Revisiting Mrs Parma

One weekend, we decided to have a walk about the CBD area.  And the first thing we did when we arrived, was to have a nice cup of cappuccino at Brother Baba Budan.

I still find this to be the best cappuccino ever in Melbourne.

After walking about, shopping around, it was time to lunch.  We had first considered Chin Chin, but on second thought found that rather expensive.....and decided to leave that for another day, and went to one of our favourite spot - Mrs Parma.

I decided to try their parma of the day, which was Smoked mozzarella and jalapeño.  It was superb!  I had always avoided jalapeño in any of my food, since my tolerance to hot food was not that great.  But this day, I found that I loved this parma!!  The chicken was moist, the cheese was melted just right, and the jalapeño was hot but not too much and it just totally made me want to stand up and dance!!

Every time we went to Mrs Parma, we were always so full after the parma and just couldn't have anything anymore.  But this time, we decided to save up some stomach space by not finishing the parma and take it home as lunch for another day, so that we can share the sticky date pudding.  Ever since my sister introduced me to this lovely dessert, we have been trying it at various space.  So, when we saw on Mrs Parma's menu that they have this dessert, naturally, we wanted to try.  And so we did this time.  The pudding was very moist and nice, we was a plus.  However the sauce was not what we thought it should be like.  It was overly sugar milky like, but absolutely lacked the butterscotch taste that is required.  Umm, a bit of a disappointment...  Guess we'll just stick to parma when it comes to Mrs Parma.

Noodle Kingdom @ Preston

Preston market is a kind of close by place where we usually go to when we can't be bothered going far, but want things other than cafe or pub food.  Of the few choices we have there, we often go to Noodle Kingdom for some generally nice noodles.  Why is it only "generally" nice?  Well, the quality of the food here depends on your luck.  There had been several occasions where the food was very nice for it's price - nice soup, superb noodles.  But there are other times where, well, it's just no up to par - cold soup, soggy noodles.....

One afternoon, me and mum decided we don't really want to go far, so we went to Noodle Kingdom.

Since there were only the two of us, we decided to go simple and order two dishes to share.  One of which was the beef noodle.  Seems like we were in luck that day.  The soup was hot and tasted good, and the noodle was very good too, not soggy, not sticked into one bunch.  The beef was also very tender, although maybe a bit too much fat, but I can live with that.

The second dish we ordered was Xiao Long Bao.  This was the first time I had Xiao Long Bao at Noodle Kingdom, and I was kind of surprised that it wasn't bad.  The skin was perhaps too thick to my liking, but it's acceptable.  The fillings were good, and did contain soup in it, which was good.

So, Noodle Kingdom isn't a place that I would say that I love it, but for something close by, it's definitely a favoured choice.

Pho Dzung Tan Dinh

Last Saturday we went to Richmond to have some pho, one of our favourite of all time.  

This has to be the best pho tai ever.  Well, we always knew that, which is why we always comes back here.  The soup was superb.  But, I must say that I was a little disappointed this day as the soup was not as hot as it should had been when it was served.  Otherwise, it was still the best and I still love it.  

A day at Westfield Doncaster

One lovely Sunday, me and my sister decided to go to Westfield Doncaster for some shopping.  But knowing how crowded the food court would be at lunch time, we decided to first have some lunch.

When we got to the food court area, we noticed that Schnitz was now opened, and so we decided to give that a try to see how that's like.  After going through the very much confusing menu, we decided to go with the simplest, Schnitzel and Chips.  Since the server was so nice and keep suggesting we should have a sauce to go with it, we got the Sweet Chilli Mayo sauce as well.  So, how was it?  Well, it was, umm, nice.  But not great.  The schnitzel was real chicken meat, not those schnitzel that you normally get at food court, so that was a good thing.  But it just wasn't special.  The chips were nice, but again, just nothing amazing about it.  I had better else where.  The sweet chilli mayo sauce was just too sweet, not really worth it.

We also got a Pork Curry rice from Hanaichi to share.  We had already had this many times and had liked it every single time.  True, it was not the best Curry Katsu, but for what it's worth, it's a good enough meal.  One reasonable sized fried pork, lots and lots of nice curry sauce, and loads of rice.  For a food court meal, it was real good value.

