Snow Pony

Greetings, y'all! Yes, we are back on the blogging block, and I certainly hope we are here to stay for a while longer. Lots has been happening since we last updated, but as MM had said, we never stopped eating (obviously) and am still always on the lookout for good food!

Brunchy times has become sort of a staple for girly get-togethers and catch-ups for us (as we have graduated from student girls to working girls (mostly), brunches are especially awesome for weekends), and lately I find our food adventures centering around the eggs, hams, bacons and COFFEE (as any self-respecting Melbournian, I am a complete addict).

Brunchy Pony Times!

MM has ventured to Snow Pony a couple of times with her uni-mates, and when we found out that it was one of the very few cafes opened on Easter Monday, we decided to swing by and hang out there. Snow Pony is a popular brunch spot that doesn't take reservations (because they clearly don't need to - hopping busy all the time), we had to wait about 20 minutes before snagging a table out in their little covered courtyard. It was a GORGEOUS day so the spot we had was really awesomesauce.

Snow Pony classic: Giddy Up, with scrambled eggs on the top and fried eggs on the bottom

MM and San opted for one of the menu favourites: Giddy Up (isn't the name just nauseatingly cute) with bacon, slow-roasted tomatoes, smashed avocado and thyme-buttered mushrooms. Sis opted for scrambled eggs and San opted for fried eggs. Sis loves the food (hence we are back there on her recommendation) and was overall very happy with her brunch plate. She especially heart the thyme mushrooms, which is a special for Snow Pony and its sister cafe in Hawthorn.

San's comments, specifically, were "full and happy" - so I guess we can make a deduction that she is one satisfied diner! :P But if I remember her comments as we were eating, she thought the roasted tomato was yums to the max. She also liked the avocado - in which I stole some off Sis' plate since she wasn't a fan of the veg in general. I like their avocado as it was salted and peppered quite perfectly with a hint of fresh herbs smashed (pardon the pun) in them!

Le Mouse choice: Fabulous herb + cheesy toast with bacon

Looking at the menu, my choice was the obvious choice for me, obviously (see nickname). But oh wow, the Snow Pony people didn't name this dish wrongly. It was FABULOUSSSSS. The MELTED CHEESE! It was hot, stringy, gooey and OH SO CHEESILY YUMMY - with a satisfying cheesy kick! I realised I'm sounding like some cheese-obsessed retard (trust me, I'm not...I think) but this is honestly one of the best cheesy toasts I've ever had. Added the fresh herbs melted into the cheese, and crusty seeded bread AND crispy bacon...nom nom nom. Very very happy. Very very satisfied. I should add that the bacon was made just the I like it - crisped and done just right without being fatty/burnt. Thumbs up!

Another house special: Lemonade scones

We knew these scones are massively popular, so we very cleverly asked to reserve some scones upon arrival - and snagged the last two they have left (yippee). They were served with blackberry (yay Blackberry!) and chantilly cream. The scones were crumbly and very tasty in the melt-in-your-mouth way, especially with a dollop of cream and a smear of jam. We were all especially taken with the cream, all of us found it to be very good and a fantastic accompaniment for the scones!

Price wise: all of our food, plus the usual coffees that goes with every single brunch came to just slightly below AUD$80. I'm pretty happy with the service as well - the staff is cheerful and friendly.

Overall, definitely a breakfast/brunch spot that goes into the recs/for keeps list. It probably is a good idea to go a little earlier especially during weekends, and be prepared to wait.

Snow Pony
95 Whitehorse Road
Balwyn VIC 3103
(03)9816 8911

- Mouse

P.S. a little trivia - do you peeps know why it's called Snow Pony? It's a clever word play on its location - Whitehorse Road. :P

Ma Brown Restaurant

Mouse is back on da blog (block)!

Thanks to my MM sister for up-keeping the blog for the past week while I regain my interest and love for blogging all things food! ^^ I certainly hope I am back to stay for a while - have been taking photos of food for the past few days! Hohoho.

