Main Street 3195, Mordialloc by Snooze

Youngest daughter Miss C (22) and I dropped into Main Street 3195 for a late breakfast.


It was a near miss for a couple of reasons. Miss C couldn’t see the point of any further bonding with me (given the nine months in utero we’d been inseparable) but hunger and the promise I’d pay won her over.

When we arrived Main Street was crowded inside and out, and without a booking the best they could do was a table for four for 50 minutes … definitely a good test to see whether meals can be delivered in good time for diners to eat without feeling pressured.


Even though it was midday breakfast was on offer until 3pm and I noticed a number of others were taking advantage of the simultaneous breakfast and lunch time menus.

Since I love breakfast all day I opted for the avocado, asparagus, grilled haloumi and poached eggs on light rye toast. I found it on the small side, with the serving possibly looking even smaller given the huge plastic plate it sat on. The asparagus also edged towards overdone. But the positives outweighed the negatives: the bread was delicately toasted, the avocado generous, the salt of the haloumi a good foil for the eggs, and the poached eggs exactly as I like them and accompanied by a delicate fragrance of vinegar.


Miss C wasn’t thrilled with the menu (which is strange for her as she'll eat almost anything) and ended up going for the eggs Benedict with ham on toasted Turkish bread. This was a more substantial breakfast compared with mine and arrived on the same sort of large plastic plate. The poached eggs were perfectly done, the ham generous although I prefer it a little more cooked. The hollandaise sauce was good without overpowering.


PS I also suggest you try the fresh squeezed orange juice, which arrived not to sweet or sour, and cold and fresh.

Overview
Mordialloc has needed an eatery like Main Street 3195 for years. It’s brilliantly situated on the main shopping strip on the highway, and is just outside the city bound entrance to the train station. Everything about Main Street is well done, from the tables outside, and the decorative metal anemones on the interior brick walls. It’s also extremely popular so I’d suggest booking, especially over the weekend. Main Street also passed its rush hour test: the turnaround between ordering and receiving our meals was good, we were finished with five minutes to spare and didn't have to rush, the wait staff were attentive without hanging around, and watching the room suggested nothing was too much trouble.

Verdict
Food – 7
Service – 7.5
Ambience – 7.5
Price – 7

Address
505 Main Street
Mordialloc VIC 3195
Tel: (03) 9580 8150

Yellow Bird, Windsor by Big Fil

The name Yellow Bird reminds me of that old song:

Yellow Bird, up high in banana tree
Yellow Bird, you sit all alone like me.

Fortunately I wasn't sitting all alone last Saturday morning on an early morning visit to Yellow Bird with Snooze. There are a number of cafes I'd been meaning to try along the Windsor end of Chapel Street and Yellow Bird was also on Snooze's list of places to visit. Snooze had a number of things on later that morning, so that just after 8am we rendezvoused at an empty café.

I should start out by saying that Yellow Bird is very 'me'. It's fairly cluttered with simple things - bird cages on the walls, mismatched tables and chairs, posters on the front of the bar, plastic flowers near the ceiling fans. While individually these don't add up to much the whole of this eclectic mix is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Hmm, maybe I should point out the thing which is very me is not the simple or cluttered bit, but the interest in how the disparate pieces somehow make an unexpectedly coherent whole.

A number of people when writing about this café on the Internet have complained about the noise levels. While one visit probably isn't the most conclusive of samples I thought the level of the music was fine, loud enough to listen to but not loud enough to interfere with conversation. Choice of music was good as well, fitting in very well with the general 'vibe' of the place.


Snooze decided to order the 'Death by Benedict' for breakfast. Poached eggs, hollandaise sauce and bacon on hash browns. The eggs were perfect with the yolks nicely runny when pricked with a fork, the bacon crisp but not overcooked and the hash browns crisp on the outside and fluffy in the middle. The major issue was with the composition of the dish. Combining hollandaise sauce, bacon and hash browns left the dish on the oily side, or as Snooze put it more of a guy's dish after a night out than a girly breakfast.


