There’s a new Malaysian party in town and after several stops at QV and Chadstone, this party landed in my hood, Doncaster. Now, as much as I love my area (not withstanding crappy public transport options, hills which make manual driving a pain in the arse and the area’s lack of kebab joints despite a significant wog population), there isn’t much in terms of restaurant variety. Okay, so we have some pretty good yum cha restaurants and the odd decent Malaysian and Italian restaurants but that’s about it. So when Malaysia’s Papparich franchise circus plonked itself on Doncaster Road, where The Pavilion used to be, Doncaster’s many Malaysian residents were stoked.

My sister, Janice, and I attended church that weekend with my parents, not only because we really love spending time with our parents (seriously) but also because they promised to take us to Papparich afterwards. Meanwhile, my brother either hates spending time with family or he isn’t easily bribed by Malaysian food for he did not come with us that day. That was okay, for we had some family friends come join us – my mum’s BFF, her husband and their two sons, Josh and Jono.

We thought that arriving nice and early at 11:45am would mean that we’d miss the peak hour lunch crowd. Unfortunately, we were wrong. We were greeted by a massive line, which we had to stand in for about half an hour. Not ideal, but hey, we came this far so it would have been silly to turn back. While the folks were complaining about Papparich’s ‘no booking’ policy and avoiding eye contact with some frenemies who just so happened to be there, us ‘kids’ were giggling at some of the menu entries – vegetarian mutton curry anyone? – and commenting on the lack of heating in the restaurant.

Finally, a spare table became available by the window. We all kind of knew what we wanted so we didn’t really waste time browsing the menu, though Josh spent quite some time looking for some beef dishes and declared that one beef dish, a satay dish, in a menu of, like, hundreds of dishes was unacceptable. Anyway, we were instructed to grab a pad of paper and a pen from the centre of the table, and note our choices before handing it to a waiter. This was presumably to decrease the likliehood of an incorrect dish being served.

Most of us had tea. I was looking forward to a hot glass of teh tarik so I was surprised when I received a stein-sized glass of cold milk tea. I had, indeed, coded my drink order correctly but mistook the iced tea for the warm one. Stupits. Regardless, the milk iced tea ($3.90) was delicious and not overly sweet – it would have tasted better in summer, though.

I had a chicken curry laksa ($10.90) because the weather called for it. Thick Hokkien noodles shared a bowl with chicken, tofu puffs, beancurd skin, eggplant pieces, fish cakes and a rich laksa broth. While it wasn’t bad, unfortunately it was nowhere near as good as Laksa King’s famous laksas (my benchmark for good laksa in Melbourne). The soup may have been comforting, but it lacked the depth and complexity that makes the laksa at Laksa King so good to eat. Plus, I’ve had bigger bowls for $10-11 elsewhere too (yes, including at Laksa King).

Janice had the nasi lemak with curry chicken ($11.50) which came with fried anchovies, cucumbers, half an egg and sambal. While she did manage to finish her entire dish, she only said that it was ‘okay.’ After eating a few bites of her dish, I had to agree. The rice could have done with a bit more flavour, the chicken was sweet and bland in addition to being not spicy enough to be considered a ‘curry chicken’ while the sambal was essentially a glop of sugar and chilli, without any depth.

My parents both had the pappa special with biryani rice ($13.90; the option to have jasmine instead of biryani rice was available at a slightly lower price). The rice was accompanied by fried chicken pieces, sambal eggplant and sambal prawns. Given our success rate with the dishes so far, it didn’t surprise me when my parents said that the dishes weren’t fantastic. Not only did they both use words such as ‘bland’ and ‘no character’ to describe the dish, you know when things aren’t right when my mother says that biryani at ‘that Indian place at Doncaster Shoppingtown’s food court’ tastes better.

We shared some roti canai with curry chicken ($9.80), a dish which should have logically arrived before our mains (but strangely, arrived just as we were finishing our respective dishes). The menu reckons that it’s Papparich’s most popular dishes and because we all like roti, especially home-made ones, we had to give it a try. Sadly, it wasn’t anything to write home about. Again, that sweet and generic sambal sauce made another appearance along with Janice’s too-sweet chicken curry. The roti itself was soft and puffy, which was good, but it was so sweet that I was also tempted to call it a dessert. Bleh.

It wasn’t all bad at Papparich in Doncaster. Mum’s green tea and red bean float, for example, was pretty sweet (literally and figuratively). The food, however, was lacklustre. You can definitely find better variations on the dishes we had elsewhere (laksa at Laksa King and biryani at Biryani House, to name a few) and you’re getting more for your buck. I think if Papparich starts using more than just generic sauces and seasonings on their dishes, there would be a marked improvement on quality. And perhaps culling their choices down from hundreds of dishes to maybe fifty or so would help too. Sadly (well for us, not so much the gleeful franchisees), Papparich looks to remain in Doncaster for quite some time if the queues are anything to go by. As for me, I’d rather trek across road to Flemington for my laksa fix, thankyouverymuch.

Hardware Lane. A lane that was once upon a time considered cool and sophisticated but has since gone down the same road as Lygon Street. Gone is the good food, soothing jazz tunes and cool bars and hello annoying spruikers, generic (and boring) food and pubs where lame-o slurries get desperately smashed on Monday nights (only at Pug Mahone’s on nearby Hardware Street). In my opinion, the lane’s only saving graces are La Belle Miette, a quaint macaron shop that do amazing macarons, and Campari House’s rooftop bar where pizzas and beers rule the roost, literally among the pigeons on the very top of the four-storey 1960s building.

