Squids

Lots of squids *remind me of Davy Jones*

Thats suppose to be my dinner yesterday's nite but i flew plane at alf =( So, instead i hav tt as my lunch today.

But, there are some interesting pics that i do like to share here ~ some back scenes. These are the squids that alf bought. Its quite large. Normally, i only buy those smaller ones.

They look a bit like aliens, arent they?

If u look carefully at the pics, u will c the squids' "legs" have all these round thingies, big and small. And when i tried to press on them, the little bits shaped like sharp teeth fell from the suction cups of the squid. Interesting. I never c those on the smaller squids, prob too small to hav it... So, alf has to chop the suction cups off from each "leg"...

When alf cut the squid's belly up, we found this little fish inside it. a whole little fish. This immediately brings me back some memories. When i was a lot younger, i remember once when i was looking at my mum cleaning the fish, we also found a fish inside tt fish, although was in different part ~ inside its mouth. I still remember how excited i was to c tt ...

There were 2 fishes, each from the squids' belly

This is the 2nd time i came across and prob 1st time for alf to c a whole fish inside another fish/squid... hmmm. and u can c that to get to the end product *c first pic*, it does need abit of work to clean,wash and cut. Well, its worth it! =)

San

Snapper + broccoli for dinner

Thats my dinner ... n they are serve with rice. *didnt take the pic of broccoli* Tonite is alf's nite and hence the dinner is prepared by him. Nice n simple dinner =)

.I l.o.v.e. fish.



San

Chilli Pepper Restaurant

Last nite, by the time me, mouse n MM finished our discussion meet, it was already 9.30pm. So, we decided to have dinner at a restaurant that is near to us. Initially, we wanted to go to J- Cafe , however, it has closed. Hence, we went to this chinese restaurant instead, which is just a few shops next to J-Cafe. Its is at the end of the Chinatown, at Exhibition street.

The inside view ot the restaurant

When we about to step into the restaurant, we realised there is no other customers inside and we were like huh... should we leave? But because we were very hungry at that time + it was very cold & windy + we never been to this restaurant,so, why not hav a try.

Looking at the menu, we saw some interesting food on it, such as duck tongue with something i forgot, deep fried salmon skin... and a few others. i haven't tried those 2 before. I have only tried deep fried chicken skin..haha. For duck tongue, I am not suprised to c it on the menu as Chinese eat almost everything! As for the salmon skin, never came across to me that we just fry and eat the skin cz normally we eat the whole salmon fillet... although i can imagine it will be very crunchy n "juicy" (i.e oily) =D

menu

Sorry for the bad pic. But if u could c under the "Special Snacks", chilli oil and XO chilli sauce are under it and it cost $2 and $3 respectively. I just find that a bit bizzare.

Neway, I have ordered stewed pork with preserved vegetables on rice, $8.00.

my dinner

The dish is quite good in general, with fair amount of sauce on top and a few slices of pork and some bok choy underneath it. However, i find the stewed porks are abit over cooked as it is slightly hard and dry. But other than that, its a OK dish as i love to eat porks with quite abit of fat on it =D

This is Hainanese Chicken on rice, $8.00, ordered by MM.

MM said she liked it and enjoyed it, esp the spring onion sauce above *next to the sweet chilli sauce*.

Lastly, Mouse's Wanton Noodle Soup arrived, $8.00.

According to mouse, the wanton noodle is quite good as the soup is light and the wantons are stuffed with prawns =)

Overall, we were satisfied as the service is quite polite as well.

San

Chilli Pepper Restaurant
Corner of Little Bourke and Exhibition (next to Her Majesty's Theatre)
Melbourne 3000
VIC

Thai chicken sandwich

My Lunch

from Delichoice. Went mcd n grab myself the sandwich this afternoon. Its $5.95. However, cz i got this free voucher from turtle, so its free for me *thanks turtle* sounds dejavu? no, cz not long ago i jt had parmigiana sandwich =D

the DeliChoice voucher

quite a big sandwich

Whats in between?

