Oriental Spoon

Went to Oriental Spoon with the gang last Saturday after an afternoon of hardcore karaoke-ing! :D This is more of a picture post than an actual review post, by the way. Oriental Spoon is one of our favourite places so yes, we do like the food, mostly. :) A bit pricey for dinner though - lunch was more value for money.

First off, the obligatory appetizer picture! Sorry, a bit senget (crooked) but the best one out of ye olde camera.

Taugeh (beansprouts) should, as usual, be shot, buried and dug up again to be hung.

Me, Sis and San ordered two dishes to share since we weren't very hungry. We had the Seafood Soft Tofu Jigae ($16.50) and Beef Bulgogi ($15.90).

No seafood under it either...need magnifying glass to see

Bulgogi LOOOOOVE.

Love the beef bulgogi - in fact all bugolgi are my favourite in the Korean cuisine. The seafood jigae was spicy and rich and the tofu yummy, but sadly? There was hardly any seafood save for a few teeny prawns and bits of squid. A bit disappointed - have never really tried this before so I don't know are they usually this kiamsiap (stingy) with their seafood or we just got unlucky.

CC and Turtle ordered a Seafood Jeon ($9.50) to share - one of our favourites, a kind of seafood/spring onion pancake that is really yummy. I would've had it if I wasn't sort of full to begin with.

Yummy pancake!

For her main, CC ordered Den Jang Jigae ($13.50), which was also some seafood thing, I think.

A bit blurry because it was all smoky and steamy when I took it.

Nope, not much seafood for hers either! My conclusion was that they were running out of seafood at 930PM at night. Oh well. That had better be the reason for our meagre seafood anyway.

Turtle had the Stone Bowl (Beef) Bibimbop ($15.90).

Looks appetizing eh?

He finished everything.

Mad had the same thing as Turtle, but in chicken - Stone Bowl Chicken Bibimbop ($15.90).

No difference except for the chicken who kicked the beef.

The bibimbop sauce came separately so you can choose how spicy you want your dish. And no, I have no idea what bibimbop really means - rice in bowl with meat and eggs?! (Okay, that was just lame)

Worth checking out, this place - but I would recommend you start off with the lunch menu, unless you're prepared to splurge for dinner. :) The Korean Barbecue actually looked REALLY good.

- Mouse

P.S. - Picture credits to my dear sister MM - who took almost all the pictures here. :)

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Oriental Spoon
254 Latrobe Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9654 9930

White Tomato

Am back in Melbourne!

Went for Korean food with Mad, San and my sister after Phantom of The Opera last Thursday! (For those in Melbourne who have yet to see the production - I say go go go go go because it's beautiful and marvelous and Anthony Warlow sdfksldfjlsd) We didn't have dinner prior to the show and when we finished, it was already pretty late so there were limited choices as to where we could grab a bite. Walking down Bourke Street, we saw that White Tomato was open so we popped in, abandoning our original plan of the much further away Supper Inn.

We ordered three dishes to share among us. And first up is the obligatory and traditional kimchi!

Kimchi ~

I'm not a mega fan of kimchi, so I'll leave it at that. The one in the middle - pickled seaweed - was pretty good.

Nice, red and spicy hot!

The seafood hot-pot with tofu was nice and hot on a very cold night - there were lots of tofu and enough prawns for everyone. My only complaint would be that there were only prawns and octopus - not nearly enough seafood for a self-proclaimed seafood hot-pot. But the sauce admittedly was nice and thick - Sis really enjoyed it.

Beeeefy.

My favourite would be the Beef Bulgogi. It was wonderful - stir-fried to just the right amount of tenderness and sliced very thinly, so it was a nice mouthful of tasty tender beef. The sauce was pretty well-done, too.

Rice with kimchi bits.

The Kimchi fried rice was a little unusual. At my first bite it was good unusual but towards the end it became only okay unusual when the sauce got a little hot and salty. :P I liked how they fried it with seaweed, that was pretty new to me. Overall a good dish, but a tad too much salt I feel.