I used to go to Campari House rooftop during the warmer months. The buzzing atmosphere, the lively after-work crowd buzzed on one too many Americanos and the decent pizzas makes the sight of Astroturf and climbing four flights of stairs in heels worth it. However, up to this point I’ve yet to visit Campari House’s ground level restaurant which has received quiet nods of approval from fellow-bloggers. So when I received an e-mail from the Publican Group, inviting me to dinner at the restaurant, I knew I couldn’t say ‘no’ to the offer. With Marty as my guest, I arrived for my Friday evening dinner booking to a dining room filled with happy diners obviously relieved that working week was over. Although it was a nice autumn night with conditions ideal for sitting outside, we decided to stay away from the smokers by grabbing an inside table by the window.

With two waiters welcoming and looking after us for the night, a steezy guy who could pass for Prince’s long-lost brother and a bubbly Gold Coast blonde, we got down to business. Choosing our dishes was easy (there were plenty of yummy dishes to choose from), but wine selection was a bit difficult. There were a lot of decent local and international wines on the list, and many by the glass too, which made it hard to choose. Thankfully, Mr Nelson v.2 was on hand to happily assist us with wine selection. In the end, Marty ordered a sangiovese and I ditched my usual choice of a riesling, going with a pinot gris instead.

Marty had the crab cakes ($17) to start off with. Marty reckons he ordered this only because ‘rich people order it in movies.’ I don’t know what sort of movies this idiot watches because as far as I know, stereotypical rich folk order stuff like caviar and bottles of Dom Pérignon in movies but anyway. Looking very much like Jamaican saltfish fritters, his crab cakes came with an aioli and a herb salad. The crab cakes were delicious; we were delighted to discover generous chunks of crab meat in each cake which contained mashed potato and a myriad of spices to make them taste deliciously Moorish. Meanwhile, the potato aioli was creamy and delicious, though lime juice was on hand if we needed a tangy respite.

Meanwhile, I had the lamb skewers ($18). Although they will never beat a lamb kebab from Footscray, I was nevertheless happy with them – the meat was laced with a healthy dose of cumin and was beautifully tender. They paired well with a simple side of crushed chickpea and coriander salad, and a dollop of yoghurt.

Marty had the veal medallion with grilled polenta, pepponata[sic], burnt butter, sage ($26) for his main. Cooked medium rare, the veal was beautifully tender. Meanwhile, Marty was not particularly impressed with the grilled polenta (he ain’t a polenta lover) but so I happily helped myself to his share. He did enjoy the peperonota, though – the warming mixture of stewed peppers, onions and tomatoes provided a lovely rustic touch to the dish and made it rich. What also made the dish rich, according to Marty, was the liberal use of butter. While this would not go down well with some people, we actually liked the extra richness. Yep, we were buttered up alright.

I decided to go light with my main by ordering the blue swimmer crab spaghetti with lemon, chilli and herbs ($26). Upon first glance, the pasta appeared to be covered in a light olive oil-based sauce which pleased me immensely as I don’t like pastas which are supposed to be light being covered in a heavy cream-based dressing. While they were, again, generous with the crab meat, they held back with the chilli to give the dish only the slightest kick. So simple, so good.

We were told that this was to be two-course dinner so this was our cue to say thank you to our hosts and leave. There was a problem though: Marty wanted dessert. Obviously, we would be paying for the dessert we were going to share so we told Mr Nelson v.2, who happily handed us a menu.

We shared a white chocolate mousse with balsamic macerated strawberries ($10). Like most of the dishes we enjoyed this evening, the dessert was beautiful in its simplicity. The mousse was smooth and light, and I actually tasted vanilla rather than just sugar, sugar, sugar – a mistake that a lot of restaurants made. The mousse and the strawberries, fresh and tangy in all their macerated goodness, made for a Hird and Thompson combination to create a premiership-winning dessert (hah!).

We flagged Mr Nelson v.2 again so we could pay for the bill but he simply smiled and told us that it was on the house. Wow, how nice of them! After saying goodbye to our hosts, we retreated into the Melbourne autumn evening. In all honesty, I didn’t particularly have high expectations for this place despite liking Campari House’s rooftop bar and despite positive reviews from fellow-bloggers. I don’t know why, but I’m guessing it’s probably Hardware Lane’s bad rep for being tacky and the fact that it generally hasn’t garnered too much praise from elsewhere. Hence, I was surprised to find that we enjoyed our time there. The food was great, and the service incredible despite it being a busy Friday night. The thought that the good service was perhaps due to me being a food-blogger dining on the house did cross my mind but throughout the meal, I saw all the waiters giving other patrons equal attention and equally good service so I knew this was not the case. Although Hardware Lane remains tacky in my eyes, Campari House is anything but and I would recommend this place to anyone who wants to find a non-spruiking restaurant on the strip within walking distance of Pug Mahones.

Disclaimer: libishski and martypantz attended dinner as guests of Campari House and The Publican Group.

I’ve been very naughty over the last few weeks. I have not been to the gym at all, I haven’t been setting aside time to bake, I’ve fallen so behind on Glee episodes and I’ve been eating all sorts of junk. I’ve not only eaten more cups of instant noodles in a month than I have in five years, I’ve averaged no less than 150 grams of potato chips per evening. Ugh! As much as I do enjoy the odd McDonald’s breakfast meal, Maccas four times per week is just ridiculous. Thus, I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to eat cleaner and more healthier foods.

