kopi – Page 28

Khe Sanh

July 30, 2011 Posted in Chinese, Food Reviews, Malaysian, Restaurant Reviews, Springvale, Vietnamese1 Comment

Khe Sanh has recently had a management change and renewed some interest into this long standing restaurant.

Originally opened in 2001, it has changed hands I believe late last year and serves a variety of Vietnamese, Chinese and Malaysian style food.

Khe Sanh is located in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne and with so many eateries around Springvale, it definitely is hard to compete. Although, tastes are what matters.

I ordered the Nasi Lemak, and surprisingly it was quite nice. I recently became a Nasi Lemak fan after having it constantly when I vacationed in Malaysia. You’d think I’d get sick of it already, but interestingly enough I now keep wanting to try every restaurant’s Nasi Lemak.

This Nasi Lemak had all the ingredients, the egg, peanuts, anchovies, sambal, beef curry and coconut rice. What I was surprised by was the preserved vegetable which although I’ve been served before, I didn’t intend on eating it. This time, I gave it a try and it was actually decent but I’m not a big fan of cold vegetables so I wouldn’t be annoyed if it wasn’t on my plate.

The combination of flavours worked quite well together, and the curry whilst a tad too sweet, was flavourful and slightly spicy so it did its job.

Overall, for the price, it was actually a pleasant meal and I have nothing really bad to say about it.

My parents ate these two wonderful looking dishes, Chicken stir-fry and the Crispy chicken (or pork, I can’t remember). Try the crispy chicken, or whatever it was called, it had a really nice taste to it.

I would definitely come back to Khe Sanh if I was wanting to eat around Springvale, but I don’t regularly eat there since Glen Waverley’s variety of restaurants satisfies me. I give it my thumbs up!

Khe Sanh
792 – 806 Heatherton Road
Springvale South
(03) 9540 3017

Chocolate Souffle

July 18, 2011 Posted in Baking, Cooking, Desserts, RecipesLeave a comment

I’ve always wanted to eat souffle, and when we went to the Conservatory at Crown, their chocolate souffles were quite the popular dessert so I didn’t have a chance to taste it.

So at last, I tried making it myself. I found this recipe on Taste.com.au, and it’s the basic run of the mill type of recipe but since I had never made it before and it didn’t require that many eggs I chose this one

Chocolate Souffle (Taste.com.au)
Preparation Time
20 minutes

Cooking Time
20 minutes

Ingredients (serves 6)
Melted butter, to grease
4 1/2 tbscaster sugar
60g butter
2 tbs plain flour
160ml (2/3 cup) milk
210g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
3 eggs, separated
125ml (1/2 cup) thin cream
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
Icing sugar, to dust

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush six 160ml (2/3-cup) ovenproof souffle dishes with melted butter to grease (using upward strokes on side). Sprinkle the inside with 1 1/2 tablespoons of caster sugar, shake out any excess.

2. Melt 30g of the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and use a wooden spoon to stir for 1 minute or until mixture is smooth and begins to bubble. Remove from heat, gradually add milk, stirring until smooth and combined. Return to medium heat, stir until mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring. Remove from heat.

3. Stir in 125g of the chocolate and remaining caster sugar until combined. Transfer to a bowl. Add egg yolks and stir until well combined.

4. Use an electric beater to whisk egg whites in a clean, dry bowl until firm peaks form. Use a metal spoon to fold one-third of the egg whites into chocolate mixture. Fold in remaining egg whites until just combined.

5. Spoon the mixture evenly into prepared dishes. Place on a baking tray. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until well risen.

6. Meanwhile: combine remaining chocolate, remaining butter, brown sugar, cream and vanilla essence in a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until chocolate melts and mixture is well combined. Simmer, uncovered, for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Place in a jug.

7. To serve, place ramekins on plates. Dust with icing sugar. Use a spoon to make a hole in top of each souffle, pour in a little chocolate sauce.

Impressions:
I found it to be quite nice and moist on my first tasting, but I wasn’t too sure if I was doing it right since they seemed to sink after taking it out of the oven. You also kinda need to serve them all hot and fresh out of the oven otherwise it just doesn’t retain that moistness. Unless I was just doing it all wrong. I don’t know

Papparoti

July 11, 2011 Posted in Glen Waverley, Melbourne, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

PappaRoti is a popular franchise/bakery in Malaysia. Probably not as popular as RotiBoy but still these Mexican buns are sold in many shopping centres in Malaysia and now we have a couple of stores down here in Melbourne. The first one I’ve seen to pop up was on Kingsway, Glen Waverley but there is also another one that recently opened on Elizabeth St (Across from Melbourne Central) in the Melbourne CBD.

