Tina's Noodles, Box Hill

You know some things are so bad, yet so good? In fact, most of the things that are bad for you, taste so good! You can almost take a blind bite of something and if tastes wonderfully good, then you can be almost sure that it's bad for you. Think double hickory smoked bacon, or chocolate ice cream. That wonderfully creamy and well seasoned mash? Yup, there are almost as much butter and fat in it as there are potatoes used to make it. And let's just be honest, there are no real healthy substitutes for naughty foods! 

So, why am I talking about this when noodles, veges and meat, the type one can expect when they visit Tina's Noodles at Box Hill? That's because their deliciously spicy and flavoursome lamb ribs noodles react so badly with my stomach! Yet, I can't stop eating it, and I would gladly go back again and again for more!

The soup came with a thick layer of red coloured oil at the top and braised lamb ribs with layers of fat sandwiched between the deliciously tender meat that falls of the bone. The noodles were probably the only main ingredient which was good for me, if I try not to think of how much carbs I have consumed that day. My tongue started to go a little numb after finishing the bowl, but I really enjoyed it.

For those who cannot consume spicy food, there are other non spicy options available (but this Dainty Sichuan little sister is not the place for it!) like the beef with pickled vege noodle soup. The taste of pickled veges was very strong but we really enjoyed the silky soft noodles. 

Tina's Noodles have been around for several years now and over the years I have spotted some changes. In comparison to an earlier commentary on the same restaurant but in a different location, the portions are now smaller but the price has increased. I guess that is the same with almost everything but I certainly hope that the trend stops here. 

Tasty House, Forest Hill

What attracted me to Tasty House was as we were walking out of another restaurant on the same street, there poured a bevy of suited men (office suits, not the hazmat kind) smiling, laughing and generally patting each other on the back for having had a wonderful dinner with great company. And I thought to myself that any restaurant that could elicit such joyful response from guys after a hard days' work battling office politics and still stuck in their monkey suits is worth a try!

We ordered the XO Pipis with Chinese Doughnut (for an additional $1). There were not many chinese doughnuts but what we had were crispy and tried their best to soak up the abundance of sauce at the bottom of the plate. I loved the pipis - they were plump but too bad that the sand had not been purged enough. I could still taste the grittiness of the sand in between mouthfuls. The sauce was fragrant, but it did not taste like the familiar XO sauce with the fragrance of dried shrimp and scallops. 

Dry egg noodles with 2 roast combination - I chose roast duck and pork sausage combo. The roasted meats is the main drawcard for this restaurant. Given I do enjoy a good Cantonese roast duck, it was natural that I should order this dish. The meat was tender and well cooked. I just wish I was there when the ducks had just finished roasting.

The restaurant also serves the usual BBQ pork and roast pork, and there are other exciting dishes on the menu that I would have to come back for, like noodles with Singapore chilli prawns.

Japanese Fest 2017

We were at the Comics Lounge on Thursday night where we sat on the same table with an Italian and a Spanish who had made the journey from half a globe away to live and work in Australia. We started talking about what they thought about Melbourne and so on and they said the same thing I had heard from a Canadian tourist years ago. 'Melburnians love their festivals!! There are festivals almost every weekend!'. Yes, yes that is true! We have been to our fair share of festivals and particularly enjoy the food that is a staple in each of these festivals. 

Like these ones from Japanese festival three weeks ago: 

Very greasy crab surimi rolls topped with cheese and mayo fried in oil. I regretted buying this from the Kobe Jones stall after the very first bite....

Lychee gelato from Gelato Messina - so goood! Messina has some of the best flavours in town. Yeah... sorry, just not in Melbourne CBD. You can find a store in Richmond, Fitzroy or Windsor, but not in the CBD. Maybe I should say that Messina has some of the best flavours in the burbs? Anyway, it's even better that we got the gelato free as part of the Japanese festival!

Squires Loft, Nunawading

Chomp chomp cave man food! Think big piece of meat, big lump of potato, and racks of pork ribs. And what's that on the side? Oh, that's just some green looking frilly things. I believe they're called salad, but they really have no place on the table!! 