My goal was off to a good start last night when I decided to give Rose Garden’s salted duck fried rice, a dish that I had been craving during my evening class, a miss. Instead, I decided to suss out Brim CC, a Japanese organic café on the arse end of Collins Street. Japanese? Yep. Organic? Oh hells yeah!

A popular lunch spot with the corporate types, Brim CC (WTF name?) is also popular for those wanting a cheap, hearty Japanese dinner minus the MSG and boringness that too often occurs in many inexpensive Japanese eateries around the city. It was just past the dinner hour when I rocked up, but the place was still half full. It was cold outside so the obvious thing to choose was a Japanese curry on rice, though the soups also sounded tempting – even though flavours such as borscht, oyster chowder and pot au feu were decidedly not Japanese. In the end, I chose a half curry and salad set, which consisted of a bowl of chicken and tomato curry on rice (beef was the other curry option) and either a teriyaki chicken, tofu or potato mayo salad – I chose tofu. It was a steal at $9.50.

If that was a half bowl of curry, I’d hate to know what a full bowl ($9) looked like. My chicken and tomato curry was fantastic – it was delicious, hearty and most impressively, clean-tasting thanks to an organic vegetable master stock. Apparently, the soups also contain the same organic stock so I have no doubt that they would also be fantastic. Meanwhile, my tofu salad, which contained only the freshest ingredients, effortlessly cut through the rich curry sauce. A small tub of soy sesame sauce was provided for a bit of extra flavour but to be honest, I thought it was perhaps a bit too salty and one-dimensional.

My meal was the perfect end to what was a long and stressful day. I was left feeling very full, very satisfied and very pleased about not bloating, despite consuming a curry. Okay, so this may not be the healthiest meal in the whole world (salt content was not minimal) but it’s a MASSIVE change from what I’ve been eating. I will definitely return to try their long lists of soups during winter as well as their sushi rolls in the cooler months. And if I’m feeling like a bit of non-Cadbury chocolate sugar? I’ll order a buckwheat pancake topped with seasonal fruits, cinnamon and organic honey, thanks. Not everyone needs a bosom for a pillow, but they certainly need a cheap Japanese eatery that churns out down-to-earth ORGANIC dishes!

My parents have always been a fan of buffet restaurants. Their favourite thing to do after church on a Sunday afternoon was to round up the kids, another Indonesian-Chinese family and drive down to an all-you-can-eat restaurant. We started off going to Sizzlers in the early 90s because that was pretty much the only buffet restaurant that was around. Then Smorgy’s arrived so we started going there instead because it was cheaper and omg, ‘sif anyone could pass up the donuts. Then Food Star appeared in the scene, first in Reservoir and then in Knox. Food Star remained a family ‘favourite’ for some time because it was ridiculously cheap – in hindsight, so was the food but that sort of stuff didn’t matter to us back then.

After a while, the allure of buffet restaurants disappeared alongside grunge music and all things 90s. We were all pretty much over the bad ‘factory-quality’ food (to quote a family friend) and the nasty bloated feeling that lingered until the very next day. Sure, the food was cheap but low productivity levels and messed up sleeping patterns was not. And as our palates became more refined, as Sunday family lunches became more of a rarity and as Sizzler and Smorgy’s restaurants started shutting down in Victoria, so did our Sunday buffet lunches.

Since then, we’ve only been to a few buffet restaurants: the Chinabar Signature buffet restaurant in Burwood East, Melba at the Langham Hotel and a work favourite, New Quay buffet at Docklands. I even went to a Sizzler restaurant in Gold Coast earlier this year purely for nostalgia’s sake. On average, I was eating at a buffet restaurant once a year which, for someone who hates them, kept me happy. So when my parents announced that they were taking me to a new buffet restaurant, Paesano International Buffet (PIB), in Wheelers Hill for my birthday lunch on Sunday, I groaned to myself. Now, I don’t think that I’m an ingrate but given how I hate buffet restaurants, you can understand why I wasn’t so enthusiastic about this lunch. Still, I decided to keep an open mind as we walked into what used to be Sofia’s restaurant on Ferntree Gully Road.

The name ‘paesano’ sounds, to me, like a made-up Esperanto-like word which would be fitting given that this buffet restaurant samples many cuisines. But in fact, the word actually means ‘mate’ in Italian. The restaurant is owned by the same Italian-Australian dudes who set up Michelangelo in Burwood, before going on to open up a few more Anglo-Italian restaurants around Melbourne’s outer-east. PIB is not only their first buffet venture, but also the first of their restaurants to feature Indian, Chinese and Japanese foods alongside Italian. Although it’s only been a few weeks since PIB has opened, the place has seen a constant stream of happy diners so surely, it can’t be too bad?

So from what I’ve heard, lunches are $25 p/h while dinner costs a bit extra ($39 p/h during the week, and $45 on weekends). I think that prices do go up once the ‘opening special’ promotion is over in a few weeks, but do ring up the restaurant to check. We rocked up in time for our 11:30am sitting and choose our pick of tables by the window. The buffet stations are located smack-bang in the middle of the restaurant and honestly, everything looks impressive. I’m not sure whether it was the pretty red lamps dangling above the buffet stations, or the colourful and fresh food on display or even the smiling buffet attendees who actually went out of their way to greet every diner who wandered curiously to their station. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt a tiny bit excited to be there despite my initial reservations.

I apologise for not taking any photos of the buffet stations. I wanted to, but the lines were so long and dense. Sauntering up to a buffet station with my DSLR would be bad, foodie behaviour on-par with taking dinner photos using flash. You don’t want to be THAT person, don’t you?