These buns have a sweet crunchy crust on top, and you can smell these buns baking in the ovens far away. The crust I believe has a coffee taste to it but it’s more delicate. It’s sweet, but that’s a good thing since it stops you from having too many!

Inside they place some butter before they are cooked, so when it’s done. The inside is nice and soft, with a rich butter texture to it. It’s actually quite nice but you definitely can’t have too many.

Compared to RotiBoy’s variety of buns, who sell these buns with butter, cream cheese and blueberry cream cheese, Papparoti only sells this one particular bun with butter. The store in Glen Waverley also sells coffee and ice cream but I haven’t taste tested them yet. I might try their ice cream once this winter finally passes.

Not everyone will like these buns, and for me personally, I’ve had my fair share for the year, but definitely try it because you just might like it!

Their ice-cream selection is actually quite decent. They have the usuals like Rum & Raisin, Strawberry Jam, but then they venture into the Asian favourites like Durian, Black Sesame, Lychee and Red Bean.

I tried Lychee and Black Sesame on my first go, and whilst the Black Sesame was too sweet and lacked the nice bitterness of black sesame, the lychee was an instant favourite. It had an authentic lychee flavour and was smooth and creamy. I haven’t seen many places that sell Lychee ice-cream, and one that tastes good too, so whenever I’m feeling like a cold treat (nearly always) this will be the first place I visit.

PappaRoti

105 Kingsway,
Glen Waverley. VIC

Mon-Thur: 9am-9pm
Fri-Sat: 9am-Late
Sunday: 10am-9pm

Chocolate Mousse Torte

July 4, 2011 Posted in Cooking, Desserts, RecipesLeave a comment

I found this recipe in one of Coles free food magazines. It looked like a really nice mousse and I guess that’s how they get you! By having attractive and delicious looking pictures. I commend their photographer for making it look delectable.

I made a couple of alterations to the recipe. I substituted the Oreo cookies with just a packet of Arnott’s Chocolate cookies and 250g of Dark Chocolate. I also reduced the sugar to around half as well, and with the top layer I reduced the butter by just half and I used Crunchy Peanut Butter.

Here is the recipe below;
Chocolate Mousse Torte
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Serves 10

Chilling Overnight
150 g Oreo Cookies
40 g butter melted
250 g Coles Milk Chocolate chopped
50 g dark chocolate chopped
½ cup thickened cream

Chilling Overnight
4 Coles Free Range Eggs separated
10 g sachet powdered gelatine
¼ cup boiling water

Chilling Overnight
¾ cup caster sugar
small Easter eggs and white chocolate curls to decorate

Ganache Topping
¾ cup dark chocolate melts
½ cup Coles Smooth Peanut Butter (see tip)
40 g butter chopped

Method
1. Line base of 20cm springform pan with plastic wrap. Spray sides of pan with cooking oil and line with baking paper.

2. Place cookies in a food processor. Process until crushed. Add butter and process until combined. Press into base of prepared pan and refrigerate while preparing filling.

3. Melt milk and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in cream. Whisk in egg yolks. Whisk together gelatine and boiling water until gelatine dissolves. Add to chocolate mixture and mix to combine.

4. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, beating constantly until thick and glossy. Carefully fold into chocolate mixture until just combined. Pour over biscuit base. Refrigerate overnight until firm.

5. To make ganache topping, combine chocolate, peanut butter, butter and ½ cup of water in a small saucepan. Stir on low heat until chocolate has melted and mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool completely.

6. Pour ganache evenly over top of mousse and refrigerate for 2 hrs, or until ganache is firm. Unmould cake and place on a serving plate. Decorate with Easter eggs and choc curls.

Tip: You can replace the peanut butter in the Ganache ingredients with ½ cup cream and then omit the water added in the method.

Impressions
While the torte was pretty easy to make, I wasn’t too fond of the top layer. Either I over heated the chocolate or I probably should have used the correct amount of butter because it wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked. Also the nuts probably may have made a slight impact on the texture too.

The bottom layer wasn’t as rich and tasty as a Oreo base would have been, it didn’t taste like those cookies you find in a Cookies & Cream ice-cream or the bottom of ice-cream cakes. I was just confused on whether the filling of those Oreos were to be processed too so I opted for a different brand.

The mousse of the other hand, was light and fluffy. It was moist and smooth, and nicely aerated. So I deemed the whole cake a success because the mousse was just how I wanted it. Maybe my cake base was too big for the mixture, but I’d also prefer a higher mousse filling so maybe If were to make it another time, I’d use a smaller base.