Tonight's post features Ma Brown, a Chinese-Malaysian restaurant tucked away at Balwyn. It's a restaurant that you can't get to by public transport - need to drive, and thanks to San, we were all driven there this evening for the FOOD. We do love Ma Brown food, but it's so out of reach, we don't go there often.

Anyway, it's best that you call to reserve a seat AND food if you're planning on dining there, otherwise, it could be like a 2-hour wait. Slight exaggeration, but very slight. :D

Ma Brown's signature dish is...Spicy Quail. This is the dish that most people equate Ma Brown with and it is, to me and to everyone else - A MUST TRY.

YAAAAY QUAIL! (2 pieces = 1 quail)

Drooling yet? :P

The quail is really fantastic. The meat is juicy and tender and the sauce is yummy, spicy and fragrant. A bite of quail meat and the sauce with bits of chili is seriously yummy for the tummy. San thinks the quail is 'finger licking' and MM says it's 'good good' and also, she does not recommend licking your fingers because of germs.

By the way, I should mention that Alf is so in love with the quail that he could probably marry it or something. That's how good it is.

Another of my personal favorite is the Ma Po Tofu - an ordinary sort of dish by Chinese restaurant standards, but I like Ma Brown's variation.

Tofu in a dish

Their sauce is tangy and spicy, mixed with minced meat, mushrooms and mixed vegetables. They used button mushrooms for the dish, so I really like the big-ish bites of mushrooms with the soft tofu. It's really great when it's all hot and piping.

Alf also ordered another of their signatures, Beef Rendang.

Beef Rendang with beef

I really like the beef in the rendang - it's tender and soft and really well-cooked to complement the rendang sauce. I think their rendang is home-made and it's different from any other rendang I've tried before in Melbourne. I do think it could be more...hmmm...maybe a little bit more spicy? It could be more flavourful in my opinion, but I do like it. MM thinks it's ordinary though and San likes it.

For veggies, we had Stirfry Eggplant.

Eggplant: Blurry

Eggplant: Not so blurry closeup

Apologies for the blurry picture, didn't manage to get a good one. As far as eggplant goes, and I am not a big fan, thumbs up from me. Again their sauce is superior than most which makes the dish good. The eggplant is well-cooked in my opinion, and it's neither too mushy or too tough.

We also had Steamed Fish.

Fishy fish fish

Nothing super special about the way the fish is prepared but it is very good and very fresh fish - the fish meat is tender and soft. Yummy! I am a huge fan of steamed fish, though. :P

Overall, a good foodie experience - don't expect top service though. Because they are extremely busy and extremely understaffed, you may need a lot of patience for service. Or you could do what we did and helped ourselves to certain things like cutlery and napkins, or physically take the teapot to the counter for a tea refill. Haha. Make sure you have marginally a lot of time to spare for dinner at Ma Brown - definitely not somewhere for a quick meal.

The whole meal cost us approximately $AUD143.50, for 7 people. :)

But for the quail - it's worth the wait. Really. And remember - call to order how many quails you'll like, beforehand! For the record, the picture above shows 8 quails.

- Mouse (who is backkkk!)

p.s. check out MM sis's best of Hong Kong post below mine!

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Ma Brown Restaurant
Shop 6, 188-190 Belmore Road
Balwyn 3103
Phone: (03) 9816 3755

Golden Happiness #2 金囍楼 Golden Happiness #2 (Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia)

Happy Chinese New Year to all our readers! ^.^ 新年快乐, 鼠年快乐!! Best wishes to everyone in the year of the MOUSE. :D

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past week - been busy with CNY celebrations and what not. Anyway, here's the promised 2nd Sibu restaurant post, and I'm almost done with Sibu food posts. I'll be posting some of CC's mum's yummy home cooking and that'll be about it. Next up with be a bevy of restaurant posts in Penang. :) I'll try to eat more hawker food...but no promises. :( It's a long story why not, but we'll leave it at that.

Okay! First up, we have 拉子菜炒蛋 La Zi Cai Chao Dan also known as 'Mani' veg with fried egg.

