Long grain, City, Melbourne

Sister of the Sydney favourite. Well executed Thai influenced dishes in a cosy bar atmosphere. The caramelised pork hock with chilli vinegar is delicious, though my favourite is probably the battered squid dipped in the soy and fish dipping sauce. Sit at the large communal tables or one of the many large round tables. There’s no booking except for groups of 6 and up, but that’s really ok because you should really go with a group of friends or family as the dishes are made for sharing. Excellent cocktails - if you like lychees and raspberries try the "Jimmy Chew".

Rating: 4 out of 5

Durian Lu lian

Durian flavoured gelato.

East meets West fusion cuisine doesn't get much better than this.

It's a well kept secret except to the flock of Asian university students which converge upon Il Dolce Freddo at the end of Lygon Street near Queensberry Street.

I preferred mine in a cup, where each spoonful is creamy and cold durian with the full heady flavour and none of the stringy bits. It's almost better than eating the real thing!

+613 9639 3344

116 Lygon St, Carlton, Melbourne

MoDiva, City, Melbourne

A cozy tapas joint tucked away in little alleyway with delicious plates of goodies to share over a bottle or two of vinos. Bookings recommended.

When D, R and I travelled to Spain a couple of years ago, I fell in love with tapas. In Maybe having grown up with Sunday dim sum, tapas appealed to me in the same wy: it’s the Spanish equivalent where you get to try a seemingly never-ending little plates of goodies - and when you find something that you (and everyone else at the table love), you can simply order more.

Spain, tapas came about from the tradition of serving small snacks with drinks. Little bite sizes of ham were served on slices of bread placed over the wine glass … slowly this has evolved into a wide variety of dishes: chorizo, croquettes, garlic chicken, pan friend mushrooms, calamari …

MoVida is a great little tapas joint tucked in a little alley Hoiser Lane near Federation Square. Looking carefully, you’ll notice that you are sitting in a small part of a converted warehouse with the brick walls are whitewashed. But the restaurant is all very cozy: behind the bar are light wood shelves covering every inch of the wall with bottles of vino packed tightly. Bar stools and tables cover on section, and another section with normal tables.

On the Thursday, the table sections were fully booked so we contented ourselves with sitting at the bar counter, which was actually great because the barman made sure we were never in short supply of house bread, which was served with very virgin olive oil.

The menu is listed as “racion” and “tapas”, the former is a small plate with enough to share between friends, whereas the tapas are really just individual portions. Everything was delicious.

The portbello mushrooms marinated and sautéed in red wine vinegar and variety of herbs was rich yet tangy (though a little salty). L’s favourite were the potatoes braised with pimientas (roasted peppers) which had a slightly sweet caramelised flavour. Eying the couple of the bar counter next to us, D couldn’t resist adding a plate of marinated olives which were plump and glistening. The plate was filled with small green Arbequina olives, the black Kamalata olives and a few large green Cerignola olives. The most interesting dish was probably the tender rabbit meat balls served in a slight gravy with calamari.

Definitely a great place to chill out for a bite with a glass of wine or two …

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Cost: Reasonable, ~ AUD 25 per person for dinner

MoVida
1 Hosier Lane
Melbourne 3000
+613 9663 3038

Chocci’s chicken casserole

True to its four seasons in one day reputation, Melbourne has been spring t-shirt warm in the day time, dipping to thick coat and mittens required temperatures in the evening.

I thought a nice hot chicken casserole would help warm our tooties. I was in a lazy mood today, so this recipe is perfect for anyone with who’s got a couple of hours to spare to before dinner needs to be served but doesn’t want to spend more than 20 mins in the kitchen. You can prep everything, chuck it in the oven and simply put your feet up with a mag or book for an hour and half.

You’ll need:

• A whole chicken for roasting, divided into 8 portions. Usually you can pick up these roasting portions at the supermarket, if not, it works equally well to use 4 large drumsticks and 4 chicken thigh pieces, on the bone
• 100-150 gms of kalamata olives, with stones to keep the flavour in
• 4 medium sticks of carrots, cut into small pieces (2-3 cm pieces)
• 4 small potatoes, cut into quarters
• 1 small onion (or ½ large one), sliced thinly
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
• 10-12 basil leaves
• Salt & pepper
• Olive oil

Preparation: Pan fry the chicken pieces in a pan (with a little olive oil) until golden brown on both sides. Transfer to a large casserole dish which has been oiled with olive oil, making sure you also pour over any juices. Pour over the can of diced tomatoes, mixed with about 2 cups of water (or stock if you want it to be extra tasty - I’ve done without in my cooking and it tastes fine without). Arrange the pieces of onions, potatoes and carrots around the pieces of chicken. Make sure all the ingredients are covered by the tomato sauce so that it cooks properly - if not, add a little extra water. Scatter the olives and cherry tomatoes on top. Finally, top the dish with basil leaves, and salt & pepper.