Gânache Chocolate Macarons

June 28, 2011 Posted in Confectionery, Food Reviews, Melbourne1 Comment

I’m just such a sucker for macarons. I just love how creative people can be with them and the many different flavours and combinations that can be made with them. I recently came across Gânache Chocolate on Collins St, close to the corner of Collins and Swanston. I didn’t get to try their chocolates, and their cakes look really appetising but I wasn’t in the mood at the time. I think they only recently opened and by recently as in within a year but I can’t be too sure.

Macarons, however, I will always snap up that opportunity. There were 6 flavours to choose from but I can’t really remember them all that well. From memory, there was Passionfruit, Hazelnut, Coffee, Chocolate, Vanilla and Blueberry variations.

I picked up the Passionfruit, Hazelnut and Coffee and they all had quite a good taste and texture and just how I like them to be.

The Passionfruit Macaron, I’d prefer a jam of sorts for the filling but of course, I was at a chocolatier, and what else are they famous for? It was still really fresh and just had a nice balance between the creamy texture of the chocolate with the crunch and chewiness of the shell.

Similarly, the hazelnut and coffee ones were just as good and being know for their chocolates, of course the chocolate taste would stand out! Definitely one of the better servings in the CBD.

I’m going to go see their cakes and chocolates next time I’m around there so be on the look out for that post in the future.

Gânache Chocolate

245 Collins St,
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Tel/Fax: 03 9650 8388

Mon – Thurs: 8am – 8pm
Fri: 8am – 10pm
Sat: 9am – 10pm
Sun: 9am – 6pm

They also have a store in South Yarra, check out their website for details on the address of that one.

Crisp Lemon Tart @ Le Petit Gateau

June 22, 2011 Posted in Desserts, Food Reviews, Melbourne, Restaurant Reviews2 Comments

Le Petit Gateau is a small well known patisserie on Lt. Collins St in Melbourne.

As I’ve mentioned before, their macarons are really good but what they are known for is their delicious cakes. Their Praline Mud Cake is a definite must try so please go visit this shop when you have the chance, and despite their need to increase prices nearly every year, I think it’s still worth it.

Their Crisp Lemon Tart is only available in one size, unlike the other cakes. I’ve always had a liking for lemon because of it’s sour, acidic taste and combined with sweet desserts, it’s the perfect combination.

I actually bought this for my birthday because of my love of lemons. If you were old enough to watch Rugrats as a child, I will always remember this one part where they made lemonade and it made their face all scrunchy. Haha.

Back to the tart though. The pastry is unbelievably good. It’s just so delicate, but filled with flavour and the lemon curd is both sweet and tangy. Just how I like it! It is covered with a nice glaze of some sort, but I’m no expert as to what that’s called but it adds another layer to it.

One thing that might be of concern is that you can’t save it in the fridge! Or my fridge just adds too much moisture to it and makes the pastry too wet and the bite and crunch of the base disappears. So it’s unfortunate I couldn’t savour the taste for many days.

Overall, it’s one of the best lemon tarts out there and Le Petit Gateau just make top quality, delicious products that everyone with even a slight sweet tooth will love.

Le Petit Gateau

458 Little Collins St
Melbourne
Tel: 03 9944 8893
Opening Hours

Monday to Friday, 7:30am-5pm

Little Cupcakes

June 17, 2011 Posted in Baking, Confectionery, Food Reviews, MelbourneLeave a comment

Little Cupcakes is a famous Melbourne bakery, dedicated to cupcakes, as expected by its name. It’s been on Postcards, and it definitely has gathered quite a following for those wanting a cute and celebratory birthday cake in the form of cupcakes. Located in one of Melbourne’s most popular laneways, Degraves St, and close to Flinders St station, it is conveniently located and that just might be a bad thing as you’ll definitely be coming back for more.

One of the best things about Little Cupcakes, is its tiny bite sized cupcakes, that are almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

This bakery has a wide selection of flavours, ranging from the decadent chocolate cakes, to the lighter lemon and vanilla cupcakes, and for those veggie lovers, a carrot cake.

This one above was the Mocha (I believe), and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the cupcake itself. The icing on top for me anyway was a tad too sweet but it had had a nice hint of coffee, I would have liked it to have a bigger punch though. What I absolutely loved about the chocolate mud cake cupcakes, is how moist they are. It’s not too heavy, it’s fluffy and just nicely melts in your mouth without the dryness of most mud cakes I’ve eaten.