Eggy and Veggy.

Another kind of vegetable that I am unfamiliar with. It was very good though. I like the crisp, leafy texture and it had a slight, herb-y aftertaste that went well with the egg. The bits of egg were seasoned, which made it even yummier. According to CC, you have to cook the Mani veg with eggs, if not it'd have a weird, bitter taste that won't be too pleasant.

福州面 Foochow Noodles are the next dish.

Brothy noodles with yummies!

Mmm...yummy. The noodles were generously served with mushrooms, veggies, prawn and meat, and I especially like the broth-y feel of it - the noodles were not too dry, not too wet. The broth was good - seasoned just right.

Of course, we must have soup - and I didn't manage to take the soup bowl, so have a photo of my own bowl - 糟菜裕汤 Zao Cai Yu Tang, a mixed vegetable soup with fish.

Chunky, fishy, soupy.

It was a very hearty soup, full of vegetables and huge, generous chunks of tangy fish meat (as you can see). I actually had a second helping, although it was not a full bowl. I really liked the fish in the soup, the texture of it was really good. Some fish soups tended to have their fish pieces a bit dry, over-boiled and coarse to the tongue, but the fish in this soup was great.

The next one was another specialty of CC's family restaurant, 菜香豆腐 Cai Xiang Dou Fu, tofu with vegetables. My picture of the dish came out unclear, so again, have another pic of my own plate.

Fantastic tofu dripping with sauce.

The specialty was that the tofu is home-made fresh in the restaurant premises, not bought anywhere. You can't buy this tofu off the racks, nope. It's a trade secret. And was the tofu ever ever tasty. It was so smooth, and it was just different from any tofu that I've eaten. No wonder it's a trade secret. :D The mixed veggies and mushrooms with the tofu complimented it very well, along with a nice, thick sauce. Definitely a must-eat.

北平鸭夹包 Bei Ping Ya Jia Bao was next - literally means duck in a bun.

Duck~u all in the middle.

Annnnd...duck sandwich. With mantou bread.

By now we were actually too full to eat much...and most of us only ate part of the bun and ate some of the duck pieces. The duck was delicious; tender meat with a crispy skin and dipping sauce. And the bun was actually quite soft and chewy, but we were really too full to finish the whole thing. I did eat a fair few pieces of duck though; I love duck meat (no dumb and unfunny jokes from those who know me, thanks).

Lastly...more noodles!! 粉干炒米连 Fen Gan Chao Mi Lian, which was short-ish noodles fried with the super good veggies I mentioned in the first post.

Hello, my lovely million veg...I miss you. Bet you don't miss me. One less person to eat you.

It looks super tasty, right? It is - I really like the combination of meat, oysters and those uber-delicious veggies. It was very fragrant and as San would say, enough "wok hei" definitely. But unfortunately, I was really much too full to eat anymore, so I only took a few bites, very regretfully. I would've polished off the whole thing if I could, and more. :D

And we had PINEAPPLE for dessert again, yay.

Here ends the restaurant posts...and yet again, please do NOT miss out Golden Happiness if you are ever in cute Sibu of Sarawak. I do understand that the dishes are hard to remember if you don't know Chinese, but just copy the pin-yin and people in the restaurant would be able to figure out what you want. Or just print my photos, haha.

Enjoy! ;) A couple of Penang posts are in the works next.

-Mouse

P.S. San ate this time. XD;;

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金囍楼 Golden Happiness
5-7 Jalan Chengal
96000 Sibu
Sarawak
Malaysia

Penang Hawker Food

Okay, I know I said the next post would be another one on CC's family restaurant, but seeing how I posted about Sibu hawker food here, I thought I'll just quickly write this on Penang hawker food, because I had some yesterday and there isn't a lot of pictures. :)

Liang and I went to a hawker centre in Lorong Swatow, near New World Park in Penang yesterday. Because I am lame, I forgot the name of the kopi tiam, it's the one opposite-behind Continental Bakery.

