food Archives - Page 12 of 29 - The Wifey's Corner

October 29, 2016

Kobe Jones Riverside Teppanyaki, Melbourne

We did the 13-course Spring Renewal Degustation at Kobe Jones finally. Have been wanting to do that for a while now and went for it while we were at Melbourne. You’d ask why do a Kobe Jones degustation at Melbourne while we also have Kobe Jones at Sydney. Well, we were looking for something special for our anniversary dinner and remembered I still had that Best Restaurant gift card which is expiring really soon. Then hubby said why don’t we go to Kobe Jones, something we have already been want to do. And as it happens our anniversary was while we were at Melbourne, hence the Riverside Melbourne branch.

Booking was easy enough through their website or phone them. We booked for 6pm thinking we’d have lots of spare time after dinner to catch the Melbourne Star ferris wheel ride. Obviously 6 pm is early for dinner, the restaurant was pretty much empty when we got there. The restaurant is made up of two sections, a larger section (our guess is the main section) consists of their kitchen and teppanyaki style seating; then on a separate smaller section is the sleek riverside seating area for Kobe Jones dining.

One of the great thing about degustation is that we don’t need to make any decisions, no fuss over which menu to order etc. And on top of that, you’ll get to taste a little bit of many dishes, excellent! The original Spring Revival degustation is a 12-course, but we upgraded to include their famous lobster and glass of champagne. Without further ado, let’s get into our courses of the night:

kobe-jones14 — Glass of Möet & Chandon Brut Impérial NV

Number One Special - crab salad with avocado wrapped in Hiramasa kingfish and nori, baked in a secret sauce and topped with bittersweet soy glaze — Number One Special – crab salad with avocado wrapped in Hiramasa kingfish and nori, baked in a secret sauce and topped with bittersweet soy glaze. This tasted soooooo good…. My second favorite of all dishes that night.

Crab croquette - creamy crab and corn croquettes shallow-fried in soybean oil with jalapeno salsa and tonkatsu sauce — Crab croquette – creamy crab and corn croquettes shallow-fried in soybean oil with jalapeno salsa and tonkatsu sauce. Love the crispy outside and creamy inside texture, not oily at all.

Wagyu Tataki - seared, chilled and topped with bush herbs and soy onion dressing — Wagyu Tataki – seared, chilled and topped with bush herbs and soy onion dressing. The wagyu are tender with delicate seasoning, a very refreshing dish.

Dragon Egg - tuna tartare sushi mixed with chipotle mayonnaise on a shiso leaf, topped with avocado and finished with ponzu sauce — Dragon Egg – tuna tartare sushi mixed with chipotle mayonnaise on a shiso leaf, topped with avocado and finished with ponzu sauce. This is hubby’s favorite dish of the night, actually this picture really didn’t do justice of the taste. It is very delicious.

Volcano Roll - oven-baked scallops layered on a crab salad avocado roll with special cream sauce and sesame seed and shallot sprinkle — Volcano Roll – oven-baked scallops layered on a crab salad avocado roll with special cream sauce and sesame seed and shallot sprinkle. Another pretty dish, but also delicately delicious!

Somen and tofu salad - somen noodles and crispy tofu with mixed leaves and soy dressing — Somen and tofu salad – somen noodles and crispy tofu with mixed leaves and soy dressing. Love the dressings and those crispy tofu. Up to this point, I started feeling full and yet we were only half way through.

Kobe’s Miso Soup - housemade dashi with a blend of red and white miso to create the perfect umami flavour — Kobe’s Miso Soup – house made dashi with a blend of red and white miso to create the perfect umami flavour. We love that the miso soup is very well seasoned, not too salty as you might find it in many places.

Whiting Slyder - tempura sand whiting served in a brioche bun with shredded cabbage, mayonnaise, Japanese pickle and egg — Whiting Slider – tempura sand whiting served in a brioche bun with shredded cabbage, mayonnaise, Japanese pickle and egg. Honestly, I’d prefer to have it without the brioche 🙂

Yakitori - robata-grilled skewers of marinated chicken with baby leeks and teriyaki sauce — Yakitori – robata-grilled skewers of marinated chicken with baby leeks and teriyaki sauce. This is probably our least favorite dish, we both found it too bland and not enough sauce or not marinated enough. But, the chicken is well cooked and succulent.