We visited Squires Loft this week for dinner where our table ordered some major chow. Angus beef eye fillet, ribs, scotch fillet and fish (don't ask). I felt all beefed up after dinner. I  had probably eaten two or three servings of meat in this one dinner alone!

Scotch fillet 300g for Gaz, with mushroom sauce. The meat was tasty and well cooked and so were the chips.

Two racks of pork ribs and baked potato. The ribs were dry... not the juicy, succulent meat I was expecting. It was well charred too.

Apparently there is an express lunch menu for $15 which is good value since our mains cost around $40 per pop.

But I would not recommend to get the ribs!!

Bensons, Belgrave

We went to Sherbrooke Forest in the Dandenong Ranges last weekend. I just love the name of Sherbrooke Forest, it sounds like where Robin Hood and his merry men would hang out. There is also Sherbrooke Falls but do not be fooled by the name. It does not sound as grand as it's name. It is more like a brook rather than a big waterfall. 

We visited the park for the walking tracks rather than the waterfall. The track is not too difficult and takes less than an hour to complete but still offers a moderate level of exercise. There is a portion of the track that is uphill so it is a good opportunity for some good aerobic exercise. 

I was a little concerned about the falling gum tree bark which seem to be a feature of this place. I remember the same thing happening when we visited this place a few years back. One large bark fell not far from where a man was cooking his food on the BBQ at the picnic ground. One hears of branches falling off trees injuring people and while a gum tree bark is lighter, it is nevertheless concerning. 

After the walk, we went to Bensons at Belgrave for lunch. We ordered the tapas plate ($35). It consists of two boards of assorted food - meatballs in sauce, bread and hummus and capsicum dips, lemon pepper calamari and arancini balls. 

It was a very pleasant end to the weekend's walk. 

Peppers on Fire, Forest Hill

Peppers on Fire is a Sri Lankan / Modern Australian restaurant located at Forest Hill. Note that this is not a fusion East + West restaurant. One chooses to have either Sri Lankan or Modern Australian dishes. I did not mind the separation one bit but I do think the restaurant needed to make up it's mind which one of these two cuisines it would like to specialise in! 

The decor of the restaurant is nicely presented. There is also a section at the back of the restaurant for a live band that plays every Friday night. 

We ordered the crispy barramundi with nam jin sauce, and lamb kofta for entree. The barramundi was delicious and so was the accompanying mango and apple slaw in nam jin sauce. 

Crispy barramundi

The lamb kofta came with a sauce on the side which had a lot of nuts, a little curry taste and was watery. I was not sure what this sauce wanted to be, but it felt like some leftover curry sauce jazzed up with some nuts.

Lamb kofta

For mains, we ordered the seafood platter and pork ribs. The seafood platter consists of grilled fish, deep fried prawns, squid, steamed veges and rice. The fish was deliciously cooked as were the prawns. I enjoyed this dish but would have preferred the creamy sauce to be served on the side. The taste of seafood was affected by the greasy feel of the sauce.

Seafood Platter

On the contrary, there was no sauce for Gaz's dish of pork ribs. There was some deeply fried chips at the bottom which would have been nice with some say, mushroom sauce. But the ribs were nicely cooked and Gaz enjoyed this dish. 

Ribs with chips and slaw

Although we did not try the Sri Lankan dishes, they appear to be rather pricey compared to other restaurants. Also, there are 2 other places on the same street that offers Indian/Sri Lankan cuisine which probably explains the restaurant's decision to throw in the Mod Aus slant but I think there are room for improvement with the western food here.

Yellow Tomatoes

I have gone bonkers over maintaining the garden this spring/summer. We have bought new plants, transplanted plants into the ground from pots, pruned the plants, and I have been watering the garden every day. The gardening streak is still going strong, but no doubt it will fizzle when the cooler months approaches. 

