Studfield Dumpling House, Wantirna

Studfield Dumpling House is a place where you want to like it, but you would struggle to do so. This newly opened restaurant looks neat and clean, the menu contains a variety of dumpling, rice and noodle dishes at very reasonable prices. This is what we ordered when we visited:

Deep fried chicken ribs on rice. I think it's difficult to go wrong with deep fried foods. This tasted similar to what you would find in a generic Cantonese restaurant. Lots of rice, and even some blanched bok choy on the side for a balanced diet.

Fried chicken and prawn dumplings. Unlike some other stores where their dumpling fillings consists of a mystery mash with no discernible prawn meat, I can see actual prawn meat chunks in the filling, a very good sign. They weren't oily like the rest, but taste wise, was a little underseasoned. 

Stir fried rice noodles with beef slices and egg gravy. Liked the egg gravy, liked the rice noodles but the beef was a little tough but edible. I like how this is a generous serve.

The restaurant looked clean, generous serves, food was OK.. so what was the let down? The service. I don't expect to be waited hand and foot, this is a Chinese restaurant after all. But I do expect intuitive service. For example, you don't bring a dish with gravy and only a pair of chopsticks to eat it. What will the customer scoop the gravy and pieces of slippery rich noodles with?

Although there were only two other tables besides us in the restaurant, we had to ask for water and cups after being seated for some time. I don't think it occurred to the waitstaff to bring us any. And no, this is not a restaurant where customer can self-service.

Another dish was delivered to our table without any eating utensils until we asked for it. All the while, the staff was chatting to their friends/relatives on one table, or milling about.

All in all, it was a very frustrating experience because we wanted to enjoy the food hot when it arrived on the table but couldn't do so. It's really too bad, because the strip would benefit from a dumplings place.

Thai Ute, Ringwood East

2019, a year with hopefully more places to explore and more food to eat! Wishing everyone a good year filled with health and happiness. 

The last year has passed so quickly, and yet so slowly. Towards the end of the year I was feeling burnt out, after a very busy work schedule. Desperately in need of a holiday, we headed off to Wilson's Promontory, went to the beaches and enjoyed the seaside scenery and treks, had a scary encounter with a herd of cows (understandable, coming from an urban girl) and learnt to swim. It was a good end to 2018. 

In 2019, I hope to swim better and to read more books. I've already finished reading Xiaolu Guo's biography Once Upon a Time in the East which is no small feat given my 3 second attention span. I think I enjoyed A Concise Dictionary for Lovers better due to the style of writing. It tells of the story of a young girl arriving in a foreign country and the book chronicles her journey towards improving her English, assimilation into the local culture and cultivation of independent thought. 

Although the latter is a work of fiction, it drew from the author's personal experiences and having read the biography, I think 80% of the latter can be categorised as a biography!

And of course, in 2019 I also hope to eat better and healthier. In that regard, I have somewhat failed to do that in the first month because we went to Thai Ute in Ringwood East the other day and had deep fried platter of entree. Did you know that deep fried food is more unhealthy for women than for men? Not sure why, but I justified that since I was going to eat healthy for the rest of the year, I can afford to splurge this once on this platter. 

Look at it, doesn't it look delicious? It tasted really good too. From top, there is pork spring roll, curry puff, money bags and tempura prawns. So tasty for $16. 

This is the beef red curry ($25). Nice curry sauce, lots of vegetables and not a lot of beef slices.

Basil and chilli stir fry with mixed seafood ($28). Lots of vegetables, but again not a lot of seafood. Although we are accustomed to chilli, even the medium level of chilli was too spicy for me. The vegetables like capsicum and aubergine were too raw for my liking but flavour wise, it was fragrant. The sauce was very tasty, if you can handle the chillies.

Despite not meeting my goal of healthy eating (which means no deep fried foods for me), I think I accomplished my goal of eating less. I took away half of each dish except the entree for next day's lunch. This is one of the restaurants that charge for take away containers ($0.50 each) so don't be surprised when the charge appears on your bill.

