Koko Yee, Melbourne CBD by Big Fil

Koko Yee is a new Asian restaurant on Lonsdale street.  To me anyway the menu looks like a mixture of Chinese Malaysian and Indonesian in style and prices reside in the student end of town.  While I enjoyed our visit here without it being a ‘special’ place, it does bring two new things to the area.  First is the renewal of an empty store which for as long as I remember has been a rundown looking model and hobby shop.  The second is the first Melbourne halal eatery I’ve come across done up in modern Melbourne minimalist chic!

 Menu wise there's a fair bit of choice without being overwhelming.  Open less than a week, a few dishes are still ‘coming soon’ but there is a decent variety of rice, noodle and roti dishes.  Our first choice (unknown to Snooze) was the crispy fried chicken skin with a sweet chilli sauce.  If the restaurant wasn’t halal I would have described this as great beer food.  Hot, crispy, slightly fatty thirst inducing food.  Kind of like the Indonesian version of dude food.  While it appealed to this dude Snooze's comment was it wasn’t something she would order again.

Second dish up was the Duck Kon Lo Mee. This was billed as dried egg noodle with duck but speaking to an ex-Singaporean colleague afterwards would normally have come with a dash of soya sauce to go with the noodles.  The duck was shredded without the fat or skin, the egg noodles dry as advertised.  I think it would have benefited from either a little bit of soya sauce or a bit more fatty juice from the duck to help flavour the noodles, but Snooze thought it was the best dish of the day.

Again we differed a bit over the chicken curry with roti.  I liked the flavour of the curry and the firmer than usual texture of the meat and potato.  Snooze on the other hand found the texture of the potato a little strange and the meat a bit tasteless.  Both of us however liked the crispy roti.  End result was more of the noodles she liked for Snooze, more of the curry I liked for me.

To finish out meal off we ordered the Chinese doughnut with panadan dipping sauce.  I am generally likely to favour anything pandan flavoured and certainly liked this.  However, the Chinese doughnut (long fried dough sticks that I can never remember the proper name of) did not taste fresh, or at least not as fresh as I would have liked.

Overall

Nice place to sit and eat and the most upmarket halal cafe I’ve come across in Melbourne.  Staff are extremely friendly and tried very hard even if co-ordination isn’t yet perfect and a couple of staff members seemed to be a bit less than fluent in English.  But overall it seems to have enough promise and is close enough to work I can guarantee return visits to sample more of the menu.

Verdict

Food – 7.5

Service – 7.5

Ambience – 7.5

Price – 7.5

Address

282 Lonsdale Street

Melbourne VIC 3000

Seven Seeds, Carlton by Big Fil

It's not often we visit places renowned for their coffee. After all, not all of us (including me) are coffee drinkers and it feels a little unfair to go there and then not drink it, like deliberately avoiding the best regarded dishes at a restaurant and then complaining the food wasn't as good as you'd expected. For a long time Seven Seeds fell within that category for me, somewhere everyone always spoke about the coffee as being outstanding but no one ever seemed to mention the food. But when I finally got around to perusing the menu it did look interesting and it's so close to work eventually I just thought, what the hell.



I have to say I love the fit out here. From the outside it looks like just another warehouse or light industry factory. In fact, with its lack of signage it wasn't until I got really close that I realised this grey painted building actually housed Seven Seeds. You step inside and it's ones of the nicest Melbourne industrial style cafes I've seen. It's bright and well lit, comfortable and not too crowded. Lots of exposed brickwork, interesting lights, a smallish communal table and a decent number of smaller tables (for when you don't feel like sharing). Combine that with smiling and friendly staff and my visit was off to a good start.





Although I don't drink coffee I did want to try the hot chocolate and the chai latte. I found both quite impressive. The chai was fragrant and the taste had some complexities from the spices used. The hot chocolate was dark and strong and loved the touch of a finger of Whittakers dark chocolate which slowly melted in the hot drink.



Unfortunately though, despite an extremely interesting looking menu I didn't think the food was up to the same high standard. This was particularly the case with the cured salmon, served with smoked yoghurt, zucchini and pine nut gremolata on toasted rye. I thought the flavour of the salmon was a bit flat and uninteresting and the texture of the pine nuts and bread crumbs didn't really complement the rest of the dish. I also felt the rye bread had been over toasted so it was a bit hard and difficult to cut.



Fortunately though the scrambled eggs with white miso, coriander and spring onion, crispy paratha roti, mild green chilli sambal was significantly better. The eggs were decently light and when mixed with the herbs and sambal packed a bit of flavour. Best part of the dish though was the crispy roti. With just a bit of crunch and a touch of oil, it added a good texture to the dish.