Would go back there again to try some other dishes! I do like the feel and atmosphere of the place.

I forgot the exact address for White Tomato and can't seem to find it online, so if anyone can point it out to me, that'll be great. FYI, it is on Bourke Street, nearer to the end of Russell Street intersection, near the National Bank branch on Bourke-Russell. :)

- Mouse

Kimchi Grandma BBQ

On Tuesday nite, after a discussion meet at MM's place, me, MM and HW were starving since it was already around 9.30pm and we haven't had our dinner! Hence, Kimchi Grandma was opted since it wasn't too far from MM's place. This is my first time there and HW as well.

Kimchi, it's free and can be refilled as many time as u like

Kimchi were served a little short while after we arrived. There were all pretty good, just that the seaweeds were too sour.

Tofu Twi-Gim (Deep fried bean curd simmered with grandma's light sauce and bonito flakes), $9.50

We ordered this entree to share. Its very nice. The tofu skin is a little crispy and inside the tofu is very soft. Also, the sauce add more flavours to the dish yet did not overpower the tofu.

Bi-Bim-Bab (Stir fried beef, mixed vegetables and fried egg on rice served with miso soup), $14.90

This is HW's dinner. For the chilli sauce on the left, he just pour it all into his bowl and i didn't hear him complain that it was very hot, so i guess the spicyness is just right then =)

Dae-Ji-Bul-Go-Gi (spicy), $17.90

This was what I ordered on that nite and it was grilled pork scotch-fillet marinated in grandma homemade spicy Go-Gi sauce. Although its name got the spicy word, don't worry, I personally don't feel it was very spicy. Its pretty mild. Probably the word is just to warn people that can't really take the heat.

This dish came with the stone bowl. You can touch it though as it is warm (but still remember to becareful) and NOT BOILING HOT like those stones for grilling at Ishiya Japanese Stonegrill Restaurant. I did enjoy this dish as the sauce is quite tasty and the porks are tender.

Bul-Go-Gi (Beef BBQ), $17.90

MM ordered beef bulgogi. Similar to mine, both of our orders got bean sprouts in it, just that her is beef instead of pork. As you can c in the picture, the sauce is still simmering a little bit when it came, so becareful. The beef are very tender as well, as I tried it, and its fairly good as a whole.

I did enjoy the dinner as the food was quite good, the staff were attentive and the environment was very much comfortable. However, for the bulgogi, I feel Oriental Spoon (Korean Restaurant at LaTrobe St.) did a better job whether is on the size of the dish (ie amount of the pork/beef served), the food itself (OS's bulgogi sauce is more concentrated and more spicy) or the price (slightly cheaper).

or Kimchi Grandma got other v good specialties that we've missed and should have ordered? If you know, pls drop a note. Thanks!

San


Kimchi Grandma BBQ
143-145 Bourke St
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 96500384
Fax: (03) 96500394

Kimchi Korean Restaurant (in Penang, Malaysia)

In the next three weeks, there will be a special section to IronEaters: Penang food!! Yes, yours truly is back in the Paradise of Food (which is also where she comes from) for three weeks and plans to gorge on all the yummies of her hometown. :D Except (I will be kicked severely for this) I am not much of a hawker food person and because of health reasons, I am trying to cut down on hawker food. However, the obligatory Char Koay Teow post WILL BE up when I get to my favourite stall. And a few select favourite Mouse hawker dishes. ^~

FYI, Penang is a state in Malaysia.

The first Penang post is going to feature Kimchi, a Korean restaurant near to my house (please don't ask me for the address, I was an idiot and forgot to take the business card - but I'll edit this post once I find out). I went there for lunch with my mother and aunt today.

Our lunch - consisting of the usual Korean appetizers (I know there's a name for them but I don't know whaaat), a main dish, a drink and a dessert, cost RM12 per person, which divides out to be roughly AUD$4.

There's the blatant $$$ reason why I love Penang so damn much. Hahahahha.

Anyway, there were a selection of 6 appetizers to choose from.

