Ranong Town, Ferntree Gully

Now that the borders are open, travel has become an achievable thing to do. But only if you have the patience to wait out long queues at Customs, flight cancellations and withstand the impacts of the shrinking dollar. Thankfully, authentic food can be found closer to home to bring you closer to where you wanted to travel to. 

Ranong Town is a new restaurant serving authentic Thai food. The building used to be a milk bar but has been repurposed to a restaurant with seating for around 4-5 tables inside and an additional 2-3 outside. There are no great views outside the restaurant, unless you fancy looking into people's houses across the street and a Telstra phone booth but it is a good place to sit if you're waiting for coffee takeaways (there's a fancy coffee machine that the staff was playing with while we were eating but the coffee trade was slow because it was lunch hour). 

We chose to sit inside to escape the drizzle (La Nina, begone!). There was a row of fridges at one end and an open area with a few shelves filled with snacks and everyday essentials of varying origins, some from Yarra Valley. It is quite an eclectic collection with no rhyme or reason but interesting to browse through when waiting for the food. We settled on a bag of crackers and munched on those while waiting our order of Khao Moo stewed pork hock on rice ($16) and Thai boat noodles ($16).

The stewed pork hock on rice can also be ordered as a main course ($22) without the rice. The pork was very tender and smooth. There is a vinegar chilli condiment that accompany the dish to cut through the greasiness of the pork. 

The boat noodle is filled with herbs, five spice powder soupiness. There are a few pieces of beef and beef balls, bean sprouts, and rice noodles. Gaz had not tried boat noodles before and was put off by the liberal dash of five spice whereas I have had it before in Thai Town and Dodee Paidang and knew what to expect. This is where culture shocks set in, because Gaz did not grow up eating five spice and is used to beef marinated in baking soda to tenderize it but it is the opposite in most south eastern countries. 

 The food here is authentic and tasty. They also have curries ($17 - $21 for seafood option) and several other dishes that sound interesting like Hat Yai fried chicken ($20) and stir fried bitter beans ($16). Now if you are getting something like bitter beans in a restaurant, you know you are getting authentic!

Butcher 128, Yarraville

We were en route to Macedon one day and decided to stop at a hip brunch place at Yarraville. Butcher 128 is so called because it used to be a butcher shop. It still has the glass display cases previously used to show cuts of meat now relegated to storage space and juice cooler. 

I ordered the Baron sandwich - grilled beef brisket pastrami with swiss cheese, mustard and a pickle ($14.50). The cheese made it a flavourful sandwich, who can resist melty cheese? Inflation has really set in, because I would have commented in the past about paying more than $7 for a sandwich but now we just accept it and hope there is no service surcharge, weekend surcharge, credit card surcharge lurking at the end of the meal. 

Butcher's BBQ Plate ($18.50) came with charred beef brisket pastrami, blood pudding, coleslaw, figs and a pickle. And boy, were we in a pickle! In our haste to order, we did not realise that we had both ordered beef brisket pastrami albeit in differing forms. Mine in a sandwich and Gaz's deconstructed. 

The pastrami was dry, so it really needed the coleslaw. I believe we had the last plate of pastrami because at first the kitchen told us they had ran out. They did ran out of sourdough bread so we got a big Vietnamese baguette instead, which was a good variation because otherwise it would have been nearly identical to my sandwich order! The blood pudding was a nice touch of difference because it was very tasty. 

There is a semi outdoor seating out back which has a play area for kids which makes this a nice place to hang out for families. 

Marble Yakiniku, Glen Waverley

I have mixed feelings about the redevelopment of Glen Waverley central. On one hand, there are now more restaurants and shops but on the other hand, it is starting to feel too crowded and congested. It is the new Box Hill. 

Among one of the new places which popped up after the redevelopment was Marble Yakiniku, which also owns Ichi Katsu a fried Japanese pork schnitzel place on Kingsway. Both are placed in the upper middle range restaurant scale. 

There are different types of banquet and ala carte menus available. For simplicity, we just ordered the Bamboo banquet $110 pp. We get a plate of sashimi, tofu salad, scallop with cod roe sauce, 2 kinds of A5 wagyu cuts and 1 of M9 wagyu cuts, rice, miso soup and dessert. 

The sashimi, scallops and tofu salad were all served in quick succession all in the time it took me to sprint to the ATM and back. There is a 5% cash discount, and no merchant fees with cash payment. The tofu salad had some unusual red seaweed in it. 

The most delicious was the scallop with seared cod roe sauce. It just melted in the mouth. 

Some side dishes to soothe our burning mouth while eating grilled beef.

Sashimi always tastes nice.. unless it's a 'surprise sashimi'. Once in another Glen Waverley Japanese restaurant we ordered the 'special of the day' which was offcuts of salmon sashimi soaked in soy sauce. Here we have kingfish and salmon slices, no offcuts. 

2x A5 and 1xM9 cuts.. they sound like some motorway names, right? I have expected the M1 Monash Freeway to make an appearance. But no, M9 is Australian wagyu (we were given Karubi cut) and A5 is Japanese wagyu (flat meat and short rib) We were given the karubi and short rib cuts. The marbling  on the short rib looks beautiful (it's the one closest to you in the picture below).

I love it that they use charcoal grill, not electric. But the problem was that we are both very bad on the grill and the fat on the meat kept catching fire. So I'm not sure whether I've squandered my chance of eating A5 wagyu the best way it can be cooked. My favourite cut was the A5 Japanese wagyu flatmeat which has a good balance of fat and meatiness. It is also thicker than the A5 shortrib so there was actually something to bite into and enjoy the buttery silkiness. 

