Nasi Lemak House

Here's the promised post on a better laksa - in our opinion anyway.

Headed over to Nasi Lemak House on Sunday after a meeting, I forgot who had a craving but someone did anyway. Nasi Lemak House is not one of my favourite places if only I couldn't really stand the service there, especially the attitude of the Mrs.Boss. But undeniable though, the food there IS kinda good.

Small and hidden but very popular.

Anyway, San had a Laksa since she wasn't satisfied with hers from Laksa Me on Friday.

Laksa View #1.

Laksa View #2 Close Up.

Definitely a thumbs up from San - hot, spicy and full of flavours! It was enough spice and enough taste, and lots of ingredients, generous amount of chicken and tofu, an essential in San Laksa. A well-rounded dish in general. She was very satisfied with her laksa noodles and slurped that up within minutes. Yeah, she was hungry to begin with, we all were. :D

JK had the Nasi Goreng Pattaya with the level Spicy.

Pattaya with egg.

Can you see the chili on the rice? (No I can't either)

I had a mouthful of that and let me say, as delicious as that was, it really was VERY VERY spicy! I can feel my tongue burn but then again, I'm never really good with hot and spicy food. The dish is a favourite of JK's so he really enjoyed that, especially with the egg topping the rice. Next time round, says he, he's gonna up that to EXTRA spicy. I'll be sure to report smoke coming out of his ears.

Sis aka MM had the Nasi Lemak Kelantan.

The chicken is from Kelantan, maybe?

There was a giant chicken drumstick for her to enjoy, much to her delight. In her own words, "It was good. I like it." Yeah, not so much with imaginative words, darling sister of mine. Haha. Anyway, she loved it. Didn't fall short of her expectations. She would prefer if the fried drumstick was without the curry sauce but it was great all the same, no complaints.

Me the Mouse had the Nasi Lemak Langkawai and I don't know what crack I was on to order that, that was super spicy.

The squid was fished from the Langkawi waters.

The fried calamari was yummy ~ I really like their batter. It wasn't just batter, I think it was spiced with something, as it was really different to other fried stuff batter. It's good nasi lemak but a little too hot for me (although my fault for ordering I KNOOOW) and I ditched all the sambal. Hahaha. Also, I thought the nasi lemak (as in the flavour of the rice) that day was a little lacking but all the same, it was still satisfying.

Really a good place to go to satisfy nasi lemak cravings, me feels. Although you really have to have patience to deal with Mrs.Boss, she blows hot and cold and in a word to describe her, she's just plain weird. But at least her food's not weird. :P

- Mousie

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Nasi Lemak House
113 Grattan Street
Carlton 3053
Phone: (03) 9663 1555

Laksa Me (# 2) for Lunch

This time for lunch, we don't have any particular place that we wanted to go and hence after having a "brainstorming" among the 3 of us, Laksa me it is since it is situated near from where we stay and MM has never been there. Me and Mouse have tried the food there once, (HERE is the first review) and I was pretty disappointed with the main attraction there ~ laksa (but entree & desserts were good). However, I have decided to give it a 2nd try as perhaps my first visit, I brought with myself too high expectations since Laksa Me got several glowing reviews from other food bloggers.

We arrived a little earlier (it opens at 12pm btw) and hence have walked into Laksa Me as soon as it opened. It didn't take too long and suddenly the whole restaurant was almost full! This place is quite popular, esp with the pppl working near it.

Here is Laksa Me with its floor, which has some chinese characters and sayings.

inside

We have ordered an entree to share:

Pandan Chicken,$7.00

Taking

Taken

Actually in the menu, this entree comes in 2 pcs, but we request it to come in 3 since there were 3 of us (I have read it in a review that we can request how many pcs of entree we would like to have). These pandan chicken are FRAGRANT and very flavourful! Really like this entree. Since there were only 3, so each of us can have only one =( Therefore, our complaint is its too small, almost only 1 bite to finish it off =P

OK, now its our main.