So anyway, here’s what I piled on my plates: the first plate consisted of everything ranging from sushi rolls (salmon, tuna and even prosciutto avocado!); the obligatory fried frozen stuff like vegetarian spring rolls and samosas; an okay stir fry; butter chicken, which was surprising good; fried prawns, a favourite with the lunch crowd; and Jamaican jerk chicken, which lacked the requisite heat but was nevertheless tasty.

I couldn’t help but pile on more prawns. I also went for a second round of sushi, along with some prosciutto (they had an anti-pasto carving section!). I also helped myself to a spinach and ricotta cannelloni, a have-had-better chicken satay stir-fry and some prawn crackers.

They have a pizza chef who makes mini-pizzas, baked to order. The pizzas were a huge hit with the kids and I can see why. My mini-margherita was amazingly chewy and cheesy, and I have no doubt that the other flavours on offer were just as delicious. Oh, I also grabbed some calamari rings, which were actually made in the kitchen rather than store-brought and they tasted as good as the salt and pepper squid pieces which were surprisingly and beautifully tender. I did not remember grabbing that piece of salmon so I’m guessing that one of my parents chucked it on the plate when I wasn’t looking – it was okay.

The pastas here are also made to order. On one hand, this is frustrating as the line for one tiny bowl of pasta is always long; on the other hand, it means that you’re getting quality that one could never get when you’re scooping hour-old pasta from a bain marie. The house special is the gnocchi, made in-house by one of the owners’ mothers. I’m not normally a gnocchi-orderer but if PIB was a pasta restaurant, and not a buffet restaurant, I’d be ordering the creamy chicken and mushroom gnocchi every single time. Tasty, creamy but without being too heavy, it was the perfect winter-warmer. Yums.

The old (well, okay, young) me would not have stopped at this point but unfortunately, the new (okay, fine, OLD  me doesn’t have a super stomach anymore. I wasn’t able to fit a minestrone or pumpkin soup in, nor did I get to try the roasts and cooked-to-order stir fried noodles. I did, however, dabble in a bit of dessert.

I had a delicious mango lassi, a piece of butterscotch cheesecake (I want to replicate this sometime for it is yarms!) and a pineapple and passionfruit fool. Oh, and half a piece of my brother’s sticky date pudding. I would have loved to squeeze in some sorbets, more fruits and some gulab jamun (the round-looking thing below) but I was good and stayed away.

I was surprised to find that this buffet wasn’t too bad, despite my initial expectations. Okay, so obviously you wouldn’t expect the food to be of hatted quality but overall, the food here tastes better than food dished out at other buffet restaurants and $25 p/h for a decent selection at lunch is pretty good value. Whether or not the $39 p/h (or $45 p/h) price tag for dinner is justified is something that I can’t answer at the moment. But given that you’re getting unlimited seafood (prawns, crabs and oysters, oh my!) and roasts, I’d say that it’s definitely worth trying. Obviously, I wouldn’t be rushing to eat at this place every single Sunday but if my parents offer to take me there again for a birthday (or for any occasion, really), I won’t be quick to groan!

I’ve been making all sorts of soups lately to soothe the winter blues and warm my bitter-as-of-late heart. From organic pumpkin soups to beef udon soups, I’ve tried, well, not all of them but I’m getting there. And instead of using store-bought chicken and beef stock, I’ve been making my own. With my confidence growing, I’ve been able to tackle soups that I would never have dreamt of being able to cook even six months ago. With that in mind, I’m determined to give good ol’ phở (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) a shot, much to Marty’s delight.

Unfortunately, several obstacles stand in the way of attempting to make phở from scratch. Firstly, I’m currently too busy to slave away for hours and hours in the kitchen. Secondly, where the hell do I get sandworm? Thirdly, my mum might love cooking but unfortunately she loves money – and saving money – more so whenever I mention that I’m going to be using the stove to make phở, she freaks out and starts going on and on about how electricity is so expensive which then results in a full-blown argument. Finally, it’s just easier to walk into a phở restaurant and have a bowl in front of you within minutes in exchange for a 10-dollar note.

My favourite phở restaurant is Pho Chu The in Footscray, a place worth trekking around town for. These days, I rarely go to Footscray due to time constraints but thank goodness that there is a Pho Chu The in Richmond, which is actually closer to where I live. Although the Richmond branch has probably been around for a while, this was the first I’ve heard about it so now I feel like an idiot but hey, you learn something new all the time.

I first came here with Marty earlier this year, after whinging about how we always have to go all the way to Footscray for phở and OMG, why couldn’t we just go to Richmond instead? He reluctantly agreed to go to Richmond – but just this once – and after a short tram trip, we found ourselves at the Richmond branch of Pho Chu The.

Like the Footscray Branch, this place keeps it simple. There is phở, phở and phở. And three sizes: small for $8, medium for $9 and large for $10. Oh, of course there are sundry items on the menu, too, but like anyone comes here for anything BUT phở.

Sweet, cold drinks make good accompaniments. When we were there, it was a bit warmer so the cold drinks – a Vietnamese iced coffee for me and a three-colour drink for Marty – went down a treat. Not that they wouldn’t have during the cooler months, of course.

