Cooking Corner, Little Bourke Street

I am quite glad to have stumbled upon Cooking Corner through a restaurant reservation website recently. If I hadn't, I don't think I can say I finally know of a good and reasonably priced Taiwainese restaurant that goes beyond the popcorn chicken and minchee with rice dishes. 

This place is well known for its homemade gua baos. I can say that I've not had a better tasting or fluffier bao. I chose a classic bao ($6) which is filled with slices of braised pork belly and pickled mustard. Quite the classic Taiwanese bao filling but I think I would have preferred the fried chicken bao, which is another one of their 'chef's recommended' dish because I thought the classic bao filling was average in taste. 

                                     

What I really liked was the pea tendrils salad with tofu ($12). It has slices of deep fried lotus roots, deep fried tofu, pea shoots, endamame dressed with sesame salad dressing similar to the true and tested Kewpie sesame salad dressing. I've always liked the Kewpie dressing so I enjoyed this dish, and I thought there was a lot of quality ingredients in this salad that made it different (good) from other salads. 

We ordered the boiled vegetarian dumplings which was filled with chives, mushrooms and tofu ($13 for 12 pieces). The dumpling skin was thin and the filling was very tasty. My friend who is a vegetarian thought that this was a better version of vegetarian dumplings around.

And because we are Asians, we ordered Shallot Oil Dry Noodle ($9) for our fill of carbs. Asians cannot let one day pass without eating rice or noodles, it's true! Although the dish looks simple, it tasted delicious. The shallot oil made the noodles fragrant and the noodles had a good bouncy texture.

I really like this restaurant because the food is fresh, 'clean', and modern but does not stray too much from the authentic Taiwan taste. I can't wait to try their Beef Noodles next time to see if it lives up to my expectations!

Cargo, Docklands

Docklands can be a very scenic place to be, but it can also be a very cold and windy place to be. The last time we went to Docklands, it was the latter. Some visitors from overseas were in town and because it was their umpteenth time to Australia, we chose Docklands to bring them to because they had been to everywhere else that was considered 'touristy'. It was probably not a good idea, because there were few trams from Collins Street, and we had to wait for about 10 mins in the wind for one. In fact, some of us caught a cold in the week after returning from the day out.

We visited the Skypark first. Did you know that the Skypark is a public garden on top of one of the Melbourne Quarter MQ building? It is open to the public from 8am to 6pm everyday and can be accessed by a winding staircase or a glass lift, both of which sounds and indeed look so romantic! You might think that being so close to Southern Cross station and the busy Collins St below that it will be very noisy in the garden but it is quite an oasis. The lawn is lush green grass, there are trees everywhere, there are strategically placed benches and benches in the style of a beach lounge chair. There are even fairy lights along the border of the park so it feels magical when you visit when it is still dark.

We also visited the Sunday market, the District shopping centre, the Library and generally strolled along the harbour. There are such nice views of the water and the boats bobbing on the water but boy, were we cold!

For lunch, we went to Cargo. This place is very reasonably priced for a Docklands restaurant, there are plenty of seats and we got a table with a view. 

We ordered the beer battered fish and chips ($24). For some reason fish and chips is always a favourite with our overseas visitors, not sure why. The fish was very crispy. 

Spaghetti and beef balls ($18) for another dose of quintessential 'Western' food for the benefit of our overseas visitors...

Calamari ($13) for entree. Can't get enough of calamari!

Funghi mushrooms with truffle oil ($17). This was yummy... love the truffle oil though some people would say truffle oil is so passe. I was watching 'I Live Alone' the other day and saw Hwasa pour a whole bottle (ok, I'm exaggerating, maybe a couple of dashes) of truffle oil into her instant jajangmyeon. See, she likes it too!

We enjoyed our lunch at Cargo and was very satisfied by the quality of food, portion sizes and service. It is definitely one of the better value for money restaurants in Docklands to visit if you are ever in the area.