Duckfest at Pan Asian

What happens when a giant group of food bloggers and food lovers congregate in one spot?

Copious amounts of food and merry people wining and dining that would put the Roman's to shame.

It's quite fabulous really.

A couple of weeks ago I was very kindly invited by Anna (@eatnik) to the duckfest/pigfest/#sucksalad (will explain later) extravaganza (and blogger CNY party/Celeste's farewell party), organized by Anna herself and the ever active Penny (@jeroxie) and served by Aunty Li and Uncle Robert at Pan Asian on Chapel Street.

I immediately jumped at the chance to go and quickly wrangled in Brad and David to join me.

I will say it right now, but we were all absolutely spoilt rotten that night.

The opulent surroundings of Pan Asian were delicately decorated with a few additional glowing lanterns for the Chinese New Year, aren't they cute? I think they kinda look like floating aliens or something along those lines...

Pan Asian managed to fit the 60 (?!) of us in their dining room with long tables of 10, it was quite squishy, but nice and cosy as well! Brad, David and I were seated right in front of the bar. Perfect. Brad and I both started our night with a lovely glass of pinot gris each.

Once we managed to get all the bloggers seated (they tend to be such social little things), greetings, welcomes and well wishes were had as I quietly drooled over the menu in anticipation.

Each table was graced with two 'Yee Sang' salad's, almost complete, but everyone has to help out to finish it up! This is a strictly Chinese New Year dish, well not strictly, but you would never see it at any other time of year and is more commonly served up by Chinese who live in or come from Malaysia or Singapore.

Pan Asian's version doesn't stray too far from what the majority of the salad's are like, grated carrot, radish, some other Chinese vegetable my mum told me about and I forgot the name, wonton skins (for that important crunch) and pomelo. A bit of fresh salmon on the side, plum sauce, sesame oil and in the very cheery, red 'ang pao', 5 spices to sprinkle on. When my mum makes her variation at home she chops up green apple and pear to add a bit of fresh and sweet crispness.

Once all the elements have been put on the plate, the tradition is that the group grabs their chopsticks and joyously mix the salad together, raising the chopsticks (and salad) as high as possible for more prosperity (which all the Chinese love). You will often see this salad at business meals over the Chinese New Year period in China.

Pan Asian's Yee Sang was the perfect way to start the evening, light and refreshing and I love pomelo!

We had a selection of exceptionally well priced pinot gris (to go with the pork dishes) and pinot noir (to go with the duck dishes (not that we kept to it)). The Prentice pinot gris was quite interesting with it's delicate blush, almost rose tone, not typical of a pinot gris. I think this is because the grapes are crushed instead of squeezed or something of the sort....at any rate, it was so lovely, sweet and fruity.

Ah, it has been ages since I have indulged in this delicacy! Peking duck. Aunty Li added her own little twist by providing the typical condiments of cucumber and spring onion, but also pickled vegetables and of course, hoisin sauce. YUM.

The skin was also delightfully thin (thanks Billy for being my hand model!), allowing you to really get into the duck which was succulent and juicy. And crispy duck skin. Delicious! There was surprisingly quite a large serving of duck, with everyone on the table easily having at least 3 pieces each!

More wine...

Next was the duck salad with lettuce and a few duck wontons, affectionately referred to as #sucksalad on the twittersphere as when Aunty Li originally sent out the menu in the email to the invitees....well the d and s keys are very close to each other on the keyboard. You can figure it out I'm sure! The duck again was really tender, although I didn't get to sample a wonton. My only put off was that I found the presentation a little messy.

Three courses in and I was already starting to fill up which worried me considerably! Fortunately to finish up the duck dishes we were treated to a lovely, warming, piping hot duck consomme. My stomach was very appreciative for the reprieve! I very much enjoyed the flavours in this, I don't mean to be a bore again, but the duck flavour really came through!

And as I have more wine my photos get ever the more blurry and poorly composed...but onto the pork feature for the night! The crackling pork however though, was sadly not so 'crackling'. It was a bit cool by the time it had reached our table and must have been sitting out for a little while as the skin was quite chewy and hard to bite through. I definitely wanted to enjoy this more, but when I have crackling pork, I want to hear myself chewing on that skin!

