Sunday, January 30, 2011

Cook's Corner Cafe and Store

I don't always know where David gets ideas to do things, but they're almost always great ideas and he's always well informed and organized with information.

One day in December, he suggested we go to the Dandenongs and eat at a restaurant out that way and provided me with a few suggestions to investigate.

Shortly after on a overcast, almost foggy and cool morning (exactly my type of morning), I found myself driving over to David's residence, picking him up with aplomb on his birthday and continued driving just to the edge of the gorgeous Dandenong region.

The presence of an abundance of ferns and lush greenery was a very soothing and tranquil change from the rush of the city. Although it's quite amazing how much space there is between everything here, the address is 2 Kallista-Emerald Road. We turned on to the road and saw house number 1. Awesome. Kept driving.

And kept driving.

And kept driving.

Did we miss it? We looked quizzically at each other as I drove (not the whole time, I am a good driver!) and just as David was going to call to ask for the exact location, we found house number 2.

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An absolutely gorgeous rustic little place, with a working fireplace for those colder afternoons and a very warming tone of orange painted on the walls, it was very cosy. There were tables outside on the verandah and quite a number of tables inside as well, naturally David and I pounced onto a table near the window with gorgeous ambient lighting.

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Around the corner in the room with the fireplace, they have a collection of gorgeous old auction house books and old books in general. Really kind of makes me want to come up in winter and settle down with a nice cuppa tea....

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I bought David a Thylacine from Tasmania.

We called him Bobo.

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I wasn't particularly impressed with my chai latte, the milk was really bumpy and lumpy, although otherwise the flavour wasn't too bad...

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We felt quite gluttonous. As always. And decided we would get an entree to share to start, the duck, apple and brandy terrine with home made relish. And a couple of super crunchy crostini to have it on top of. Mmm, delish.

It was a medley of gorgeously subtle flavours, a bit sweet, but savoury. And I think the terrine was dotted with pistachio's in it as well, which I really liked, the nuttiness went surprisingly well and added a bit of texture to the whole thing. And oh my god. Relish. So sweet and tomato-y and everything I love.

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I think I remember reading on another blog somewhere that if you really want to test out a restaurant's food, you shouldn't go for the specials. Whilst specials are probably a nice way to inject some variety into the menu for regulars, they can be a bit dicey since it's not what the kitchen is well practiced in.

Should have applied that little rule here. Whilst initially this atlantic salmon special with broccolini (love!) on a bed of vegetable (or herb, I can't remember now) risotto sounded quite delicious and looked absolutely amazing in front of me with it's punchy and vivacious colours, it was actually a bit of a let down. The skin was quite crispy and the glaze (I assume) over the exterior of the fish made it quite tasty, which was a plus, but the overall serve of salmon was quite dry on the inside and the risotto was...not really a risotto. The consistency of it reminded me more of a chinese rice porridge that's commonly had for breakfast. A little bit soupy. And the rice grains were kind of mushy in my opinion.

So whilst not quite what I expected, the flavours in the risotto still wasn't too bad, but it really was not a highlight.

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Thankfully though, David's main was a lot better and ordered from the regular menu. Duck two ways, in a duck pie and...confit with a wine sauce? Maybe? I can't remember. Yeek. But it was, yummy, yummy, yummy. The flavours from both variations of duck were just rich and decadent, the puff pastry on the pie was light and fluffy. The sliced duck was just so beautifully cooked and oh so tender. When we swapped plates for a bit, I was very, very reluctant to return his plate, but would feel a little bit bad if I stole all his food.

So I was good and gave it back. This time.

But then we visited the cake display.

And I was bad.

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And this materialized onto our table.

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A vanilla slice. With a bit of passionfruit. I found it a tad chewy on the top but otherwise, it was just sweet and delicious. With a bit of puff pastry sandwiched somewhere in between there which gave it quite an interesting texture. It probably didn't need the icing sugar dusted over the top, but hell, if we're going to do dessert, we may as well do this sugar thing properly!

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And to finish up, a "Storm in a Cup" peppermint tea to help...digest, as I slunk back in my chair and oozed away in my post-gluttony. The "Storm in a Cup" tea bags are quite a cute concept, acting as essentially, a spoon that infuses your tea leaves for you. So you can infuse and then stir with the teabag. I've seen them once before, but they never seemed to take off. Still quite novel though.

Popular with the locals, and especially the dogs, there was a gorgeous German Shepard and Burmese Mountain Dog who were outside with their owners and were treated to raw King Island chunks of meat! Spoilt! And hey, so were we, other than the salmon special, all the dishes we had were quite lovely and the staff were so friendly and accommodating. I felt very much at home and could have sat there all day quite contently.

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We decided to finish our meal we would take Bobo on a little walk in the lush forestry....