While Marty enjoyed his large sliced beef and tendon phở, I loved my sliced beef and brisket phở in medium. For some reason, the broths tasted a bit different from the ones dished out at the Footscray branch – it was a lot cleaner which a lot of people may prefer but I like my broth with a bit more character.  PCT Footscray’s broth might be clean but it still has a raw edge to it and plenty of depth. Hence, I do prefer the phở at Footscray. Apart from that, though, it was a very well executed phở and certainly a place to enjoy a phở at when I can’t be bothered with the commute to Footscray. Or be bothered making my own phở, for that matter.

As much as I love my second home Gold Coast, even with its inherent tackiness, it’s often hard to find good cafes there. While I don’t fly all the way to Goldie for the sole purpose of finding good coffee, sometimes there will be days when all I need is a cup of DECENT coffee and some delicious breakfast fare to boot. While I have come across decent cafés in the land of sun, surf and bolt-ons, there are times when I chide myself for taking Melbourne’s café culture for granted; good cafés in Goldie are, by large, hard to find. Thankfully, however, Gold Coastitutes are starting to appreciate a good brew and consequently, places such as Starbucks no longer have a monopoly over coffee in trendy Broadbeach.

A place that’s definitely worth trying is No Name Lane, a newish café that’s situated in a lane which actually has a name – Elizabeth Avenue, for those interested. The space isn’t very big with only a dozen of spots inside and wooden stools outside, which means that snagging a table during the peak period can be difficult. Luckily, it was raining the morning we went so only a handful of brave souls made the Saturday morning rush. It was still packed inside but fortunately, there was a wooden crate and two stools outside for the taking. After telling Marty to stay outside, I order our stuff at the counter, reading off the little chalkboard menu.

Our lattes ($3.50) arrived pretty quickly. In a city where things move at a slow pace (if it’s not the idiot motorists, then it’s the council workers who take YEARS to complete a single road project), this was a pleasant surprise. What was also pleasant about this coffee was the taste. The organic beans, which come from local coffee roasters, Black Sheep, were full of flavour which meant that no sugar was needed. Not only that, our lattes were beautifully textured and had more body than Aishwarya Rai’s post-baby body. Definitely up there with the best coffees on the ‘Coast.

Marty ordered the New York rare roast beef sandwich ($9.50), which wrapped prettily in paper and twine. It came with a dollop of horseradish cream, baby rocket leaves and Roma tomatoes. While we both gave it props for its gorgeous presentation, Marty did say that it wasn’t the best sandwich. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fresh and tasty but it just lacked a little something (extra horseradish cream for more kick? crunchier bread? more twine?). Marty thought that, at $.950, one would expect a sanga that was better than anything that he could whip up at home…

Forgoing the banana bread with vanilla bean espresso butter, I went for the free range truffled eggs and Bangalow ham on toasted brioche ($10.50). Truffled anything went out of food fashion quite some time ago so goodness knows why I decided to go with that. Regardless, my breakfast wasn’t too bad. They run out of brioche, which was a bummer, so I made do with sourdough instead. They were certainly generous with the portion size which meant that I was able to go light at lunchtime. The ham, made with Bangalow sweet pork was delicious and admittedly didn’t pair up too badly with the earthy truffled eggs. I did, however, feel that there was too much mayonnaise and truffle (and the artificial kind) mixed in with the eggs, thus making my breakfast unnecessarily rich.

We loved our coffees and will definitely stop by for takeaway lattes next time – maybe on our way to Mme Grenouille where we’ll be getting some French pastries. And although the food certainly wasn’t bad, there are better places in Goldie to have breakfast in.

When you’ve sat through a 10-hour day, filled with feuding colleagues, idiot customers and lots of system errors; when you’re powering on nothing but five hours sleep, coffee and a cup of Suimin chicken and prawn noodles and when it’s pissing down rain outside, nothing welcomes you like the prodigal son’s father than a piping hot bowl of Bún bò Huế. Having been to, and enjoying BBH at Footscray’s Dong Ba and Springvale’s Nam Giao, I figured that there MUST be a token awesome BBH place in Richmond, another epicentre of Vietnamese cuisine (three epicentres? Is there such thing?). A quick Google search led me to Co Do on Victoria Street and soon enough, I arrived for the dinner rush after a long, labourious day at work.

Although the menu spans several pages, BBH is Co Do’s specialty and one need not look any further than the first page of the menu. Without skipping a beat, I ordered a bowl of standard BBH ($8.50), which comes with sliced beef and pork, beef and pork loaf slices and pig’s blood jelly, though next time I will try the BBH Dac Biet, which comes with extras such as pork hock and prawn cakes ($9).

My bowl arrived as quickly as a Southern Vietnamese person’s speech pattern and I greedily dug in. It was a pretty big bowl and not only that, it was super delicious. They were generous with the beef and pork pieces, and also the sprinklings of lemongrass – this, in particular, made me glad as too often, I come across BBHs that are full of chilli but very little lemongrass. This perplexes me because a BBH is, by nature, a beef and lemongrass soup so why be stingy with the lemongrass? I need not have worried here though. There was a harmonious balance between tanginess, piquancy and spiciness in the soup, while handfuls of bean sprouts and herbs kept things fresher than newly washed bedsheets (speaking of which, I gotta change mine tonight). I guess if I was to be fussy, it could have done with a bit more heat but eh, chilli sauces are provided on tables for a reason, right?

What REALLY impressed me, though, was the amount of noodles they shoved into the bowl. While I know a lot of people who don’t like noodle overkill, I LOVE it. I love my carby noodles so the more, the better. Pretty soon, it got to the point where I had ran out of soup that I was practically munching on dry noodles. Call me weird, but I was in heaven. Noodle heaven.

