Restaurant Reviews – Page 19

Brandy Creek Wines & View Cafe

September 14, 2011 Posted in Drouin East, Food, Food Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Spanish2 Comments

Brandy Creek Wines & View Cafe have been on many travel Melbourne shows for it’s pleasant scenery and of course, good food.

It has been shown on Postcards, a Melbourne TV travel and food show, a while back and I couldn’t catch it’s name. So I searched endlessly and gave up eventually. However, maybe a year or two later it was shown on Coxy’s Big Break, but I missed the name again. For some reason, I just ended up searching ‘Victoria Paella’ and Brandy Creek Wines shows up at the top.

Curious enough, I looked to see what they had, and the Paella Feast piqued my interest. We also had my parent’s anniversary coming up, so it was good timing.

Located in Drouin East, near Warragul, their Paella Feasts are quite an attraction. With 6 large bowls of 5 different styles of Paella, and one cazuella. You definitely get your monies worth here.

Outside you can see their beautiful vineyard. Although it was drizzling that day, it was nonetheless a pleasant viewing experience.

With their Paella Feasts, you are provided a selection of tapas. The golden brown potato tapas (Obvious I don’t know much about Spanish food isn’t it?) was fantastic. This was preapared by Head Chef Courtney Websdale.

Nice fresh bread to go along with the tapas.

Now for the main meal…This particular paella was made for Vegetarians. However, that’s not to say it was in anyway inferior. It didn’t need any meat to make it taste good. With all these fresh vegetables cooked with a tasty stock and nicely cooked rice, what could go wrong?

This Paella is a Photographer’s delight. Also a Pork lover’s delight too, might I add. Their Paella Cerdo y Conejo is a mix of succulent pork, rabbit and apple Paella, topped with amazingly crunchy crackling pork. I have nothing else to say about this one, it was fantastic, and also the first time I’ve eaten rabbit, which had a great flavour to it.

The Paella Machega is cooked with beef, mushroom, quail and egg. The beef was very tender and I can’t really fault it.

The Chicken & Chorizo Cazuella was probably my favourite one. Funnily enough, it isn’t a paella but tasted great nonetheless.

This had tender chicken, and spicy chorizo with saffron rice. The slightly salted chorizo combined with the tomato based sauced, it just appeals to the inner Italian in me.

The Paella de Marisco aka Seafood Paella, had all the great makings of a great seafood paella. Jam packed with fish, prawns, mussels, claims, calamari and baby octopus. It definitely was a seafood lover’s dish. For me it had an overpowering mussel flavour, only because I made my Seafood Risotto not long before this and that was packed full of mussels. So I definitely had my mussel fix by then, and of course I could only notice the mussel flavour here so although it wasn’t something I would go back for that day. I can’t ignore that it was well cooked and had great flavours to boot.

My selection of paella from the 6 dishes.

You also get a choice of three desserts. Since there were three of us, we managed to try them all!

This ice-cream was smooth and crunchy (from the honeycomb) and had a great caramel flavour to it. Delicious

These Spanish doughnuts can be found in a couple of Melbourne eateries now adays, and these crunchy little things were quite tasty I must admit. The chocolate sauce wasn’t too sweet like you can find in Spanish Doughnuts Churros franchises, and these churros have a higher crispy to dough ratio (because they are thinner) but it was really good.

This was probably my favourite dessert. Yes yes it’s just a panna cotta, but it was an (If I can recall correctly) an Vanilla Panna Cotta, with Candied Walnuts and an Orange sauce. It was simply silky smooth and tasted amazing.

Along with your desserts you get to sample their in-house liquers. They definitely go well with their desserts and I had to unfortunately lay the responsibility of designated driver onto my mother because who can resist free tastings of liquers.

To top it off you can order coffee or tea to end your fantastic meal.

Although their Paella Feasts are probably more on the pricey end, a great selection of paella (which you can go back for seconds or thirds, or even takeaway some too!), dessert, tapas, samples of their alcohol and warm drink to complete your meal. It definitely is worth it.

You will need to book for these as there are limited seats (I believe it houses 100) each weekend and they fill up quickly!

Also be warned, you will be satisfied.

Brandy Creek Wines & View Cafe

570 Buln Buln Rd
Drouin East, 3818
(03) 5625 4498

Brownie and Passionfruit Chocolate Gâteau @ Le Petit Gateau

September 6, 2011 Posted in Desserts, Food Reviews, Melbourne, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Le Petit Gateau has definitely made a name for itself in Melbourne with it’s delicious cakes and chocolates. Their Brownie and Passionfruit Chocolate Gateau is an interesting combination of passionfruit, chocolate and their famous delicious mudcake praline all rolled into one.

I have got to say, Le Petit just don’t know how to make a bad dessert. Their passionfruit jelly on the top, along with a nice thin layer inside, as well as a delicious crunchy bottom. All the layers create such a wonderful taste in your mouth. Even if you tasted each layer separately it would have been perfect but together it’s just even better.

Only bad thing I can say is that their prices keep going up every year. It’s heading towards, ‘I don’t know if it’s worth it but I might still buy it anyway because it’s delicious’ pricing but alas I don’t think I would stop going to Le Petit Gateau. I’m hooked.

Le Petit Gateau

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

Monday to Friday, 7:30am-5pm

Koko at Crown

August 23, 2011 Posted in Food Reviews, Japanese, Melbourne, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Koko at Crown serves beautiful Japanese cuisine. Located a few floors above the famous Crown water fountains, and the Conservatory buffet restaurant. Koko would be considered slightly pricey but you definitely get your monies worth. Well we did anyway.

