Grant Hyatt Function..

last week i went to a charity ball organised by the melbourne chinese community, and i was sponsored by my company. ohh. it was at grand hyatt! the food was awesome!

this is the menu! can't wait...

i love the table decorations. simple but elegant.

ta da! this is the entree..smoked salmon with herbs. it was refreshing.

i had the beef fillet. the meat was abolutely juicy, tender and soft. just melts inside your mouth. it was cooked medium rare, i don't normally eat medium rare, kind of a challenge for me. but it was undeniably good. love the onion confit with the red wine sauce.

this is the blue eye cod. it was a bit overcooked though.

lovely dessert to end the meal. the sorbet has a really strong champagne taste, goes really well with the pudding and strawberries. and the choc almond to finish it off. enjoyed the dinner!

Japanese Cafe..

one good thing about working in the city is that you can have lots of varieties of food for a quick lunch. one of my favourite place is very near to queen street along little bourke street. and the thing is that i have no idea what is the shop name. it's a very small shop, so normally we just sit outside of the shop, getting some fresh air and enjoy some nice and quickie lunch. i normally have their bento box for $9.80 together with a bowl of miso soup. but the other day, i had a try with their seafood udon which is also at the same price, look at the amount of seafood in that bowl. and the udon was was cooked just right. it was oh-so-good. absolutely love it. i'll try and hunt for the shop name sometime!

*found the shop name, it's called sushi deli. and their chicken curry on rice is equally good too!

Degraves Espresso Bar..

i've been eating alot of chinese food lately. anyway this entry will be on western. remember the last time i had breakfast at mart 130? i decided to try out another place, this time is degraves espresso bar at 23 degraves st, at the heart of melbourne city, just nearby flinders lane. there are quite a few coffee shops around that area and it can get really packed during weekends. i like that place alot as it has the melbourne city feel, with artistic graffiti wall, and aromatic coffee smell along the street. definately a place to bring visitors to.

i like the little decoration of the shop, it has a small and laid back environment. but it does get really crowded at times. maybe you can spot a table outside, enjoying bit of sunshine and wind breeze.

iced chocolate. it's a good choice during summer. a bit too sweet for me though..

hot cup of cappucino. it definately looks pretty..

i had the hot chocolate. my fav! it was pretty good..

this is the latte. they have really good coffees there, and according to some reviews, the cafe latte is the best. maybe you would want to give it a try.

i had the eggs florentine, with spinach and toast. it was delicious, but i still prefer the sourdough toast in mart 130.

sis had the usual, grilled tomatoes, poached eggs, bacon and toast. for me it was bit average.

this is the highlight! french toast with maple syrup and strawberries. it was absolutely superb! the toast was cooked to perfection. haven't tried such good french toast before. and the sweetness of the maple syrup and sourness of the strawberries, just blends together really well. i don't mind to have more of these. love it! all in all, it was great fun trying out the new place.

Eastern Palace..

well well this weekend i had yum cha session with my parents and another couple of mum's friends. it's a favourite thing to do during chinese new year, don't you think so? anyway mum and her friend have a good impression with eastern palace which is at 1171 stud road, rowville, vic 3178. if you're looking for a yum cha place which is not that noisy, this is definately a place to go for. the price might be a little pricey but we're happy with the food and environment.

more dumplings please! one of the favourite is prawn with chives.

another all time favourite. 'siu mai' mince pork and prawn dampling. nice one!

chicken feet. mum likes it alot..

steamed pork with black bean and chilli. this is really good.. the meat was kept juicy and tender.

chee cheong fan also known as fresh rice sheets with prawn and soya sauce. like this one cause the rice sheets was not too thick.

look how crispy puff pastry kind of crust of the egg tarts. it just melts inside your mouth with the egg custard. faint! it was really that good. i'm a huge fan of egg tarts. i shall try it in hong kong. anyway i ended up with a bowl of sweet beancurd dessert, also called tau fu fa. enjoyed myself and best of all, we were able to chit chat without yelling at each other.

MyCube Cafe..

a few weeks ago i went to a very interesting boardgames cafe, it's called mycube cafe at 122 lygon street, carlton, vic 3053. it's the one and only boardgames cafe around in melb. and their menu offers some authentic malaysian/singaporean hawker food. nice place for friends gathering.

look at the menu! i was wondering what to order, too many choices..

all sorts of boardgames..

some hard liqour?

ooohhh... it's assam laksa. looks good. according to my friend, it was average. i guess nothing beats the ones in malaysia.

highlight of the night is the panda ninja i ordered. it's a soft pandan flavour pudding with some gula melaka at the side. it's palm sugar, originally made from the sugary sap of the palmyra palm. i miss the flavour. the dessert was superb! the soft texture of the pudding just melted in your mouth and with the intense flavour of the palm sugar together with some sourness of the strawberries. lovely..

