Uncle Jack's Kitchen, Wheelers Hill

Food prices have increased many folds since last year, due to shortages of ingredients and labour then due to inflation. A year ago it might have still been possible to get a meal for $11 but today you would expect to pay $16 without the weekend surcharges, public holiday surcharges, credit card payment surcharges, if the restaurant managed to find enough worker to open for business. 

Uncle Jack's Kitchen in Wheelers Hill thankfully do not charge weekend surcharges or credit card surcharges. It is clean and tidily decorated with vases of fake and fresh flowers. There is a television screen at the entrance that played Christian workship karaokes, I am guessing the couple who own/run this restaurant are Christians. 

We ordered beef hor fun ($15.80) which came with slices of tender beef, bean sprouts and spring onions. Portion wise, it is not very large so we did not overeat. 

I ordered the Cheesy Baked Curry Chicken on Rice ($16.80). I was inspired by the simplicity of this dish and I would like to make it at home one day. It was fried rice topped with slices of chicken in Japanese curry sauce and cheesy creamy sauce. The dish is then baked until golden. I can imagine it being a comfort food or a quick and easy weeknight dinner dish. 

 There are other types of baked rice dish on the menu, like curry pumpkin seafood baked rice, creamy vegie baked rice, baked cod fillet in creamy sauce on rice that I would like to try to recreate at home. They sound wholesome and delicious. 

The restaurant also does dinner service. From the menus and advertising posters around the restaurant, I gather that one of their chef's special is whole barramundi fish in soy milk (similar to Dainty Sichuan's whole spicy fish) and duck hotpot. They do not particularly appeal to me, but I think this place is a clean and wholesome restaurant to have lunch after shopping at the Woolworths and chinese grocery nearby. It is also within walking distance to the Monash Gallery of Art and library.