I think overall the food is tasty but there should be more meat in each dishes at the prices charged. The place looks new and clean, service is good and the food arrived quickly for the number of customers they had that night.

400 Gradi at Rochford Winery, Yarra Valley

The recent trend these days are for the big names to open up shop in the Yarra Valley. There's Ezard, and now there's 400 Gradi at Rochford, right opposite where Ezard is located actually. 

I think it's a clever move because people want to dine at well known restaurants, and people driving all the way to the Yarra Valley won't be put off by paying some extra dollars for the occasion. 

The new joint is a big black steel and glass cube with views to a lake and the vast expanse of green grass. When you drive into the winery, be prepared to walk about 200m from the carpark to the restaurant. 

Loud music reverberates throughout the restaurant. There is minimal decor, they let the views outside be the decor since the scenery outside is beautiful - green slopes, the shimmering waters of a lake, blue skies... We went during the soft launch opening so there were a few teething issues. Especially with the ability to control the temperature and timing of the wood fire oven.

We ordered the meatballs ($17). Meatballs were hearty, but the tomato sauce lacks depth of taste. Bread was a little burnt, must have been because of the wood fire oven. We saw the chefs get their new pizza oven shovels just before cooking our lunch. 

Margherita pizza ($22) was complimentary during their soft launch weekend. Came from a wood fire oven and you can see the burnt crust on one side of the pizza as proof... Would have preferred less burn.

Clam Linguine ($27). Not what you would order at a winery, but clams were fresh. Lots of splashes of olive oil, linguine was OK but not great. The clams were fresh.

It was a beautiful day. It was a little cold with the wind blowing but otherwise clear skies. We took a walk around the vineyard and visited the gift shop at the winery.

Faraday's Cage, Fitzroy

On a sunny weekend, we went to Faraday's Cage for brunch. Here's what we had: 

House smoked salmon and sweet potato corn and quinoa fritters with poached egg ($21.50). The salmon was smoked with green tea and apple wood chips. To be honest, I don't know what apple wood smells like so I can't comment much on that. The smoked salmon is served cold, and is quite refreshing. It's not too salty or smoky, quite refreshing. The appearance of the fritters were not pleasing, it looked burnt, but it is not. Taste wise, it was quite bland but was alright when eaten with the spicy sauce on the side, or mixed with the rich yolk of the poached egg. Also, we added some hot sauce which we enjoyed immensely.

Big breakfast ($22.50) came with baked beans, bacon, chorizo sausage, 2 poached eggs, grilled tomato, toast and relish. Compared to the smoked salmon, this dish is probably better value for money. Bacon, eggs and beans on toast, just fancier. The baked beans are house made and tastes clean, not like the sugar laden canned ones.

The dishes were presented beautifully. I think the eyes eat first, then the stomach and it's certainly pleasing on the eyes. Though the wallet complains a little because of the price!

High Tea at Home

To commemorate Remembrance Day this weekend, we invited friends over for high tea. I made some tea cakes and sandwiches and arranged them on these double tier plates. They don't look much, but I thought there was good variety of food. 

For something savoury, I made chicken and avocado finger sandwiches, prawn and avocado pillows (the round sandwiches at the bottom rack) and mini quiche lorraine.

For sweets, there were mini muffins in assorted flavours: pandan, vanilla, almond, choc chip, matcha and earl grey.

I learnt a new dish for this high tea and that is the prawn and avocado pillows. It was super easy to make too.

Prawn and Avocado Pillows
8 slices of bread, cut into rounds using a cookie cutter
half an avocado, mashed
8 prawns, peeled, poached and chopped into little pieces
salt to season

Lightly butter each round of bread. There will be wastage once you've cut the bread into rounds. I used the offcuts to make the finger sandwiches, and gave the rest to my friend as feed for her chickens.

Mix the mashed avocado and prawn bits until blended together. Season with salt to taste. Put a dollop in the middle of a round of bread, top with another (buttered side down). Press around the edges to seal and voila, prawn and avocado pillows!