Wong's Lucky Bar - Mud Crab temptation

Last Sunday, me, Jacq and Felix were helping the Sunday School in Boxhill. We finished around 2pm and decided to have lunch around Boxhill. We wanted to try Simon's Peking Duck but unfortunately they are closed on Sunday Lunch. We decided to go to Wong's Lucky Bar after being tempted by user reviews of their Mud Crab on urbanspoon. The restaurant is located just next to Boxhill tram stop and I never realised even I have been there few times. Nothing fancy or special about the restaurant, its just packed with tables for 25 people. 

I guessed we're just not that lucky, the waitress said that they ran out of mud crab on that time. Well, we already sat and hungry so we decided to stay and check out other menus. 

I would suggest to order the chicken rice, its only $0.50 more. It has great chicken flavour and smell, something that I don't really find in a fast Chinese restaurant.

Chicken Rice - $2
White Rice - $1.5

I like the deep fried flounder, its super crispy but it lacked of taste as they just put the salt and pepper on top without mixing it first.

Deep-fried Flounder with Spicy Salt&Pepper - $17

 The japanese tofu is well fried, similar to what I have back in Indonesia. I enjoyed this dish, its not too salty and there're good amount of seafood and vegetables. 

Japanese Tofu with mixed Vegetables and Seafood - $17

Overall rating : 7, they offer good food with good price. I want to go back to try their famous mud crab! The staffs were not really friendly but they did assist us well.

Nosh@Newport - sweet tongue comforter

I go to Newport every Friday to be a language assistant in Newport Lakes Primary School and i never thought that there are good places in this suburb. However, me and Priska were curious of a cafe across the station that looked quite busy and its Nosh. It can be seen that they have won several food awards from their doors.

Most of the customers were ordering the brunch menus but we just could not resist the sweet temptations. There were so many appetising cakes waiting to be eaten. They did change their cakes but i dont know if its every day or week because the cakes were totally different from the week before, nevertheless they all look yummy!

 

I totally fall in love with the chocolate muffin. Its crispy on the outside but moist in the inside. And you can really tell that its fresh and homemade! They put some choco pops(cereals) on top of the muffin which makes it perfect! The best chocolate muffin in Melbourne so far :)

Chocolate Muffin - $4

The blueberry muffin is not bad at all but it could not compete the chocolate ones. The blueberry inside the muffin was still warm when we ate it which tells us that its fresh. I don't know why they gave us butter on the side but we did not even touch it.

Blueberry Muffin with butter - $4

The chocolate cake is also awesome. It has a strong chocolate taste with some orange flavour that makes it so refreshing. This cake is really filling, I was full after eating half of it. 

Double Chocolate Cake with Cream - $6

The coffee looks great but it does not taste really good. Its not thick and i think it would be better if the milk was frothed longer. 

Skinny Cappuccino - $3.5

Overall rating : 8, just love the chocolate muffin and cake. I might try other cakes on the display since they all appealing to me or the brunch menu. Lastly, the staffs are very friendly and fast too!

Kake di Hatti - Indian feast party

I have not met many of my Trinity friends for quite, so we decided to catch up and have Indian food. My friend recommended Kake di Hatti, i trust him since he is Indian :) We were about to change the place because we thought they're closed.  They only open for dinner, that's why when we called them around 4pm no one's picking up. However, we managed to get table for 17 people. The restaurant is pretty big they could sit up to 40 people.

We were having trouble in ordering but then the staff offered us to get the dinner set. You got some entrees, choose 1 curry from the main menu, salads and naan/rice for $17. 

These three are just the entrees for 4 people. The tandoori chicken is really tender and taste how it should be. The samosa is quite big, its not bad but nothing special. I'm not really sure what're in the platter, they are nice except the green one.

Tandoori Chicken

Samosa

Vegetable Platter

I got to try 5 different curries and i put numbers in photo caption as what i think should be ordered. The best curry was the butter chicken, the chicken are tender and it has the sweet, sour and salty taste. Really recommend to order this as its the best i've eaten so far. 

1. Butter chicken

I liked their Palak Paneer, its thick, you can really taste the spinach and block cheese. 

2. Palak Paneer

I don't know if they use real korma because i could not really taste it, the taste is sweet overall and goes well with the chicken.

