Eatery

#20. Try 50 new restaurants…

1. Chillipadi - I’ve always wanted to go and now i finally have. So, chillipadi, it’s an asian style restaurant. Mainly has some malaysian style dishes that i’ve heard of and also has cantonese fried rice i think and viet beef pho. So, when we first got there we were seated at a table. What i noticed was that there was a bottle of water on all the tables there. Today i was tossing up between the chicken laksa and the shaved beef waat tan hor. I chose the laksa. I was sort of craving it for some strange reason so i got the MILD chicken laksa. The service was pretty good. It didn’t take too long for the food to come which was good as well. Anyway, as i was eating it, i realised why they have water at the tables. though it was mild, it was still somewhat spicy. Then again, i can barely handle spicy foods so i think i did pretty well. The prices were alright. There was a deal where you get wine with your food, but i cant exactly drink, so that was out the window. All in all, it was a pretty good lunch. Filling and i didn’t really feel hungry until dinner time. Good $10.90 spent.
2. Templestowe Hotel – So i went to eat at templestowe hotel today for a youth leader’s end of year dinner. It was a buffet and it was pretty good. There was a lot of foooood. The bread was a tad hard and a bit strange, but still nice and edible. The soup was really good. I had the minestrone soup.  Next i had some salad which was quite good too. Also the calamari rings were nice. Yum. Apparantly the chips were better at the beginning of the night compared to what they were at the end of the night. This is according to a few people on my table. I did not eat any chips that night.  Also the pasta is pretty good too. I ate some lasagne and some other pasta. They were quite nice. Fish was alright too. The desert was okay. The jelly seemed to have melted a little when i got there, but still all good. The lemon meringe (is that how you spell it???) was okay, but a bit tooo lemony with the icing/cream thing. The strawberry shortcake or whatever i was eating was pretty nice too. I heard that the icecream was nice as well. Alas, i did not eat any prawns (wasn’t in the mood) but i assume that they were pretty good. Also, they had deep fried cauliflower. Yeah…that was very interesting. A new way to get kids to eat veggies perhaps??
3. Indochine - It was pretty good i have to admit considering the fact that i saw a large number of aussie people there. Usually that means that the chinese restaurant isn’t that good if there aren’t a lot of asians and a ton of aussie people. I was in the mood for pho and so my bf and i went to eat at indochine. Now i’ve heard the name many times, but i’ve never actually been to one, so finally, i got my chance.  When we got there it was pretty packed for a wednesday night. Hahaha, the waiter seated us and whacked my bf for not letting me sit down first in the inside seat. Awww. I ordered chicken pho. It was somewhat bigger than i expected, but it was good. The mint, bean sprouts and lemon were all present, yet, there was no hoysin sauce (note: i can’t spell that hoysin word…). I usually have it with that sauce, but no matter, it still tasted pretty yummy. So the meal was fairly cheap (8.50 for mine i think), but they charge you $0.50 for tea which is a bit unusual. Maybe i should’ve drunk more tea then…
4. Laurent Patisserie - it was pretty good. It’s in doncaster westfield. mmmm. I had a croque mushroom and a small creme brulee (raspberry and vanilla). It was pretty nice. I have no idea what a croque is but still good. Yum.
5. Margots – So, went to another new restaurant. Margos is in crown and i think it’s called margots. Lol. The food was quite nice. i got the the fish and chips and it was pretty tasty and quite filling. Good thing is that it’s cheap ($12 for mains if you go for that deal). Bad thing is you can’t book before hand and they dont provide jugs of drinks which is a bit of a pain. Kudos to the waiter who looked after us and for giving us extra complimentary bread when a certain someone asked for more (i assure you, that was not me who did that). Also apologies to the old people around us who were probably shocked and suprised by the level of noise we were making. it’s a nice place to eat. the toilets are pretty nice too and well, it’s quite cheap considering it’s in the city.
6. Groove Train – Okay, so, I went to The Groove Train for lunch a while back (okay, on boxing day) during the boxing day sales. The place was pretty nice. Since it was boxing day, we had to wait for a fair bit, but the food was quite nice. Got a lamb pizza thingy that was nice. I liked how they shoved tzatiki sauce or something on top of it. It was pretty good. Yum.
7. Il Divo – the restaurant my friends and i went to. It was actually pretty good. You can grab like a pretty cheap meal. There are $10, $13, $16 meals and on the other side are actual mains. Yes, we grabbed $10 meals. I got fish and chips and that was quite nice actually. I was tossin up between that or the risotto. Yum, risotto. But either way, my meal was $14 in total (got a lemon, lime, bitter which didn’t taste tooo much like it, but still alright).
8. Melbourne Yacht Club Hotel - So, another wonderful place to eat that my bf and i went to. This place is in the Docklands and when we went, there were only 2 or 3 other groups of people eating there in a fairly large place. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s like near the end of the peer, if people dont think the food is expensive enough, if they think you need a special pass to enter, or if they all came and left before my bf and i arrived there, but I reckon there should be more people there on a saturday night. So, we went in and got a nice table near the windows (probably to try and entice people to come in and make it seem like there are a lot of people there) and the menu was quite nice. I got a spatchcock chicken and a LLB (lemon, lime, bitters). They also gave us water and complimentary bread. Now, not many places do this, but this place did. They also provided us with semi-toasted bread with (wait for it), olive oil and balsamic vinegar (i think) dipping sauce. Okay, i’ve been to many many many restaurants in my life and NEVER have i had olive oil/balsamic vinegar dipping sauce with bread. It’s usually just butter. I quite liked my spatchcock chicken. It came with spinach and potatoes and a really nice sauce around it. BF had the MYCH burger which he claimed to be very good as well. The lemon, lime and bitters was nice and the price wasn’t too bad. Over $20 for the main, but then again, it was more reasonable than other places. Really would recommend people to go there. The food is good and the decor is really nice too. Very open and very spacious.
9. Tea House - I went to tea house in box hill a few weeks ago. That was pretty good. I order some korean dish (bulgogi?) and the only complaint is that there were way too many onions. hahaha. i had a huge pile of onions left on the side.
10. Hot Pot Place in Glenny (forgot the name) – That was actually pretty good. Yum hot pot. It’s like all you can eat buffet hotpot thing. You just order what you want and you get it. But you have to finish it off though. They had fish. That was nice. I didn’t try the more “adventurous” things though. I think they had duck feet or chicken feet or something there. Hmm…
11. Cafe Notturo (i think that’s the spelling) - I also went to a pizza place on lygon street and it had nice cheap pizza. Even though i could barely eat it, i quite enjoyed it. I went there again another time and i had the calamari salad and my bf had the warm caeser salad. Probably wouldn’t pay that much for the salad and plus, i thought it would be fried calamari, not grilled. Oh well. Still was okay.
    
