Chinatown – ohdenny

Shanghai Street

February 3, 2017 Posted in Asian, China Town, Chinese, MelbourneLeave a comment

Shanghai Street is famously known for their Xiao Long Bao. It’s one of the very popular eateries in Chinatown. While Shanghai Street is known for their Xiao Long Bao, their menu is extensive with a variety of Dim Sum offerings, dumplings, wontons, noodles, rice dishes and soups as well.

Their Xiao Long Bao has an incredibly tasty filling. It’s similar to that off a traditional Chinese dumpling, with the subtle taste of ginger. However, the bun is likened to that of a BBQ Pork Bun, which is light and fluffy. The combination is great, juicy pork filling with the fluffy exterior. Winner.

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Shanghai Street’s fried rice is also very good. It has this very salty taste to but it’s very flavourful.

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The Pork & Prawn Dumplings with a peanut and sesame sauce is quite interesting. A different combination that I’m used to and not entirely sure I like the mix of peanut sauce with dumplings. To be honest, I’d just have the dumplings with the standard vinegar/chilli oil instead. The filling was pretty good though, as it usually is with pork and prawns.

Last words

Shanghai Street excel in dumplings and they’ll have me as a returning customer.

Shanghai Street
146 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
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Noodle Factory – Montreal Series

October 31, 2014 Posted in Chinese, Food Reviews, Montreal, Restaurant Reviews, SingaporeanLeave a comment

Noodle Factory in Montreal’s Chinatown is one of the more favourable restaurants in Chinatown and it’s one of the reasons why we were curious to dine there.
Noodle Factory is a incredibly small restaurant, but nonetheless a popular eatery. As being in Chinatown it serves Asian cuisine, and in particular offers a variety of noodle dishes to choose from.

Noodle Factory’s Singapore Fried Noodles reminded me of those Chinese Food take-away meals, with it’s generous use of curry powder. It isn’t something I would order again though.

Their Beef Hor Fun was interesting in that the noodles itself were not the soft flat rice noodles I’m used to. The noodles here are a bit denser, with more bite so it’s actually quite different to the Beef Hor Fun’s I’ve tried before. Flavour wise, it didn’t standout or have the signature “hot wok” flavour you would tend to get with this dish. However, for just a meal to fill you up this would be sufficient.

Impressions
Maybe my tastes are just so disparate from the locals considering the positive reviews by most compared to mine. Or we just lucked out with the three dishes we tried.

Noodle Factory
1018 St-Urbain
Montreal QC H2Z1K6
Canada

Dae Jang Geum

March 9, 2012 Posted in Food Reviews, Korean, Melbourne, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a comment

I’ve always walked passed Dae Jang Geum in Chinatown but never had the temptation to go in. I couldn’t really gauge the popularity either because it has stairs going up. One day we suddenly though why not, I’ve always liked Korean cuisine. I’ve dined in a couple around the city (mostly Korean BBQ) but I’m not sure why I don’t jump at the chance to try another place.

Dae Jang Geum when you finally walk up all the steps is surprisingly large. I was taken aback at how many tables they had, and a large kitchen. So I’m presuming they must get a lot of customers during the night. Their Lunch menu is has quite good variety of Korean food, from Teriyaki Chicken, Bulgogi, Soup, rice and noodle dishes.

My first picture is the Bulgogi Set Menu that I ordered, and I quite enjoyed it. It is again, surprisingly filling. The rice that they give you is in these seemingly small stainless steel bowls but actually they had packed all the rice in tightly. The beef was nicely flavoured and cooked well. The chinese cabbage and capsicum made the dish overall enjoyable.

The Chicken Teryaky with vegetables is definitely not like the usual Japanese Teriyaki you’ll find. This was more akin to a Sweet and Sour Chicken dish, without much of the sour. So it was slightly disappointing, but still decent enough if you like a sweet sauced dish to go with your rice.

Dae Jang Geum also provides an assortment of sides, with the usual kimchi, fresh salad and a sweetened sliced cold potato dish (pictured at the back).

Might I add I also had a chance to try a bit of the Spicy Beef Soup and that had a fantastic punch to it. It felt so homely, having soup and rice. Homely, certainly isn’t a bad thing. Not at all.

Dae Jang Geum’s lunch experience is mostly positive. The staff are quite friendly and efficient, and the food arrives quickly (Maybe we ate before peak hour but nonetheless is was good). Although their restaurant lacks much natural lighting, it is still a welcoming atmosphere. Would I come here again? Yes definitely, there are plenty of other dishes to try for lunch and we haven’t even attempted to try their Korean BBQ.

Dae Jang Geum
235 Little Bourke St
Melbourne VIC

03 9662 9445

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