Of course, Co Do isn’t all about the BBH. Apparently their Vietnamese pancakes are worth making the trek to Richmond for which is what I’ll be sampling next time I’m here. And I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try their pho, too. While I wouldn’t go so far to say that Co Do’s BBH pwns all over the BBH served at my favourite BBH place, Dong Ba, it is definitely up there with some of the better BBHs in Melbourne. I know that if the Eastsider in me can’t be bothered trekking to Footscray, I’d definitely be coming here instead.

It seems that Sydneysiders have a thing for turning simple, no-frills street food into fancy, high-end versions of themselves. Just like Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke have done to a humble pair of black leggings (slap on some PVC and a price tag of $200 a pop, and watch everyone go wild), others in Sydney have done the same thing to food including burgers (Neil Perry, Rockpool), rice paper rolls (Nahji Chu, Miss Chu) and the classic meat pie (Wayne Homschek, Pie Face). Then there’s the whole taco reinvention thing, but let’s not get into that today. Of course, something as modest as the hot dog ain’t exempt from this sort of treatment – and with that, I present you Snag Stand.

Established in Sydney by American-born Phillip Blanco, Snag Stand arrived in Melbourne earlier this year and has proven to be a hit among those fed up with crappy $5 hot dogs at the ‘G and those who’d just missed out on snagging (tee-hee! Pun!) the last bratwurst roll at Queen Vic Market. Its central location makes it an ideal place for a quick bite before the train ride home and for lucky RMIT students looking for non-cafeteria options for lunch.

According to Blanco, Snag Stand differentiates itself from other hot dog providers because of the high quality ingredients used. Here, the sausages are hand-crafted, rather than bought in bulk from Coles; their casings natural, rather than synthetic and no artificial colours or flavours are used. The sausages come from all sorts of trusted suppliers around the country, with the Melbourne branch receiving most of their snags from Jonathan’s Butchery in Collingwood. Thus, one can reasonably expect that, for $6-10, their ‘haute’ dog will be one of designer quality.

The first time I went, I had the American classic ($6.90). The frankfurter was wood-smoked, presumably to give it a bit of dimension, and the bun, a toasted brioche. In between, the standard yellow mustard, tomato sauce, onions and sweet green pickle relish made appearances. The result was, well, something that tasted a little bit fancier than your $2.49 hotdog from Costco, except that you didn’t get free softdrink refills at Snag Stand. As an aside, Marty did make a comment on how the green sauce looked a lot like a caterpillar – heh!

On my second visit, I decided to go ooh-la-la-super-fancy by ordering the Toulouse, which was just shy of $10. It seems that the toasted brioche roll is the default bread option here because it made an appearance yet again, this time with sautéed onions, rosemary, mushrooms and truffle aioli along with a Bangalow pork sausage. Although I liked the sausage, which had a lovely rustic taste, I did feel that the truffle aioli overpowered what would have been a deliciously rustic and earthy-tasting hot dog with attitude (even if there was barely anything French about it – except for the brioche and err, I guess the ‘truffles’).

The chips here aren’t bad, either. For $3.90, I got a small tub of crunchy, roughly cut chips, which were made out of Tasmanian russet potatoes. Yarms. I also got some fresh herb aioli to go with it ($1 per tub). In hindsight, I should have chosen a tub of curry ketchup or chipotle mayo simply because I was already getting a healthy dose of aioli on my Toulouse hot dog but that’s not to say that the herb aioli was bad.

In short, Snag Stand is definitely a breathe of fresh air and one of the few ‘haute street food’ franchises from Sydney that I am actually pleased to see (now, if only Pie Face would just eff off, kindly). Sure, nothing will ever beat a classic bratwurst from Queen Vic Market but this comes pretty close. While I’m in no real rush to order the over-powering Toulouse snag, I will definitely order the American classic again. That is, after I’ve tried some of the other enticing options on the rotating menu such as the Greek (using a lamb, rosemary and oregano sausage, of course) and the currywurst.

On that note, I’m off to Sydney tomorrow for the weekend. While I’m not looking to encounter any designer satay cafes nor am I keen to eat a single pie, I’m definitely looking forward to finally trying the famed snow egg dessert at Quay and eating my way through a leisurely lunchtime degustation at Sepia.

Okay, so I may have lied about writing about Melbourne eateries from now on. I didn’t do it on purpose, though. As I write this at work, I had all these wonderful (and not so wonderful) Melbourne restaurants and cafes in my ‘to write about’ list. The only problem was that all the images, all the menu information and all relevant notes were all at home. And it wasn’t like I could look up stuff on the internet here because our company are absolute Nazis when it comes to web-filtering and will do everything in their power to ensure that we can’t access internet sites in an apparent attempt to increase productivity when really, it has done nothing of the sort as people will still find ways to occupy themselves when they are bored at work anyway, including drawing caricatures of colleagues on MS Paint (Sean) and creating personal budget spreadsheets right up to the 2013-14 financial year (myself) and oh, I’d better shut up about the lack of internet usage at my work before I pop an artery because this issue gets me riled up. The only bit of information I actually had with me at work was a crappy photo of Amimoto‘s menu – Amimoto, being the Japanese restaurant that Marty and I went to earlier this year on the Gold Coast. So we’re going to go with that today. This caterpillar wishes to apologise for any inconveniences caused (but will not compensate Melbourne foodies with a free daily Metcard).