I, on the other hand, went for the chilli burger, admittedly a strange choice for an 8am breakfast but then I wanted something meaty and filling. The burger itself was very tall, because of the large beef patty. When Snooze saw the size of the burger and the huge mound of fries that came with it she was contemplating whether I would actually finish it. Not only did I finish it, I also cleaned up the left over bacon when Snooze couldn't finish her breakfast. The burger was good, not too hot, not too sophisticated but a morning after the night before type of meal.





Overall
Yellow Bird is much more Fitzroy grunge than South Yarra chic and does a good job of providing an alternative to the more polished venues in this part of Melbourne. Definitely a place that deserves a return visit to check out several interesting looking menu choices and clientele. Some of the staff came across as disinterested and I am not sure how quickly everything would come out when they are busier, but then it's an interesting place just to check out the decorations anyway. While there, you should also check out the high quality graffiti in the laneway out the back.

Verdict
Food - 7.5
Ambience - 8
Service - 6.5
Price - 7

Address
122 Chapel Street
Windsor VIC 3181
Tel (03) 9533 8983

Tim's Kitchen, Hong Kong by Big Fil

Tim's Kitchen was another Michelin starred restaurant we wanted to try. Apparently it is better regarded as a dinner restaurant rather than somewhere to go for lunch (which we didn't know at the time), but given that we were only making our booking the night before we were probably lucky to get in for a lunchtime dim sum feast anyway.

One thing we learned from this experience was that even when dining at a top end restaurant it pays to find out the house specialties. While good, Tim's Kitchen is not a specialist dim sum restaurant and we would have been better off ordering from the (more expensive) main menu.


As with Tim Ho Wan, you order the dim sum you want and it's brought to the table when it's ready, rather than selecting from the trays or trolleys as they come around. Service is very attentive and the atmosphere of the dining area calm and comfortable if slightly generic.

Being in Hong Kong Hungry Pete insisted we try the chicken's feet. I know lots of people who won't try them because they find the idea strange and I'm not their biggest fan. I like the taste and texture but the bones are a bit annoying, and I always feel a little weird spitting them back out. These chicken feet tasted fine but to me most of the attraction of this dish is in the gelatinous texture, which these lacked a little.


Again we ordered the deep fried pork dumplings. These were very good, a nice meaty filling, with the skin crispy on the outside but soft in the middle. To me this dish is mainly about the texture and these had the right balance between not being too thin skinned and crisp, or too thick skinned and consequently slightly soggy.


Wanting to try something new, I ordered the pork liver dumplings. I was expecting these to be normal dumplings with a pork liver filling. Instead they came as small meat dumplings wrapped in pork liver. The result was a dish tasting quite strongly of pork liver and not really consistent with the delicate flavour of the other dishes.


One thing we had to try were the shrimp dumplings (Har Gao). These were small but generously filled, moist with a delicate prawn flavour. However, there was nothing which made these stand out in comparison to the har gao I've had elsewhere.


Steamed pork buns (Char Sui Bao) are probably Hungry Pete's favourite dim sum and this was the first chance we'd found to try them in Hong Kong. These were nicely steamed with a slightly sweet pork filling. While ordering from the trolley is more fun, pre-ordering means that you get your food at its best.


I also ordered the crispy baby pork (Sui Yuk). Both Hungry Pete and myself thought this was the dish of the day (I thought it was possibly the best thing we ate the whole time we were away) with the skin crispy, the meat not too fatty but melt in the mouth tender and with a beautiful pork flavour. The different layers of the meat, with their different proportion of fat to meat, provided an interesting textural contrast. Quite possibly the best crispy pork I've had.


To finish of the lunch we ordered the steamed custard bun and steamed custard layer cake. The custard layer cake was ok, lightly flavoured and similar to sponge cake in texture.


Better were the custard buns. The inside filling was nicely moist and while I thought these were good, Hungry Pete liked them a lot.


Overall
For a two star Michelin restaurant the food wasn't quite what I expected. Everything was well prepared and the dishes were consistently good but other than the pork none really stood out. However we didn't order the dishes which the restaurant is better known for, such as the stuffed crab claw and crystal shrimp, both of which I looked at before settling on the crispy pork. While the atmosphere was nice, the dim sum and service good, given my expectations it was a slight let down and it feels like it was partly our fault for not checking carefully enough before we went.