Kam Bo Chinese Restaurant..

well i had my reunion dinner with my family at kam bo chinese restaurant at shop 1, 1 mahoneys road, forest hill. we've even ordered for the set menu with six dishes for $326. there were eight of us. interesting meal and with reasonable prices. it turned out to be quite satisfying meal, we were quite happy with the food.

we had stir fried lobster with ginger and spring onion and noodles to begin with. it was delicious! the gingery taste was a bit too strong for me but the flavour was awesome.

this is the deep fried prawn with bread underneath. it was coated with a thick layer of bread crumb. and eating it with the mayonnaise and sweet chilli sauce, it was yummy! my cousin sister enjoyed it.

this is the stir fried spinach with mushrooms, dried scallops and also abalone..mushrooms. we really thought it was abalone. haha!

this is the deep fried chicken with salty egg yolk. one of the old time favourite.

next is the stir fried squid with vegetables and seaweed.

and finally we had an awesome steamed fish with ginger and spring onion. this one was definately good, it was cooked just spot on and with the freshness of the fish, it was absolutely mouth watering. i had lots of rice just because of the dish. all in all we were quite satisfied with the food. one more new place to go for chinese food. p/s i think it was better than shark fin inn.

Chinese new year..

happy chinese new year everyone! it's the time when everyone gather to catch up and have some authentic chinese food for good beginning of the year. i've been out for dinners, gatherings and lucky enough to taste some awesome food. here's some homemade food that i had lately.

i had fried egg with clams/mussels, pan fried bun with stew pork belly with taro at my friend's place. that was superb. absolutely love that one. thanks for the awesome meal.

i had a small pre-cny pot luck party at my office. look at all the yummy food with desserts.

i went over to my friend's palce for dinner on the second day of cny. and look at all the food he cooked. this is the fried fish with sambal paste and anchovies and fried piggy fat. totally can't find this anywhere else. special recipe!

i had an awesome meal and thanks to the chef! hope i'm not putting on too much weight. haha! anyway hope everyone is enjoying themselves and have a great year ahead..

Shark Fin Inn..

Chinese new year is around the corner and i bet everyone is like busy spring cleaning, looking for restaurants to go on that day, baking cookies and also buy lots of cny goodies to give relatives and so on. that's our chinese tradition for cny preparation. oh well, i had a pre-celebration with a group of friends before they all go back for their family reunions. last night we headed to shark fin inn at 50 little bourke street. well the shark fin group have a few restaurants around and shark fin inn is their older shop along chinatown. they have quite famous reputation of their food. let's check it out..

we've ordered a total of eight dishes for a group of 11. and this is the stir fry snow peas, carrots, mushrooms with scallops. looks yummy right? the flavour was really mild, and the taste of the scallops stood out quite well. i would think that it would be better if add on some garlic into it.

stir fried deer meet with spring onions and ginger. it's one of my favourite dishes way back in malaysia. we have really good ones there. and this one was just average.

stir fried enoki mushroom, shredded dried scallops with snow pea shoots. i like this one!

this is the stew chicken with vegetables. it supposed to have a special name for this dish, but i forgot what is it called. it was delicious, rich in flavours and i like the varieties of vegetables that they added into it.

this is the 'pi pa tofu'. it's actually a type of cantonese dish. there are added shrimp together with the tofu and then deep fried with some sauce on top. it was delicious! and of course nice presentation.

highlight of our meal was of course the steamed fish! we've ordered 'mang chou' and it's $24 per pound. and this one is almost 1.75 pound. so this fish costs us $42. it was pretty good, can taste the freshness of the fish and it wasn't overcooked, which was great! enjoyed it alot. we've also ordered sesame deep fried chicken and pork spare ribs. didn't manage to take photos of them. anyways we had an enjoyable meal. but on the down side, it was bit pricey than normal chinese restaurants. they charged $5 per person for rice and tea. our total bill for the night was $239. the other dishes price range around $20-ish per plate. so maybe you want to try it out yourself.

+39 Pizzeria & Degustation..

today i went to +39 pizzeria & degustation bar at 362 little bourke street, melbourne for lunch with my collegue. it was such a busy and packed place when we arrived. lucky for us that we had bookings so we didn't wait for too long for a table. simple and easy going interior. i like how they write the menu on the black coloured wall.

a photo of the restaurant. it was taken out of their website. i just can't help it to show you those adorable desserts that they have in front of their counter. it was so mouth watering looking at them. i shall come back another time for high tea and have a taste of them.

their simple menu. i like the concept of their pizza making. a piece of art. i'm a huge fan of art and food is in fact some sort of art. you enjoy the presentation, the taste, the ingredients and the love of food. for me, they might not be the best, but it's good enough to satisfy my cravings for good food.

here's what we ordered. i also ordered a cup of hot chocolate for $3. surprisingly the hot chocolate was pretty good. a nice and satisfying way to finish off my meal. my collegue ordered their home made lasagne, $18. it was really rich in flavour and definately cheesy. but i like the smooth texture of it and how it melts inside your mouth.

my salamino pizza with salami, baby tomato, red lettuce, and some cheese. it was $13.50 for that pizza. it was kind of huge. for me, i think the pizza dough was made really fine and thin, i like the crispy part of the base. yum! but you would need a few pinches of salt and pepper to add on some flavour. personally i would prefer to have more cheese on top. overall it was a nice experience there. however, it was rather noisy during the peak times. good place for a quick lunch and catch up with friends. you might want to try their coffees, heard good comments on them.