Both of us had Liang's favourite at the kopi tiam - TomYam Maggi Mee (RM3.00). Mine without taugeh (bean sprouts) of course, and Liang's with extra taugeh.

Not really a classic Penang hawker food, but it's good.

I've had that before last year - those were really good tomyam noodles. The soup was spicy and sharp, and the seller was generous with noodles, seafood and pieces of chicken. It's filling and very satisfying...some might complain it wasn't spicy enough - but because both me and Liang have low tolerance for chili, it suits us very well.

(You may be wondering why I didn't have Char Koay Teow. Cos the Char Koay Teow at that place wasn't fantastic...I prefer the TomYam noodles.)

We got badgered into ordering a plate of O-Jian (Oyster Eggs) (RM2.50) to share.

Liang asked for less oil...I think there's not much difference, haha.

I haven't had a lot of O-Jian previously on the account of health reasons. As good as they are, they really are quite oily and unhealthy. :( But the O-Jian we had was yummy. The oysters, although not super fresh, were fresh enough not to be smelly and the fried egg was crispy on the edges yet soft in the centres with the oysters to balance out a great crispy-gooey taste. I really liked it...such a guilty pleasure. Especially the crunchy bits of the egg!

And there you go - a Penang hawker food post...at last. And only two dishes. I am such a bad Penangnite. :(

- Mouse

P.S. Our food, plus drinks, come up to less than AUD12.00.

Sibu Street (Hawker) Food

I finished writing this much later than I planned to. :x Anyway, here's the post on Sibu Street Food! Erm, I don't really know the exact location where we had these, but they are considered pretty common in Sibu. We actually didn't have a lot of hawker food because, y'know, CC's parents are like awesome chefs. But of course we have to try the most famous Foochow food in Sibu. For those who don't know, Sibu is primarily dominated by Foochow (福州) Chinese and CC herself is Foochow.

Possibly the most famous Foochow food to me is Kampua 干盘面. I've been hearing about these noodles for approximately 5 years and they are like, one of the primary reasons I went to Sibu. Hoho. Anyway, Kampua is a noodle dish traditionally made with hand-made noodles, char siew (roast pork) and dried shallots.

The famous KAMPUA...at last!!

Close up of the Sibu celebrity.

I really like it. The noodles are springy and yummy and I think it's a very simple dish that puts everything really well together. The sauce is just right for a dish of dry, yummy noodles, and the shallots are crispy and nice. Definitely not disappointed with it and definitely wishing that Penang has these noodles.

Mad bought her version of Kampua from Kuching - except they're more known as Kolo Mee there. I didn't manage to take a clear picture of the Kolo Mee alone - so have a group picture.

Kolo Mee in two kinds - I forgot what and why though...

It's definitely different from Kampua although they look similar. I can't exactly pinpoint the difference but there is a difference. Kolo Mee is yummy as well and they are served with steamed wantans as well as char siew.

Mad also bought some Sio Bee over - another traditional Foochow food.

Kuching Sio Bee.

It's rather like Siew Mai but I think it's so much yummier than the usual Siew Mai. Being that the 'skin' is thinner than Siew Mai, the Sio Bee is so much meatier and more fragrant. The way the meat is spiced is different, too. I could gorge on the whole plate! :D It's that good.

Next up we have Kompia 光饼.

Not your average burger.

It's a type of baked bread that is crispy, hot and yeasty when it comes straight out of the oven. Traditionally it's plain bread and you eat it with whatever filling you want - but CC's family brought us to this place where they served the Kompia fried with meat. Hot and meaty, the meat juices were soaked into the bread and the first bite is yum. So very good but also so very damaging to a girl's hips. :( CC's parents gave me a bag of traditional Kompia to take home but I unfortunately forgot to take a photo of those.

Backtracking a little, along with our Kampua meal, we had Wantan Soup 云吞汤 as well.

Wantan and veggies and soup.

It's not too different from the Wantan Soup I'm used to, but it's very good. There's a lot of veggies in the soup and the wantan is good and flavourful. Fishballs in the soup are munchy and nice as well.