Overall

While the food was a little disappointing and consequently felt overpriced, I liked both my drinks and it was a fantastic place to sit and nurse a hot drink while reading the paper. The staff were friendly and fairly efficient in delivering menus and taking orders given that everyone seemed to walk in and just grab a seat. I can see it as a great place for friends visiting from interstate who want to sample that quintessential Melbourne coffee culture experience.

Verdict
Food - 6.5
Ambience - 8.5
Service - 7.5
Price - 6.5

Address
114 Berkeley Street
Carlton VIC 3053
Tel: (03) 9347 8664

Walker's Doughnuts, Melbourne CBD by Bureaucrat

The bureaucrat is in love!

Yes, I AM IN LOVE! I am in love with Walker’s Doughnuts!

Walker’s Doughnuts.... wow.... Forget your Krispy Kremes (which I never liked because it’s too sugary and I always felt like I’ve drunk a cup of oil) and the dense, brick-like doughnuts you get at Donut King... Walker’s Doughnuts set the standard for doughnuts.

A box full of delicious promise...

My recent discovery of Walker’s Doughnuts has been a double-edged sword. I love them (did I mention that?) but, man, my love of them has quickly ruined my weeks of careful eating and exercising. The Lawyer doesn’t get my obsession with the custard filled doughnuts. On more than one occasion he was, to use a phrase, harshing my buzz while I was eating them. So now, I eat in secrecy.... relishing the endorphin high that the custard filled doughnuts give me – plus, it means I don’t have to share. Voucher Boy would understand the need to eat away from judgmental family and friends.  (As a side note, don't try to eat them on a train... the icing sugar goes everywhere!  I have had weird looks from passengers as I tried to eat one elegantly on a moving train - it's not possible).

Located at the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets, Walker’s Doughnuts is tiny shop with only a few seats. It’s bright yellow sign is a beacon for this American delight, and there are nostalgic sounds of 1950-70s American music that’s playing in the background to get you in the mood.

On this occasion, I got a dozen of mixed doughnuts. Walker’s Doughnuts is noted for their jam doughnuts. I find them to be okay and wished that it had more jam inside. The cinnamon sugar doughnuts are lovely for those who don’t like anything too rich. I didn't try the glazed ones because I'm not a fan of glazed doughnuts generally (I got them for other people, in case you were wondering why I just didn't get a dozen custard doughnuts).


Top from left to right: caramel glazed, original glazed, jam filled, cinnamon sugar, CUSTARD filled, choc glazed w custard

My absolute favourite is the custard filled doughnut. “Bureaucrat, tell me the ways that you love me,” says Custard Filled Doughnut. “Well,” says Bureaucrat, “the ways that I love thee are:

• The doughnut is yeasty and light in texture. It’s not so over-processed like a Krispy Kreme where it feels like you’ve eaten nothing, and it’s not so dense to make you feel like you’re eating a boiled English pudding. 
• I love that there is very little grease (for a doughnut) and it doesn’t make you feel bloated (unlike Krispy Kremes). I love that it’s perfectly fried so that it has the thinnest and delightful crust. It’s almost imperceptible but it is there. 
• I love the generous amount of vanilla custard. From the lovely swirl that visible on top to how it fills out almost all the doughnut inside. The custard is luscious and has a nice ‘body’ to it. It’s creamy and vanilla-y and I could just eat a whole vat of it. 
• Last but not least, I love the generous mountain of icing sugar that’s on top. It’s excessive, it’s frivolous and I don't care that I look like a cocaine addict with my face and clothes being covered in white powder.” 

 

Overall
Love the doughnuts. I can’t believe that Walker's Doughnuts has been there for yonks and that I’ve only discovered them now. Go give them a try!

Verdict
Food - 9
Ambience - 7
Service - 7
Price – 9

Address
Walker’s Doughnuts
26/2 Elizabeth St
Melbourne 3000 Vic
Telephone: 9662 2254

Joe's Bar and Dining Hall, St Kilda by Big Fil

Joe's Bar and Dining Hall is part of the recent Melbourne development of selling diner style food in a non-diner setting. From the outside it's quite non-descript, with a black tiled frontage and a big Joe's sign (who is Joe by the way?). When you go in though it's more like a fairly nice mid-level bar, with wooden tables and chairs, wine and cocktails on the chalkboard and assorted beach related photos hanging off the walls. It sits in that middle smartly casual ground, not necessarily normally my kind of place but certainly comfortable and unobjectionable. 

Ms Counting her Calories is a huge fan of diner style food, and when she knew she'd be in the area with several hours to kill invited me along to give the place a try. The dishes come in a variety of sizes, some obviously suitable for sharing but the burgers and mains more a one person dish. With MCHC going for a slider only, I decided on the Joe's Burger with complementary drink and a serve of the southern style fried chicken to share.