Meanwhile, one of the plants that are growing well in the garden are the tomatoes. I bought a yellow tomato variety (botanic name: Lycopersicon Escullentum) from Bunnings late in the tomato growing season. I had bought it as a project for Gaz, seeing how much he enjoys his annual tomato growing efforts but pretty soon I  had taken over the plant and claimed it as mine. It is watered everyday, and twice, I spent an hour peering at the plant to remove all the caterpillars that have been eating holes into the lovely fragrant leaves. There must have been at least 10 caterpillars that were on the plant. 

The plant was a little slow in fruiting, but once it did, there was an abundance of bright yellow tomatoes. They  are low in acid, sweet and fits in one mouthful. Just perfect as an antioxidant snack on days when I feel guilty for having indulged in fried foods. 

It just goes to show that a little love in the garden can bring great rewards!

Bin Monster

The garbage collectors had emptied all the bins on our street early on last morning but Gaz left it till noon to collect our bin from the kerbside. During that time, somebody had put a big bag of their smelly rubbish into our empty bin. When he walked in the front door, his face was as black as thunder. This is the second time that someone had purposely left us a smelly present.

The first time when it happenend, the perpetrators kept our bin for two days before returning it to the kerbside with their smelly package of rubbish in the bin. There was no way that they could have mistaken our bin for theirs because every bin on the street had been collected, which meant they purposely collected two bins that weekend.

I wonder what goes through their head when they commit such an anti civic act. How do they justify to themselves that this kind of behaviour is acceptable? I understand and accept if people have extra rubbish and deposit them into other people's half full bins before the bins are emptied, but not after they've been emptied. If you do not want to live with your stinky rubbish fermenting in your bin for one week while waiting for the next garbage collection, neither do we!! 

Hungarofest 2017

Do you know who invented the Rubik's Cube and the ball point pen? Erno Rubik invented the cube and Lazlo Biro invented the biro pen. If you knew the answers to those two questions, you have done well...

Now, what do Rubik and Biro have in common? They are both Hungarians! I learnt that from the Hungarofest 2017 last weekend. Hungarofest is a bi annual festival celebrating the culture,  food and everything Hungarian. It is held in the Hungarian Community Hall in Wantirna. 

We were very keen to taste the wonderful Hungarian food and had to queue well over half hour to buy food. We got the pork knuckle with sauerkraut and goulash.

The pork knuckle was so delicious. The meat was so tender and flavourful. The pickled cabbage went really well with the fatty knuckle.

The goulash was spicy if you accidentally bit into one of the little pieces of chilli floating in the stew. This is a more soupy version of the goulash I like.

It was a really interesting day out for us, getting to know other cultures in Melbourne.

Sam Sam, Swanston St CBD

It is not difficult to pick a restaurant in the city to have a meal at. The difficulty is to keep track of new restaurants and trying them out. My friend and I decided to walk along Swanston Street and blindly choose a restaurant for lunch. 

Sam Sam looked like the perfect place. It serves Korean food, it was relatively empty at that time which usually means faster service, and the words fried chicken caught our eye.

We ordered the pork belly stir fried with vege with rice ($14), beef bibimbap ($13) and kimchi fries ($12). The dishes were a bit pricey, and they do not come with the usual banchan or side dishes either.

Spicy pork belly

Beef bibimbap

Kimchi fries

The kimchi fries were topped with mayo, kimchi, bacon, jalapenos and was the best dish of the three. We really enjoyed the crispy shoestring fries and the salty, spicy sauce.

Unfortunately, neither the spicy pork belly and bibimbap lived up to our expectations. After scoffing down a whole portion of  delicious fries, and waiting for about another 20 minutes for our dishes, we were a little disappointed with the flavours of the food that arrived next.

My friend commented that his pork belly was not spicy and I also found my beef bibimbap to be rather bland and dry even with the addition of the pepper sauce. The rice was crispy at the bottom of the stone bowl which gave it a nice crunch, but overall it was bland and dry.

Note to myself : stick with fried foods like fried chicken and fries next time.