After completing our shopping, we decided to have some afternoon tea at Koko Black.  At first, we were just going to get coffee and hot chocolate, but once I saw the menu, I just couldn't stop myself and ordered the Belgian Spoil... As usual, it was absolutely delicious, every aspect of it.  Heavenly.  There's just no other word.

And as usual, I just couldn't stop myself when I see desserts and sweets, so I also ordered a Soy Hot Chocolate, and my sister had a cappuccino.  The soy chocolate was actually quite nice, not as rich as the normal hot chocolate, but I guess that's just right for me that day.  I might have this again next time.

Sensory Lab

On the same day me and mum went to have pork ribs, we also went to Sensory Lab for a coffee break once we met up with my sister.

We have walked passed this place many many times, but never stopped here for coffee.  One reason was we always loved BBB, and it is more or less our standard coffee place whenever we go out to the city.  Another reason is that this place always seems to be so full and busy.

This day, we decided to try this place out, since we planned to do some shopping around David Jones and Myer and didn't want to keep walking back and forth, and also, my sister wanted to have a danish and we saw that they had this nice looking blueberry danish on display.  So here we are, a Blueberry Danish.  The danish itself was quite nice.  The pastry was crispy and the blueberry was nice too, not too sweet, just right.  However, I did find it interesting(?) that the waitress only gave us a knife with the danish, when I see that right opposite us, the couple that had a cupcake and something else, each had a little fork with their cakes...

Since it was so busy there, we didn't want to spend time looking at the menu, so we just picked the safest option of coffee for us, three cappuccino.  It was not bad coffee, but still, it was no match for BBB.  Maybe we should just go back to BBB next time...

The Meat & Wine Co

One fine Saturday, I took mum out to The Meat & Wine Co for lunch.

We were quite early that day, basically went in right after it opened, so it was quite empty as expected.  But there were already two pairs of people there.  Wow, and I thought we were early walking in before 12pm.

We were seated on the far side of the restaurant, where the beads were.  I just could't resist taking a photo of the beads decor. ^_^

Since we were also going to have dinner out at a Chinese restaurant that day, we decided to go light for lunch and just share one full rack pork ribs between the two of us.  So once we ordered, we were supplied with usual tools for having ribs - paper aprons and a small bowl of water for washing our fingers.

Ah! Here comes our pork ribs.  God I love this.  I must say that it was a little difficult or next to impossible to eat this and show good table manners at the same time, but really, when you see this in front of you, you'd just through all thinking of table manners away.

The ribs was absolutely delicious.  The glaze was tasty, the meat was moist.  Oh and those chips.  I love those chips.  Nice and crispy, and well seasoned.  Gotta love this place just for this dish.

Degani Bakery Cafe @ Plenty Valley

One day, some time back, I took my mum to the local shopping centre - Westfield Plenty Valley for lunch.  We decided to go to Degani Bakery Cafe.  Simple and cheap, food not too bad.

It's been a while since I was last here.  Ever since RMB opened next to it, we had been going to RMB a few times to try out the menu, but we have come to the conclusion that RMB is a little more fancy, but it does not justify the higher price.  Especially when it seems that each time we go, quality deteriorates.

We ordered two dishes between the two of us.  One of which was the usual Chicken Parma.  We already established that no parma can be better than that of Mrs Parma, but from a local cafe, it was not bad.  It was moist, the chicken was thick, the crust was crisp.  The only let down was the cheese.  There was not enough, and could be a little more golden.  The good thing this day though, was that we told the waitress we'd be sharing and she brought us two plates, so we were able to move the parma to another plate so that the chips didn't get soggy.

This day, I decided to try their wood fried pizza.  Out of the list of choices, we decided to try the salami, virginia ham and olives pizza.  When it was fresh from the oven and hot, it was quite good to eat.  But I kind of think the virginia ham was tasting a little weird.  Also, since we didn't get to finish the whole pizza, we took it home, and when the next day when I slightly microwaved it as breakfast, it had a very VERY oily taste to it.  Not very pleasant.  Maybe go back to Salt and Pepper Calamari next time.