The place I’m talking about is Amimoto, a tiny, tiny sushi bar in a once-popular arcade in Surfers Paradise. The diminutive eatery sits in a dingy corridor and amidst rows of shops with ‘For Lease’ signs slapped unceremoniously across their windows. And when you walk along that very corridor, the overall atmosphere in the arcade is unwelcoming, especially when it’s been raining (think leaky ceilings everywhere). To steal a phrase from my friend, Kate, it’s like ‘rape alley’ (the area just outside Shooters nightclub, ironically located just around the corner from Amimoto) but indoors.

But Amimoto is anything but unwelcoming and the waitresses are certainly NOT creepy. Despite a very wet Gold Coast day, the atmosphere was warm inside thanks to the lively chatter created by the lunchtime patrons and by the ever-smiling waitresses. It was just after the lunch peak period, so Marty and I were able to find a spare table right next to a businessman enjoying an impressive-looking chirashisushi bowl.

While head chef Hidekatsu Fujino chopped his way through an aquarium’s worth of raw fish, we studied the extensive menu that seemingly comprised of bento boxes, though there were several a la carte items available such as hot rice dishes, sushi platters and chirashisushi. In hindsight, I should have chosen the chirashisushi for it seemed to be popular with Queensland bloggers and it certainly looked good in real life (I’m referring to the chirashisushi, of course, not the businessman). Not to worry, though, for the bento boxes weren’t too bad themselves.

I ordered the makunouchi bento ($20), which read like a ‘The Best of’ compilation. It came with sashimi, tempura pieces (prawn, sweet potato, normal potato and eggplant), salted grilled salmon, a small salad, rice and miso soup. Yep, the best of everything. It would have been a fantastic meal if everything was decent but alas, it was a hit and miss. For example, the sashimi pieces – salmon, tuna and kingfish – were wonderfully fresh while the tempura batter was as flat as my hair sans surf spray. That said, I did like the tempura (normal) potato – it tasted like a potato cake-slash-scallop! A far cry from the amazingly light, airy and crispy tempura pieces that I enjoyed at Mayura, 10 minutes further up north. Meanwhile, the salted grilled salmon was a smidgen too dry and I thought the addition of salt was unnecessary. It was an alright bento box, but certainly not the best.

Marty ordered the ‘H Set’ ($18) which was the eighth bento box on the list of about twenty. It was an all sushi affair with cuttlefish, egg and scallop sushi pieces joining the standard trio of tuna, salmon and kingfish. Martin thought his sushi pieces were ‘okay’ but like me, didn’t think it was the best. In addition, we both thought that including a bowl of rice to this bento box was odd (hello? It was all SUSHI!) but the miso soup was a welcome addition.

We really wanted to like Amimoto but thought that it fell short of our (admittedly and probably unfairly) high expectations. I had visited Maruya only a few days ago and loved it, so I was expecting similar quality so I was disappointed not to get it. That said, while our food wasn’t omg-wow-fantastic it wasn’t actually bad. Hell, there is a severe lack of half-decent cheap and cheerful Japanese eateries in Surfers Paradise anyway so if I happened to work or live in the area, I would no doubt be coming here for lunch. That is, if I seriously can’t afford to spend 10 minutes driving to Southport for better quality cheap and cheerful Japanese at Maruya.

*You’re probably wondering how I managed to post this up on my blog with no internet access at work. Simple, I write it up on Word at work, then post it up on my blog when I get home. Heh!

Hello again! I’m saying ‘goodbye’ to Queensland (for now) as we usher some Melbourne food loving to tide us over during these cold, miserable, rainy months. And what a month it has been so far. There have been shake-ups at my (primary) work, and new challenges in the form of taking up a second (casual) position elsewhere, weekend cooking adventures (browned butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies; beef and mushroom udon soup, using beef broth made from scratch and lasagne pastry rolls have been added to my very limited repertoire) and performing as badly as GWS in both my Supercoach leagues.

Thankfully, I know I can turn to food to cheer me up when I’m feeling overworked, sooky or fed up with Marty’s constant teasing. And thankfully, I know that I can turn to Dave for some good-quality conversations over a meal. He had just submitted his final exam for the semester, and I was celebrating, well, nothing in particular, but eh, who needs an excuse to dine out anyway?

We had both wanted to try The Moat, the newish Spanish-inspired eatery located in the basement of the Wheeler Centre. The Moat is a coffee shop, a dining room and a wine bar all rolled into one and can take on so many personas during the course of a single day. Whether you’re there to pick up your latte fix by the hole in the wall at 8am on a Monday morning, or whether you just want wine and nibbles before heading off to see Annie The Musical, The Moat has all bases covered.

We walked along The Moat’s Astroturf-ed path and into the dining quarters, feeling like we were entering a labyrinth of some sort. While we would have normally prefered to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air (and better lighting!), we decided that we weren’t going to risk getting rained on so we went inside and grabbed a table by the bar.

The dining room itself is bookish yet sexy (who says you can’t be both?!), perfect for two dating bookworms to discuss literary works over a few glasses of wines and nibbles. There is even a bookshelf in the dining room where diners are free to browse whatever books are on the shelves, though you certainly won’t find anything written by Stephenie Meyer.

