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/

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

I don’t normally eat breakfast simply because it impinges on my sleep time. In fact, to save time every morning, I generally don’t brush my hair or put make up on either and tend to grunt instead of saying good morning.

I have improved though – as a kid, I used to sleep in my school uniform so that I wouldn’t have to wake up and get changed (I still think it’s a brilliant idea).

Just because I don’t eat breakfast, doesn’t mean I don’t like it though. In particular, I had a pretty damn good one today at Cafe Vamp (and I even got to see the judge of ‘Thank God You’re Here‘ which is probably one of the biggest celebrity encounter I’ve ever had).

Atlantic Breakfast – smoked salmon, poached eggs, buttered spinach on toast.

Pan-fried Mushies – grilled haloumi and lemon, mushrooms scrambled eggs & rocket.

Quick rating – 8/10. Great size, variety, quality and service. Go get yourself some!

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Cafe Vamp
727 Genferrie Road
Hawthorn, VIC
Phone: +61 3 9818 3141

The past few Fridays in a row, I’ve been steadily (and happily) losing my brain cells drinking at Nihonshu.

This place has recently become my favourite bar because:

• Great drinks at reasonable prices (a must try is the Yuzu – a drink that tastes like a mix of mandarin juice and lemon gelati but is still alcoholic)
• Friendly staff
• Sit down at the bar style drinking
• No ‘doof doof’ music
• Not a big place – so I don’t feel like I should be hanging there with all my facebook friends
• Good japanese food (they are part of Izakaya Chuuji)

By the way, I’ve decided to make this my belated ‘May Restaurant (ahem…Bar) of the month’. Previous winners can be found in my older posts.

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Nihonshu Shochu & Sake Bar
163 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne
Phone: +61 3 9663 8118
Operating hours: Mon-Fri 6pm – 1am, Sat 8pm – 1am
Web: http://www.nihonshu.com.au/

Can’t afford to go to Japan? Neither can I. But that’s ok, why don’t you despair at Maedaya over yakiniku.

What did we eat?

At their upstairs dining we got:

• A grill (no gas or electricity required!)
• A choice of raw ingredients to cook. We had: wagyu, ox tongue, lamb, onion, pumpkin, chilli beef & capsicum
• A few cooked dishes – yakitori and squid
• The majority of us ordered ice-cream for dessert while others had ochazuke which is rice in green tea
• A choice of 5 sauces that you can add to some seasame seeds that you grind yourself.

Note: they also have downstairs with is more of an a la carte style menu and the prices also seem quite reasonable.

What I liked?

• On Monday and Tuesday they have buy 1 get 1 free dishes for you to grill
• On Wednesday and Thursdays they have a select number of drinks alcoholic drinks for only $3.50, including some sake.

What I didn’t like:

• Even though each table has their own ventilation shaft, you still come out of the restaurant smelling like dog heaven.
• The candy that we got at the end had a picture of a pear on it, but tasted like mint.

Top tip:

Wear some shabby clothing and go with someone who likes to cook or someone you can force to cook for you.

Rating:

7/10. My friends tell me it’s pretty authentic, but I’ve never been to Japan so I’ll take their word for it. Oiiishiiii.

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Sake & Grill Maedaya
400 Bridge Road
Richmond 3121
Phone: +61 3 9428 3918
Operating hours:Mon-Sat 12pm-2:30pm, 6pm-10:30pm

No, it’s not a new dance move. It’s the Japanese version of a Chinese hotpot/steamboat with a bit of flair – you swish your meat and vegetables around in the broth rather than just dunking it all in. (I’m generally impatient so I just dunk the food in and eat it after 20 seconds of cooking and spend all night on the toilet wishing I’d let my food cook more…)

Anyway…

What did we eat?