The Lemon cupcake, is a classic butter cake with a lemon frosting. I must admit, I’m a fan of all things lemon flavoured, but it has to taste like a lemon with the sweet, acidity and sourness that a lemon is. So it’s always disappointing to have a lemon frosting reduced to pure sugary sweetness, and makes the lemon taste almost fake. Unfortunately, this was what it was like, and the butter cake was quite dry too so it wasn’t a great one to be honest. I do hope I just got a bad egg.

The Cream Latte one is quite similar to the Mocha cupcake, and again the cake is just so moist. It’s really quite the delicious tasting experience, topped with a nice coffe and cream frosting. It’s just a pleasant cupcake to eat.

I love my cookies and cream ice cream, and so I was hoping the taste of that would translate into a nice frosting. Was slightly disappointed it lacked the creaminess and cookie crunch of cookies and cream, and lacked a bit of that flavour too. It was mostly sweet, but again the cake was deliciously moist.

This buttercake may have been from the same batch as the lemon one, the strawberry frosting on the other hand, was quite pleasant and you could taste an authentic strawberry flavour so even if the cake was dry, it was made up nicely by the sugary creaminess of the frosting.

This was a Belgian Chocolate cupcake, with a moist chocolate cake and topped with a dark belgian chocolate frosting. It was quite good to be honest. Usually I’m not a fan of chocolate on chocolate desserts as it’s just a chocolate overload but the frosting wasn’t overly sweet, it had a nice smooth and silky texture and taste to it. Plus it had an excellent moist cake base, so it was a real winner.

I saved the best for last. This Red Velvet cupcake, consists of a cocoa butter cake with a cream cheese frosting, and my oh my was this good. As you probably noticed, I’m not a real fan of just sugar overload, I do like balance and this Red Velvet little cupcake delivers.

The cake itself was moist, maybe not as moist as the chocolate counterparts but definitely nicer then the butter cakes on offer. It wasn’t too sweet either, and the cream cheese frosting was just pure goodness. It also wasn’t half as sweet as the frostings on the other cupcakes I tried, it had a nice creaminess to it and was just what I wanted in a cupcake. A cupcake that isn’t too sweet, moist, and has a nice texture and taste to boot. It also looked great. I definitely would go back for these, and they seemed quite popular too as when we went there, we took the last one available.

Little Cupcakes

Shop 7 Degraves St
Melbourne
VIC 3000
03 9077 0413

Mon-Fri 8.30am – 5.30pm
Sat-Sun 9.30am – 5.30pm

There are also stores on William St and Queen St (Closed on weekends), check out their website for further details.

Sambal Kampung

June 12, 2011 Posted in Food Reviews, Malaysian, Melbourne, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

Sambal Kampung is located in the heart of Melbourne’s Chinatown. It is one of the few Malaysian restaurants that have opened up in recent years on Little Bourke St. It’s probably my most visited Malaysian restaurant in the CBD as there aren’t many Malaysian restaurants to choose from in the city.

I believe there have been changes in menu and cooking over the years though so it can be a bit inconsistent and well, I went there a couple weeks ago and it definitely wasn’t as good as before.

The image on top is of their variation of the Mee Goreng, and to be honest, it was actually quite good. I’m not a big fan of the sweet and strong tomato tasting Mee Goreng’s, and in this dish it isn’t overpowering. It also has hints of chilli with it too, so that’s a plus. Squeezing some lemon juice on top also gives this dish an added layer of freshness over the slightly oiled noodles so overall it’s a balanced Mee Goreng.

We ordered a Tom Yum Nasi Goreng, with seafood. I expected it to have a a really fake tom yum taste but again I was pleasantly surprised with how it tasted. It wasn’t too overpowering but you could definitely taste that it was tom yum and it had a great balance between the spicy, sweet and sour elements of tom yum. Matched with the nicelycooked seafood, it was quite a nice dish.

Their satay snack dish is one of their newer menu items and it was again, surprisingly tasty with loads of flavour.

The few negatives I would say about this was the actual meat was overcooked and a tad dry, and since there wasn’t really enough satay sauce to dip into, parts of the meat went without sauce and it didn’t taste as good.

Also the fresh cucumber was soft when it should be crunchy with some bite to it. You could tell it was probably not at its peak ripeness.

However, the satay sauce was the hero of the dish. It was packed with flavour. It had a strong nutty flavour, slightly sweet balanced against a great nutty and slightly viscous texture.

I was a bit disappointed with their drinks menu. The black jelly drink had no sweetness to it at all, and was just ladled with ice so you didn’t really get your monies worth.

Same goes for the Three Colours drink, which had red bean, cendol, syrup and ice. It didn’t have the sweetness to make it nice, as the red bean and cendol aren’t sweet at all. The loads of shaved ice also made this a difficult drink to well…drink. It just made what sweetness was existent disappear when the ice melts and so it was just kinda bland.