I opened it up to take pic..u can c there are lettuce, tomato, cucumber, big pieces of well-marinated thai chicken & some v tasty sauce (abit sour n refreshing kinda sauce) *well, it kinda looks like a bunch of stuff in the middle. lol*

yum...the sauce

Was playing with my handphone camera, so took quite a few of pics... =) Full n happy now...


San

Leftover for lunch

Just had some cereal with milk for brunch today. But, don't feel full...So, found myself some leftover rice + fried chicken in the fridge. I just simply fried the rice with garlic,chillies, mix-vege and egg. For the chicken, i jt reheat them in the oven.

Fried rice

Fried chicken

I realised the chickens are too many for me, together with the rice, as i jt had some cereal not too long ago. But, i had all of them as i don't want to keep the food for too long in the fridge.

* Back to fried rice*

Fried rice is something i make often for lunch, mostly, whenever i find there is leftover rice in the fridge. As it is easy n quick to make. Now, I am one full and happy San~

San

Dinner at mouse's place

Today is mouse's turn to cook dinner. Her menu for tonite are prawns (prawNS & prAWNS, lots of them) and cauliflower.

wow! Lots of prawns with garlic + honey sauce... yum!

The prawns r actually a lot for 4 of us. But hey, its good. So, you r rite, we finished them all =D You could c on the left, there are some white/yellowish sauce on the prawns. Those are cheese. Only a few prawns with cheese coz she said she just wanted to try n see whether the cheese can go with the garlic & honey sauce. It did.. but because i love garlic, so i am as happy to have those without cheese =)

cauliflower with some dried shrimps

Lastly, some fruits after meals =)

pineapples..love them

sweet n very juicy

** love that last pic, it makes me drool **

I found the pineapples in Australia got this unique fragrant compared to Malaysia's. The later's pineapple are more often a lot sweeter but don't have the same intense aroma. I cant get enuff of the fragrance. Its just smell good even though its not very very sweet. LOVE PINEAPPLE.

San

Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House

Tis the season I am sick. :( Been coughing and hacking and sniffling over the weekend, so when we decided on a lunch-place today, San and my sister decided that we would go somewhere where I can have soup so we went Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House. It is a place where we do go rather often, and I have a few favourites there...in which I did not eat today. So when I do eat it, I'll review those dishes. Or something.

The place itself!

Anyway! Because I was sick, I was limited to only noodle soup. I usually will have the Sliced Chicken Noodle (small $6.50) but I thought I'll try something different today and opted for Special Beef and Chicken Noodle (small $6.50).

Nice selection of dishes.

They often serve the noodles with bean sprouts aka TAUGEH, something I absolutely cannot eat due to a past-life enemy encounter (前世有仇) I had with the vegetable. I very politely told him to forget about the taugeh, but the guy brought it over anyway. What a waste.

boooo Boooo BOOOOOO!!!

My noodles came first and...

Urm...okay. Yellow floating thingies does not equal lifesavers.

What a surprise. First of all, I didn't know that "Special" in this case equates to "hell lot of intestinal stuff". There's tripe, intestines, guts, bones, I don't even know what. I was literally horrified as I hate any kind of intestines that existed (although less than taugeh; under torture I would eat intestines, but taugeh can go hang itself). I picked out all the unrecognisable stuff i.e. stuff that's not beef/chicken meat before I ate my noodles. There were also some floating yellow bits in which I THOUGHT was little quail egg yolks, but upon eating them, they were not. They didn't taste BAD, but my sister jokingly said they were eyeballs and THAT gross me out. I mean, I doubt they were eyeballs, but I don't want to end up eating kidney or pancreas or whatever.

