How often do you think ‘Must go to Bayswater to get something to eat’? Never, right? Well that could be a bit of a mistake, as there a definitely a few places in the area that are definitely worth checking out. One of those is Foodtopia.
Foodtopia provides a mix of Thai, Malaysia and Indonesian dishes, courtesy of a Thai and an Indonesian chef.
Staff are very friendly and willing to help, to the extent of opening specially for us when Ms Mmmm tried to make a Saturday booking, not realising that they weren’t planning to open that day.
Fortunately though there were a number of walk-ins, otherwise we would have been left feeling pretty guilty.
Having a much larger group than normal meant that we were able to try a wide range of the dishes on offer. First dish up was the satay chicken skewers. Well cooked with a nice peanut sauce, a bit lacking in that nice smoky flavour but still pretty good.
Ms Mmmm and family decided on a few dishes to share, including the Chef Special Chilli Fish. This looked impressive, really impressive, when it reached the table. A generous quantity of fried fish served with colourful vegetables with a bit of tang from the sauce, looked superb and tasted pretty good too.
The other dish chosen for sharing was the Thai beef salad. Again a colourful dish, the beef showing just a touch of pink and enough chilli to make its presence felt without being mouth burningly hot, just a nice dish.
For those of us who chose separate dishes, Snooze went with the Indonesian style Murtabak. A fried egg and meat filled pastry, what stood out about this version was it’s unusual green colour, complements of generous amounts of spring onion.
My choice was the seafood laksa. This was quite different to your more common curry laksa, and closer to my preferred Nyonta laksa or laksa lemak, with a smoother, richer soup base. On the plus side two types of noodles in the soup, on the down side could have used more seafood.
While I didn’t to try them, others were complementary about their hor fun (a flat rice noodle dish with an egg based sauce)...
...the green curry fried rice...
...and the spring rolls.
By this stage most were looking for desserts, with the three options chosen water chestnut and jackfruit coconut milk...
...banana fritters and an iced durian shake. While I didn’t try either of the first two there were certainly no complaints or indeed any left over.
The durian shake I did try and while the odour was quite restrained (we speculated something to do with it being a frozen type of shake) it still had that distinct rich, creamy durian flavour.
Overall
Very friendly service and most impressed by their being willing to open specially for us, let down just a touch by lack of coordination on when the dishes came out. Not such an issue if we were sharing dishes but more so for those who ordered individual meals. Set up is nice and the food is good and well priced. Bit of a hidden gem really.
Verdict
Food – 8
Ambience – 7.5
Service – 8
Price – 7.5
Address
741 Mountain Highway
Bayswater VIC 3153
Tel: (03) 8288 1618
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