Dumpling Den @ Grattan St

Dumpling Den

Here comes the term break. So I have one week break and basically my plans for this holiday is to take this opportunity to study and catch up with my assignments. Oh, and of course I will spend some time food hunting as well haha. So tonight I tried 2 places with my friend. One of them is Dumpling Den, the chinese dumpling restaurant along Grattan St in Carlton, and after that we went for dessert at N2 Extreme Gelato in Brunswick St. Stay tuned I will make a review about N2 Extreme Gelato shortly after this post. So for now let's focus on some dumpling action!

So, the name tells it all - Dumpling Den, so we expect the signature dish here is dumplings, well to be precise, Chinese style dumplings. We decided not to have a heavy meal so as we dig in the menu, we decided to order 2 dishes to share among the 2 of us. Staff were friendly and quickly took our order of 1 Special Fried Rice and 1 serve of Steamed Pork Dumplings (12pcs). I normally don't put high expectations on chinese dumplings as I personally do no like their strong ginger taste and juicy filly, but however, never try never know, so give we gave it a try. The waiting time was quite long, took around 20 minutes if not mistaken until the Special Fried Rice was served.

Special Fried Rice

Firstly I would like to ask you guys about your opinion about this dish just by looking at it. What comes into your mind straight away? Well for both of us, our first thought was "WALAO!!!Got apa special about it??!!!" Yes the special fried rice doesn't look special at all and as I took a spoonful and tasted it, it proved us correct. There is seriously nothing special about it and it tasted just like what an average home cooked fried rice would taste like, and sometimes home cook fried rice taste even better. The ingredients used were barely simple like frozen vege, a TINY amount of shrimps, chinese sausage and eggs, and maybe some light soy sauce and MSG. I personally would think that if you are going to call your dish "Special Fried Rice", mate you better make an effort to at least make your dish taste special or at least not something we can easily cook at home. So definitely not worth it.

Steamed Pork Dumplings

The dumplings on the other hand took longer until it was served. By looking at it the skin reminded me of the "Har Gao" which is the local pork dumplings I had back home in Kuching. I took a bite of the pork dumpling and to my surprise, it was too juicy which is unlike those dumplings that will have juice oozing out of them as you bite them, and you end up making a mess because you've got the juice spraying all over your face and clothes. These ones are totally different. There's no juice in them and yet they are not dry at all. I love them and the ginger taste wasn't too strong for me. Definitely loving it! So that's a thumbs up for the steamed pork dumplings. Simple dinner that costed us $20. Stay tuned for review on N2 Extreme Gelato!

Photography by Canon EOS 7D with Sigma 30mm f/1.4

Dukes Coffee Roasters @ Chapel Street, Windsor

Dukes Coffee Roasters

There are two of these outlets of Dukes Coffee Roasters, one located at Flinders Lane in Melbourne CBD, and the one that I went to was at Chapel Street, a walking distance from Windsor Train Station. Around 11am, the shop was already full of crowds enjoying their breakfast or brunch for some people like me.

Interior

By the time we reached the cafe, we were very lucky and blessed to have only one table left for us. It was so crowded at that it was a bit hard to walk around inside. First thing I realized when I sat down was the ambience. The lighting was kind of warm and there was not a lot of natural light. Good thing today I brought along my Canon EOS 7D with a fast f1.4 lens. The staff there was not very friendly though, maybe it was because they were really busy, but in my opinion customer service should not be compromised. Having a look at their menu, it was quite limited for breakfast which is served up to 12pm noon. So to start with, we ordered hot chocolate and a coffee.

Hot Chocolate and Coffee

Once again, great coffee art and the taste of both drinks were very satisfying. The hot chocolate was not too sweet and rich with the right amount of chocolate. The coffee on the other hand was very aromatic. For our main meals, I ordered the "Baguette with Scrambled Eggs, Crispy Pancetta and Hollandaise Sauce". I was actually aiming for the Egg Benedicts however I did not come across them. Mom had the  "Hummus Avocado Toast with Poached Eggs & Candied Honey Bacon Bits".

Baguette with Scrambled Eggs, Crispy Pancetta and Hollandaise Sauce

I did not expect the dish to look like this but I was really impressed with the presentation when it was served. By just looking at it, it was able to stir up my appetite. The baguette was nicely toasted while the scrambled eggs had a great buttery taste. I had experiences where scrambled eggs was tasteless but this is just the total opposite. The texture was just nice and blended perfectly with the crispy pancetta and hollandaise sauce. 

Hummus Avocado Toast with Poached Eggs & Candied Honey Bacon Bits

I'm not a big fan of avocado but the hummus sauce really brought out a good taste together with the toast. Refreshing salad to go with as well. The main highlight of this dish for me was the Candied Honey Bacon Bits. It tasted like honey glazed pork meat. If you know what is "bak gua" or "肉干", it had the texture of bak gua and lightly glazed with honey.

Counter

All together we were really satisfied with our breakfast today. Altogether it costed around $40. Honestly aussie breakfasts are really expensive compared to Asian food. I guess it's because of the labour cost as well. Anyway, a good place to try out if you are out for some Aussie food!

