Weekend antics

Man, Time is just flying by and it is already the middle of September. What have I been doing with myself. I keep myself pretty busy during the week with mundane household chores and the odd lazy hour splurge at my favorite cafe for a Chai (mostly just to get out of the freezing house). Now that the days are warming up, its nice to catch some real sunshine in the blooming neighborhood.

We had a visit from Lindy a few weekends back. It was nice to have some company. We took the opportunity to have a night on the town during Melbourne's Spring Fashion Week. First stop was a brief meal at a new favorite restaurant "Cookie" with friends. Very hip and trendy, right in downtown CBD. Again, its one of those places you need to book in advance (more than a day), but we did end up getting a table for a quick hour. Though we didn't get the chance to leisurely peruse the menu or eat a big meal, we sampled something small and promised to come back again. On recommendation from another food blog that had sparked my original interest in the place, I tried the betel leaves with some spicy chicken filling. Very tasty and the combination of tangy flavors really complemented each other. Its on my list of places to go again to really get the full experience. On this night, it was just nice to feel trendy for once. 

Then we caught a very strange launch party and showcase as part of Melbourne's Spring Fashion Week, and here we learned the true meaning of "low-brow". Poor Lindy, I think we've scarred her for life, with the cross-dressing/male models and their indecent exposure runway show, a wailing 80's band, outlandish low-brow fashions, and underground emo/hipster scene at the event. It was actually very hilarious. A little taste of some Melbourne culture. I'll post more pictures. 

Taste of Melbourne

Whew! What a weekend. We were unusually busy and cultured this weekend taking in a few different events in the City while enjoying the first hints of Spring. Friday night a delightful late night dinner at Hutong Dumpling Bar with our Melbourne friends, fellow expats, Lisa and hubby. I will emphasize how you have to grab a booking quick at this place, which remains one of the top rated restaurants in the city on Urbanspoon, and weekend dinner spots go fast. I was lucky to get a table at 930pm, a bit late for me so we first stopped at Riverland, a picturesque spot for a pint by the Yarra River. And then gobbled down our favorite dumplings - Xao Long Bao - and ate the most amazingly spicy Szechuan Beef, basically a bowl of beef, drowning in chili. I hear Dainty Sechuan in South Yarra is must try for spicy chinese. I'm game!

HuTong Dumpling Bar on Urbanspoon

Saturday we had a strict schedule: First Collingwood vs. Hawthorne at the MCG arena. Only my second time to witness true Australian sporting culture. It was an exciting game, but I just couldn't watch as Hawthorne only just beat Collingwood by three points in the last 10 minutes of the game. You can see by Richard's colors below, that we were rooting for the other guys. Boo.

Then we raced to the Exhibition Centre over in Carlton to catch the Taste of Melbourne event featuring Melbourne Restaurants, foodies, wine tasting, food & alcohol sellers. We opted to attend the Beer and Cheese Matching event, which was worth the $12. My favorite was the King Island Dairy Ash Brie and James Squire Porter Beer, though they are not meant to go together. I think we saw everything there was to see at the event and tried our best to sample every taste available. Though I will comment that the tasting plates at the restaurant stalls were way overpriced and not worth the money, the event is meant to promote those restaurants and not provide an opportunity for them to profit after we already pay a hefty entry fee. We stayed til the very end having sampled the following:

Stokehouse Restaurant, Wagyu Cigars with Artichoke tapenade and horseradish, Yum! (Thanks for the free ones at the end of the night)

Esposito, Oyster tempura - a paltry single oyster, pretty boring. 

I loved the Vanilla Pannacotta with Blood Orange Jelly from Melbourne Wine Room & Mr. Wolf, just the right balance of creaminess, mixture of textures, and tangy orange jelly and raspberries.

Wallaby tataki from Charcoal Lane was nothing to write home about. 

And I don't know why everyone was lining up to try the Palance Wagyu Burger. It was just a $12 mini-burger. Lame. 

There was lots more to try, but we moved onto booze. Australian Wine, Australian/Fiji Rum, Absinthe finally caught a taste of the very fancy Patron Tequila (extremely smooth, I want my own bottle - but maybe from the states where it will definitely be much cheaper), Sagatiba's rum in a tasty Caiparinha. Mix all that together and you end up with a hangover like the one I enjoyed the next day.

Sagatiba Capairinha

Vanilla Pannacotta  and blood orange jelly

Stokehouse bar's Espresso Martini

Mm, Melbourne Wine Room & Mr. Wolf stall

Date nights in chinatown: Hutong Dumpling Bar and Bubble Tea

Hutong Dumpling Bar                               Xiao Long Bao

Chili Wantons

These days we like to venture into the cbd to cheer ourselves up with tasty Asian treats - that I would never be able to make at home. We've found our favorite spots:

Hutong for Dumplings
a little Asian bakery on the corner of Swanston and Little Bourke St for Egg Custard Tarts (Richard's favorite)
and
InfoBooth for the best BUBBLE TEA

We finally we made it to Hutong Dumpling Bar a few weeks ago and we have since gone back a few times. It is absolutely the best for dumplings, specifically the Xiao Long Bao, which we often crave on a dreary, cold rainy day. These are steamed little dumpling sacs filled with a pork/ginger meatball and its delicious/piping hot broth. Dip it in soy + fresh ginger and it warms you to the core. Its like soup wrapped up in the delicate dumpling pastry. Its a bit tricky to eat, you need a few different utensils, chopsticks, soup spoon, dipping bowl. Take one bite, suck out a bit of the broth before eating the whole thing otherwise you'll end up with a scalded mouth as the broth explodes in your mouth all at once. And you have to eat them while they are fresh and hot. Don't eat too many or you will overdose on pork fat.