• You get a choice between 3 soup bases: miso, soy and chicken broth
• Fresh ingredients roll around on top of a sushi train style platform and you pick off what you want to eat. There are various vegetables (e.g. enoki mushroom, cabbage, chinese mushroom) and meat (e.g. pork, chicken, beef).
• You also get to choose a dipping sauce – traditional soy, sesame, suki (slightly chilli)

What I liked:

• IT’S ALL YOU CAN EAT BABY for $25 pp.
• Everyone gets their own little hot pot so you don’t have to worry about your friend with ‘flu-like’ symptoms dipping their chopsticks into your broth.
• They had plenty of meat on offer, not just 1 or 2

What I didn’t like:

• They give you about 1.5 hours to eat your food. Even though I couldn’t eat any more after about 1 hour, I still don’t like the idea of being time limited.
• An egg costs $1 extra?! I’m pretty sure I ate about $50 worth of meat that night…surely they could’ve made the egg free?
• Probably not situated in the best location either – the restaurant faces a carpark and you need to walk in the side of the carpark to get it.

Top tip:

They open at 4pm for bookings, so if you’re going on a Friday or Saturday night, make sure you book ahead first.

Rating:

7/10 Pretty good value and variety at $25 a head. Well worth a visit if you want to try something different.

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Shabu Shabu
380 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne
Phone: +61 3 9642 4934
Website: http://www.shabushabu.com.au/

With the End of Financial Year, several things happen. There are heaps of sales, you can put in your tax returns and some people get promotions at work. Luckily I have such friends that are better at their jobs than I am (Congratulations to them!). So the celebration dinner was held at La Paella. I know nothing about Moroccan or Spanish food. The only thing I’d learnt from MasterChef was that a good paella should have a crusty base.

What did we eat?

KeXin, Wancy, Jono and WiFi (I was the special guest this time!): The Andulucian Banquet. This consisted of…

• Mixed dips served with home made bread.



• A mixed platter with fried cheese, chicken shasliks, Spanish omelette, garlic mushrooms and salad.



• A chicken and seafood paella – there was hardly a crusty base but it was still tasty. I found the crust kinda salty.



• Coffee/tea with almond biscuits – we didn’t get to this stage…see What I didn’t like.

What I liked:

• The Moroccan mint tea, especially while it’s hot. Once the tea cools down, the tea is too sweet.
• The garlic mushrooms. They only served the heads/caps of the mushrooms but they put the garlic sauce inside the heads/caps

What I didn’t like:

• The teapot holding the tea was a bit silly. It was completely metal…so the handle was hot while the tea was hot.
• My friends didn’t help me with the paella (I ended up eating about 2/3 of it). They were quite full after the mixed platter. But this isn’t really the restaurants fault.

Top tip:

The banquet is quite filling so pace yourselves! Also, opening the lid of the teapot doesn’t work like it does at Yumcha.

Rating: 7/10. But I’m definitely not ready for another paella yet…unless someone eats the bigger portion.

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La Paella
217 Sydney Road
Brunswick
Phone 9380 6955

A few months back, I did a post on Hu Tong Dumpling Bar and titled it ‘KTang’s restaurant of the month.’ That was in February which means I’m missing restaurants for March – July. But don’t worry, I’ll eventually catch up once I get out of my current eater’s block, but here are the belated restaurants of the month for March & April that are Sydney inspired…

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Ding Tai Fung
World Square Shopping Centre
644 George St
Sydney
Phone: +61 2 9264 6010
Web: http://www.dintaifung.com.tw/en/index.asp

Makoto Sushi Bar
119 Liverpool Street (Cnr, Pitt & Liverpool St.)
Sydney
Phone: +61 2 9283 6767
Web: http://www.masuya.com.au/en/makoto/

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What did we eat?

Ding Tai Fung: Xiao long bao. Yep this is another xiao long bao place, but it’s bloody good, so go get yourself 20 steamers.

Makoto: Various sushi from the sushi train.

What I liked:

Ding Tai Fung: The pastry is the so delicate yet it doesn’t break and you don’t have to be too gentle. Kinda like what a good boyfriend should be. Too bad boyfriends don’t have succulent pork fat soup on the inside.

Makoto: All the sushi is made on the spot like it should be! This means that the rice is still warm and the fish is cold. The staff are really friendly and the grilled salmon sushi…let’s just say if I saw an starving old crippled lady with a plate, I would steal it from her without hesitation.

