Teru Teru Japanese Cafe, Box Hill

The husband and I celebrate our first anniversary of meeting each other by going to a Japanese cafe for lunch.  We live near Box Hill where there are plenty of places to eat Asian food - Chinese food, Malaysian cuisine, Singaporean delights, Korean and Vietnamese - but as for Japanese, not many restaurants are around in Box Hill.  We randomly stumbled upon Teru Teru Japanese Cafe and thought we would try it out.  It was busy for a Sunday lunchtime - we took this as a good sign - and we were happy to wait 10 minutes till there was a table free for us.

We were quite hungry and seeing as it was an anniversary celebration, we went a bit crazy and ordered a few dishes.  (I say crazy because we are currently struggling financially, so we tend to order cheap dishes and only one dish per person, but not on this day!)

We ordered salmon sashimi - who doesn't love salmon sashimi?!

I like mine dunked in a thick mix of wasabi and soy sauce.  Yummilicious.  The fish was fresh and very succulent.

The hubby ordered a fried chicken special (chicken karaage??).  He loves meat and deep fried foods.  It tasted good with a squeeze of lemon juice.

For our mains, I ordered Tempura Udon.  I love soup noodles.  This one was a tad unadventurous so I added lots of spice to it.

The mixed tempura which consisted of two prawns and mixed vegetables were placed in separate plate which was good, because some restaurants put it on top of the soup noodles which means soggy tempura.  However, I didn't really enjoy the tempura because the tempura batter was rather thick.  It wasn't light and crispy.

Hubby seemed quite pleased with his main of cold noodles.  I forgot to take a photo of his noodles as I was too busy taking photos of my food, but I took a photo of the remains.  You can see the big block of ice which was tucked under the noodles to keep them cold.

We were so full at the end of this big meal.  I think we will go back to Teru Teru to try other items on the menu.  It's a shame that there's no ramen though because I have a ramen craving at the moment.

Yum Cha At Crown Palace

Apologies for the lack of blogs here, but just because I haven't blogged here, it does not mean that :-

a)  I haven't been blogging at all because I blog at www.lingtung.com and also at www.thebestbeautyblog.com
b)  I haven't taking photos of my food because I recently acquired an iPhone 4 which is my new favourite gadget - photo quality is not excellent, but it's handy.
c)  I haven't been eating as much - hello, I love eating and believe you me, I have been eating lots of yummy food.

Okay, enough chit-chat and let's get on to one of my new favourite yum cha restaurants in Melbourne - Crown Palace in Vermont South - 495 Burwood Highway.

I shall let the photos do the talking, but I am salivating just thinking about the food there.

choi sum with oyster sauce

har gaow (= steamed prawn dumplings)

siew mai (= steamed pork dumplings)

char siu cheung fun (= roast pork flatsheet roll)

fried sesame wafer prawns

dan tat (=egg custard tarts)

century egg and pork congee (=rice porridge)

lao sa bao (= steamed runny custard filled bun)

hot steaming gooey sweet filling - mmm

I love.  I love.  I love.  Nom nom nom.

Review Of Menulog

Menulog is an online Australian restaurant guide and booking service.  When I was contacted by a rep for Menulog to review their services, I jumped at the chance.  Hello, I love eating!!  So I went on their website at www.menulog.com.au to check it out.

Plus Points

• Website is user-friendly - no fancy 'schamncy' stuff
• Choices are Home Delivery, Pick-Up or Dining Out
• Just type in your postcode or suburb and a list of restaurants will show up
• Detailed information about restaurants with opening and closing hours, menus and prices
• Read other people's reviews which I find very helpful in deciding where to eat
• Free to use Menulog and it also offers reward points
• Special offers at some restaurants, e.g. 25% off
• There is also a free iPhone app for Menulog - I mean, how cool is that?!

Minus Points

• Unfortunately, when I typed in my postcode, only 2 restaurants showed up.  A measly 2.  This means that I have a very limited choice of restaurants in my suburb which will offer Home Delivery (BUT it is possible to email Menulog to inform them of any restaurants which are not there - I shall try that later and see what happens...)

After browsing and checking out the options available for me, I decided to put in an order.  It was very easy to do this.  Click on the menu to choose your meal and then choose the time you want the meal to be ready.  Fill in your details and then wait for the confirmation SMS.  

The 2 restaurants which showed up in our area were a pizzeria and a Thai restaurant.  I am a cheese-phobic so we went for Thai food at One Thai.  Hubby and I decided to pick-up our meal at the confirmed time of 18.30, (i.e. 6.30pm).  However, when we got there, our meal was not ready.  The restaurant staff had misread the time and thought it was at 8.30pm (i.e. 20.30).  We waited for another 15 minutes till they made up the meal.  Good thing we decided to go pick-up our meal because if we had been waiting for delivery, we would have been waiting for a long time!

We ordered duck red curry and sweet and chilli fish.

I was slightly disappointed with my Menulog experience although it was not their fault.  I blame it on the One Thai staff member who cannot read the time properly in 24-hour digital format!

Would I use Menulog again?

Even though, my first experience with Menulog didn't turn out as planned, I would use it again because I enjoyed browsing through all the restaurants and reviews.  Plus, with the reward points scheme, it is an added incentive.  Next time, I would like to try the delivery experience and see how that goes.  If I do, I shall definitely review my next experience here.  

Have you tried Menulog before?  Well, now is the perfect time to do so because I have a special Menulog offer just for my readers.

Go to www.menulog.com.au and get $10 off your first order with this code at checkout: 987C33

Details: Available for a user’s first order only, at participating restaurants only (which display the “accepts vouchers”) sign, expires Dec. 31, 2011, min order $20.