Wagyu hot rock - self-cook your own wagyu sirloin AA5+ just the way you like it, with dipping sauces — Wagyu hot rock – self-cook your own wagyu sirloin AA5+ just the way you like it, with dipping sauces. This dish is a bit of fun dish where they were delivered raw sitting on top of the hot rock and you can cook them to your liking. Probably we left ours a tad too long, hence slightly chewy beef.

Miso Citrus Lobster Tail - baby lobster tail lightly cooked in a wafu thermidor sauce, drizzled with miso citrus sauce and served on a bed of steamed vegetables — Miso Citrus Lobster Tail – baby lobster tail lightly cooked in a wafu thermidor sauce, drizzled with miso citrus sauce and served on a bed of steamed vegetables. My favorite dish for the night! I love everything about this dish, yummy lobster tail with yummy sauce.

Flaming Anko - green tea crème brûlée with red bean served flaming to the table for a caramelised finish — Flaming Anko – green tea crème brûlée with red bean served flaming to the table for a caramelised finish. Now this one is definitely theatrical, it is served flaming – we were too amazed to take pictures and by the time we remembered, the flame has gone. This dessert is a great way to close the degustation, very creamy and has the earthy matcha flavour, not overly sweet. I would have eaten a lot of this, had I not been too full.

It was a superb experience for us, we enjoyed almost every single dish they have. And don’t be fooled by the size of each course. We left with super full and heavy stomach ლ(´ڡ`ლ) For me, I was already so full after course 8 and for the rest I just tasted a little, except the lobster tail. It is evident that they have used fresh and good quality of produce, not to mention the beautiful plating up. Definitely give this a try if you are into Japanese fusion meal, and lobster upgrade is absolutely a must!

Kobe Jones Riverside Teppanyaki

G16/18-38 Siddeley St, Docklands VIC 3005

(03) 9329 9173

kobejones.com.au

October 27, 2016September 16, 2023

Dukes Coffee Roasters and Doughboys Doughnuts Melbourne

There are many parks near by Melbourne CBD, isn’t it? There are several I wanted to go to, but today we decided to walk over to Southbank to The Royal Botanic Gardens. Thank goodness it was a fine day, clear blue sky and breezy – perfect weather for strolling! Let these photos tell the rest of the story 🙂 By the way, here is the link to lists of parks in CBD which I find very handy.

On the way back, we stopped at Dukes Coffee Roasters for a quick afternoon caffeine fix. We had a takeaway skim flat white again, but I feel the coffee tasted too bitter for my liking, it’s a strong hit on the tongue. A truly wake up punch 🙂

And to balance out the bitter coffee, we also stopped by Doughboys Doughnuts 😛 We seems to eat a lot on this trip and still barely enough to try all the places on my to-go-list! Probably because we came after 3 pm, there were not many doughnuts to choose from – might be all sold out for the day. These doughnuts are more of your typical doughnuts texture wise, with interesting flavor combinations and fillings. In that sense, they are different to ones at Shortstop. We both tend to prefer the Shortstop donuts better than ones here.

Mint Slice – we definitely prefer this one over the Matcha Pop ? Too busy eating that we forgot to take picture of the doughnut with cream filling.