Photography by Canon EOS 7D

Bento Ramen @ Brighton Square, Kuching

Well through out these few years of studying abroad in Melbourne, I realized one thing is that there are plenty of Japanese Food around the city. So I kinda have them quite often as the price is quite reasonable and the portions are always generous. So during this trip back to Malaysia, I'm really not fond of having any Japanese food. However, I heard a lot of recommendations about this Japanese Restaurant in Kuching called Bento Ramen, which is located at Brighton Square Jalan Song, on the same row with the Ipoh Town Kopitiam. Since it is so popular, we decided to give it a go and see if it is really that good, and to my surprise, it was the best Japanese Food I ever had in my entire 20 years of life, like seriously, WOW...the WOW factor was there for me and everything was so perfect. I went there twice so let me introduce some of the dishes I loved and would like to recommend.

Yakitori Chicken Don

Yakitori Chicken Don

I was torn between so many choices of "Don"s and in the end I chose the Yakitori Chicken Don as I seldom see this flavour out there. When I took my first mouthful....

Walao eh! Nice till cannot tahan ah! It was so wonderful the taste of the chicken, it had the "grilled" taste and the sauce was so perfectly matched with the taste of the chicken, not too sweet yet just enough salty. The moment it went into my mouth, the fragrance seriously overwhelmed me. So thats a must try in my opinion.

Spider Maki (Soft Shell Crab)

Spider Maki (Side)

Spider Maki (Top)

Well what can I say? Firstly I believe only by looking at the photographs above it should be able to make you hungry, well it happened to me! After a few years in Melbourne indeed I kind of started to like sushi rolls, and while this dish was served, it just gave me a very special feeling. The presentation of the dish itself was able to hook up my appetite. Indeed it tasted really good especially the soft shelled crab was very tender and fragrance. The combination was just nice. 

Tempura

Assorted Tempura

The tempura dish was quite alright. There were prawns, mushrooms, eggplants, carrot, pumpkin and sweet potato served on the plate nicely fried with tempura batter. I'm usually not a big fan of tempura so I can't really give much comments here. Generally the prawn was a bit too soft rather than chewy and the others tasted quite good.

Wakame Sushi (Seaweed)

Wakame Sushi

Just as refreshing as it is, when I gave it a bite I felt the cool watery refreshing feeling from the seaweed and the sauce. Just nice as an appetiser.

Teriyaki Salmon Don

Teriyaki Salmon Don

I kind of have a love hate relationship with salmon, once in awhile and not too much, I would love it, yet when the portion is too big I start to get sick of the oily taste. Teriyaki Salmon Don at Bento Ramen was nicely cooked with Teriyaki Sauce and gave the salmon fillets a nice sweet and salty taste. I personally did not order this but I tried the fish and it tasted really fresh and definitely different from other salmon's that I've eaten before.

Katsu Curry Don

Katsu Curry Don

Last but not least, katsu curry don is one of the most popular dish among the asian students studying here in Melbourne, of course including myself. So I decided to try it back home and see if there's really a big difference. At first I thought it would be served in a bowl like the other types of "don"s, but to my surprised it came onto my table on a plate. The curry sauce tasted different from the ones I had in Melbourne, the spices were more special. Where as the fried chicken katsu pieces, the batter was just nice and they go really well with the curry sauce. In my opinion, I really think that this is a delicious dish and would definitely recommend to Japanese curry lovers.

Cozy Interior

So to conclude, I definitely recommend Bento Ramen for Japanese Food lovers, it was quite pricey but the food was definitely worth the money. I'm looking forward to my next visit. All photographs were taken by the Fujifilm XF1.

Awesome Local Malaysian Dishes @ Man Ting Xiang, Bintulu

Looking for a place for lunch or dinner where you can order a few local Chinese dishes with rice at a reasonable price and yet tastes delicious? Well, this afternoon I visited "Man Ting Xiang 满庭香" cafe Assyakirin Commerce Square. They serve delicious "dim sum" in the morning where as for lunch and dinner you get to order from their menu. The place was clean and with good friendly service. We ordered four dishes and all of them came out with good presentation and an awesome fragrance.

Dish 1 : Salted Egg Sauced Pork

Salted Egg Sauced Fried Pork 咸蛋猪肉

Usually in Malaysia we hear about Salted Egg Prawns, sometimes also known as Golden Prawns. This is the first time we heard of salted egg prawns so we decided to give it a try. To our surprise, the sauce tasted exactly like the ones served with prawns and yet while it is served with fried pork, it tasted very different in a delicious way.

Dish 2 : "Cangkuk Manis"

Cangkuk Manis 蛋炒马尼菜

Another local Malaysian vegetable normally served with fried egg. I'm not a big fan of this Cangkuk Manis thingy but my parents love it so much. It tasted a bit sweet and it goes perfectly well with the fried egg. Sometimes this Cangkuk Manis is used in Fried Bee Hoon as a FooChow local delicacy.

Dish 3 : Deep Fried Yam Ring with Mixed Vegetables

Deep Fried Yam Ring with Mixed Vegetables

As a kid I loved this dish. The deep fried yam ring shaped like a bowl while inside filled with mixed vegetables and pork. Sometimes served with sweet and sour pork. What is special about this particular dish today was it was served with coriander which added an awesome fragrance to the dish. However some people dislikes that "fragrance", but for us, it was just what we needed.

Dish 4 : Sweet and Sour Fish

Sweet and Sour Fish 酸甜鱼

Nicely made sweet and sour sauce on fried Black Pomfret fish is one of the best combination you can get for this dish. The fish was fresh and we enjoyed the dish. Basically we finished the whole dish until so "clean" that what was left was only the non edible bones.

So those were the four dishes and I would say it tastes as good as or even better than restaurants. The price for all 4 dishes with plain rice and 2 drinks added up to RM69. Very reasonable price and definitely recommended!