A Garden, Yumcha, A Movie and the Beach

Saturday was a very wet day and the sun only managed to show its face in the morning. When we were at the Knox Community Gardens for their 40th birthday celebrations that started at 10am, the sun was out and shining. It would have been what the plants would love, rain yesterday and sunny today. Two ingredients for speedy growth!

Look at the different coloured poppies, nodding in the breeze.

Some plots were used for planting flower gardens, some for vegetables or both. So delicious looking at plants timing with fruits and edible goodies.

It was cloudy when we walked into Peking Duck House in Bentleigh East for yumcha at 12pm. Every weekend, there is an AYCE yumcha for $38.80 pp, plus $2.50 pp for tea which makes it $41.30 AYCE

We ordered a mix of fried and steamed dimsum. Each dish is made to order so it takes a while for dishes to be served. 

The skin in most steamed dimsum was thick, but the filling was wholesome and has a decent amount of prawn meat. The xiu long bao was very good, juicy and was not oily. I broke one and only managed the second one passably.

6 pieces of fried calamari per serve. It helped preserve stomach space for other dishes.

Prawn balls and sesame toast. The fried dim sum we ordered were delicious, especially the first dish that made it to our table, prawn beancurd roll. Hmm.. was it because we were hungry?

Boiled lettuce in oyster sauce. The oyster sauce is more starchy soy than oyster but good to have a balance of greens with our meal!

Ahh.. cannot forget the quintessential yumcha dish, Phoenix Claws in black bean sauce. It was very tender but did not taste too much of black beans. 

Classic banana fritter with ice cream. 

We ordered 17 dishes altogether. If it was not an AYCE, it would have cost $150 upwards. 

The dishes were homemade and did not have as much msg as commercially made dimsum. It was a lovely feast and nice experience but the food took much too long to be served between dishes. 

To order, we have to tick how many plates of each dish we wanted. We ticked all that we wanted to try, 13 in the first go, only to be told that it was too many and would we like to reduce the order? We did not but it delayed our order so the next table that arrived later than us got served first. We finished all the food ordered and then more.

Sitting down in a dark place after a big lunch is not advised but that was what happened! We went to Elsternwick to Classic Cinema after lunch.

Remember Adam Elliot from Mary and Max? He has made another stop motion film called Memoirs of a Snail, 15 years later. It is about trauma, loneliness, separation, death. Gosh, it does not sound too rosy at all but eventually there is wholeness and happiness as well.

Like Mary and Max, it was a very touching movie that provoked tears from everyone. At the end of the movie, Adam and the producer were interviewed by an Age journalist. There was a question and answer session with the audience before they sped to the cinema for the same thing.

Brighton Beach was close by so we took a walk along the trail and saw splendid city views, and the jetty. There were plenty of free parking and paid parking $6.70 per hour since it was spitting. In sunnier weather it is bound to be teeming with people. There is a cafe nearby called North Point Brighton that looked like a nice place to sit and enjoy the view if only it had not just shut, at 5pm.

After the short walk and a tour of the impressive playground at the beach, went to Jalan Alor to try their latest addition to the menu. It is Claypot Yee Mee which had pork, fish balls and veges with yee mee in a claypot. For $10, you can't ask for more.

 It was a very wet day, but we had lots of fun and very full stomachs. I leave you with a quote from Adam Elliot - life can only be understood backwards, but you can only live it forward. Like a snail, we must move forward and they don't go back on their tracks.