Mouse's noodle $11.90

Quite a bit of burnt noodles

Have sadly forgotten the name of the noodle and Mouse was dumb (Mouse herself wanna put this in) to misplace the receipt. This Thai-styled noodle is just delectable, with the just right amount of sauce and generous amount of well- marinated chicken. We were told that this is also in the laksa category. If I will go back again, I will order this dish =) The only thing is the noodle has quite some burnt bits and hence Mouse has to pick them all up (cos Mouse is anal like that).

MM's mum's laksa, $9.00

MM feels that the soup was OK, perhaps it could use a little more salt. She thought the noodle was over-cooked and was broken into pieces once she tried to pick them up with her chopsticks. Generally she didnt enjoy it and was very unhappy with the fact that there was nothing in the laksa except 2 small prawns n 2 (or 3) thin slices of char siu (roasted meat) while there was lots of (soggy) noodle. Besides, there is no tofu in sight too! *sigh* I personally also feel that besides the noodle, the ingredients (prawns n meats) accompanying it were pathetically too little. I had mum's laksa (here for my laksa's picture) as well when I first went and I definitely had more ingredients (prawn,tofu n meat) than MM's. Poor MM.

My Laksa Lemak (lemak means oily in Malay), $10.00

My laksa's broth was similar to MM, just that it was slightly thicker and was well seasoned. It was not bad and definitely had more stuff than MM's besides the noodles. There were TOFU, egg, fish ball, beans sprout and fish cakes. However, although I can taste there were lots of spices used in the laksa soup, still the unique laksa smell/taste does not come through. It just somehow miss some flavours of laksa. Having said all these, for I have tasted both Laksa Lemak and Mum's Laksa, I would say I prefer Laksa Lemak because the broth was slightly thicker.

After our mains, time for dessert:

Pulut Hitam (Black Glutinous Rice)

This time we ordered the cold version of pulut hitam. It was good and we enjoyed it.

STILL not thoroughly satisfied with the laksa. We love the entree and desserts but the mains just weren't oomph enough. Argh. Anyway, the coming up review will feature a laksa that I think is definitely more superior. :P

Laksa San

Laksa Me
Shop 1, Liverpool Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9639 9885

fringe

We stumbled upon St.Kilda for lunch yesterday, after an initial plan in Elsternwick fell through (and completely! Why is that place not opened on Saturdays, WHY and no one told me that?!) - so Sis took a detour and we ended up in St.Kilda. Sooo many cafes at the Esplanade. We were by the so hungry we could eat a cow (230PM) so when Alf suggested a place he had been to before - fringe - there were no complaints from the rest of us.

fringe without a capital F.

Inside of fringe

Through a hole through the wall.

We were seated by a VERY SUNNY window and no kidding on the VERY SUNNY (so photos were a bit weird in light). Soon we were roasting but at least not freezing (no, I don't know what is the better alternative really). Anyway, we ordered drinks to start off with - lattes for me, Alf and San and a lemon-lime bitter for Sis.

See the little heart-shape ♥ in Alf's coffee? Cool right? Someone's in love with Alf!

San's large latte, $3.30

We ordered a Pumpkin Salad ($13.00) to share.

Pumpkin among the greens!

Heart this salad!

Gotta say it was a huge hit with all of us. The salad was really nicely put together with pumpkin, an array of greens, walnuts and feta cheese. The pumpkin was gorgeous - sweet and tender and pumpkin-y to the bite. It went really well with the green veggies and the slightly bitter quality of the walnuts. Also the cheese was tops. If not I will be sad face because I really truly do love cheese like the Real and Self-Respecting Mouse I am.

Sis had the Braised Lamb ($19.000).

Lamby-kins thingie.

It was cooked with root vegetables and Sis especially liked the radish-like thing. She thought it was good, and it was cooked to the right tenderness. It was also pleasing to her that there was enough gravy to soak everything in. Sis is big on gravy, she is. At times.