What I didn’t like:

Ding Tai Fung: You will have to wait quite a while to get a seat because they’re that popular and they don’t take bookings.

They also have whacked operating hours:
Mon-Sun: 11.30 till 2.30 and then 5.30-10pm
Public holidays and weekends, they are open for an extra 30 mins later.

Makoto: …I can’t think of anything…

Top tip:

Ding Tai Fung: Wear comfortable shoes because you’ll be standing in line for quite a while. Also, don’t bother with Ding Tai Fung in HK or ShenZhen (China), Sydney is of a much higher standard.

Makoto: Get there early before they open. They have a sheet at the front of the door where you can write down the number of people you have, where you want to sit and you then take a number that they call out when they open.

Rating:

Ding Tai Fung: 9/10. I would be happy to come back as a pig in my next life to be in one of those xiao long baos.

Makoto: 10/10. Oiiishiiiiiii.

So back when FoodSwings started, the crew ate pho together pretty much every week at Pho Dzung during lunchtimes. The Pho-Off started with us talking about where we would normally go eat pho if we were away from the city. Given that KTang, JenHo and myself were moving offices, we thought we would go back to Pho Dzung one last time.

What did we eat?

KTang, JenHo, Rayzha, WiFi & special guest Jaymie (watch out – she kicks!): What else? The staple…Pho Tai Nam! See KTang’s translation in round 1

What I liked:

1. They actually serve large bowls…and there isn’t any need to order a 2nd bowl. You can just finish JenHo’s leftovers…

What I didn’t like:

1. The soup flavour can range from weak to pretty weak compared to the other Pho restaurants Foodswings has visited.
2. A slice of beef squeaked while I was chewing it…

Top Tip:
If you can go somewhere else for Pho do so. If you can’t leave the city for whatever reason, this is probably the best place to go.

Rating:
6/10 We keep going back…so by default it gets at least a PASS score

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Pho Dzung
234 Russell St
Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone +61 3 9663 8885

The reviewers have been kind to Vue de Monde – something along the lines of 3 chefs hat, glamorous, professional, ambitious…memorable and oh-so-worth-it…blah blah blah.

I’ve never actually been there. Why? Because I am generally at dessert house eating cheap dirty asian food and foolishly blowing my stimulation from KRudd on this coffee machine (which for the price I paid, should have come with a barister…or even a barrister har-har).

But I can almost hear Shannon Bennett saying to me “That’s ok, that’s why I’ve got Cafe Vue – for stingy stupid people like yourself. Come in, come in…not via the main entrance though, that’s for the important people who can afford Vue de Monde, come in from the shitty side entrance…”

What did we eat?

• kTang: Cafe Vue lunchbox w/ wild mushroom rice cake, capsicum salad, roast pork and beetroot bagel, chocolate macaroon
• Wifi: Vue burger & fries

What I liked:

• The interior is quite nicely furnished and gives off a welcoming and warm rustic feel.
• According to WiFi, the burger was pretty good, he didn’t give me any, the bastard, so it must’ve been alright.

What I didn’t like:

• We waited over 30 minutes for our food to come out. They were apparently waiting for Bistro Vue to cook me the rice cake. I’m sure I have a long lost 7 year old cousin that works on a rice paddy farm in China somewhere who could plant, harvest, dry, hull, mill, enrich the rice and make me 50 rice cakes in 30 minutes for about $0.27. Perhaps that is why everything is made in China…
• Nothing was overly tasty in my lunchbox, even though I was starving after waiting so long for the food.

Top tip:

Try Bistro Vue, or if you can afford it, Vue de Monde.

I haven’t been to either yet, but given that they are exponentially more expensive than cafe vue, it can’t get any worse right?

Rating:

4/10. I still think my long lost rice paddy cousin in China could do better.

As always, don’t forget to check out our Flickr stream for more photos.

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Cafe Vue
30 Little Collins Street
Melbourne
Phone +61 3 9691 3899