We also had something called 红酒粗粉 Hong Jiu Chu Fen which translates roughly into Red Wine Thick Noodles.

Red as in red wine.

The soup is cooked with red wine and served with thick, short white rice noodles, black fungus and eggs. I didn't have a lot of it on the account that I can't really have alcohol - but the one sip of soup I had was rather good. The red wine wasn't very overpowering although you can taste it on the tip of your tongue. I think it's a really unusual dish - and I do love the boiled eggs. :D

The last Sibu street food on the list is 鼎边糊 Ding Bian Hu which is a kind of fishball koay teow soup with black fungus.

Fishbaaalls.

I will get the address from CC for this one (to be updated) because this is like one of the most famous dishes in Sibu. The fishballs are handmade and hand-beaten by the owner, fresh, every single morning. They are never NEVER served frozen. And I have to say those fishballs are like ten kinds of awesome. They are just so fresh, springy and tender, and you can really taste the fresh fish in every bite.

We are really spoilt for food in Sibu. ;) Bad news is, I think I haven't lost the weight from what I ate in Sibu...yet. Huhu.

Another restaurant post is in the works!

- Mouse



EDIT: 鼎边糊 Ding Bian Hu and 红酒粗粉 Hong Jiu Chu Fen are both made with black fungus not seaweed. Sorry, my bad and my bad memory. >>;;

金囍楼 Golden Happiness (Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia)

Hello all...long time no see and I hope there are still people hanging around. :D Anyway, this is the official revival of Iron Eaters (I hope!! I really want to keep updating this!) and to start things off, the next few posts will be specials on food in Sibu, Sarawak!

(I'll be mostly blogging on food in Malaysia for a while as I'm not back in Melbourne till late February...bug San for Melbourne food posts if you want 'em)

A couple of weeks ago, me, San and Mad visited CC in Sibu - which was tons and tons of fun and tons and tons of food. Especially great for me and San because we haven't been to that side of Malaysia prior to CC's invite. Anyway...on with the food!

The first post of the Sibu series will feature CC's family restaurant, Golden Happiness 金囍楼. Now, please trust me when I say that their restaurant serves some of the best food I've EVER tasted in my life. And it's not because I'm biased either. Take my word for it - if you're ever in Sibu, don't miss out the Chinese food in Golden Happiness. You will regret it. And no, I'm not paid to say this, and neither am I saying this because I heart CC. My waistline after two days will attest to this. :(

CC's family restaurant in quaint Sibu.

And...urm...I have no idea how much the food cost as we didn't pay anything for food during the entire trip. :D (OMG i love you CC)

First off for dinner on the first day, we had the restaurant's ultimate signature dish: 龙船拼盘 Dragon Boat 'Long Chuan Pin Pan'.

Drooling yet?

Bet you are (drooling, I meant).

Just. Look. At. The. Boat. (!!!) It's filled with the most delish things ever: there's fish pieces and veggies, crabstick rolls, prawns in egg parcels and right smack in the middle are chunks of fresh lobster meat in mayo. Oh my goodness...it was like food heaven. Everything is so delicious! Especially the seafood-prawn in egg parcels, it's like...WOW. I love love love this dish.

The greatest fish in Sibu.

Next up we're served some super amazing awesome fish. This fish is one of the most expensive kinds in Sibu (FYI, Sibu is famous for fresh river fish) and apparently it can cost up to RM600 (approx AUD$200) per kg. This is because the fish only resides in water near hills and only the locals (Ibans) catch them. Hence it's extremely difficult to get a hold of the fish in its entire glory. The fish is called 红不老 Hong Bu Lao but visitors love it so much that they called it 意难忘 Yi Nan Wang which translates to "Difficult to Forget". That's how good it is! The fish is served steamed lightly in soy-based sauce and a dash of spring onion, carrot and coriander. It's very light and absolutely delicious.

Such cute veggies!

Cute and wow...amazingly yummy wow.