2 Kallista-Emerald Road, Kallista
Kallista, 3791

Cook's Corner Cafe and Store on Urbanspoon



Friday, January 28, 2011

Bamboo Chopsticks

Birthday's don't tend to be huge affairs for my family, except for my Grandma in which we always go and have a sumptuous meal at Red Emperor. But that will be another story in about a month's time (Yay!).

It was my Aunt's birthday, so into our Prado we clambered and off we went to Bamboo Chopsticks in Doncaster.

It's as much of a hole in the wall sort of restaurant that Melbourne can get, sparse and simple, yet very authentic and in a way kind of cute. It's the place that serves (according to my dad) a very typical Chinese working man type of meal. Whilst in Western cultures it's more of the steak and three vegetables, here, there's still a fair bit of meat and proteins, but a variety of solid flavours. The Chinese really do have it good with food hey?

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The menu is quite simple, surprisingly almost, as I'm used to Chinese restaurants with menu's 20 pages long. One A4 sheet, size 14 text (around there I'm sure) on both sides. Oh and a whiteboard of scribbled specials, all in Chinese though.

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My dad serves sparkling shiraz the classy way....got to add a little pizzazz since it's a birthday still right?

Now you'll have to forgive me, my parents did most of the ordering and as always, I never know what we end up getting.

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As with most affordable and good Chinese restaurants, the food was out in a flash, plates accumulating far more quickly than we could eat on our table. First thing to come out was the sweet and sour pork, which was actually quite funny because I was looking at the menu and commenting to Brad that I have cravings for it but didn't end up requesting it.

Well it came out anyway. Yes sweet and sour pork tend to belong in the domain of incredibly Westernized Chinese food that often comes out looking like some neon coloured thing from the 80's. This however, is much more authentic and far less...palate destroying. The sweet and sour sauce was slathered lovingly over the pork chops, which were not battered (yay!) as they typically are at a lot of other places. The pork was tender and the sauce was nicely savoury and not too sweet.

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This I did request for however, since I am always the sucker for eggplants. Very lightly coated in a batter and fried, and topped with chilli and minced pork. The light batter was nice and a bit different. Was a popular option on the table, between the 7 of us it disappeared very quickly!

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I love hot pots, isn't the little container cute? This one was a tofu hot pot with seafood, some squid, I think there was some scallop and fish cakes. Piping hot saucy goodness, what more are you asking for?

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Prawns and vegetables, unexciting, but tasty.

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And last up was the prawn and fish cake on beansprouts and gai lan (I think). Love the nice chunky pieces of fish cake, which I'm assuming is made in-house (or in-shop wherever they get it from) and made with real prawn and fish, and not just that soft, white artificial stuff.

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I might've said the previous dish was the last one...but we decided that we still had more room, so we ordered half of a soy braised chicken. Oooh, just look at that gorgeous colour! The chicken was meaty and beautifully juicy. Great flavour, within minutes it had been absolutely destroyed. Asian families never really fill up do they?

Incredibly popular with the locals, there was a continuous stream of people coming into the door and leaving with plastic white bags filled with hot goodies. My mum reckons they do more takeaway orders than in store business!

Bamboo Chopsticks
10 Mitchell Street, Jackson Court
Doncaster East, 3109

Bamboo Chopsticks on Urbanspoon


Thursday, January 27, 2011

Ohayo!

I wish with a blog title like that, that I was blogging from Japan.

But unfortunately I'm not.

But back on the plus side, I am blogging about Japanese food. So that's always a yay!

The early weeks in January are always difficult ones to navigate in regards to food and eating out. Figuring out which outlets were closed just over the holiday season, or maybe for an extra week, some are even closed for two weeks?!

On a warm weekday, Brad and I set forth, hunting for Japanese for lunch. The original location I wanted to go to was closed until the 18th (boo!), so Brad made a recommendation and we headed down to Ohayo on Glenferrie Road in Hawthorn.

Surprisingly, it was quite busy and we couldn't actually spy a free table inside, although after a short walk we quickly occupied a table as it vacated.

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Simple, completely unpretentious, yet cosy with the wooden tables and odd bit and pieces of Japanese decorations scattered around the place. I would have honestly expected it to be full of students (but it was still holiday season) and was surprised to see quite a bit of an older clientele occupy the space. Mostly office workers from nearby.

The menu is quite broad, with a variety of sushi rolls, rice dishes, noodle dishes, gyoza's, snacks...it was generous.

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Making Brad order at the counter and get water for me. Fufufu.

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Every order comes with a free miso soup (I think?), and although it was a hot day, I ended up downing most of it anyway. Always delicious.

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I kept it pretty simple, it was hot, I wanted a fairly light meal, so I went with the sashimi entree. Whilst not some of the most beautifully cut fish I've seen, it was inoffensive and easy to eat. I didn't think too much of the salmon really, but I really enjoyed the tender texture of the tuna which was also lovely and sweet. I was actually quite surprised as to how full I got off this...(although I naturally nibbled on some of Brad's goodies as well...)