If I went back to Hong Kong I would certainly be happy to return to Tim's Kitchen for dinner, but for dim sum where I enjoyed the casual and rushed Tim Ho Wan more.

Address
84 Bonham Strand
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

Switchboard Cafe, Melbourne CBD by Snooze

Big Fil and I are always on the search for the best, and hopefully most interesting, places to eat and we finally made it to the Switchboard Café in the Manchester Unity Arcade.


If it isn’t already, the Switchboard Café comes close to being the smallest café in Melbourne. The indoor seating for six is cannily incorporated in what once housed the switchboard for the Manchester Unity Building, with the “kitchen” under the stairs of the same building. They’re both a very squeezy fit.


Fortunately for those early to arrive, there is more seating outside in Howey Lane. But be warned, all the seating goes quickly, smoking is allowed outside, and Howey Lane can be a wind tunnel.


But it’s supposed to be all about the food and we’d best get on to it.

The menu is limited and with the soup not available because it’s spring, Big Fil and I plumped for the toasted sandwiches. We both enjoyed what we got.

Big Fil’s choice was for the toasted ham, gruyere cheese, tomato and chilli jam on sourdough. The sandwich was proof that having almost no space and a short menu isn’t required for good food because the sandwich was everything it should have been. The ingredients were fresh and well balanced, the choice of bread and toasting what it should have been, and the chilli jam adding a wonderful warmth.


Exactly the same can be said for the toasted artichoke heart, bocconcini, spinach and chilli jam on sourdough that I chose. I’d definitely choose it again, and I was happy to have had an excellent back up plan when the soup wasn’t on offer.


And because it was such a cheerless day and we sat outside (in the cold), we both opted for warming drinks. My tea was OK (although I love the reusing of novelty holiday spoons), with Big Fil enjoying his hot chocolate.


Overall
Two important things to note: it’s imperative to arrive early to eat in because bookings aren’t available and seats go early. It’s also necessary to be flexible because, despite shopping every day, storage is at a premium and once things run out they won’t be available until the following day. Other than that the owners are pleasant and helpful, service is quick and responsive and the food fresh, original and well prepared.

Verdict
Food – 7.5
Service – 7.5
Ambience – 7
Price - 8

Address
11-12 Manchester Unit Arcade
220 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Tel: Not applicable

Supper Inn, Melbourne CBD by Big Fil

Surprisingly enough, in the decade and a bit I've lived in Melbourne I had never been to the Supper Inn. It's always somewhere I had meant to go, but knowing it had always been there and always would be there always seemed to be other established favourite or interesting new places to try.

The entrance to the Supper Inn is kind of strange. It's certainly clear which building it's in with the name maybe 4 metres long across the front. But the actual door you need to enter isn't marked, and the entrance to the restaurant is through another unmarked door at the top of a dodgy seeming staircase.


Go in through the door at the top of the stairs and you enter a fairly dingy and dated room, although not one without character. One thing I didn't really appreciate was being told off by one of the staff for not leaving a phone number when leaving a booking for that night on the answering machine. Given the chance that my 6.30 booking would go astray I arrived early, around 6.20, so there was never an issue about whether we were arriving or not, and as I'd left it so late to book if no tables were available we would have just gone somewhere else. A nice polite reminder to leave my number next time (which I should have) would have been more than sufficient.

Chewy recommended we order the suckling pig, which we did. The crackling on the skin was good, richly coloured and crispy, but there wasn't as much meat with the dish as I was expecting and as a whole the dish was disappointingly small given the price.


The second dish we ordered were the scallops with spring onion and ginger. This was more generous in size than the pork, with numerous if small scallops. Taste wise I'd describe it as reasonable rather than good. The combination of the white scallops and green spring onion did look good, and I think they could have improved the dish quite a lot by taking a bit of care with the presentation.


The third and final dish was the beef with black bean sauce. This was the most generous serve of the dishes. For a dish I don't always like, the beef was nicely cooked and the sauce wasn't added in such quantities that it overwhelmed the flavours of the other ingredients, which happens disappointingly often. Three dishes all reasonable - no hits but no real misses either.