The fried chicken was good, lightly coated and deep fried so that it combined a slightly crunchy outer shell with nicely moist tender chicken on the inside. It avoided what to me is the major problem with much fried chicken, the batter soaking up too much oil, and while I might have preferred a little more crunch on the outside both of us would have happily shared another plate.



Next up were MCHC sliders. These are small, maybe two bite sized rolls filled with beautifully tender meat. Kind of like diner finger food. While not in enough of themselves to provide a filling meal, a pretty good snack if looking for something to eat with a couple of beers.



The most important dish though was my Joe's burger, which on this particular day cost $15 with an accompanying drink. A bit of a deconstructed job, with the salad sitting on the top part of the bun which was laying on the side of the plate, and the sauce served in a bowl on the side, I thought it was pretty good. While the meat was slightly over done it was full of juicy beef flavour, and the bacon was perfect. Could easily have been improved too, because while the bun had nice grill marks on it, it had gone a little cold. And MCHC returned later in the week when again in the area and proclaimed the Habanero excellent.



To finish off we shared a slice of the Oreo and chocolate cheesecake. While it looked like something only a mother could love, and I'd hardly describe it as light, delicate or subtle in flavour, it was definitely rich, tasty and filling.



Overall 
So, if you want to eat pretty decent diner food in a more upmarket setting Joe's is a good option. If you want a side of authentic diner atmosphere to go with your meal, well then you might be better off somewhere else. For me it is somewhere I'd be happy to go back to try more of the menu. And btw, hats off to our friendly Californian waitress. 

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

Address
64-66 Akland Street
St Kilda VIC 3182
Tel: (03)9525 3755

Pho Hoang Dakoa, Springvale by Bureaucrat

Ah, Springvale.... having to venture into Springvale sends a shiver through my spine. The Lawyer and I sometimes have a debate over whether Springvale is better or worse than Box Hill. Both suburbs have a glut of Asian shops offering produce at low, low prices, with hordes of shoppers getting road rage as they all compete for the few parking spaces, and both have that certain odour that comes from the questionable hygiene practices by those that make their living hawking said produce. 

As the Lawyer is back in town, I find myself getting roped into a trip to Springsyvale. So with a sigh, I get ready with my bling pastel pink handbag, my matching pink leather loafers and put on my Raybans and prepare myself in having my bourgeois sensibilities challenged. 

Going by the theory that a busy restaurant equates to good food, we chose to eat lunch at Pho Hoang Dakao. There was a near permanent queue at PHD. But as this is a high turnover sort of place, we got a table within minutes. My prejudices of Springvale was confirmed with the very sticky and grimy floor (complete with a chicken bone underneath our table) and the rather impervious manager who dispatched the frazzled waiters to each table to attend to their needs.  Inside it's big and kinda dark... they could certainly do with a few more lights.



The Lawyer ordered the fresh beef and tripe pho. I found the name of this dish rather alarming. It's FRESH beef pho.... does that mean everything else is not fresh? The Lawyer found the pho to be good... not great but not bad. He thought the beef was a tad chewy and dry (dare I say, not fresh?) but it was generous in size.



To drink, the Lawyer got a three colour drink, which like the pho, was good and unremarkable.



I went for the grilled pork and spring roll on vermicelli. This was good and reasonable. The spring rolls were nice and crispy and had a hint of MSG. The pork was a tad chewy and I had expected a little more pork than what was presented. But overall, it was a reasonable effort.

Overall
I'd say PHD is your run-of-the-mill restaurant in Springvale. It's certainly popular and I found to food to be okay. It's cheap and it's quick. I don't have anything against this place (aside from the cleanliness of the place). If there weren't so many other restaurants in Springvale, I'd might even go back.

Verdict
Food - 6.5
Ambience - 5
Service - 6
Price - 9.5

Address
Pho Hoang Dakao
17 Balmoral Ave
Springvale 3171
Telephone: 9558 5996

 

Mamak Corner, Garran (ACT) by Big Fil

It's called Mamak Corner but I wouldn't really classify the food as mamak. It's more Chinese Malaysian or maybe just South East Asian. It seemed modified a bit for western palates too, which is understandable enough given its potential customer base. And so while it probably wouldn't cut the mustard in somewhere ultra competitive like Kuala Lumpur or Penang, given Mamak Corner sits in a non-descript local shopping centre in Garran I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty some of the food was.

First up was the Penang style Char Kway Teoh. The Penang style is definitely my favourite style of CKT. It makes much less use of sauce to impart flavour to the dish and consequently lives or dies by the amount of wok hei (breath of the grill) that a skilful cook is able to impart. This version did have more wok hei than I'd have anticipated, with slight charring to the texture and smokiness to the flavour of the noodles. What prevented it from being a great CKT was that overall the flavour was a little flat. Maybe a few more prawns and sausage or (duck) egg and a little less bean sprouts might have helped in this regard. 