Cooking:

1. Seal the caCookingsserole firmly with foil and bake in oven at around 180 degrees for 1 hour or so until the chicken, carrots and potatoes are tender.
2. Remove foil and bake for another 10-15 mins to give some bits of the casserole (e.g. the sliced onions and chicken pieces) a nice browning. Note: Take care that the sauce doesn’t dry out too much when the foil’s off.

Ladro, Melbourne, Australia

So after 24 hours of being back in Melbourne, while taking a tram down to the “city” to run some errands, I dialled one of the few Australian mobile numbers I can remember off by heart. Actually I can’t even remember my family’s mobile numbers but I put that down to the constant change in numbers over the years.

“I'm back, I'm back! So when are we going to catch up?” I asked D, friend from university days, now adopted as my “Dai lo”. We met at a Hongkie club meeting a few weeks into our freshman years at Uni. Since then, D and I have spent many of days and nights swotting in Ballieu Library on the 3rd floor, fewer (thank goodness) all nighters trying to finish off our computing science projects, karaoking at Club Hollywood, and now that we can afford it, eating our way through Hong Kong and Melbourne. The only blib in our shared experience was probably our Andalucia trip ... where to my horror D opted for Maccas when we were standing right next to a jambon deli. We can laugh now, yes. In any case, things have picked up since then (food wise) and during D’s last visit to Hong Kong, we did a Central eating tour, working our way down the hill to a few places including Tsim Zai Gei wonton mee and jok, egg tarts up Lynhurst Terrace and then into LGB at IFC for lemon tarts and more macaroons (it was a macaroony kinda day).

“Hey I’m good any day this week!”

“How about lunch? I can pop down to the city … ”

“Actually, dinner’s better …”

“Ok let’s make it Wednesday” (mentally calculating that I’ve got a couple of nights of catching up to do with my sisters).

We chatted quickly about the next month or so’s schedule. We both agreed that there was a lot of exploring and dining to be had in Melbourne before I head back to HK and D leaves Melbourne for his overseas stint.

Efficient as always, the next day, D sends me an email with a few recommendations for our upcoming food extravaganza in HK.

“As for Wednesday – wanna do this place? http://www.yourrestaurants.com.au/guide/ladro/”.

I quickly flicked to my Luxe guide, which gave Ladro the thumbs up under the Relaxed section, quipping “The best pizza, daily roast and pastas. Laid-back, urban, communal tables and heinously popular”.

Yes, let’s do Ladro.

So tonight, we drove down Gertrude Street into Fitzroy. It was dark by around 7 pm, so we squinted at the shop numbers as we went past the hairdressers, Dean’s Art, funky boutiques, and a costume shop. When we saw an unassuming glass fronted restaurant, crammed with people at shared benches, we knew that we’d arrived.

Even on a weeknight, the restaurant was packed wall to wall, so we were lucky to score a couple of seats at the bar. The service is friendly and efficient, and our waitress proved spot on in her recommendations. As promised, there is a long list of about 20 pizza options, followed by appetizers (primi), and mains (secondi) … rounded off with the dolce options. Any other night we would have taken a closer look at the secondi which I recall included scotch fillet, but tonight our focus was on pizza. Some of the menu is in Italian so we needed a little help. I have to say, after my experiences in Hong Kong, it is such a pleasure when the staff know everything about the menu.

“What’s melanzane”?

“It’s eggplant. And this particular dish is eggplant battered and deep fried … it’s really quite delicious”. That proved to be the start of the waitress’ good recommendations for the evening. The entrée plate of melanzane was simply four round decent sized flattened balls of breadcrumbed eggplants (mashed), served simply on a plain plate. The salty, tender and moist eggplant filling complemented the hot and crusty breadcrumbed coating really well.

Next were the skewers of fresh grilled prawns, lightly flavoured with garlic and drizzle of lemon, sitting on a bed of rocket leaves. It went down really well with the house bread - ciabatta and extra virgin oil.

