Shoya Nouvelle Wafu Cuisine

Being total cheap-asses, you may be wondering how we ended up having lunch in Shoya, one of the high-end Japanese restaurants in Melbourne. Well, we were there to celebrate my lovely friend, Minda's birthday. Shoya is situated in one of the lanes in Melbourne's Chinatown and it look deceivingly small from the outside because this Japanese restaurant has 6 levels!

Anyway, Shoya does a number of lunch sets which start from a reasonable $24.80 to $65.

I chose the UME set at $28 which consisted of :-

Savoury egg custard - silky smooth steamed egg topped with an edemame bean which had shitake mushrooms and bamboo shoots in the bottom layer - this was simply gorgeous!

Sashimi - Presentation was excellent. The raw fish was placed on top of half a frozen orange - we wondered whether they would reuse it? Does anyone know?? Anyway, the fish was fresh and tasty with wasabi and soy sauce paste.

Tempura - Two prawns and the rest were vegetables. The tempura batter was light and crispy. Loved it.

Grilled eel - The unagi was simply delicious - very moist and tasty bathed in its sauce. The annoying thing was that I only ate a quarter of this because my Husband ate the rest while I was chatting away to the girls. Grrr!

Teriyaki wagyu beef - OMG! The beef was cooked to perfection. The meat was extremely tender and moist with nice bits of fat through it. I took a bite off the chilli and it nearly killed me - I was surprised that it was so hot!

Mixed steam rice - this was bland in comparison to the rest of the dishes

Green tea ice-cream - Yummy goodness.

Although the food was exceptionally good, I did have a few dislikes about Shoya.

1. For a high end Japanese restaurant, you would think they would serve complimentary green tea - but no, they don't.

2. There wasn't enough time for me to enjoy each of the courses because the food came rushing out. I was even more annoyed that the waiter served the ice-cream BEFORE I had even finished eating the mixed steam rice!

3. We were the only table left on that floor and it felt like that they were trying to rush us out. If I'm not mistaken, they brought the bill immediately after the ice-cream; without us asking for it.

In conclusion : Shoya serves high quality Japanese food but needs to slow down and let slow eaters like me enjoy and savour the food.

Would I go back? Yes, but only if it was for a special occasion.

The Baths Middle Brighton

We are currently enjoying massive doses of sunshine in Melbourne. Last Saturday, Noah, Ken and I headed off to Brighton to check out the beach there. As you can see in the photo, there are some cool and colourful beach huts. And behind me were a couple taking their wedding photos there - awesome! Wish I had known about that...

Anyway, we headed off to one of the cafes in Brighton - The Baths Middle Brighton. It was around 11.30am when we got there and that's why the beach was relatively quiet because lots of people were eating in here! We managed to get a table facing the sea and although it was a sunny day, it was still a bit chilly with the sea breeze. (I know, I know! I'm from Scotland and I should be used to the cold but I'm not!)

We ordered our drinks - I ordered a pot of Earl Grey, Noah ordered a Virgin Mary and Ken ordered a latte. Finally, after 20 minutes, we got our drinks. Not off to a good start!! I tasted Noah's Virgin Mary and it tasted like cold tomato soup - yuk! My Earl Grey tea was strong - and I actually wanted to add milk to it, but none was supplied.

We didn't order food till after midday because we wanted to order off the Lunch menu. Ken and I ordered Beer battered fish and chips with tartare Sauce ($18) and Noah ordered The Baths Ice-burger with wagyu beef, Swiss cheese and fries ($17). When the waiter took my order, I specifically requested "No salt" - because for some reason, Aussie fish and chips automatically come served with gallons of salt.

Again, we had to wait for over 20 minutes before our lunch got served. I was very disappointed with this slow service...but I was EVEN MORE disappointed when the waiter came out and said, "Fish and chips with no salt on the fish." HELLO? I said "No salt" on both fish and chips!! But I was too hungry to complain. The fish was fresh and the batter was light. BUT dammit, my throat was burning with the amount of salt I consumed from those bloody salty chips.

As for Noah's burger, he wasn't that impressed either. He said "It was alright.." which translates to nothing impressive.

My Opinions On The Baths Middle Brighton

Although it is a popular place because of the location and views of the beach, I did not enjoy my lunch there. Service was slower than me doing a dump when I am constipated. It's true! And the worst thing is - adding unnecessary salt to my chips! Maybe it's a ploy to make people order more drinks? Anyway, I refuse to return to this establishment because it peed me off so much - cannot follow simple orders and slow service.

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 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