3. Chicken Korma

The lamb vindaloo turn out to be salty and spicy, its good to balance the other curries as they are pretty much sweet. But i don't think the lamb is well cooked as its still not tender. 

4. Lamb Vindaloo

This chicken kandai comes last because its just ok, nothing really special. I think its similar to chicken korma, for me its just too much flavour in one dish, sweet, spicy, salty. 

5. Chicken Khadai

You are not eating Indian without eating the bread! I like their naans, i got to try 3 different ones. The plain one and the garlic are good, they are not really thin but crispy on the outside. I never try a sweet naan so i found it a little bit weird, its okay when u eat it by itself but big NO with curry!

Plain, Garlic, Sweet Naan

Overall rating: 7.5, i would definitely come back for their butter chicken and tandoori chicken. The service was good, they welcomed us friendly and always ensured everything was OK :)

Aoba - a lucky night

Its saturday night that we decided to try something new (Japanese) and we chose Aoba. This place has a good rating in urbanspoon. The restaurant is really small, it can only fit 14 people inside and 4 people outside. There was no table for 5 people so we sat separately. There are many restaurants next to Aoba, so if you don't get a table you can easily go to next door. 

You can really feel the Japanese atmosphere as soon as you step in, walls, tables and chairs are all wooden style. 

What should you order? Definitely the Aoba box, you can choose the main from teriyaki chicken or fish and comes with vegetable croquette, seaweed salad, rice and miso soup for $13. This is some kind of a bargain for me,  the croquette tastes really nice and crispy. The chicken is tender and served with delicious homemade teriyaki sauce. 

Aoba Box with teriyaki chicken - $13

The next thing i would recommend is the dinner set, it comes with rice, miso soup, 2 spring rolls, 2 gyoza, 3 agedashi tofu, sashimi and main to choose from all the main menu. You could pretty much taste everything from the menu. I like the homemade gyoza, it has tasty filling and flavour, soft unlike other gyoza that usually has tough burnt skin. You also get one scoop of ice cream!

Aoba Dinner Set - $22

For the ice cream, i chose the brown sugar as recommended by the staff. It tastes really nice, and whats better its homemade and i don't think you find this flavour anywhere else in melbourne. However, the salmon in the sashimi platter was not really fresh, we could tell from the appearance. 

One of my friends ordered the Katsu Curry Rice with pork cutlet for $13.50. The curry sauce is good but the pork itself its not too tender, my friend thought they got a wrong cut for it. We also ordered the Teriyaki Wasabi Chicken for $13.50, but it does not taste really different from teriyaki chicken. We thought they should put more wasabi to make it stronger. 

Unfortunately i forgot to take pictures of the last two dishes. 

Overall : 7/10 , I would come back to try their lunch menus, looks cheap and delicious! There were only 2 staffs when we're there, one's cooking and one's serving. So be patient because you might have to wait for at least 15 minutes for the food. Good thing is the staffs are really friendly and smile a lot even though it was really busy. 

Miss Jackson - an adventurous brunch

Why I said its adventurous? because on that day me and 4 friends were riding bicycles for exercise, turned out it was really fun and we ended up spending 7 hours.. We wanted to find a brunch place near st kilda, and found Miss Jackson. The owner was really nice, as soon as he saw us, he asked us to park our bicycles in the garage. Definitely a good impression of service :)

The place itself is located in a small alley, so there are not many people passing by. They have quite many tables located inside but we decided to sit outside because its really cozy.

The staff came to us in a minute to give menus and offered drinks. I could say they make good coffee, since we tried mocha, latte and cappuccino and we liked it. 

Allpress Cappucinno - $3.5 

We also got an earl grey tea which comes with a pretty set.

Larsen and Thompson Earl Grey Tea - $4

I ordered the crab scrambled eggs with homemade brioche from their special menu. It doesn't look fancy but tastes WOW. The texture of the scrambled eggs is smooth with good portion of crab. 

The brioche is soft in the inside but crunchy on the outside, for me its just PERFECT! 

Crab Scrambled Eggs with chilli and chives on Homemade Brioche - $17

Potato and leek hash is also good. I could say this dish has the best presentation of all. 