For our gourmet pizza (is t here still such a thing in Melbourne or is the gourmet pizza the norm now?), we narrowed it down two choices: the seafood pizza which sounded delectable with mussels, fish, prawns or the truffle pizza with truffata, potato and truffle oil. We opted for the latter and we were rewarded with a massive thin crust pizza, irregularly shaped (which D loved), topped with truffata (a paste made up of porcini/cep mushrooms combined with white truffles), kipfler potatoes and yes, we could smell it, truffle oil. Very good stuff.

We ended the evening with a lovely cassata. The waitress helpfully explained that unlike the Lygon street varieties, this cassata is not the ice-cream type … this cassata was more of a trifle (tiramisu) type, with a trifle soaked in brandy, topped with ricotto cheese mixed with candied fruits. The dessert didn't turn out to be quite what I expected, and I was convinced that I would read 0.05 on a breatheliser when I took a driving lesson on D’s car after dinner (though that is another story).

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Cost: $65 for two for a pizza, 2 entrees and a dessert (and drinks).

224 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
Melbourne, Australia
+613 9415 7575

Baba House, North Melbourne, Australia

Errol Street is one of those places that I know is going to blossom into a Brunswick street. For now, it's remains delightfully quiet and mine (ok and those other few thousand ppl living in North Melbourne). Lately, there have been a few subtle changes though. There's still the pub blaring out live music, and the Comedy Club ... the local IGA supermarket and Thereshman's style bakery (which serves yummy gourmet pizzas). But I've noticed a mushroom of Chinese takeaways ... 1, 2, 3 ... 4 in total!

My sister, L wanted to try out a Malaysian restaurant that she'd noticed previously. So we hit the Baba House.

We had the baba chicken which was better than KFC (coming from a KFC lover - this is a big statement), nasi lemak with deep fried hard boiled eggs and sambal, gado gado. Good, authentic malaysian. We like. We really like. It's now our local favourite Malaysian.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Price: around $50 for two.

Baba House Malaysian Restaurant & Takeaway
34 Errol Street
North Melbourne
(03) 9329 2882

La Mer Brasserie ... or La Merde?

Let's start with the good parts. The ambience is lovely. Comfy dark wooden furnishings and dim lighting. On one end of a restaurant there is a fresh seafood bar with lots of fruits of the sea waiting to be pointed at "I'll have that thanks". Surprisingly the food is also priced reasonably, with soups around 50-70 HKD, entrees from 100-200 and mains from 150-250. I was wondering how they would pay for the rent in LKF until the bill came later ...

Food: Ordinary. The meal began well, we ordered two large buckets of mussels to share between the group ... we were quickly served with lovely fresh fat mussels in big colourful pots (though given its name - surely fresh seafood must be expected) cooked in provincale sauce - tomato based - and the other in a white wine and herbs cream sauce. Both were delicious. But the french fries which accompanied it were a little tired looking. For entrees, my girl friend and I shared the esgargot - tasty, garlickly, sitting on a potato mash which was surprisingly a good match - and the soup du jour - a pumpkin and crabmeat soup which was a little too sweet for my liking. For the main course I opted for the duck which was served with ... actually the main course wasn't too memorable ... I can't actually remember now what it was served with! That in itself is perhaps not such a good sign.

For desserts, the restaurant helpfully provides a dessert platter option where you can select 4 out of the 5 dessert which included the chocolate mousse (nothing earth shattering), shortcake creamy concoction with avocado and strawberries (fresh, quite interesting), an apple tart and pinenuts slice. None of it was anything to write home about!

Service: Any place which plies unsuspecting guests with endless bottles of sparkling and mineral water ... at $40 per 500 ml bottle surely needs a peg or two taken off the service mark. Especially when some guests specifically asked for tap water at the beginning of the evening. Put it this way, our water bill came up to 2/3 the bill of our wine! More to the point, we could not quite understand how each person had supposedly drunk around 1 litre of water each (roughly 20 bottles x 500 ml), on top of the wine we had consumed. When we questioned the bill - it wasn't until we threatened to write to the management that they agreed to cut the bill down for us to a more reasonable figure.

Despite this, most of the night was very enjoyable, great friends catching up over some lovely wine (Oyster Bay sauvignon blanc) is always a good night out!

Rating: 2.5 stars

Verdict: Average food at average prices

Cost: $450 per head (not including wine)

La Mer Brasserie, Lan Kwai Fong Hotel