It’s been a while but we finally got over our fear of the gansta westside and ventured back into Sunshine this time (or as the locals lovingly call it – Scumshine).

What did we eat?

Pho Tai Nam x 5 in various sizes.

This time we even splashed out and got some coffees, an advocado shake and a sour sop shake. Living it up post GFC!

What I liked:

• It’s clean!! Now, if you’re anything like me, you would have read that and scoffed as there are generally no clean places with good tasting pho…I mean where do you think all the flavour comes from? However, not only was this place tasty, it was actually clean too (disclaimer: clean by the average pho restaurant standards).
• They have home made satay sauce which is different from all the other pho places that we’ve gone to – and it’s quite tasty.
• You don’t have to manually wipe the chopsticks and spoon with tissues – they come pre-wrapped!



• The Mt Everest size pile of bean shoots we got was also amazing – seriously, look at it compared to the size of the spoon.

What I didn’t liked:

• From RayZha: “they need 4 pho sizes: small, medium, large and massive.” Clearly the large wasn’t big enough to tame the beast.

Top Tip:

• Try mixing the hoi sin & satay sauce together as a dip for your beef.

Rating: 8/10 Great pho and a convenient location but Pho Kim Long manages to just stay in the lead based on taste!

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Pho Hien Saigon
3/ 284 Hampshire Rd
Sunshine 3020, VIC
Phone: +61 9311 9532

I am convinced that the concept of vegetarian meat was created by meat eaters. Surely real vegetarians would not feel the need to create such blasphemy?

What did we eat?

Well, not meat…but here are the names of some of the dishes:

Shark fin soup	Steamed fish
Spicy prawns	Taro/Yam duck
Vegetarian pork	Deep fried eel

What I liked:
They have vegetarian food that tastes like meat – simply God defying stuff.

What I didn’t like:
They have vegetarian food that tastes like meat – simply God defying stuff.

Top Tip:
Try to go when they’re not too busy (a.k.a. a weekday and when there are no Buddha  related celebrations) though a booking is generally still required.

Rating:
7/10 – I love the fact that their vegetarian options taste like meat but I wonder what true vegetarians actually think of this place?

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Vegie Hut
984 Whitehorse Road
Box Hill 3128, VIC
Phone: +61 3 9818 3141
Operating hours: Wed-Mon, Lunch: 12:00 noon – 3:00pm, Dinner: 5:30pm – 10:00pm/11:00pm (Fri & Sat)
Web: http://www.vegiehut.com.au/

Special post for the smell of love! I am chuffed tonight not only because I had a buffet dinner but also because I found out that there is now a +1 amongst us!

To show some support, I’m sharing my ‘most romantic meals’ that I can remember having (in no particular order).

• First date: KFC. With. Vouchers. Perhaps not the most romantic by the average persons standards but to me, popcorn chicken tastes pretty much like love.
• Lunch at De Bortoli. Great views, food and wine. Finish off at the cheese shop next store!  http://debortoliyarra.com.au/
• Carbonara pasta cooked in the park using a portable stove and BYO ingredients. Definitely a change from the park bbq or bringing pre-cooked/packaged food. The extra effort required is a nice touch.
• McDonalds breakfast in the car on the way to work. How can you be grumpy in the morning if you’re greeted with the smell of hash browns?

So that’s me! Would love to hear more!

I thought I was so original and clever with my  ’one pot meal’ idea until I Googled it and realised that cook books about it already exist.

Google always makes me humble. Even my toilet bowl made from teflon idea is out there. Sigh.

Anyway, the one pot idea is pretty much what the name entails – cooking (and in my case – eating too) all in one pot. I’m a big fan because it makes cooking easy and there’s less washing at the end.

Here’s my latest example:

Nabe hot pot (for around 4 people)

Ingredients (stock):

• 2L Dashi stock
• 1 Dried Date
• 1 Chopped carrot
• Handful of dried scallops
• Handful of wakame
• 3 Tbsp sake rice wine
• 3 Tbsp mirin
• Pork belly

Ingredients (for the pot – add what you like & as much as you like):

• Tofu
• Shitake mushrooms
• Enoki Mushrooms
• Bok Choy
• Winter melon

Method:

Cook all the ingredients for the stock in a slow cooker for at least 5 hours. Best to leave it overnight and try and get the wakame to completely dissolve. About 1 hour before eating, add in all the ingredients into the hot pot.

Finally, eat out of the pot.

Pretty easy huh? Would love to hear more one pot meal ideas if you have them!

With a pig as their logo that was either drawn by a kid in kindergarten or a maestro, what more incentive could you want to try this place?

What did we eat?

Note: this is where I disgrace myself by not remembering the proper Spanish names of the dishes and use proper grammatical English words like ‘thingy‘.