Matcha Pop - We ordered this thinking it will pack with matcha flavours. Unfortunately, the filling turned out to be berry flavoured custard cream with couple pieces of lightly-matcha-coated popcorns toppings — Matcha Pop – We ordered this thinking it will pack with matcha flavours. Unfortunately, the filling turned out to be berry flavoured custard cream with couple pieces of lightly-matcha-coated popcorns toppings

Duke Coffee Roasters

247 Flinders Ln, Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: 03 9417 5578

www.dukescoffee.com.au

Doughboys Doughnuts

535 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC 3000

www.doughboysdoughnuts.com.au

October 16, 2016December 25, 2022

The Grand Trailer Park Taverna, Melbourne

We were dropped back in Collins St after the Yarra Valley winery tour around 5-ish and decided to walk around while deciding where to have dinner. Hubby had been wanting to have burger and so the final decision was to go to Grand Trailer Park Taverna. It is close by and we read many positive reviews of the place before, sounds like a good choice, right? The weather was miserably cold and windy, plus I was truly in need of greasy food after all those wine 😛

grand-trailer-park-taverna1 — The front door and staircases leading to seating area, ain’t that cool?

Honestly, I was a little skeptical when looking at the front door. It looks cool but at the same time reminds me of old style pubs where people got drunk 😛 Then I looked up on the ceiling and saw all that fairy lights and it made me feel better about this place.

grand-trailer-park-taverna3 — One side felt more retro, while the other side has a more rustic old barn feels (in my opinion) 🙂

Maybe because we came in a little too early, it was not busy at all when we got in. But by the time we started eating, we can see more people came in and seats were filling up soon.

Hubby decided to have Francis Underwood with a beer, while I opted for the Atomic and we had a large beer battered chips to share.

grand-trailer-park-taverna4 — Francis Underwood Burger and Beer Battered Chips

grand-trailer-park-taverna5 — Atomic Burger

grand-trailer-park-taverna6 — The beer with our table number …

I like the Atomic burger, very flavorsome and tasty. Beer battered chips was also very nice, crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Hubby thought his burger was super delicious and that creamy cheese macaroni croquettes was a bomb. Although he reckons that next time we go there, he wanted to have a burger, chips, and cheese macaroni croquettes by itself.

Definitely a place that we will go back to next time we are in town! I’d love to try their shakes with alcohol, they sound really interesting with unique flavor combination.

The Grand Trailer Park Taverna

87 Bourke St, Melbourne VIC, 3000

Phone: (03) 9972 3699

Email: info@grandtrailerpark.com.au

http://www.grandtrailerpark.com.au/

October 9, 2016

Yarra Valley Wine Tasting Tour

October 3, 2016October 2, 2016

Hakata Gensuke Ramen Professional, Melbourne

It had been raining on and off and windy since we arrived at Melbourne that day, actually the weather was also like that in Sydney as we left. And such weather usually calls for hearty meals right? As for us, we chose ramen and there is one in CBD that I have recommended to, Hakata Gensuke Ramen Professional. There are also plenty of positive reviews on the web, so hubby was really keen to try.

We walked through the little lanes from City Tempo, passed china town towards Russell St. There are so many temptations (read: other restaurants) on the way that we have to keep remind ourselves that we want Hakata Gensu ramen (ง’̀-‘́)ง

We arrived at the restaurant around 5.15 pm thinking that we might be their first customers since they will only be serving dinner 15 minutes ago. But voila, the restaurant was near full! Alright, that was not expected, but nonetheless a good sign.

The friendly waitress prompted us to our seats, left us a menu and two sheets of forms to fill in our order. On the form, you can choose which broth you’d like, texture of the noodle, how strong the taste, with our without spring onions, and any additional toppings needed.

Our food came not long after the waitress collected our forms. The ramen appeared similar to other ramen we have elsewhere, minus the egg (as we didn’t opt for extra topping). Don’t let the appearance fooled you, it tasted really good! The broth is delicious, not too salty or heavily seasoned with MSG. We have never been to
Japan, but I’d like to think this is how the real ramen tastes like 🙂 We also shared a plate of gyoza, which tastes just as fabulous.

It is most certainly not the cheapest ramen around and they don’t even come with egg (like most others do). But, we think it totally worth the hypes – very hearty and delicious broth. We both would absolutely love to come back here next time we are in town!

Hakata Gensuke Melbourne CBD

168 Russell Street, Melbourne 3000 VIC

(03) 9663 6342

info@gensuke.com.au