Overall
Average or maybe slightly above food for Melbourne Chinatown, I strongly suspect this place thrives on what may have once been a well deserved reputation as a Melbourne institution, and the fact that it is open until the early hours of the morning. I found the set up crowded and dated but still kind of fun, but was put off a bit by the staff. The food came outr easonably fast but a smile and a bit of politeness to customers never hurt anyone guys. I'd go back if my preferred places in Chinatown were closed or full, but I can't see Supper Inn becoming my Chinese restaurant of choice.

Verdict
Food - 6.5
Ambience - 7
Service - 6
Cost - 6.5

Address
15 Celestial Ave
Melbourne VIC 3000
Tel: (03) 9663 4759

Temple Street Night Market, Hong Kong by Big Fil

I am a huge fan of street and night market style eating. Hong Kong is full of markets so before we left it was off to Temple Street Night Market for a late dinner.

One of the best things about Asian night markets is the atmosphere. Bright lights, loads of people, full of noise and colour. The food is also generally good, in many cases the stall or street café has been run by the same family for generations. If you're worried about hygiene - not that there should be too many problems in Hong Kong - just look for where all the locals eat and make sure that the food is freshly cooked and hot.


We selected our stall at random but funnily enough just after sitting downsomewhere else brought out a huge camera to take some shots of the food, Isuspect for a TV show or documentary. Sure put my little point and clickcamera in the shade!


We were feeling pretty hungry by this stage so we ordered quite a lot of food. While we ordered beef with bitter melon the first dish to arrive was a beef with vegetables. Given we had already started eating when we remembered what we had actually ordered we just continued on eating - I hope whoever got our order enjoyed it. The dish itself was reasonable but nothing special, fairly similar to what you would expect to get in a cheap Cantonese restaurant in Melbourne Chinatown.


I had wanted to order the chicken and mushroom rice in claypot but none of the claypot dishes were available. Wanting some rice and not wanting to go through the menu again I lazily ordered the fried rice. Again this was reasonable, a little dry and lacking in pork and prawns, although the small number of prawns that were included were all of a good size for this kind of dish.


Better was the fried oyster omelette. While it lacked a bit in presentation and finesse, it made up for in taste and quantity. Medium sized oysters in a crispy on the outside/soft in the middle omelette, this is one of my favourite dishes and the one we received was a fairly good one. To be picky the quality of the oysters could have been improved and the dish was a little overcooked. But when you are only paying around $7 Australian , and it's Hong Kong not Malaysia (which is ridiculously cheap for street food), you shouldn't expect the dish to be perfect.


The best dish was the salt and pepper tofu. Again, one of my favourite dishes but not commonly available at home. The tofu was crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, the dish is spicy but not particularly hot.


Overall
While the food was reasonable for the price the main memory I have is of eating amongst the noise and the bustle, just soaking up the atmosphere. Don't expect fine dining or memorable service, that's not what night market food is about. It's about the taste, the price, the often somewhat pushy staff and just getting into the flow of the market and having fun.

Address
Temple Street Night Market
Kowloon Hong Kong

Australia Dairy Company, Hong Kong by Big Fil

Just like Melbourne has its 'westernised' versions of Cantonese food, Hong Kong has its versions of western food adapted for local tastes. I was keen to try this style of food and after searching around on the Internet settled on the Australia Diary Company for breakfast.


We arrived fairly early but the line outside the restaurant was already snaking down the street. The queue moved quickly though, and we were soon sharing a small table with two other customers. While cramped this was a good thing, as there is no English language menu and the waiting staff spoke Cantonese only (or at least no English). Fortunately our fellow guests were able to explain the set menu options and pass on our orders. It was also extremely hectic but very well organised, with staff running around madly taking orders and delivering food. Everything came out fast and accurate and everyone seemed to be concentrating on the eating to make the table available for the next customer.


Each breakfast came with a warm bowl of macaroni and ham soup. It's not really something which I would normally consider breakfast food, slightly salty, otherwise a little bland and not unpleasant.