Freeeeee. :D

From top left, the first one was a kind of bean in sauce, which was quite ok. The next one was of course the kimichi in which it nearly burnt off my tongue. After that was the sesame bamboo-shoot thingy, which was my second favourite of the lot. And then to the bottom of it, the asparagus, which was my FAVOURITE. It was so yummy and tasty and so yay! ^~ The one to the right of it is an omlette thing which was quite ordinary (but good ordinary), and the last one was a spicy radish-veggie thing.

I had the Don-Gas, which was Korean-style pork cutlet.

The rice served looked little - but I didn't finish it even.

It was a pretty ordinary cutlet in my opinion, but the sauce was pretty special. It was a sort of spicy-sweet sauce that was quite different to what I have tasted before, and it went very well with the pork cutlet. One thing about the cutlet was it was skinless, so there were no fatty bits, which was yay-ness for me.

Mum had the Kong Guksu, Korean noodles in cold soya bean soup.

So pretty and white.

We've never even heard of or tried it before, so Mum decided to be adventurous and try that. And WOW. It was so amazingly specially good!! First off, the noodles came with a small portion of salt - so you could season it however salty you want it to be. The soya bean broth was REAL soya bean, non of the watery stuff. It was so rich and thick that we could actually taste the bean bits in the broth. And the Korean noodles were tops. They were thin and springy to the bite, so so good. There was practically no oil at all, which made Mum a very happy Mum.

My aunt decided on the Janchi Guksu, Korean-style noodles in broth. It was a very light and sweet soup, accompanied with the same yummy noodles and lots of veggies. She certainly loved it!

It was actually all smoky from hot steam; I had to photoshop this. x.x

For dessert, it was some lavender-ginger concoction (not sure what it exactly was) which was quite nice but took a little getting used to. :D

Definitely going back there again! The ambiance was nice and the staff was friendly - it was run by a young-ish Korean couple. After 5 years in Melbourne - I thought that was supremely cheap but my aunt didn't really agree, even if she liked the food. :D The prices were definitely WAY BEYOND CHEAP compared to Melbourne - but an average price for Penang, I guess.

Address coming soon, I hope.

- Mouse

Kimchi Friends

On the past Monday, I went to Holmes to meet my fren, JW. Initially, we thought of going to Nyonya Hut for lunch as JW told me that she feels the char kuey teow there is the best she has had so far, plus i also have heard about it serving good Malaysia food there...Hence, I must go. Haha. However, just before we going to meet, JW found out that Nyonya Hut is not opened on Monday! *sob* Therefore, she brought me to Kimchi Friends Restaurant instead =)

Kimchi Friends is a Korean restaurant situated at Holmes (opposite Homes college). Its a small Korean restaurant but serve decent Korean food at economical price.

These were what we had for lunch that day:

Pork Bul Go Gi , $8.50

I've ordered pork bul go gi, which is thinly sliced pork being stir fried with chilli and onions. The pork came with a bowl of rice, miso soup, and 3 side dishes (kimchi) ~ cabbage, bean sprouts and fish cakes. It was delicious. The pork was well marinated and the spiciness was just nice. Also, the amount of pork served was very generous.

Chicken Twi Kim, $8.00

JW ordered the above. Again, it came with rice, miso soup and 3 side dishes. The chicken is crumbed and being deep fried.

At Kimchi Friends, they provide free flow of tea ( has the rice cracker taste ) and its self-served. However, if you prefer other drinks, they do sell a range of different beverages. At the end of my meal, I just feel contented as the food is good and its cheap.

After lunch, JW brought me to Glen Waverley to buy bubble tea as she thinks Happy Cup's are pretty good.

Mango Milk Tea, $3.80

I got myself a mango milk tea. The milk tea is $3.30 and the pearls is $0.50 = $3.80. WOW. How expensive! Although i love the pearls as they were soft n chewy, its overpriced.

Anyway, I was happy to do some catching-up and thanks JW, for bringing me to Kimchi Friends and Happy Cup =D

San

Kimchi Friends
631 Warragal Road
Chadstone 3148
Vic