The poached egg is perfect, the egg yolk is still runny when you cut it. However, i think the potato hash is to harsh, and this dish might goes well with some sauce. 

Potato and Leek Hash with minced peas, smoked trout and a poached egg - $16.5

Three of my friends ordered the lunch menu, and there are many choices from sandwich, salad to potato gnocchi. I would recommend the steak sandwich but unfortunately i forgot to take picture of it. Its a large serving that comes with really fresh and yummy chips for $15.5

The corned beef sandwich and smoked trout salad are okay but nothing really special. 

Smoked Trout Salad with roasted chat potatoes and green beans - $16

Corned Beef Sandwich with caramelised cabbage, mustard and cornichons  - $10

Overall rating : 8, i would definitely come back for the homemade brioche, the best i have ever tasted so far. They also make great eggs from scrambled to poached. Last, GOOD SERVICE :)

Shanghai Street Dumpling - just another dinner

 FYI, today was my first day at Newport Lakes Primary School. I met many great students eventhough there are also naughty ones but overall its great! Its Friday night, it would be really boring if I just stayed at home although I had a hectic day. So I decided to join my friends for dinner at Shanghai Street Dumpling. They are quite new, and the place used to be Momo Tea. 

I did not take pictures of the place since there is nothing special. They do not really change the decorations, chairs or tables, its exactly the same. The place is quite big, it could sit 40 people.

There were 7 of us, 4 boys and 3 girls so we ordered quite a lot of dumplings.

We ordered two Xiao Long Bao, one with Chicken & Prawn and the other one was Pork. 

I prefer the pork one since the soup tasted better. 

Pork Xiao Long Bao - $8.80
Chicken & Prawn Xiao Long Bao - $9.80

Luckily we also ordered fried pork dumplings. I could say this is the one I enjoyed the most, the wonton skin was not really thick and it was crisp. However, I do not like their soy sauce, its too sour for me and it just does not taste right. 

Fried Pork Dumpling - $8.50

 Their custard buns were just so so, the bun itself was nice, its soft and sweet. They could put more custard filling to make it better.

Egg Custard Buns - $4.8

 Two of my friends were not eating meat today so they ordered vegetarian dumplings. Those dumplings were bad, and totally put them down. The filling was totally dry and not well mixed, the soup also did not taste good. We also ordered the fried ones and we regretted to order them.

Vegetable dumplings in soup - $8.80

Overall : 6, I am not sure if I would come back since there are nothing really special. They need to improve their food taste if they want to get more satisfactory from customers. However, the service was really nice, they were really quick and friendly (something that you don't really see in most Chinese restaurants)

Breizoz French Creperie - our last minute desserts

It was 10pm on a Saturday night when we all decided to have sweet things after dinner. 

We were thinking of going to Stokers Coffee Lounge but I wanted to try something new so I checked other creperie from Urbanspoon and found Breizoz. I gave them a call and they said they close at 11pm and kitchen closes at 10.30pm. We managed to get there by 10.20pm, 

YAY we could order food! 

 It is not a big place but they could pretty much accommodate 25 people. It is really cozy, I like the interior design of the place. There are many pictures and decorations that made it so French :p

Check out their wall menus! Its really cute and attractive!

We did not really have much time to spend on menus so we picked three crepes quickly and we missed their famous ones Crepes Flambees. 

Our first choice was the Praline & Chocolate Crepe and vanilla ice cream. It was good, they gave generous amount of chocolate sauce and you could ask more for free :)

Praline & Chocolate Crepe - $ 9.5
Homemade Vanilla Ice cream - $2.5

My cousin wanted to try the chestnut crepe. Its not bad but a little bit too dry for me. 

Chestnut Crepe - $8.5

We decided to try one savoury instead of having all 3 sweet crepes. We order the classic one to be safe. Its actually tasted a bit like Indonesian savoury pancake (Martabak HAR). It was good and I really loved the way they gave us the egg, its YUM! 

Egg, Ham & Cheese - $11

Overall rating : 8, definitely going back to try the other options. I like their crepes, its thin and crisp. You don't really find many places selling crispy crepes in Melbourne, its usually the ones like Harajuku in Melbourne Central. Their homemade ice cream tastes great, and it goes really well with the crepes :)