And then...we had these most amazing vegetables, stir fried with oyster sauce, called 炒米莲 Fried Million 'Chao Mi Lian'. I've never ever seen these kind of fern-like veggies before but apparently they're not that uncommon. It's one of the most yummy vegetables I ever had. The texture is crispy and clean and the sauces used to stir fry it are simply fragrant and yummy. I love the vegetables so much that I actually contemplated buying some back to Penang...which was not advised as they will wilt. :( Which makes me sad.

Souuuuup.

Then we had the obligatory soup - 海参鱼鳔汤 Sea Cucumber Fish Soup 'Hai Shen Yu Biao Tang'. It's a great, thick soup with chunks of sea cucumber and fish plus bits of egg and crab meat. Filling and satisfying!

Huge ass prawn with pretty flower carrot.

Waaaaa...brings back such fond memories. :D

And finally - another signature dish - Cheese 大头虾 Cheese Prawns 'Cheese Ta Tou Xia'. These are huge prawns halved and baked with cheese. It's super tasty - the cheese doesn't overpower the prawn and all and the prawn meat is plentiful and tangy. Yummm! The pictures speak for themselves.

For dessert we had fruits. And among them is the best pineapple I've ever tasted.

Fruits are good for you.

PINEAPPLE that is like...best ever. And I don't like pineapple.

And I carted two of those pineapples back to Penang, yippee!!

That's it for the dinner post...coming up next, some other local delicacies and ANOTHER restaurant post to whet your appetites!

- Mouse

p.s. I should mention...that poor San was sick and didn't eat ANY of the yummies above. Except pineapple. My condolences. *pats San*

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金囍楼 Golden Happiness
5-7 Jalan Chengal
96000 Sibu
Sarawak
Malaysia

Rose Garden BBQ Shop (2)

I am so stuffed with schoolwork right now that I practically live, breathe, eat and sleep essays...but I just have the time for one very quick post now. Hopefully I'll be liberated by the end of the week - have a couple of food posts I want to get up.

Rose Garden BBQ Shop - one of my favourite Chinese places, period. Food's mostly fantastic and unlike some of its counterparts (who shall remain unnamed) - the service there is generally very good as the Mrs.Boss and family are all rather friendly and generous with their smiles.

So I was at Victoria Market yesterday and wanted lunch - and decided to try their roast meats as I've never really tried it before. I opted for a mix of Honey Roasted Pork (Char Siew) and Crispy Skin Pork (Siu Yok) aka 叉烧烧肉饭 ($7.80).

My takeaway box :)

\

Behold the golden red char siew!

AND the yummy siu yok!

Seriously, the pictures speak for themselves. Doesn't it look so amazingly yummy!? The char siew was tender and delicious and juicy - and not too fatty. But I think the siu yok is fantastic. Although I am one of the very weird that doesn't really eat the crispy part of the pork - the pork itself was SO good. It was so less fatty than other siu yok I have seen, means I get more value for my meat! Cos I throw away fatty bits so normally I end up eating only half a siu yok but for Rose Garden's I can finish an entire piece! Yay!

Definitely getting this dish again in near future. Will try eating the crispy bits the next time...

- Mouse

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Rose Garden BBQ Shop
435 Elizabeth Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9329 1560

Dainty Sichuan

Despite being Malaysian born and bred, I never have a very high tolerance for spicy-ness. No doubt that I do like certain spicy foods (i.e. tom yum and curries), but certainly not majority and I cannot take food that are extremely spicy.

So I don't know what possessed me to want to try Dainty Sichuan (probably tummyrumbles' reviews) and amazingly enough, I went on my own free will, there was no screaming/kicking/dragging. I do NOT know what I was thinking and I also have no idea what was in store for me.

Dainty Sichuan was as usual bustling to the brim; we made a reservation because the first time we were there, we waited for 30 minutes and gave up. The reservation didn't do us a lot of good - just meant that we could jump queue. Luckily, a table finished a mere 2 minutes after we were waiting, score!

