Kotajaya, Bayswater

We are starting to see new, good quality restaurants pop up around the outer East area. The other weekend, dripping with sweat from our climb up and down the 1000 Steps, we stopped at Kotajaya for lunch.

Kotajaya is a new Malaysian restaurant on Mountain Highway, Bayswater. They have a lunch special menu which has dishes such as Hainan chicken rice, char kuey teow, sar hor fun, mee goreng, wonton noodles, laksa and so on for $9.50

It looks like the chicken rice is a popular dish, only available from Fridays to Sundays so we ordered that, and sar hor fun. We really liked the chicken rice which goes well with the garlic chilli sauce. The rice is fragrant and not too greasy. The sar hor fun has breath of the wok and was very tasty. 

The main thing I liked about this new establishment is that it does not rely on overuse of lard, oil and msg to make its dishes tasty. The price is reasonable, the food is authentic. It is no wonder then that the restaurant was full of Malaysians on the day of our visit! Parking can be limited though as it is a standalone building with no off street parking nearby. 

Besides their hawker style lunch dishes, Kotajaya also has an extensive dinner menu. We will definitely return to try their dinner menu one day!

Are You the One?

Recently, we have been watching a Chinese quiz show called 'If You are the One on television. In the show, 24 single, young ladies are presented with a male candidate. He introduces himself through 3 short videos and takes questions from the young ladies for the purpose of scoring a date with one of them.

Within the 15 minutes, the girls can choose to reject the candidate at any time by switching off their light. If there are more than 1 girl who have left their lights on for the candidate, he can choose who he wishes to go on a date with by switching off all lights bar one.

It turns out that this show has been popular in China since 2011, but has only hit our shores recently. Since discovering this show, Gaz and I have been hunting down previous episodes of the show on the Internet as well as religiously watching the weekly episodes on telly as they air.

What we like about the show is the occasional fairy tale ending of a 'prince' finding himself a 'princess' through the show. But more often, we witness the 'demolition' of a male person's ego and confidence as the 24 lights switches off in quick succession.

The complexity of the human mind comes to light in this show. Sometimes, the lights switches off at what I would think is a benign statement, such as, 'I do not mind my future wife to be unambitious in her own career as I am able to support her'. How would this be a turn off coming from someone who has a successful business? Would anyone mind withdrawing from the rat race?

Obviously, some people would not miss working for anything. Recently, I spoke to a lady who is preparing for the birth of her first child. She shared with me her plans of getting back to work post the birth. It went something like this:

Month 1: Give birth
Month 2: Take care of the baby
Month 3: Work

Given that the family is quite well off, I did not think that money was an issue. I can only attribute this to her dedication to her employer!

Golistan Restaurant, Box Hill

Almost everyone in the office have been in limbo over the past few months. We have been anticipating a big announcement to come from the top echelons in regards to a restructure of the business for some time.

When the details were finally announced, they were as clear as muddy waters. What follows next could be inspiration aplenty for daytime soapie writers - they can easily spin at least 50 episodes on the drama that unfolded. But office politics is not something I would like to watch, particularly when it affects those close to me and makes me ponder on the negligible value of people to an organisation.

As for me, I will be entering into new territory. New, out of the box but not totally unfamiliar, not unlike the restaurant we visited yesterday. Golistan Restaurant on 768 Station St, Box Hill is Afghan restaurant serving halal food. I believe this would be the first time we visited an Afghan restaurant in Melbourne.

The menu is limited, but adequate. There were lamb and chicken korma, briyani, kebab and tandoori.

We were recommended mantu ($12), which is dumpling made with the thinnest skin filled with minced lamb, chopped onions and herbs. It is steamed then drizzled with tomato sauce and yogurt. Something familiar, but different.

I ordered bhurani ($12) - which was eggplant. This dish was drizzled with yogurt as well. It was smoky, mushy, delicious. Lots of oil on the bottom of the plate, which I suppose is synonymous with eggplants since it absorbs so much oil in the cooking process.

We used freshly made bread to mop up the lovely flavours of the manto and bhurani. The bread accompanies the dishes, but is also sold individually for $2 per piece. It is about 100 cms long but is broken before being served in a big basket (below).

When it first arrived on our table, we did not think that we would be able to finish the bread (there were about 3 pieces pp) but because it was so delicious, I could not stop eating and soon finished my half plus a little of Gaz's.

The bread is similar to turkish bread, but thinner and crispy. It is also made to order so the bread arrived hot and steaming to our table. Something so simple, but tastes so good.

While we were there, we saw many people ordering the tikka kebabs. These are grilled to order on a charcoal fire. We felt a bit left out, and will order the tikka kebabs when we visit next.

Gong De Lin Vegetarian Restaurant

Chinese restaurants serving purely vegetarian food are hard to come by so when I heard about Gong De Lin, I just had to try it out.

Their location at Swanston St is central, but nondescript. The only advertising is sign with an arrow pointing to Noodle Kingdom, the restaurant on the ground floor. Diners enter Noodle Kingdom and do a quick shuffle to the left where a small lift awaits. There are other restaurants in the building but in my excitement to get to Gong De Lin, I neglected to observe the board showing the other tenants in the building.

Our lift opened into a clean and tidy seating area with floorboards. We were ushered up the steps by a friendly waitperson to a little nook near the big windows which had 3 booths.

We ordered aubergine with bean paste and spicy mock beef. Dishes were served and eaten on clear and coloured glass dishes which I found so different to other places. Generally one would find ceramic and melamine dishes, not glass.

I liked the aubergine dish. The aubergine is first fried, then stir fried with hot bean paste and a little sugar for balance. It also had minced mock meat just like the non vege version.

The mock beef dish was also in the same sauce, so it felt like eating two of the same, just with different ingredients. We should have paid more attention to what we ordered but the rule was my friend would choose a dish she would like to have and I would choose the other to be fair. 

The food was good, and is a good break from the Cantonese style Chinese vegetarian restaurants around. The restaurant is easy to get to, so Gaz should not have any excuses the next time we go to the city!

Dumpling Kitchen, Blackburn Sth

There are several dishes that come to mind on a cold winter's night - steamboat or hotpot as some would call it, herbal lamb pot and boiled dumplings! Tonight we tried a new restaurant called Dumpling Kitchen on Canterbury Rd, Blackburn South. Opened only for three months, this family owned restaurant serves home made dumplings and noodles.

We ordered the Shan Dong noodle soup, fried rice noodles with beef slices and 10 pieces of Xiao Long Bao. Gaz loves XLB, it is his benchmark for a good dumpling restaurant.

The fried rice noodles were delicious, full of breath of the wok. Importantly, it did not appear too oily as some others are.

The Shan Dong noodles were highly recommended by the friendly owner. The family originated from Shan Dong province in China. The term Shan Dong noodles probably refers to the type of noodles and how it is made rather than the way the dish is cooked. In Dumpling Kitchen, the noodles are served in a home made chicken broth with chinese cabbage or wong nga bak, chinese mushrooms, slices of chicken, prawns and ginger. We were assured that the home made chicken stock will be free of any MSG. True enough, the soup was subtly tasty and the noodles were springy and fresh.

The XLB though not home made was pleasantly light. I have read somewhere that XLB is considered a peasant food as the filling is made from fatty bits and pieces of pork which produces the 'soup' in the dumplings. The owner told us that the rest of the dumplings are home made by her mother. The next time we visit this place, I'll be sure to order some of those!