkle with shredded ham. Place bacon, eggs and toast onto a plate. Take pot of tea and pour into cups through a strainer to catch any stray tea leaves. Serve all together.

I made a ham omelet instead. 

I like the idea of putting the milk into the cup first, whether it makes a difference I'm not sure. Just how some honkie people do it. Also evaporated milk makes so much of a difference. 

Unfortunately it didn't taste anywhere near as good as the breakfasts you get in HK and it was no where near as cheap. HK $20 can get you more than what I cooked. Thats about $3 aussie.

Eating Out: High Tea Inn, Tunstall Square, Donvale

Today I finished school at 1pm so I went out for lunch with my mum and my bro.

We went to this place at Tunstall Square, Donvale called High Tea Inn which is actually an Asian restaurant.
I think someone recommended it to mum saying their fish head noodles are really good. So of course mum ordered it but unfortunately mum loved it so much she didn't share any with us :( And also she devoured it before I even got a chance to take a pic. So I guess I can only describe it. Two reasonably large crunchy fried fish head pieces (which mum said was salmon) ontop of a bowl of udon style noodles in a slightly creamy broth. Mum was loving it so much she didn't even hear me talking to her =.="

Doug had a viet style Lemongrass Pork on Vermicilli noodles with spring rolls. However he also was too eager to eat and ate a springroll before I took a pic. So there is a springroll missing in this pic.

Doug said it was pretty good. The springrolls were hot and crunchy, and the pork was quite nice. I realised he savoured the pork till last.

I ordered a Hainanese Chicken Rice as nothing else on the menu really appealed to me, most of the other dishes were Vietnamese and I'm kind of over Vietnamese food after making pho a couple of days ago.

I can't say it was the best Hainanese chicken I'd ever eaten but it wasn't too bad. However I did realise it didn't come with soup like most Hainanese Chicken dishes come with. But it didn't matter because I had my awesome Honkie Milk Tea.

Awesome cup yeah? These are the types of cups they have in HK! Don't see them here very often. Love them. They make me miss HK. Milk tea was very honkie although it got a tad watered down by the ice. But all in all it was a good lunch. Service was great andthe food came quick. The place is newly renovated I think, very modern and spacious. Can't really say anything bad about it.