Red House, Scoresby

The early bird catches the worm! This came true today. It's not the most conventional story for this sating but here goes.. if we had came earlier, to be precise 1 month earlier to this restaurant, we would have been able to enjoy the lunch menu for $1 less each dish! I warned you that it wouldn't be the best story to illustrate this saying!

Nevertheless,  $12.80 for pork belly and tofu on rice and $14.80 for roast duck with noodles is cheaper than most places. It is value for money even if it was for repurposed dishes cooked with yesterday's roast meats.

Roast pork belly with tofu and veges on rice. It came with lots of sauce poured on firm rice, yes the type of rice I like. Gaz chides me to preferring hard rice to fluffy soft rice, and I tell him not to 'sek yun fan' or translated to English 'lead a sugar mommy life'. 

 Lots of roast duck pieces (back pieces and few meaty pieces) in delicious salty soy with egg noodles in soup. I love how generous they are with the veges. Other restaurants would give 2 leaves of bok choy, not even enough for a meat loving cave man.

This restaurant has it's regular clientele, most of them middle aged to elderly Canto speaking people (my gosh, that includes us!) who obviously know where to get some good food for reasonable prices. The service is friendly and efficient. 

A quirk of the restaurant is that the aquariums of live seafood is positioned in a little lockes courtyard visible from inside the restaurant. Cute, but oh so draughty and cold when one is seated close to the courtyard. There are bottles of chilli oil and soy sauce on a beam in the wall. It is above most people's eye line, but if you missed dipping your noodles into the chilli oil, then you have missed some good stuff! The chilli oil is fragrant and salty, has fermented black beans and anchovies and vitally, missing nasty copious amounts of msg.

One inconvenience is the parking and access. Turning into this restaurant's only driveway from a 80km per hour thoroughfare is a little scary. If there are no parking (and there are limited spaces), you'll have to find parking at the nearby shopping strip. So come early and beat the traffic.

Fai's Cafe, Wantirna

It had been a very stressful week for me at work. It affected my sleep, my health, and outlook of life. I couldn't sleep more than 3 hours at a time. Waking up at 2am and having to get ready for work at 5.30am wasn't the best routine. I was so sleepy most days that drinking two mugs of strong tea early in the morning was the norm as I prepared to work another 10 hour day.

Chest pains and heart palpitations became worse so much so that I was looking up Google for heart attack symptoms and panic attacks.

All the time I would be thinking how badly I had stuffed up. There was a big burden in my heart, on my body and it was exhausting.

The end of the week came and the matter was resolved. I could breathe again.

We went out for dinner that night because it was too late in the evening to cook and still have dinner by a reasonable time. So we went to Fai's Cafe in Wantirna for dinner.

They have a Chef's special where one can pick of 3 dishes with rice for $68 or 2 dishes with rice for $46. 

We ordered the 2 dish special, beef and veges in brown sauce and pipis in XO sauce with chinese donut.

Both dishes were delicious and a balm to the heart that missed hawker style zi char. Also a heart that had undergone considerable stress. The beef was tender and the brown sauce was surprisingly different from the usual oyster sauce mix. It was like a sweet sour crossed with oyster sauce.

The pipis were on the small side but still succulent and there were plenty of XO sauce to go with the Chinese donut. The sauce was so good to go with rice as well.

The service was fast and friendly. The place is very popular so there were plenty of people waiting for seats.

The dish we did not order from the set was chicken ribs in plum sauce. Ordering only 2  dishes from the chef's special set meant it was free rice because normal prices of each main dish was around $23 per dish. 

It was a relief to have gone through the week and it was made even better enjoying a tasty hot dinner of Chinese food. No matter what state I am in, I imagine I would always feel better eating hot, delicious chinese food with the ones I love. 

 

My Lost Piece, Spencer St

This little place opened up recently and I can't resist trying it out. There are many choices on the menu for a small place like this. It only has about 10 seats inside the restaurant and another 18 outside. It would pretty uncomfortable sitting outside the restaurant in the windy alley so we snapped the last table inside the restaurant.

Ordering is via the front counter. There is a 5% discount for cash payments (bring back the cash!) but 10% surcharge for public holidays. 

There are some dishes I love on the menu like popcorn chicken, oyster mee sua, and tofu with century egg. It was difficult to make a choice but we eventually settled for lu rou fan (minced pork belly on rice, a quintessential Taiwanese dish) ($14.80 upsized)and popcorn chicken bento ($15.80, /$17.80 for upsize).

The popcorn chicken bento comes with a decent serving of popcorn chicken, lu rou, soy egg and some vermicelli salad. The popcorn chicken was crispy and delicious. The rice was quite mushy which I did not like.

Lu rou fan. Gaz loved this and he would to try to replicate this at home. The addition of preserved vege gave this a different touch. 

 The serving of the rice bowls would be small without the upsoze but the bento meals are decent even without upsizing. There are many other small dishes to taste, which makes it a pleasant dining experience. 

I Hate my Haircut

I hate my new haircut.

I wanted a change from my previous haircut. A round cut at the back, no layer, and a long fringe that frames the face.

What I got was lots of layers, a V shaped back and a blunt fringe at the front. And I hate it.

My hair looks like it has been chewed by rats. The bottom left side looks like a chunk of hair was accidentally cut off. The layers are unevenly cut, looking like they slope higher from the right to lower on the left.

 Just awful.

 

 

Sulhwa, Little Collins St

How much is the little cat in the window? Meow meow.. There is a song that goes like that but I have adapted it to my needs :) the actual song refers to a dog instead of a cat. But the little wobbly pandan panna cotta below is not even a cat anyway, I think it is a bunny. It's just that bunnies make no sound..

Gaz's dream came true.. we went to Sulhwa and had the insta-famous bunny dessert. On it's own, it costs $12.80 but with sulbing and white pearls it costs $20.80. Steep price to pay.

Here are some pumpkin tang yuan I made in the shape of little pumpkins, complete with pepita seeds as the stem. Reckon I can sell a bowl of these for $20?

We also ordered hojicha cheesecake $11.90. It was an experience to tiny stools at tiny triangular table trying to juggle eating a few dishes and making sure your belongings don't fall off. Oh my, I am being negative when it was enjoyable recording how the pandan panna cotta jiggles when shaken. The taste is ok, it is subtle enough to wonder if it is pure pandan without the use of artificial extracts. The sulbing exceeded my expectation. I thought it would be like drinking milk but the ice surprisingly held for long enough to melt in my mouth. 

My reflections of the week are that it is difficult to wake up and get back to the grind after an extra long weekend. Best to go with the flow and take it easy the day after! 

Not everyone knows what to say to someone who is undergoing a tough patch in life on the other side of the world. I am not good at that, big time. What is the best thing to say? I am still reflecting on it...