I did like the two options we were given to have the pork in, either the cantonese style mantou bun or, for a little more Vietnamese twist, lettuce and vermicelli. When the skin was taken off the pork (so that I could bite through), I liked the Vietnamese twist which was like eating a rice paper roll, light and refreshing.

Bak Kwa (or I'm not sure how else you would type it out in English...), but essentially sweet barbeque pork, usually made out of pork mince and sold everywhere in Singapore and Malaysia (especially around Chinese New Year). I found it a little bit thin for my liking, barely a few millimetre's thick and I also found it a bit sweeter than I usually like. Although I am spoilt at home with my mother who does her own great home made version...

Hmmm...trying to focus a DSLR after 5 glasses of wine is kinda tricky...to finish up the savouries we had a stewed pork. I really wish I could tell you what it was like, other than a bit salty, but I was pretty tipsy at this point. :s

And just when you think you're too full and can't fit anymore in, dessert comes out. With a surprise cupcake from Sugadeaux and mandarin sorbet. There's always the second stomach somewhere right...? The cupcake was a beautiful green tea flavour with a little surprise red bean mochi hidden on the inside, how delightful! Easily one of the best green tea flavours I've ever had, with plenty of green tea, but not so much so that it's bitter, and enough sugar but again, not too much so that it's just sweet enough. Oh and that icing, so lucious!

The mandarin sorbet was also a great way to finish the night, cleanse the palette and not feel like you weighed an extra 10 kilos....

So. 8 courses later and 4 bottles of wine between 5 people, I was quite happily toppling out of the door. The duck portion of the menu probably impressed me more and defeated the pork in the 'yummy' competition, but I still enjoyed the whole meal and certainly the company!

Pan Asian

267 Chapel Street

Prahran VIC 3181

(03) 9533 7022

LuxBite

Right. Do I need to say anymore?

Other than the adorable, very Parisian setup, friendly owners, beautifully colourful macarons and absolutely adorable desserts, do you need a better reason to visit LuxBite? I certainly didn't, especially since I had the Pan Asian Duckfest on that night as well, it wasn't too far off in the neighbourhood. I love that they're open until 8!

So being the persuasive person (or dictator) I am, I convinced (or maybe directed) Brad to take me to LuxBite to get a macaron fix.

You can pop in for coffee, sweets, or even a sandwich or two if you need something savoury. Their selection of sweets are just heart-achingly cute, which may not be so much the guys thing, but I would be amazed if I could find a female who wouldn't fawn over these cuties.

They have a couple of sweets that you are guaranteed to always see (unless they sell out) but they always mix things up every week as well, with something new to, of course, tempt you back (not that it's that difficult).

But I was here on a particular mission this one evening.

Macarons.

The guy just before me took the last kaya toast flavour. Alas!

Fortunately, there is still a rainbow of flavours to choose from, some well loved flavours such as salted caramel, but also ones that you might not find as often, peanut butter and jelly anyone?

As tempting as it was to buy all the flavours and try them all, I decided to get 5. 4 fit neatly into a lovely little box (the packaging is just darling!) and one in a little plastic bag.

I couldn't resist trying the salted caramel while on my way to the Pan Asian Duckfest in the car. Terrible me.

Thecaramel was just lovely, whilst I didn't get as strong a caramel flavour as I was expecting, there was a nice sweetness to it and the texture and density was just lovely. Perfect way to start my night? Just about!

I thought at first after the Pan Asian Duckfest I would be able to have the rest of my macarons as a post-dessert. Let me tell you though, 8 courses later and a couple of bottles in you and you really don't want to eat anything else.

So the next day, I eagerly worked through until 3pm before I pounced into my fridge and got ready to have my macarons with a cup of tea. The other flavours I got were peanut butter and jelly (the light brown one), black forest (dark brown), black sesame (grey speckled) and pina colada (only one left right?).

Whilst the salted caramel was nice the night before, the rest of my macarons were absolutely to die for. My favourite would have easily, easily been the peanut butter and jelly, it's like eating a mini-sized sweet sandwich. And I loooove peanut butter.