For the record, there were only two pieces of chicken. *SAD FACE* So no, I didn't enjoy the noodles, but the soup as usual was great. Full of flavours and a squeeze of lemon really made it tasted super. If I had gone with my normal sliced chicken, this would be a good review!! But nooo, I had to be adventurous (read: stupid). By the way, if you're a great intestines fan, you'll probably like this. And the soup. Honestly, if there's something I really love about this place, it's their soup with the soup noodles.

Both sis and San had the BBQ Grilled Chicken on Rice Vermicelli with Fish Sauce and Vegetables ($7.50).

This is what I really want and couldn't have.

Glowing reviews from both girls. The BBQ chicken (in which I had in the past, and stole some today) was succulent and juicy and was flavoured just right. I've always loved their chicken, it's very yummy, and not the conventional BBQ chicken. Viet style, maybe? :D They also served the dish with quite a lot of chicken. It's a dry noodle dish, with the special sweet-sour sauce where you pour over your noodles to wet them a little. San found the sauce to be just right, Sis thought it could use more sauce. San also thought that the peanuts were a little stale-tasting, but she found the mix of vegetables, noodles and chicken a very refreshing and crunchy bite, and everything went well together. Sis was just stuffing her face, so I gathered she liked the noodles.

Sis also had a glass of Coconut Green Bean ($3.50).

Icy cold and nice.

She thought it was really good, refreshing after the noodles, but also a bit too filling. It's not too sweet much to San's liking, but sis wouldn't have minded it sweeter.

Slight Mouse grouse here though - I find it ridiculous that the drinks are so expensive. I mean, it's almost half the price of a bowl of NOODLES. The standard pricing of drinks in Chinatown and the general cheap eats are always around $2.50 - $4.00 in which I found to be overpriced. Drinks should cost significantly less than a main dish, not half the price of a main dish.

But yes, I have been a frequent visitor of Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House and I don't see why I would stop in the future. When I first began going to the eatery, it was mainly Vietnamese food; now they've started serving Thai and Chinese-fusion style food. I find it to be a variety but it does take some of the little "Vietnamese-ness" of the initial place. Service's generally quite ok - nothing to shout about but mainly due to some communication problems, I feel. I do prefer this one to its biggest rival Mekong though, if more for environment's sake.


- Mousie

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Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House
251 Swanston Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9639 4911

Blue Sky Chinese Restaurant, Melbourne

You know how you never really check out little alley-way restaurants because you don't venture into little alleyways? Okay, maybe you do, but I don't, and I never really dined at those little alleyway Chinatown places despite being here for the 6th year counting. Yes, I am unadventurous and I suck.

Anyway, my sister's friend recommended this rather hidden place called 蓝天 Blue Sky a while back, and she liked the food there, so a bunch of us went there yesterday before Pirates of the Carribean 3: At World's End (BTW Orlando Bloom is HOT).

Little alleyway thingie thing

It was quite bustly-busy, but it was Friday night after all.

I don't why the background to Blue Sky is red, either.

Because I wasn't very hungry, me and Turtle decided to split a plate of Scallop Fried Rice with XO Sauce ($8).

Woooo. Fed the two of us very nicely.

It was very good fried rice. We both liked it a lot; there were plenty of scallops, and although they were little ones, they were fresh scallops, and tasted fresh and springy, with a gorgeous texture. The rice was fried to the right amount of dryness, and with pieces of yummy fried egg everywhere. The sauce was good too; not too spicy which is to my liking (yes, I can't really eat spicy, I fail as a Malaysian), and very fragant. Very successful scallop fried rice!

CC had the Roast Duck on Rice ($8) because she adores duck. *coughs*

Lots of ducky meat there.

I only had a little taste of it, and I thought it was good roast duck. CC seemed to like it. She did say it was a little too salty though, and had to be eaten with rice. It was nothing really spectacular as it goes, but it was good and filling. There was a lot of meat with the rice, and it's good value for money.

San and my sister both had the Mandarin Spare Ribs on Rice ($8), which was what my sister had and liked from her first visit.

Yummy, ain't it?