I Am Still Alive

Extreme apologies for the few readers I have on this blog.

I will be back shortly...promise =)

Birthday Party Food Porn

I arrived in Melbourne last week and was already invited to a birthday party that night.  The birthday party of my boyfriend's 3-year-old niece, Sarah.  There was plenty of child-friendly food - birthday cake, fish balls, crabmeat balls, skewered fruit kebabs, chicken pie, char siu pastries, pandan cake and jellies.

Turns out Sarah's mum, my boyfriend's sister-in-law made the birthday and pandan cakes!!  They tasted amazing and looked like shop-bought cakes!  Apparently, when she got married, she did not have a clue how to cook...but a few years later, she has become a domestic goddess!!!  In some ways, this has inspired me to try and become a domestic goddess too.  I want to be able to bake my children's birthday cakes one day!  I tried to make fail-proof chocolate chip cookies but it was an epic fail - link here => Domestic Goddess Project #1.  But I am determined not to give up...and one day, WHEN I succeed, I will post up my photos here because it will be food porn!!  LOL

Three Course Food Porn #1

Sometimes, food blogs contain too many words when all you want to do is look at the photos.  So without further ado, I give you Three Course Food Porn #1.

Starter 

Korean spicy eel 

Main Course

Bimbimbap (stone pot rice with meat, vegetables and egg)

Dessert

Devil's Delight - chocolate pancakes covered in strawberries, cream and ice-cream topped with chocolate sauce

Food Porn Factor - please rate it and leave a comment

Instant Congee

From all my posts so far, it's easy to assume that I never eat at home.  But I do.

Eating at home is cheaper than eating out, but cooking for one is not easy, plus I am not exactly a great cook.

Easy solution : instant congee.

Congee is a Chinese savoury rice porridge commonly eaten for breakfast and when you're sick.

Yep, just add hot water and 3 minutes later, instant chicken congee!

This was my first time trying instant congee and to be honest, it wasn't bad.  Healthier than instant noodles, I hope.

Food Porn Factor : 4.5 out of 10 - tastier than it looks but that's probably because of the MSG

Yum Cha At East Ocean

I was so confused.  Being a Scottish Asian, I am used to the term "dim sum", but in Australia, this is known as "yum cha".  So I wiki'd it and found this :-

"Yum cha" is a dining experience which involves drinking Chinese tea and eating dim sum dishes.  "Yum cha" is Cantonese which literally means "drink tea". In the US and UK, the phrase "dim sum" is often used in place of yum cha; in Cantonese, "dim sum" refers to the wide range of small dishes, whereas yum cha, or "drinking tea", refers to the entire dining experience.

Confused much?

Yeah, who cares?  Let's eat!  Yum cha at East Ocean.

Trolleys go round the restaurant - just like Hong Kong!  Weird!  I am used to ticking the boxes on a leaflet!  The 3 of us just went crazy and ordered random dishes - har gao dumplings, siew mai, XO long beans, congee, pork ribs, etc.

However, my Chinese palate told me that the dim sum was not all that great.  Too much MSG and grease!!!  

But the company was excellent.  I was making my dining companions laugh with my stories about breastmilk!!  Breastmilk?  Yes, breastmilk!  Share with you another time.  Stay tuned.  LOL

Tempted By Cupcake Porn

I was shopping with two girl friends, Janet and Lydia, and we walked slowly past Cupcakes On Pitt.  The window display of supersized cupcakes was so enticing.

 I wonder if the supersized cupcakes are edible or plastic?

But for A$2.50 per cupcake, it was a tad expensive for two students and an unemployed bum (that's me, btw!)...but Miss JJ was extremely generous and treated us to a cupcake each.  Thank you!

 The selection of cupcakes is vast but eventually, I chose the Cookies & Cream Cupcake.  Why?  It's the Chinese blood in me screaming out - "Get your money's worth!"  Not only do I get cake, but I also get a cookie!  I am a diet's worst enemy!  LOL

The chocolate cake was excellent in taste and texture.  Freshly baked, soft, light and not too sweet.  The cream frosting complemented the cake perfectly.

Food Porn Factor : 10 out of 10 - expensive for a little cupcake but worth it!

Crumpet Cafe At Coogee

What should you do on a Sunday afternoon after a long lie-in?  Go for brunch!
Where should you go to on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon?  Go to the beach!
What do you get when you combine the both together in Sydney?  Brunch at Coogee beach!

There are countless beaches in Sydney.  The choice is endless!

Bondi beach is a tourist hotspot.  This means that it is packed to the max and restaurant prices are hiked up and there's plenty of those tourist shops flogging those tacky tourist goodies!  I was once a tourist, but now consider myself as an Aussie wannabe!  Lol!  Traitor to my Scottish roots.  Sigh.

Whereas Coogee beach is just as beautiful and more peaceful...

Anyway, enough chit chat.  Here's some food porn - crumpets topped with scrambled eggs, spinach, sundried tomato and ricotta cheese on the side.

I asked for the ricotta cheese to be put on the side because I am a cheese-phobic!  Cheese smells and tastes like "cow"!  On rare occasions, I will eat pizza and regret it afterwards.  LOL!

Anyway, the scrambled egg was light and fluffy and buttery.  It was also not overly seasoned, because being the fussy eater, I dislike salt in my food.  I prefer pepper - white pepper, black pepper or any kind of spice.  Just not salt. 

"Pass me the pepper, pretty please..."

 
Food Porn Factor : 7 out of 10 - it was a bit boring halfway into my meal...