12. Brunettis - I also went to brunettis. I think it’s in bulleen or something. I also had pizza there. That place looks really nice even though it’s one the corner of a strip of shops. I liked the pizza that they had. I should go there
13. Grand Tofu - basically a place where you can order what noodles you want and the other foods to go with it eg. wontons, vegies, dumplings. I cant remember what I had, but it was nice, but I just found it hard to eat due to surgery.
14. Hans Brinker - nice dutch pancakes place in the city. it’s pretty nice, but maybe a bit pricey. It was just such a shock to find a place like this in the city. I’m so very glad that we did though.
    
15. Mahonis - place where you can order frozen yoghurt and also other drinks and stuff. it’s got a nice decor and you can sit on beanbags as you eat.
    
16. Garage Cafe - an indonesian cafe/restaurant that is located in a garage space. so you can park your car and walk 5 meters to the restaurant. specialises in indo food. The wonton soup is nice.
    
17. MyCube – nice drinks, pricey food though. But you can eat and play games there which is cool. Also bean bag seats are available too. Didn’t stay for long because it was near closing time by the time we got there. I had a hot chocolate which was quite nice actually. Also had peking duck spring rolls and they were very small.
    
18. Hanaichi - japanese food. the menu consists of around 6 or 7 dishes, but it’s done quick, and you can choose to eat there or takeaway. fast food jap style. It’s similar to DonDons, but i think DonDons looks more dingy and Hanaichi looks cleaner, has more seating space, but service might be a bit slower (by a couple of minutes).
    
19. Hopetoun  Tea Rooms - somewhat pricey tea room where you can enjoy some nice drinks and some tea as well. i ordered scones with jam and cream and it was nice enough, but possibly not worth it. but, it’s still got good decor and you feel like you really are in an english tea room in the heart of melbourne.
20. Pacific – another hong kong style diner which actually has a large menu and food is served reasonably quickly and the food is good usually. Service can range from good to not that great. Quite a large range of drinks, but that’s like many other HK style places (dessert house anyone?). I tried the hot lemon coke. That was surprisingly good.
21. La Camera – Went there for breakfast, it was a pretty good deal. $7.50 i think for certain breakfast dishes from 7:30-11 monday – saturday i think. Yeah, so i got a $14 breakfast meal for $7.50 and coffee for $2. The breakfasts were pretty big so definately worth the $7.50 (not sure about the $14) and it was actually quite nice to be honest. I enjoyed it, but there was so much so i couldn’t finish it. I wouldn’t mind going there again for breakfast.
    
22. Ho Mei - This is a small chinese restaurant near my area. It was surprisingly good. Had seafood combination clay pot which is like tofu with seafood and lettuce and stuff. I liked the chinese vegetables and we also had this interesting fried chicken thing. They also gave us complimentary oranges which was nice. Not so good thing was that the tea got cold in the teapot really fast which usually doesnt happen that often in chinese restaurants.
    
23. Narai Thai - I went here for dinner and the food on the menu is quite expensive. Luckily i ate beforehand so i only got an entree. The entree was nice but i’m not sure if it was worth the $9.90. It was king prawns wrapped in puff pastry (4 serves) with sweet and sour sauce, but it was more spicy, sweet and sour. It was nice, but yeah, really pricey. Most of the mains were around over $20.
24. Some malaysian place on blackburn road (sorry, can’t remember the name) – this place was also pretty good. They had nice dishes. They have curry chicken and curry fish. I ate the combination tofu thing and they had fishball stuffed into tofu and vegetables. The vegies were pretty nice and they were pretty fast too in bringing out food for over 30 people. It’s a bit small though so you probably can’t fit too many people in there, but otherwise a decent place to eat.
    
25. The Quarter – this place is in degraves and it was pretty nice. I had a blueberry muffin for $3 and it was pretty big, so i thought it was worth it. The bf had bacon and eggs and that was fairly nice too. Pretty decent as well for a breakfast meal in the city. We had an ice mocha and it was in a pretty tall glass, but i guess that is fairly normal. It had a nice atmosphere, the lighting is a bit dark, but i like it like that. They also had nice black and white photos on the wall and i thought the service was pretty good. The waiters there were very friendly and nice.