Better were the eggs with toast. I went with the toast with scrambled eggs; Hungry Pete the eggs sunny side up. Both were fairly plain looking dishes but tasted better than they looked. My experience is that normally in Australia breakfast eggs are served with a savoury sort of bread, ciabatta or sour dough, and something meaty like bacon, prosciutto or mushrooms. It's been many years since I have had toasted white sandwich bread with the crusts cut off as part of breakfast but I actually quite liked it. Combined with the fluffy scrambled eggs it was like returning to a kid's breakfast menu, with quite soft flavours and textures. Inoffensive and easy to eat.


Pete indicated the same for the lightly fried eggs - not an everyday choice as it would get a little boring but nice as a change.


The breakfast also came with choice of drink. I went for the Honk Kong style tea, which was a moderately strong very milky white tea. Hungry Pete went for the iced coffee, which he indicated was nice.


Overall
Popular, hectic, reasonable food and very cheap ($48 HK for the 2 of us). Iwouldn't travel miles out of my way to revisit it, but if in the area again and looking for something a bit different would happily go again.

Address
47 Parkes Street
Kowloon Hong Kong

Din Tai Fung, Hong Kong by Big Fil

Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese based franchise known for its shao long bao. It has dozens of stores across east and south-east Asia, as well as one in Sydney. The people who run Hutong Dumpling Bar in Melbourne also have some relationship to Din Tai Fung the details of which I am unsure.

The Tsim Sha Tsui branch of Din Tai Fung is located on the 3rd floor of a pretty upmarket shopping mall. Because we weren't paying enough attention to the time we ended up arriving at 7.30pm on a Saturday night, and with over 60 tickets issued for 2 person tables ahead of us we ended up lining up for over an hour.


The menu is quite long and we concentrated on the dumplings/bao. These included the steamed pork dumplings, the crab roe and pork and the angled loofah and shrimp dumplings. First of all though we tried the cold preserved sliced beef shank. This was much nicer than I expected. Nice beef flavour, delicate and thinly sliced, a winner.


The steamed pork was the most familiar style of dumpling, being very similar to the ones at Hutong. Thin dumpling skin, hot but not scalding soup and pork mince served with vinegar and thinly sliced ginger.


I had no real idea what the crab roe and pork dumplings were going to taste like but ordered them out of curiosity. They had the same delicate skin asthe pork dumplings but a more 'fishy' taste than I was expecting. Different and if I was ordering only one or two dishes it wouldn't be one of my choices; but still good.


The angled loofah (sometimes called Chinese Okra) and shrimp dumplings were the most delicately flavoured of the dumplings. Again, very nice dumplings.


Best dumplings of the night however were the shrimp and pork sui mai. Now I don't often like sui mai, which often seems to be made with cheap pork and overcooked. I am potentially converted though by the ones at Din Tai Fung. Good quality pork, moist and nicely steamed, and a full scale prawn rather than a tiny shrimp on top.


One thing I liked about the serving of the dumplings was that they were all steamed on cloth rather than paper. Quite often I find the dumplings stick to the paper and tear, a disaster for dumplings containing soup. This wasn't a problem with the dumplings steamed on cloth, with the dumplings lifting easily.

For dessert Hungry Pete went for the chilled sago soup with coconut milk and fresh fruit. While he thought this was just average, I am a big fan of sago and coconut milk and liked this a lot.


Intrigued by the name I went for the steamed eight-flavour glutinous rice.This comprised rice around a red bean paste centre, with other beans and fruit on the top. Not necessarily my thing (I am not a huge fan of red beans) but not a bad way to finish the meal. I think Hungry Pete and I managed to swap desert types (he loves red beans).


Overall
Nice thinly skinned dumplings with flavoursome soup and tasty fillings. The sui mai in particularly I liked probably more than any I have had before.Well priced at around $20 each as well. A very wide menu of dishes that would be worth visiting a few times or in a large group. I wasn't such afan of the set up though. Everything was neat and tidy and efficient but it made it feel a little like a production line service and a bit lacking inpersonality.

Address
3rd floor, 20 Canton Road
Tsim Sha Sui Hong Kong