We do get pieces of mushrooms and pumpkin to grill as well, but they were a disaster. Even though the pumpkin was sliced thinly, it just would not get tender without getting horribly burnt. We were given only 1 hour to cook, eat and socialise so it felt quite stressful. There was no explanation or guidance on what the cuts were, how best to grill and savour. So having chosen this place for a special occasion it was a little disappointing for the lack of service. 

During our meal we spoke about the evolution of food from necessity to symbol of decadence. Foods that used to be rejects, like trotters or tendon are now selling at more than the price of meat itself. Having recently braised a whole kilo of tendons and finishing it largely by myself I almost felt the bile rising up in my throat. Who knew too much tendon can be a bad thing? 

Here's a bit of a trivia on wagyu in keeping with the topic of decadent food. Wagyu actually translates to Japanese cow. This is probably a good example of how a word can be used as both an insult (they just took my parking, what a cow!) and a compliment (you're as prized as a cow). There are actually 4 main breeds of wagyu, but each place / prefecture raises these breeds differently so it yields different textured meat. That's why we sometimes hear about cattle who only listens to Mozart, or only bathes in sake. The most expensive cuts are Matsusaka wagyu from Mie prefecture which are from virgin female cows and the most famous is Kobe wagyu from Kobe in Hyogo prefecture which are from castrated bulls. Now that's some trivia!

Back to our dinner where I'm sure I did not just ate some unsullied cow from the grill, for dessert we get a choice of vanilla, black sesame or green tea ice cream. It came with a wooden spoon straight from the ice cream cups of yonder days. Quite an anti climax compared to the nice wagyu cuts we had been enjoying. The quality of the beef is very good and having only a few slices per person made it feel less sinful to consume so much fat. A true connoisseur will never bemoan the calories they have eaten, it is in fact a necessity for flavour.. just walk an extra two blocks to the car on the way home.

Springvale Temples visit and Temple Food

Springvale is home to a number of temples, a few of which are situated close by each other on Springvale Road, Springvale South. There is a big chinese Buddhist temple called Bright Moon temple, a more modest vietnamese Buddhist temple called Noa Nghiem temple that is attached to a school a stone's throw away and Wat Khmer a cambodian temple next door. 

The Bright Moon temple is in the distinctive old chinese architecture. I liked the elaborate, one piece stone carving depicting the life of Buddha and dragons in the middle of the stairs leading to temple building. In ancient times in the Forbidden Palace, the Emperor is carried up over the stone carving in his palaquin by his servants on the stairs. 

Bright Moon temple offered free vegetarian lunch every Sunday in the ground floor expansive hall, which has now stopped because of Covid. It was a shame because it would have been such a communing experience.

Hoa Nghiem temple is a more modest temple in comparison with Bright Moon. Unlike Bright Moon where there is a large gravel area for car parks (still under construction), car parking at Hoa Nghiem is limited, but there is a reserve next door with car park bays if needed. 

Hoa Nghiem has a restaurant in a separate building to the temple on the ground floor. It serves vegetarian food, mock meats and vegetables. There are pre-packed food for sale at a table on the left as you enter the hall. One orders at the counter, self service drinks and cutlery but the food is served to your table. 

The Bun Bo Hue was delicious, there was an assortment of mock meats which was difficult to tell what they were meant to recreate. There is no garlic and onions used (the purest form of Buddhist cuisine omits garlic, onions, chives, shallot and leeks because the strong savoury taste from these herbs evokes desire) so the substitute for fried onion garnish was fried shredded lemongrass. The soup of course do not have the rich bone broth taste but it was not filled with MSG either.

 'Pork chop' on broken rice had various mock meats substituting for the pork chop, pate and pig skin. The customary egg is missing because eggs contain life, they would have turned into little chicks if hatched. Although unfertilised eggs do not hatch into chicken, the rule still applies. 

Some Buddhists are not as strict and do consume the five herbs and eggs, like a lot of things it just depends on how far you want to go. 

So there were no garlic in the vinegar dipping sauce, and no fish sauce, but I actually much prefer it to the normal dipping sauce. It is quite sweet though (without the balancing saltiness from the fish sauce) so it is best used in moderation. 

The prices are around $18 per dish, and higher for main course dishes like stir fried vegetables etc. Hoa Nghiem Vegie Hut is open Wednesday to Sunday for lunch and dinner. I will be quite excited to try it out for dinner!

Daylesford

We bought tickets to the Borealis on the Lake ($20 pp) in August to see the man made northern lights. The lights are beamed from stationary light towers among misting machines. I think the addition of music adds another layer to the experience. Without having seen the natural phenomenon, I thought this was an interesting experience and hopefully one that I can compare to the actual one later on. 

We thought we went prepared - we wore multiple layers, brought a picnic dinner, but others brought chairs and blankets! 

Daylesford Lake has never looked like this before.. Borealis ended on 4 Sept but there may be a next year..

We visited Sailors Falls which has not just one but two waterfalls. You can see two waterfalls from the top of the stairs but the path leads to the bigger waterfall and creek. It had been raining throughout the winter (it was drizzling while we were there) so there was no shortage of water in the falls. 

Along with the spa experience, a walk around Daylesford Lake, a meal at the Lakehouse, I think Sailors Falls is another must visit place.