No, I am not THAT bad of a photographer, I blurred people on purpose. In case someone popped up and sue me for "wrongful use of image". Hah.

We started off with helping ourselves to drinks, in anticipation. I chose the sweet milk tea because the bottle was pretty.

Lifesaver!!

The Mouth-Watering Chicken was the first dish to appear, cos it was a cold dish.

Despite it looking like it might kill me, I still want to eat it.

Quiver and shake with fear!!

Smaller than we expected, it looked fire-hot! With chilli oil and flakes of dried chilli, I think I was like WAAAAH (in fear and tears) when I looked at it. Rice arrived and we tucked in, albeit tentatively for me. On first bite? It wasn't as spicy as expected and I was sort of surprised. Finding it yummy - flavours of salt and chilli went together nicely - I devoured the first piece and took a second one - and in the midst of chewing my second piece of chicken, I felt the spicy-ness settling in, burning on the tip of my tongue. Uh-oh. Cue swallowing my milk tea and a mouthful of rice plus a stick of newly arrived Garlic Cucumber.

Lifesaver #2 that is amazingly yummy!

The garlic cucumber was fantastic to me. I just really really like it, they had seasoned the garlic in salt so that the smell of garlic wasn't overpowering, but still maintaining a satisfying garlicky taste with the cucumbers. Yum! The cucumbers also served as a cooling balance to other hot dishes.

The Chongqing Chicken was up next.

Treasure hunt to find chicken among chillies.

Served fried with a HUGE-ASS dish of dried/fresh/refried (yes, REFRIED - we found crab claws in our chicken dish - proving that they recycled leftover chillies) chillies, it looked sort of terrifying. The chicken were small, boned pieces and we had to dig through the mountain of chillies to find it. Hah. Turtle and Alf wasn't very happy with this dish as they felt that was way too little amount of chicken, but MM sis certainly was a huge fan. She really liked the chicken and meticulously picked her way through chillies for the chicken. San seemed to like it as well. As for me? My first piece had me choking and gasping and swallowing massive amounts of milk tea because I think a chilli seed got into my throat and stuck itself there. Talk about torture. That aside, I find the chicken rather good. It was superbly spicy - there was a sort of WHOOOSH feeling to it when I ate it, but it settled down (just a little) after a while. A pity that it was boned with little pieces of bone - much better if they are boneless chicken pieces.

Next up was the Spicy Crab.

Crabby!!

Pretty generous serve.

Looks good, eh? The crab was a little less spicy than the chicken, however, it was a mess trying to eat it. Alf eventually crunched his way through his pieces of crab, shell and all. I did the same thing after a while and hey, the shell (especially the leg part) wasn't so tough. It was rather nice and crunchy. The crab was tasty although after a while, I found it to be too salty, as with Sis MM. Definitely VERY salty. I really had to have it with rice, otherwise, the salt was too much. That aside, the crab dish was good, Alf and Turtle's favourite.

Throughout the meal, I just kept eating cucumbers, even ordering another dish (and another bottle of milk tea eventually, that is how much I sucked). The cucumbers really helped to cool the fire in my mouth. No wonder people said "as cool as a cucumber". I was no where near that cool, though. Burning hot, more like. Hence the inhaling of milk tea and cucumbers.

To be honest, although I find the food to be good (just good, not very or extremely good), I won't go back there. Not in near future, anyway. One, I just can't take the spicy-ness, it was too much. Up to the point I had stomach discomfort throughout the night. Two, they recycled the chillies!! We can obviously tell, even before finding the crab claw in the Chongqing chicken. I don't care what the norm is, I find that gross, sorry.

But if you're a huge fan of chillies and spice, or that you want to challenge your hot/spicy tolerance, or that you just like to torture your tongue (and yourself) for fun - give this place a go. Its famous name for spicy-ness is certainly justified well enough.

And oh, the total bill came to roughly AUD$102 for 4 dishes and 6 drinks.

- Mouse

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Dainty Sichuan
26 Corrs Lane
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9663 8861