Second dish up was the Seafood Laksa. First the good things about the dish. Lots of calamari, fishcake, fish, tofu, and both Hokkien and Bee Hoon noodles. On the other hand two things mean that I'd probably not order it again. The soup itself didn't grab me: the flavour should be complex from the spices used but this was a bit uninteresting. More importantly it ticked one of my major peeves, the use of seafood sticks. They're not authentic, they aren't even tasty. If you need to bulk up the ingredients I'd much prefer more fish cake or tofu, even nothing at all would have been better. 

Fortunately I was more than mollified by the last and best of the mains, the roti with beef rendang. Surprising too, given it was neither the fluffy roti or dry style of beef rending I prefer. But the roti was nice and crisp and flavoursome and did a good job of soaking up the accompanying sauce. One of the reasons I tend not to like the wet style of rendang is the meat is so often tough but this was beautifully tender. And the sauce itself was creamy and coconutty and very tasty. Just a delicious dish. 

The range of desserts is typically limited at most Malaysian restaurants but Mamak Corner does offer a few options including Ais Kachang. It's a hot weather style dessert, cool and refreshing with shaved ice, palm sugar and ice cream on top. I didn't think the version here stood out as being particularly good or bad, just a pleasant way to end the meal. 

Overall 

It's clean, friendly, tasty and reasonably priced, all things you want your favourite local restaurant to be. Definitely worth a try if you are in the area, and if the roti is any indication of the rest of the dishes may be worth a revisit or two. At the very least, it's just so much better than the hospital cafe I'd otherwise be eating in. 

Verdict 

Food - 7.5 

Ambience - 6.5 

Service - 6.5 

Price - 7
 

Address 

4 Garran Place 

Garran ACT 2605 

Tel: (02) 6281 5830

Little Nyonya, Docklands by Big Fil

A Nyonya is a woman of mixed Chinese and Malay background. As I understand it centuries ago Chinese traders were not allowed to bring their wives from home with them when establishing homes in South East Asia and so often married local women. Their descendents are referred to as Baba or Nyonya depending on whether male or female. They are also sometimes referred to as Peranakan or Straits Chinese. The largest concentrations of Baba Nyonya today can be found in Penang and Melaka in Malaysia, and in Singapore. As well as a unique cultural identity they also have a distinctive cooking style, mixing Chinese ingredients and cooking techniques with local spices, Indonesian and Malay in the south but with more Thai influences in Penang.

The Little Nyonya, as well as being a comparatively recent TV series made in Singapore, is also a restaurant down in the docklands. It’s done up to try to look like an old style Peranakan mansion, all the way to including reproductions of photos of old Melaka street scenes on the walls.

With a large group of us visiting on the night we managed to get through too many dishes to describe in real detail so I’ll focus on the ones I liked the most, or at least can best remember several weeks later. First of all from the entrees the Nyonya hats or pie tee. These are little deep fried baskets that kind of look like upside down top hats and are filled with assorted diced items such as prawns.

Also apparently good was the loh bak, spiced pork wrapped in sheets of bean curd and then deep fried. I had given this a miss because I don’t normally like it but apparently in this case I missed out.

The char kway teoh came with Mmm’s recommendation as the best in Melbourne. I am not sure that I’d go that far, but it did come with plenty of wok hei.

I liked the braised pork leg very much, with its slightly fatty but extremely tender meat. I am not sure it is routinely available though, as I think Mmm chose it off of the specials menu.

Mr Mmms favaourite was the stir fried green beans. I’d have agreed that these were one of the more interesting dishes, served with ikan bilis to give the dish a boost in flavour and some crunch to the texture.



The Beef Rendang was the wetter style version rather than the more dry sauce style which I prefer, but still very tender and tasty. The roti was very good and rumour has it that the butter prawns were as well, although I didn’t get to try them.

Dishes I probably wouldn’t order again include the Assam Fish, which I found sweeter than I’d have preferred, and the salt and pepper tofu, which none of us liked the texture of and found lacking in the flavour department.

To finish off our meal we went for a couple of serves of the ais kachang and cendol. I thought these were two of the better versions of these desserts I have had in Melbourne, sweet and cold and very generous in size so that two serves were enough for eight of us to try.

And finally, the tea tarik is kind of sweet and a little weak, good but more kopitiam than mamak in style.

Overall

I’d have put the food in the fairly good but not outstanding category, good enough that I’d go again in the area but probably not make a special return visit to. The only disappointment is that we didn’t get to try the bak kut teh, a dish that’s hard to find in Melbourne and I think only offered Friday and Saturday nights.

Verdict

Food – 7

Ambience – 7.5

Service – 7.5

Price – 6.5

Address

818 Bourke Street

Docklands VIC3008

Tel: (03) 9640 0237