It wasn’t even 5:30pm when we arrived, but the dimness and the coziness of the room convinced me that it was closer to 9pm outside. When the waiter asked us what we were here for, we replied ‘something to eat, please’ and was told that dinner didn’t actually start until ‘much later on.’ We were given the grazing menu instead, which consisted of four small dishes, none of which sounded particularly interesting, as well as the wine list. When the waiter returned, we asked him what time dinner actually started and just to make sure we were on the right page, Dave brought up the dinner menu on his iPhone. The waiter replied, ‘Oh, it’ll be 5:30pm in a few minutes! I’ll grab the other menu.’ Did that mean that dinner actually started at 5:30pm? If so, why were we told that they weren’t serving dinner until ‘much later on’? Seconds later, the waiter appeared with the dinner menu and said, ‘You can look at it, but we won’t take orders until just before 6pm.’ Well, that settled it then.

We started off with a glass of wine each: a 490 Metres pinor noir for Dave ($8) and a Von Bun QBA riesling ($9) for myself. As we sipped on our wines, we discussed new cooking ideas amongst other things while we studied the menu. Dave’s brother, having already been here, highly recommended the braised lamb so ordering that was a given. We also liked the sound of the potted prawns and the Canadian scallops, so we went with those too. I also wanted to try the quinoa salad which came with tomato, cucumber, Spanish onion, toasted seeds, coriander, mint and honey dressing for $16, but for an extra $2 you can get cumin poached free-range chicken in it, too. The waiter, however, kindly told us that the quinoa salad – the non-chicken version – actually came with the lamb and suggested ordering a side dish, perhaps. He recommended the sweet potato side, which I initially didn’t warm up to (not a fan of sweet potato, you see) but decided to be open-minded and give it a go.

The Canadian scallop kebab (as in, kebab, singular)’s pricetag of $16 may initially seem steep to most but it’s a small price to pay for plump, succulent and MASSIVE scallop pieces that would have tasted just brilliant on their own. If Dave was writing this blog, he would have also said that they felt like a pair of supermodel’s tits so it’s just as well that I’m writing it, hey?  Each scallop was wrapped in a bit of pancetta before being dressed in apple dressing, then topped with a piece of black fermented garlic. The pancetta added a lovely salty contrast to the sweet scallops and apple dressing, while the garlic added a slight piquancy to the scallops.

Next, we had the potted prawns with butter, shaved fennel, lemon zest and spices ($15). Served in what looked like an anchovy tin can, the prawns were hidden in an, in my opinion, excessive nest of shaved fennel that was cooked in an (admittedly) lovely butter and lemon zest sauce infused delicately with spices (I could taste the delicious cumin!). The kitchen helpfully added some thin slices of bread to mop up the fennel with, too.

While the prawns did taste fantastic, there was just way too much fennel and not a lot of prawn (I think there were about five or six pieces?). Thus, the dish did not exactly represent great value for money. Also, I would have preferred more butter and less lemon zest but this is due to personal preference more than anything.

Then came our braised lamb dish ($30). A bubbly British waitress asked us if we’ve had this dish before to which we both said, ‘no.’ She then explained that the best way to eat it was to eat it like a kebab.

First, spoon some Elvis-kind-of-tender lamb onto the flat bread provided (we got one each), then slather it with roasted garlic labne and quinoa salad. Next, fold up the thing and eat like you would a kebab. Given that we were given pita bread and NOT Turkish bread, I would have said ‘souvlaki’ and not ‘kebab’ but whatever.

The kebab souvlaki was good. Real good. The lamb was obviously the star of the show, so beautifully tender ( like I said, think Elvis) and full of flavour thanks to the aromatic spice-rich gravy in which it was slow-cooked in. I could eat spoonfuls of this stuff; it was THAT good. The roasted garlic labne was also great; the flavour was sweeter and not as pungent as your average tzatziki sauce which meant that it did not overpower the lamb. However, it’s beautifully creamy texture meant that it did not play second fiddle either. And while the quinoa salad was good when eaten with the lamb and garlic labne, I was kind of expecting a bit more from it – it just lacked a bit of something. Next time, I think that I’ll order this WITH the chicken option.

I approached the jacket sweet potato with smoked paprika aioli ($8) with a level of trepidation because, like I said before, I am not a fan of sweet potato. If the sweet potato was served on its own, I would have not enjoyed it. However, the creamy smoked paprika aioli did diffuse a lot of the sweetness that I’ve come to hate when eating sweet potatoes. Not bad.

We decided that we had enough room for dessert. Dave ordered the Valrhona chocolate and Earl Grey tea tart with lemon curd shot ($14). The tart was rich. Super-rich. It wasn’t unpleasantly rich, though, thanks to the high cream content, which gave the tart a lovely, smooth finish, and the Earl Grey tea flavour, which gave the tart a subtle smokiness. Next to the tart, there was a shot glass filled with lemon curd and topped with Persian fairy floss. While I understood that the kitchen was trying to demonstrate contrasting flavours and whatnot, we both thought that the lemon curd was way too tangy and sour to be presented next to the rich chocolate tart; the whole arrangement was just too awkward. Even Dave, who isn’t normally a fussy eater, couldn’t put down a spoonful of lemon curd.

Meanwhile, I chose the balsamic poached pear and vanilla mascarpone ($13) over the cheese platter. I liked my dessert better than I liked Dave’s; the vinegar accentuated the pear’s natural acids while still managing to retain its sweetness. Meanwhile, the vanilla mascarpone quenelle provided a wonderfully creamy contrast to the pear, though a little less sugar in the quenelle wouldn’t have hurt.

We both decided that we liked The Moat. We liked the atmosphere, the central yet hidden location and the food (which we didn’t really consider Spanish-inspired but anyway). While our so-called reinvented souvlaki can no way replace a legit post-clubbing kebab at 2am in the morning, we thought the braised lamb was our favourite dish of the night and we’d certainly order it again if we return.