The pina colada was exceptionally interesting, I'm really not fond of the cocktail, but the pineapple flavour from the macaron was really lovely and the coconut on the outside made it nice and refreshing.

Black forest, it's chocolate. How can you fail? And I always love Japanese inspired macaron flavours, I love black sesame ice-cream and I wasn't let down by the macaron version either. I found that the macarons texture was consistent throughout, which left me just reveling in and enjoying the flavours.

I thought I would be good and only eat half of each and save the other half for Brad for when he came over the next day.

I am a terrible girlfriend.

Ended up eating them all the next morning.

Whoops!

But that's okay. Because I took him back yesterday (with my camera battery dead) and we munched on rocky road (with mini marshmallows inside! Gorgeous!) and caramel slice macarons and had a chocolate delice, a small looking piece of chocolate....I don't know how to describe it. Rich, dense chocolate with peanut brittle. I couldn't finish it. It was that rich and sinful. And I loooove my rich chocolate desserts. Very much looking forward to maybe trying their mango meringue and other goodies....

I only wish I lived a bit closer to LuxBite so I could pop in for afternoon tea and a spot of reading all the time...

LuxBite

38 Toorak Road

South Yarra, 3141

Chilli India

Going to be frank.

These photos are ugly as anything.

But the food is delicious.

Malaysian and Indian food tends to annoy me in that aspect, curries, noodles, roti, dahl, it's all either brown, orange or yellow. Most of the time. And frankly, that doesn't translate very well through the lens.

Still, I have to at least try to show you what Brad, Marz, Tegan and I chowed down on before seeing Tron: Legacy (which I liked. I'm a bit of a graphics whore though, so shiny things tend to get my attention!). Chilli India, is the smaller cousin of Chillipadi who are right next door in Melbourne Central. It's run by a bunch of lovely Indian boys who serve good, authentic, honest, South Indian food. This includes freshly made, on the spot, roti. Yeah. I'm not kidding.

Whilst Chilli India was a quick meal, we ended up hanging around a lot longer than we expected, enjoying our food, enjoying each other's company, that we nearly ended up late for our movie!

After ordering a couple of beers from Chillipadi next door (and having a good chortle over some Engrish we encountered in the menu), we started with some onion pakora, bite sized pieces of onion lightly fried. Perfect beer nibbles. Seriously. Enough salty, and more onion than your typical onion ring, lots of lovely flavour. Yet crunchy. Mmmmm.

Marz and Tegan each ordered a roti (traditional flaky break, eaten with curry in Singapore and Malaysia typically), Marz got a chilli roti, freshly made roti with chillies dotted throughout and Tegan ordered a paneer cheese roti. Cheese in hot, freshly made roti. Yeah, say it with me again. Cheese and hot roti. Mmmmm?!

I'm sorry. I can't remember what curries everyone had, but every bowl was licked (or wiped with roti) clean. Most of the curries here really have some nice heat behind them, a complex mix of spices and that lovely warming feeling that circulates in the back of your mouth afterwards.

I got a dosai. A chickpea dosai. Again, freshly made to order. Dosai is something very typical of Southern Indian food, sort of a thin pancake made with rice flour and lentils. It's got a bit of a tang to it which I quite like and this variation is absolutely stuffed with chickpeas and potatoes, with a quiver of a curry. Flavour. You can also get meat ones, for you meat lovers, filled with lamb or chicken, or you can also just get it plain and dip it in the dahl and chutney that comes with it. Or get more curry.

It's so big I can't fit it in my 50mm lens.

So here's a shot mid eating!

Silly me thought that the biryani's were quite small and thought I could fit in one with my dosai. Not such a smart idea. And I was sincerely upset to not have a second stomach so that I could eat more. Hearty and filled with different spice flavours.

It was quite a cheap and excessively filling meal, with everything, including a few drinks, costing us under $20 per person, making it good value for money. It's nothing fancy (no indoor seating), it's nothing complicated, but it is good and I feel a bit underrated. Although maybe that's good, so that people aren't taking up my table space when I want me some dosai...

Chilli India

Menzies Lane Melbourne VIC 3000

(03) 9639 3866