Anchovy & watermelon sorbet	Oysters
Potato-tomato-cheese sauce thingy	Beef cheek in cauliflower puree
Not enough thinly sliced wagyu	Paella

> More photos & dishes available on our Flickr stream

What I liked:

The location is great, it feels kind of secluded until you get the after-work corporates rocking up after 5pm making a ruckus (me included).

What I didn’t like:

If I remember correctly, master chef George Colombaris tells me that paella should have a crust and that one which doesn’t has failed. By that standard, I would say the MoVida one failed as I could’ve cooked a better crust using my crappy $30 Breville rice cooker.

Top tip:

Book ahead, even on a  weekday. Otherwise go early or just sit out on their terraza and enjoy.

Rating:

6.5/10 – whilst the food was good overall, can’t say I was particularly wowed by their dishes.

On a completely separate note – can you believe this if the first post for 2010?!?! Happy extremely belated new year peeps!

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MoVida Aqui
Level 1, 500 Bourke Street
Melbourne, VIC
Phone: +61 3 9818 3141
Operating hours: Mon-Fri: 12 noon until late. Saturday: 5pm until late
Web: http://www.movida.com.au/

…is just as much fun for food lovers as lego land is for the under 12yo and midgets. I came across this place in LA and I’m still waiting for an infestation of these to arrive in Australia and then die off – just like the bubble cup/lucky cup/bubble tea/bubble-lucky-wah-no.1-so-good-888 milk chains.

The concept is pretty simple:

1. Self-serve yoghurt machines where you can mix and match your favourite flavours – though they have some really weird ones including rootbeer float as a flavour
2. Add the toppings that you want – this includes cheesecake pieces!
3. Pay at the counter based on the weight of the cup

I think it’ll be a hit! Just need the competition to start and I’m sure we’ll be getting plenty of yoghurt worlds/yoghurt empires/yoghurt dynasties in no time!

Quick rating: 7/10. Another chain that will provide a great way for international students to get an under paid job and provide crappy service!

W: http://www.yogurt-land.com/

Nothing like a generic blog post to get a mass message out there – here’s to wishing you all a big fat juicy, tasty & scrumptious Christmas!! Let’s eat.

Another Sunday and another dish I actually remembered to take a photo of. Bak kut teh with a literal Hokkien tranlation of “meat bones tea”. Doesn’t sound (or look) great does it? It’s actually a herbal soup cooked with pork ribs. There are plenty of variations out there, but this one had pork, Chinese mushrooms and tofu. I think it’s one of those dishes you either like or dislike. You can find a tiny bit more information on Wikipedia

Once again, I found myself eating in Sydney. This time I was taken out to Wagaya. It seems to be one of the most popular Japanese places in the Sydney CBD. My friend didn’t actualy believe that I was going to Sydney, so she didn’t book. So effectively we had to wait almost 3 hours to get a table. But that wasn’t a big deal, as I had stuffed myself before dinner with pancakes from Pancakes On The Rocks and skewered food from the night market in Chinatown.

What did we eat?

Chauie and I ordered to share (sorry I don’t remember the exact dishes ordered):

• Fried tofu with a fish sauce and bonito flakes.



• Gyoza (Japanese fried dumpling).



• Japanese spaghetti with chicken in cream sauce.
• Wagyu beef skewers.



• Grilled salmon sushi.

What I liked:

• It’s a modern Japanese restaurant, so you order using a touch screen (sorry inner geek).
• The speed at which the food and drinks come is super quick. It almost made up for the time we lost waiting to get a table.
• This is for KTang and JenHo – they do serve Umeshu (plum wine) and Yuzushu (citrus wine).

What I didn’t like:

• Obviously, having to wait to get a table.
• Some of the plates were chipped.

Top tip:

I’ve been told that you should book a week before you want to go. This will eliminate the gross waiting time.

Rating: 8/10. Everything I had was just outright tasty. I’m going back again when I next go to Sydney and this time I won’t pre-stuff myself.

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Wagaya
Level 1, 78-86 Harbour Street
Haymarket NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9212 6068

There is no better day for baking than Sunday…even though it was a bit hot today.

Earlier today I baked cupcakes for the third time in my life.

The first time was from a box and that was floury. I also burned my hand and that resulted in me avoiding the oven for a couple of years. The second time I thought I’d be smart and combined 3 different online recipes into 1 (don’t ask me why) and that didn’t go so well. But now for my third attempt I tried a recipe from my new book, Jennifer Graham’s ‘The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook’ and they turned out great!! It really makes a difference when you follow a pro…

She makes everything sound so simple and I think her technique is what makes them turn out really good so I recommend her book to all. I also recommend a cupcake tower as it makes your cupcakes look much more impressive.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

To see the cupcakes from other angles, check out our Flickr.