Had a piece of meat courtesy of both girls, and I have to say I really really like it. I don't normally like spare ribs, but I think these were very well done ribs. They were cooked to perfection, so the meat was just nice to bite and not too tough. The mandarin sauce (a kind of sweet-sour sauce but not the usual Chinese sweet-sour sauce) was a great complement with the ribs, and it was coated just the right sticky amount, flavoring the ribs nicely. I'm definitely having this the next time I go back there, and yes, we will go back there. :D

Ben had some congee, but she didn't really like it, and I didn't take a picture of that, so.

There's also the option of ordering dishes to share, as in fish and chicken and veggies and stuff to be shared with white rice and all. I didn't notice the prices for those dishes, but I don't think it'll be too expensive.

Overall, I think it's a place worth going. The service was quite good for a Chinatown restaurant, they were polite and quite efficient. Environment wasn't too bad either. Food's definitely worth it for the value, less than $10 will feed one nice and full for dinner; and if you're not much for drinks, there's a free flow of Chinese tea, so you don't need to order any beverages. ^~

And oh, sorry, all the photos had a date stamp to them. I am too lazy to airbrush those out. :D

- Mouse

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Blue Sky Chinese Restaurant
7 Waratah Place
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9663 9888

SOS, Melbourne

SOS is a Vege-Aquatic (I don't really know what that means, but I'm guessing along the lines of "hip", "cool" and "exotic") restaurant located on Melbourne Central, one of the hottest and most prominent spots, in fact. It looks really impressive from the outside; secret sliding door and the works. It's also under the same management as Taxi (one of my favourite restaurants that I WILL review someday) and when Mum was here a while ago, I jumped at the chance to go (dining fancy and not out of my pocket money, bwahahha).

By the way, I should mention when I went to SOS, it was a month ago and I didn't have the intention of ever blogging about food back then, so the photos...kinda sucked. :D Sorry peeps, but food is much better than it looked.

Once you enter the great secret mystery sliding doors of the future to the interior of SOS...(I wish I had taken a photo, but yeah)

SOS Melbourne has a really beautiful (not to mention huge-ass) seating lounge, where you are served drinks while you wait for a table, if you're one of those dumb people like me who didn't make a booking on a Friday night. We were immediately given very good service by the maitre'd upon arrival, and we waited approximately 10-15 minutes before being given a table outside the terrace, overlooking the State Library of Victoria. The seating in SOS is kind of weird though - there were lots of long tables a la a canteen setting, and fewer individual tables in comparison. However, much to my relief, we got an individual table.

After ordering, we sat back and relaxed and waited ages, AGES, for our food. I was very hungry and I remembered thinking that the food had better be good (for both time and money) or I'll kick some SOS-chef butt.

Also, a side note: I think the menu has changed since I last went there (cos I can't remember the exact names of what we ate, so I hit up the menu online again), so I can't really remember some of the dishes.

First up we ordered an entree to share: Octopus Carpaccio with perilla, ginger crisp, enoki mushrooms and daikon radish ($18). And yes, I don't know what is a perilla, so don't ask.

Oooo...octopus buried under stuff!

It was very very yummy, very tangy and the texture of the octopus is just right. The enoki mushrooms were fabulous and I love the fish roe (might it be perilla?), and the radish added the thing needed to lighten the flavours. I even love the ginger crisps!!

Next up, the mains. I had the Seafood Pot au Feu, with calamari, farmed paradise prawns, clams, white bait and fregola ($30). It's actually an entree but I ordered it in the size for main because I'm just clamoring for prawns.

Seafood surprisingly on a plate not a pot

Looks pretty, right? :D It tasted just okay. I mean, it was good and all, but I had a feeling that I could probably recreate it. Maybe not as good, but something similar. My sister had the same thought. All the same, it's a good dish, but not really worth the 30 bucks I paid for. Everything is cooked nicely, but I would've preferred more prawns (I only had three), and it's also just a little heavy on the spices. Something lighter might be good.

