Monday, May 3, 2010

Old Town Kopitiam Mamak

David and I love to plan where we're going to take our friends around. So much in fact, when we went out to dinner at St Jude's last, before we even started looking at the menu and considering what to eat, we were figuring out where we would take our friend from Sydney to for lunch the next day!

We did at least manage to settle on Old Town Kopitiam in QV though. I had been to the one on Little Bourke St quite some time ago, and had enjoyed the food there, had heard quite a bit about this one and so was quite intrigued to go.





It did quite surprise me how noticeably bigger this one was to the Little Bourke St store!



Our friend Simon got the Green Apple Special, love the 'jar/mug' it comes in! And it as a drink was really nice too, love the sweet yet sour flavour, mmmm.



I personally love the cups the hot drinks come in, really reminds me of the mugs and cups you get back in the hawker stores in Penang....



So whilst I was extremely tempted by the kandar dishes, it was just one of those cold days and the Char Kuay Kark (fried carrot cake...so many ways of spelling all these weird Malaysian words...) just sounded incredibly comforting. I ended up eating a fair bit of it because I was so hungry, but as I filled up I found it really quite salty. I think if I had been fuller, I would've eaten much less of it.



David got the Hainanese Chicken. It was pretty nice, nothing to complain about, yet nothing to rave over either.



Simon decided to actually try real Mee Goreng as he is only familiar with 'Mi Goreng' (which I am quite happy to say I am not.) He enjoyed it, again, wasn't awful but wasn't something that really had me going 'mmmm' as well. Prawns were a nice size though!



The chicken satays disappointed me a little bit, I ate my ration of two, but I found them to not be particularily strong in flavour and the peanut sauce was a bit weak. I'm much more used to a thicker sauce, sometimes with a little chilli bite.

Having given a little bit of a lack lustre review though, I suppose you do get what you pay for, I can understand why the students would be flocking here with a good portion of dishes not being more than $10 or so and very generous servings.

And hey, I was hungry, it did the job for me that day, but I doubt I'd go back anytime too soon.

210 Lonsdale St
Melbourne

Old Town Kopitiam Mamak (QV Square) on Urbanspoon


3 comments:

  1. Oh that's a shame. I really liked the Hainanese chicken rice and all the other dishes I've had there (except the satay - agree with you on that front). Nice pictures anyway :)

    Jetsetting Joyce

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mm, I was hoping to like the QV venture, but ah well, I really liked the Little Bourke St store when it opened, although I've heard the quality there now varies, but might need to check back to see!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ah I was really excited about this when it first opened because I'm permanently homesick for Malaysian food, but it was pretty underwhelming. And the desserts: ice kacang, goreng pisang - stay far far away!

    ReplyDelete