As mentioned before, we ate here again and it was disappointing to see that their dishes just lacked the flavour that it used to have.

Sambal Kampung

234 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne, 3000

(03) 9663 2666

ABC Cafe

June 7, 2011 Posted in Food Reviews, Glen Waverley, Malaysian, Restaurant Reviews2 Comments

Update: ABC Cafe has closed its doors and I believe a Vietnamese eatery will take its place.

ABC Cafe is situated in the heart of Glen Waverley, on the popular Kingsway street, right next to Petaling Street.

It isn’t a very big eatery, and it doesn’t serve that many people but if you want good Malaysian food for a decent price it’s here.

What differentiates ABC Cafe from the other Malaysian restaurants is that it serves Mee Rebus on the menu. Not very many eateries cook Mee Rebus. As I don’t think it’s as commonly known and I think the many Australian Australians’ just don’t know what it is so restaurants don’t bother serving it and just stick with the Char Kway Teows’, Nasi Gorengs’ etc.

What makes Mee Rebus so good, and ABC Cafe’s is the sauce. The sauce is everything, it is like a viscous soup, and with the noodles, tofu, bean sprouts, prawns and garnish. It just makes a perfect combination. I probably don’t know what an ‘authentic’ Malaysian Mee Rebus is, as I’ve only eaten it a couple of times when I went back but it sure tastes good and that should be all that matters really.

Their Curry Laksa is also no too shabby, it packs the flavour, spiciness and slight creaminess that makes a Laksa appetising. Also, a great Laksa includes both the Hokkien Noodles and Bee Hoon Noodles which ABC Cafe do include.

Portion size is also quite decent, as is with the Mee Rebus.

Their Ice Kacang is also a winner, although it doesn’t have peanuts in there. The flavour and syrups used are just what it should be, just a word of caution even on a cooler day it melts quickly. I think it’s due to their fine ice shavings as opposed to larger ice shavings which seem to stay cooler, longer, and hence hold its form.

I would put the ABC Cafe’s Ice Kacang above Petaling Street and The Grand Tofu’s offerings. It just happens to tick the most boxes when it comes to flavour and the ingredients they used. Definitely like what I had in Malaysia.

I’m pretty happy to dine at ABC Cafe, I’m just not quite sure why it’s not as popular as the other Malaysian restaurants in the same area as some of their dishes taste better then the others.

ABC Cafe

109 Kingsway

Glen Waverley, 3150

(03) 9561 6888

Bonjouk Macarons

June 1, 2011 Posted in Confectionery, Glen WaverleyLeave a comment

Bonjouk is located near Specsavers and Thomas Dux Grocer in The Glen Shopping Centre. It mainly serves cafe style food and drinks, and have more recently started selling macarons in their small expansion.

The macarons definitely look appetizing, but they cost $2.70 so it’s a bit on the high end of what they usually go for but I just wanted to try them so I’ll become some kind of skilled macaron expert (jk).

The hulk looking one was a pistachio flavoured macaron with what looks like to be a green jelly. I can tell you, the pistachio flavour was lacking and it was just too sweet for my liking and well the shell is a whole another issue.

The Tiramisu macaron also looked promising, and the filling delivers a great example of how to create a tiramisu flavoured macaron but as noted the macaron shell issue is still here. The problem I have with this shell, is how it doesn’t even seem like a macaron. It is just crisp on the outside, with no real chewy marshmallow balance that most macarons I’ve tasted have. It is also hollow inside so it just lacks the macaron appeal. The shell looks really nice, and high, but that’s what detracts from the experience, along with the lack of almond flavour to it too.

So overall my issue with the shell is that, it just doesn’t taste like a macaron and that’s the biggest worry of all.

I won’t continue with the criticism of the shell, as it is present in the other two macarons too. I’ll just comment on the flavour.

This macaron, I believe, is strawberry’s and cream, and the cream with the strawberry jelly are nice just not very interesting and again, it’s just way too sweet.

This is a Blueberry cheesecake macaron, and the filling is quite nice. Although it was sweet, the cream cheese flavour just balances the sweetness enough to make it balanced. It also has a nice fresh blueberry jam bite in the middle so overall the filling is one of the better ones that Bonjouk sell.

Lasting impressions:

I won’t be trying them again for quite some time. The macaron shell is just way too sweet and the other issues with it really spoil the taste of the macaron as a whole. This is basically what a macaron shouldn’t be

Bonjouk at The Glen

235 Springvale Rd
Glen Waverley, VIC 3150
The Glen Shoppimg Centre

ohdenny

Author: kopi