My sister had the Baked Murray Cod, with baby spinach, braised fennel, radicchio romesco dressing, oak leaf salad ($33).

It's...a fish called Cod.

I only had a little bite of that one, but it's rather juicy fish and it's cooked just nicely. A very nice dish especially with the combination of the vegetables. By the way, you should know by now that I don't know what all those fancy non-English things are, so yeah. Can't help it.

Mum had the best dish, in my opinion, the Grilled Trevally, with green beans, red onion, marsh samphire, toasted almond and parsley ($32).

Ooooooo wish fish dish!!

It was soooo good!! The fish was just, wow. It's soft and tender meat with a crispy skin that's just so so yummy. The sauce they served the fish with is perfect for it, and the almonds added a wonderful flavor to the dish. It's an almost perfect fish-dish that anyone could wish.

And now, for the dessert!!

The first one was a Chocolate Mousse Ensemble ($14) which is no longer on the current menu; I can't seem to find it anyway.

Mousse, good. Berries, blah.

Now I didn't eat much of this as well, but it's rather good, the mousse. I would think the berry compote at the side is a slight mistake - it's too heavy and came off tasting like cough medicine. We basically finished the mousse and sort of left the berries. Not a very good complement to the mousse.

Mum chose the White Chocolate Marquise with honeycomb, strawberry and lavender ice-cream ($14).

Mum always chooses the good stuff.

It was swoooon as well. It's really a great dessert! I love the tastes of how everything combined together to create a perfect, light and yummy dessert. You can taste the chocolate, the honeycomb...every taste you're supposed to taste without it being overbearing. Thumbs up!

And MY dessert...I've wanted to have this sort for a very very very VERY long time until my mouse whiskers all fell out and grew new ones and fell out again and I never tried it until that night at SOS.

A CHEESE PLATTER. ($10)

(bad photo but) OMG I HAVE DIED AND GONE TO MOUSE HEAVEN

It was HEAVEN. Oh my God, I love every single bit of that cheese platter. I ordered some ten-year-old French Cheese, by the way, which I have forgotten the name of but not the taste! Such such excellent cheese, cheesily wonderful and the crackers, grapes, figs and quince paste they served along with the cheese just complements everything perfectly. I could sit there and eat cheese for the next 5 mouse-whisker-dropping-regrowing cycles, no joke.

And then we had coffee (me; cappuccino and Mum; latte and big sis; wimp) ($4) to round off our beautiful dinner night out!

Cappuccino love and we are coffee freaks!

Overall, a very pleasant dining experience, despite it being sort of cold, cos we were seated outside. We went there around 730PM and finished dinner at 11PM. :D You could sort of tell that the food DID take quite a while to arrive, which would be my only grouse. Service wasn't excellent to the point of exceptional excellence, but they were polite and helpful, which is good.

I would think the price is just a little too much - if it's maybe 5 dollars less for each course then it'll be reasonable, but I supposed you're also paying for ambience and stuff like that.

I would go back there - just not in near future. Gotta start counting my pennies, and I'm probably going to eat like 10 cheese platters instead of ordering mains and stuff. :D

- Mouse

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SOS Melbourne
Level 3
Melbourne Central
211 La Trobe Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Phone: (03) 9645 0808

EDIT: I was told by tummyrumbles that SOS is now closed. Sad. :( But if it ever reopens...well, here you go.

Mouse Fried Rice

Thought I'll post something since someone has been so incessantly hardworking (and making me feel guilty). BUT I have an excuse; I was ill, from a sore, monkey-scratching throat (and laziness). So HAH.

Anyway, more comprehensive restaurant posts coming up, I promise. I just need to get over Wednesday and then I'll promise comprehensive reviews on restaurants.

Just sharing...my very special and unique CHAMPALANG 11PM Fried Rice. Champalang usually means a mix of everything and champalang here basically means I fried my leftover rice with whatever crap I have leftover in the fridge. Heh. 11PM means...well, I fried it at 11PM.