The chili wontons here are good as well. Wouldn't recommend the noodle soups though, the noodles are a bit like 50C ramen noodle packs. We've learned that we really only need the dumplings and then we make our way to the bakery for custard tarts (best when fresh out of the oven which we've only managed to get once) and then to InfoBooth for Bubble Tea. We eat our way through Chinatown in one night.




BUBBLE TEA! An amazing concept of tea with tapioca balls. It comes in many different flavors with a dollop of tapioca balls that make a warm milky tea so much more fun to drink. I like it because its Non-dairy and non-coffee. We found the best at this shop, its an Asian bookstore/coffee shop (tea shop rather) popular among the large Asian youth population that abounds in this city. I think its called InfoBooth, open late, just next door to Shanghai Village Dumpling. One step inside and you might as well be in Beijing (or hong kong as far as I can tell - Sorry). First time there, I just asked for "the good one" (milky and warm) which turns out to be oat milk fume tea with pearls. They use this cool machine to laminate a plastic film onto the top that securely seals the hot drink until it's punctured by the wide straw, wide enough to fit the tapioca pearls through. This drink is perfect in this cold miserable weather. Last Saturday, craving our cozy beverage, we were disappointed to find them out of the bubbles, so we ended up wandering around looking for another place. But InfoBooth is the best. And thats enough about Bubble tea.

Street art down a dark alley

Came across these while out in Chinatown for Chinese New Year. In Croft Alley to be specific. Pretty cool eh? I love the integration of really good graffiti artists into everyday urban life. And I must say that alleyways fascinate me, having grown up in the country these were never encountered, and they are actually pretty rare in the likes of DC or New York despite contrary depictions in movies. I am surprised to see so many in Melbourne cause it seems like such a waste of space in this town where real-estate is sky high.

Chinese new year photos

Happy Chinese New Year - Bringing in the year of the Tiger

It was also Chinese new year over the weekend. We needed to get out of the house on Saturday so we decided to spend our going-out fund the night before Valentines on something I've been craving for a long time. I've actually been dying to try Hu Tong Dumpling bar that everyone has been raving about, but they were only offering a $100 pp special New Years Banquet which was a little too much for us. So we settled on a more budget option just for an experience, at a recommended place on Urbanspoon. Shanghai Village Dumpling in the middle of Chinatown.

The place is nothing special, a quick chinese food causal hangout offering gobs of the same ole dumplings any way you like - steamed, fried, soupy - at cheap prices. We were definitely not complaining, I was commenting on how the simple concept is not common in the States, and it should be. Its would be so easy and so cheap. (I'm sure there are places like this in the States and I have just been too sheltered until now. Tell me where they are.) Lots of people seem to frequent the place before a night out, which is a great idea. They also have main courses of popular chinese food, but I have never had success deciphering the menu - being accustomed to American version of Chinese. Never heard of a General Tsao here. I was hoping for Spicy chicken in a brown sauce and instead got fried, crunchy dry chicken and rice - (no sauce). Still good though. And we ended up with way too much dumpling in our faces so we took the rest home. Photos are post dive-in with a fucked camera phone (I couldn't figure out how to un-zoom the touch screen til later on in the night - Its a 3 finger tap guys).

Caught the dragon blessing all the restaurants along the street and got some video that I can upload later. Firecrackers, and parade. Far from a New Orleans Mardi Gras (Which I am sorely missing by the way), but we were entertained for the night.  

Friday night out at BOIRE, before Avatar

Friday night we did something interesting and actually went out on the town on a date, pre-planned with tickets and everything. Richard has been dying to see Avatar in 3D and the show has been sold out every week at the Imax, so I booked a week in advance and planned to catch a scrumptious dinner beforehand someplace new in the neighboring area. With our "Good Food Guide 2010" in hand we ventured out to Fitzroy (after spending two hours in front of the mirror wondering what to wear). After much deliberating we ended up at BOIRE, a little bohemian french-type bistro/wine-bar on the edge of Collingwood and Fitzroy that promised a new eating experience. No reservations are taken, apparently there is no phone, and no extensive menu to choose from. All options are listed daily on the wall - only French wines are served, 2 mains are offered in addition to a small selection of entrees and desserts. Prices were very reasonable (except for the $3 boiled egg entree) so Richard and I could easily afford a 3-course meal of rustic french fare for around $100 (including my 2 $12 glasses of red wine - we just bought a bottle of organic shiraz for the price of 1 glass of the french import). But I guess its all about the experience which was decidedly very tasty. Richard ordered mini cheese fingers followed by the free-range chicken main. I got the pate entree and a hearty Provencale Vegetable stew in Pistou sauce, very yum, to go along with my flowery/rosy pinot noir. We ended with delightfully authentic Profiteroles and a light rhubarb jelly. I loved how all the ingredients were carefully selected as free-range, organic, or from a specific region. The atmosphere was basic with few tables and the napkins dispensed from wall mounts, but also classy with vintage glass lamps hanging from the ceiling and simple/clean line furniture. I liked how the centre of the round tables could be removed to make space for a recessed wine bottle storage and cooler. Little touches make all the difference, we will definitely eat there again.


Avatar was awesome. Very visually stimulating. The 3D experience was intense. Story line very relevant to today's climate change issues and I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Total thumbs up from us. And a successful date night in our new city.