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I also got a seaweed salad, admittedly just to make myself feel like I was eating more vegetables....it's green right? I appreciated that the serve at Ohayo was all seaweed and not buffered with lettuce or cucumber underneath the serve as you do find occasionally. Cool and refreshing, I could not really ask for more!

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Brad got the teriyaki chicken bento box. For just $13.80 you get a generous serve of rice, chicken, miso soup, california roll and tempura. Steal?! I was slightly disappointed by the teriyaki chicken just quietly though, a little bit dry for my tastes and hardly saucy enough, I love it when I can drown my rice in that saucy goodness! However, I certainly wouldn't look down on it as a good, well priced feed.

So whilst the staff don't always look like they know what they're doing, and I moaned a bit about the lack of air-con working, the food whilst not mind blowing, is decent and an easy option on a lazy day. Especially now that Brad's got an office in Swinburne...

Ohayo Hawthorn
638 Glenferrie Rd
Hawthorn, 3122

Ohayo Hawthorn on Urbanspoon


Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Out of Action!

Hi guys! Just a quick update to say my Macbook Pro has gone cranky on me and refuses to turn on.
Soooo until I can get it fixed (taking my baby into the genius bar tomorrow!) blogging will be on a little break until then.

And I have so many places to blog about!
Promise there'll be a blogging flood as soon as I'm back in action!
xx

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

A trip to Chaddy to visit Jones and the Zoo.

Mum: Oh I think the boxing day sale prices are probably still on....

Me: BRAD. CHADSTONE. CHADSTONE. CHADSTONE. CHADSTONE. ......Please...?

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I visited Jones the Grocer not so long ago (2 months...that's not so long now is it....?) and swooned over it's shop interior and reviewed it's chai latte and sweets.

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With a pang of regret (since I forgot I didn't enjoy their chai latte that much last time)...I report that the chai latte is still very milky and weak. Beautifully frothed, but not much flavour. Ah well. Will have to remember for next time...

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Since it was a lovely day, Brad went with a sparkling juice instead, refreshing and not overly sweet. I ended up sipping on quite a lot as we were never brought out the water like I asked....

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Whilst I'm normally a sucker for eggs and sweetcorn fritters, I think I wanted something a bit more substantial this time. Or lunch sounding at least. So I got this.....salad. Well it said a salad on the menu, but didn't quite look like much of a salad when it came out. As they say though, don't judge a book by it's cover, this was a lovely meal, somehow both light but very satisfying at the same time. Lamb balls, a light bit of yoghurt, chickpeas and half a tomato, all very mediterranean. It was surprisingly generous with lamb which was well seasoned and not over cooked. Wouldn't have minded a little bit more tomato, but I suppose that would ruin the aesthetic.

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Boys being boys, need to be fed. So as he usually does, Brad went with the big breakfast, I can't remember the name but it probably was something along the lines of 'The Jones Breakkie' or 'Jones Big Breakkie' or maybe just 'Big breakfast'. There seems to be a bit of a generic name formula for these sorts of dishes.

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Beautifully poached eggs that bled everywhere, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, sausages, toast and a heck of a lot of bacon. I mean seriously, look how much there is! I'm surprised there wasn't a bit of spinach or colour to take away from all that...brown.

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Although this obviously did not put Brad off as he completely polished off his plate. Mm, runny yolks....

After lunch, we resumed our prior wandering around Chadstone, where earlier Brad had bought a pair of shoes and some CD's and I had bought....nothing. Something wrong with this picture here? Although this was quickly rectified when I fell in love with a handsome cropped biker leather jacket from White Suede...

A little damage to the bank account, but totally worth it.

With my prized cargo in tow, we wandered over to a shop my (buff) friend Attila worked in and stole him away for frozen yoghurt. At a place so new that even Attila who worked in Chadstone wasn't aware it was open.

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It was Igloo Zoo. No penguins sadly. However, take your pick from mango, green tea, pomegranate or chocolate 99.5% fat free yoghurt, pick some toppings and voila, instant (almost) guilty free sweet hit! I had spied this once while driving down Glenferrie Road in Malvern (I have no idea why) and wanted to try it, but never seen it anywhere else. Now at least, Australia's first culture bar has expanded, close to Brad so I can get my fix more frequently.

I loved the pastels, the clean, the bright, I also marveled at how big the sizes were (no wonder the country is getting fatter), although I didn't think I could stomach a regular size...

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So I got the kids size! I have this odd addiction to having almonds as a topping with my frozen yoghurt and....I have no excuse for the mini M&M's. There's just something far more enjoyable to me about them than the regular sized M&M's. The small little chocolate crunch is just so addictive! So an odd mix, almonds, chocolate and mango yoghurt, but you know. The yoghurt was just delicious. I like my sweets. I ain't complaining.

Om nom noms.

1341 Dandenong Rd Chadstone Shopping Centre
Melbourne, 3145

Jones the Grocer on Urbanspoon

1341 Dandenong Rd Chadstone Shopping Centre
Melbourne, 3145