Both me and San had the Morrocan Lamb Foccacia ($9.00). I want to say here that I ordered it FIRST and San was a copy-sun. Yeah.

Lamb sandwich ahoy.

I think I am thoroughly satisfied with it. The bread was really crusty and soft on the inside, and the mint yoghurt went well with the lamb. Loads of veggies (spinach leaves) as well to balance out the meat. The lamb is just a little dry in my opinion, but nothing too bad. San thought the lamb was good but there was too little of it in the foccacia. Fortunately, Sis got rid of some lamb fats and tenders and San topped up her sandwich with those and satisfaction immediately increased by 50%, haha. And I quote her, "Thank you MM for the fatty lamb!". And again, NO, she is not fat, the woman is stick-thin (life is so unfair, I know).

Alf had the Grilled Chicken Burger ($15.00).

Chicken and Chips.

It was an enormous portion and Alf didn't finish the chips. He was generally satisfied with his burger, found the chicken to be grilled to his liking and quite fragrant and flavourful but he was wrinkling his nose at the price. A little too expensive, he reckoned.

Anyway, fringe is a quite a funky sort of cafe, I think. Menu was pretty extensive - bread/foccacias, greek tapas, western-styled mains and pastas, plus bevy of salads. I think price is quite reasonable on the whole although a few items here and there are a bit pricey. Generally a good dining experience but the sun beating down on our backs and blinding poor Alf took away some of the fun. :( And it was RAINING today. Crazy Melbourne weather.

- Mouse

**EDIT: San added a few pics & for the yum-cha post as well**
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fringe
73 Acland Street
St Kilda 3182
Phone: (03) 9663 1555

Shark Fin House (#2)

Because this is #2, you can read #1 HERE where Mouse was NOT present...when two greedy people went off WITHOUT me (okay I was in Malaysia but still).

Anyway! We (yes two of us are writing now!! YAY!!) are going to make this more of a picture post since there are like 375737473 photos to be posted. :D By the way, all the brackets at the back of food is Cantonese! Hah! We speak Canto! At least I do.

First off! I present Shark Fin from the outside and really cool new Shark Fin chopsticks!!

We arrived at 11am, when Shark Fin just opened. But look at the queue!

Cool chopsticks huh?

NOW FOOD.

Prawn Dumplings (Har Kau) - MY FAVOURITE!!!

Teo Chew Dumplings (Chiu Zhou Fun Gor) - I didn't eat this, San thinks it's REALLY yummy.

Fried Pan-Ball (Jeen Dui) - AKA BOMBS to JK.

Chinese Chive Dumpling (Gao Choi Kao)

Mixed Veggie Wrapped in Bean Curd Skin (Seen Chok Guen)

The Non-Veggie Seen Chok Guen

Savoury Minced Pork Dumplings (Ham Sui Kok)

Yam Dumplings (Wu Kok)

Squid Tentacles (Sotong - not exactly Canto but hey)

Prawn Salad (Ha Sa Lad)

MM says by looking at this, she feels like having a bite at it =D

Paper-Wrapped Prawns (Zee Bao Ha) - MOUSE LOVE.

Fried Sticky Rice (Sang Chao Loh Mai Fan) - The Girls' LOVE.

Scallop Rice Noodles (Tai Jee Cheong Fun)

yum!

Fish Cake Tofu

Durian Tart (Lao Leen Tat) - I hate it but JK was smelling it like it's...I dunno.

Durian tarts, San likes.

Pork Bun (Char Siew Pau) - Greedy people ate before we can take a photo.

Pork Pastry (Char Siew Sou) - Alf's fav.

Almond Jelly

Rockmelon Sago

That's all folks! We're off to par-tay @ Unknown Location!! Byeeee!

- Mouse (San refuses to be acknowledge with the retarded-ness of this post)

**EDIT: San just added a few extra pictures n captions.**
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Shark Fin House
131 Little Bourke St
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9663 1555