Their restaurant has a small water feature in the middle of the restaurant, surrounded by the Teppanyaki grills and tables. We ordered their set Teppanyaki Lunch set menus, but you can also order a la carte, and for dinner there is a different albeit more expensive teppanyaki sets’ for everyone to choose from. We ordered the Seafood, and Beef sets and you are welcomed by the lovely staff and also greeted by the chef who will be cooking your meal. A lovely touch!

Each lunch set comes with appetisers and sashimi to start.

The special set comes with a warm egg pudding like entree. It was quite nice actually.

The vegetable tempura had a lovely thin but crispy batter, with the flavours of the vegetables still shining through.

We are also served miso soup, rice and then the real fire starts! I don’t know why I never took pictures of the actual chef cooking our meals but do have an image of the end result.

The three of us shared our sets so we could try a bit of everything. The beef was so soft and delicate, and packed full of flavour. The potatoes, mushrooms, spinach and bean sprouts all were delicious. I was definitely satisfied and full after all that.

Last but not least was the Green Tea ice-cream and that is always a winner for me.

Koko at Crown is definitely a great place to eat, I probably couldn’t afford to dine there regularly but it definitely will be on my list of great Melbourne restaurants to celebrate a special occassion. Great food, great atmosphere and great service.

Koko at Crown
Crown Towers
8 Whiteman St
Southbank, 3006
(03) 9292 6886

Sue’z Delights

August 16, 2011 Posted in Clayton, Food, Food Reviews, Malaysian, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Sue’z Delights is a popular Clayton eatery on Dandenong Road because of it’s close proximity to Monash University. It also has nice food to boot.They serve a variety of Malaysian cuisines but their selection of dishes varies by day and by month so some dishes are only cooked on specific days or dates. Some dishes they cook are Mee Rebus, Char Hor Fun, Laksa, basically a big selection of the popular and sometimes not so common Malaysian dishes known in Australia today.

We ate there on a Sunday, the first Sunday of the month, and they had a couple of dishes on offer but I can’t remember the other ones. The one I ordered was their Nasi Briyani.

Their Nasi Briyani is a Indian/Malaysian dish served with salad, fried egg, fragrant rice, fried chicken and a sauce. Sue’z is run by a husband and wife team, and with the wife cooking most of these dishes so service and food delivery can be slow. Actually, it’s expected to be slow.

The Nasi Briyani is nice, it has all the flavours and added extras too, but the flavours aren’t as strong as I would have liked it to be. The rice didn’t pack a punch either but their runny egg was great. This dish is definitely cooked a different way then I am used to and there are many ways to cook Nasi Briyani so this is just one of them. I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to order this but it’s still good.

Sue’z Delights also has a few snack boxes that you can order. These look like tiny curry puffs but they are filled with chopped peanuts and sugar. It was quite pleasant to eat, I might add.

Their also have a few drinks you can order, like Milo, but their Ice Cendol is what I was after. I would say their actual cendol was a bit hard, probably because it wasn’t freshly made and left in the fridge but it wasn’t bad. Also when had their cendol, their syrup mixture was too hot! So even with the ice, it was a mild room temperature dessert. With added ice, it would have been great. It had nice sweet flavours to it, and overall it was still something I would order again (provided I’m patient enough to wait)

Sue’z Delights serves authentic Malaysian cuisine and if you can stand the long wait, their food usually reaches expectations.

Sue’z Delights
1915 Dandenong Road
Clayton, VIC
3168
(03) 9548 8700

Kingsway Seafood Restaurant

August 9, 2011 Posted in Chinese, Food, Food Reviews, Glen Waverley, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

Kingsway Seafood Restaurant is a recent entry to the heart of Glen Waverley. Opening earlier this year, if my memory serves me correctly. There aren’t that many Chinese restaurants where you can have a nice dinner on Kingsway or near the train station. Maybe, the Hakka Teahouse across from Glen Waverley train station but the more the merrier I suppose.

It also isn’t a bad thing that the prices are reasonable for what they serve and well the last Chinese dinner I had was at Eastern Palace in Rowville, and the bill left an unpleasant taste in our mouths.

We orderd a fish and tofu dish for dinner and it had a nice taste to it, with cooked but crunchy carrots, vegetables and mushrooms. Overall it was quite pleasant. Nothing really to run home about, it basically is the standard flavours you may find in your typical Chinese restaurant.
We also ordered another vegetable dish (Kai Lan with beef), and that was great but I didn’t managed to take a picture of it. Not that it was picture worthy anyway since it was quite simple, but I love kai lan so we had to order it.

However, this prawn dish was the standout. The prawns are covered in a salted egg batter and my golly was it something special. It had a great saltiness to the prawns, but the prawn flavour wasn’t overpowered by the salted egg batter. The batter thinly covered the whole prawn, and was light and crisp, and definitely not heavy that you feel you’re eating a great deal of oil. I think I would go back here just to order this delicious and surprisngly delightful dish again.

I would probably only come here on special occassions though since if you eat regularly here, it would take quite a big chunk out of your food budget!

Kingsway Seafood Restaurant
100 Kingsway
Glen Waverley, 3150
(03) 9562 2688

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

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

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

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

ohdenny

Category: Restaurant Reviews