Here's the deal: my sister usually takes lunch to the hospital (she is neither ill nor mental; just a medical student) and I thought I'd be a good little sis today and prepare lunch for her (tomorrow).

So we have leftover rice. And I found some bacon bits and a small portion of sliced pork loin in the fridge, along with frozen veggies, so that will be the ingredients for the fried rice.

Now when it comes to cooking, I simply add anything that suits my fancy. So I marinated the pork with a little char siew sauce and a little soy. I sliced one shallot, fried that till fragant, and dumped in the pork and bacon bits, and then dumped in the mixed veggies, dumped the rice, seasoned the whole pan with a little hoi-sin sauce, a little soy and a little chilli flakes. When it's almost nearly done, I just cracked two eggs in.

And the result:

I have a nice blue plate.

And nice fried rice. :D (Ok, it's 1130PM and I CAN'T be witty)

I just took a little nibble of it since I have a sore throat and it's FRIED RICE (yes, superstitious traditional Chinese, go away), and I have to say I like it. The char-siew sauce added a little tang to the rice along with the hoi-sin sauce. It smells good, and I feel like gobbling some :( But oh well. If I feel better tomorrow I might steal some, heh heh heh...

(BTW if you think the pictures sucked (and boooo to you!!), sorry. Lighting's kind of bad. And my rice tasted a lot better than it looked. :D)

- Hungry Mouse

Delichoice for Lunch today

Had my very late lunch today at Mcd. i got myself a delichoice ~ Parmigiana, $5.95. ** I got the delichoice for free as i have this free delichoice voucher from turtle (Thanks turtle!)** This is the new delichoice that Mcd has now for a limited time, together with another choice: sweet chilli chicken. I chose Parmigiana over sweet chilli chicken as the name sounds mysterious to me and so i wanted to try. Btw, Mcd now serves 2 kind of breads for delichoice - white or multigrains. I always lov multigrains as it is not as plain as white *duhh..haha* it just add more bites and more nutrients..n so multigrains here i go =)


*This pic is quite dark as compared to others 2 as my handphone was running out of battery and hence i have to bring the wrapper back home to take the pic, which then is already nite time. And also my room is quite dark. And yea too, i hav to improve my photo-taking skills!*



As you can c, it got a huge fried crumbed chicken fillet, big slices of bacon, lettuce, slices of cheese and a few baby spinach *its in the middle of the sandwich and thus u wont c it*. There is tomato paste kinda sauce on top as well as some pepper on it. Although it might seems abit dry in the pics, it is not at all. The sauce is jt enuff for the sandwich. This is unbelievably good.

And i hav to say that Mcd is generous on the ingredients as the chicken fillet is huge and the bacons too. I would say its really worth the price. I have tried most of the delichoice at Mcd and they are all not bad, quite good to be honest, esp Tandoori chicken. You got to try that.

Mcd nowadays have wider range of fast food to "capture" those healthier eaters and they do offer some healthier choices on the menu, like delichoice * alittle bit more healthier..haha*, salad n apples. To conclude, their delichoice is worth trying and definitely have "captured" me.


San

Noodle soup for din...

That was my dinner last nite. Love it! This is cooked by my brother,alf, as it was his turn to cook yesterday. Its very delicious as it is light yet it is full of beautiful flavours! There were udon noodle, slices of fish cakes, spinach, some fresh mushroom and top with some grilled honey chicken. As the weather turn colder now, just feel blissful to have a big bowl of hot tasty noodle soup. yum... =)

with my chopsticks n spoon, im ready

*10 mins later

Yup. Here is my empty bowl. haha... i finished every drip of the soup. I always like to drink soup. Hot soup. yup, hav to be hot. Some of my frens just freak out when they c me drinking *while they are busy fanning the soup* the soup when its still v hot. Well, i just think soup taste better when they are hot =)




San