Paperboy Kitchen restaurant review

There are so many Vietnamese restaurants in Melbourne CBD. However, this hasn't stopped new Vietnamese restaurants from popping up. It's good for the consumers though as we have more options when it comes to Vietnamese food.

Well, Paperboy Kitchen is one of the new Vietnamese restaurants that started operating earlier this year. It's a modern Vietnamese restaurant selling bread rolls (banh mi) and rice noodles bowls. The setup of the restaurant is very much like a cafe where you can grab a quick meal for lunch. It's worth mentioning that Paperboy Kitchen only opens for lunch from 11:30am-3pm on weekdays. I have been ordering take away now and then from Paperboy Kitchen during my lunch break.    

Paperboy Kitchen's menu is very simple. First, you choose either bread roll or rice noodles bowls. After that, you decide on the the fillings. There are BBQ chicken, spicy BBQ pork, satay tofu, pano fish and pulled lamb to choose from. I kind of like this concept as I don't need to spend too much time in deciding on what to eat.

I had BBQ chicken roll on my very first visit. The bread roll came with some spicy popcorn on the side which was quite interesting. Apparently, all the meals are served with a small plate of spicy popcorn if you're to dine at the restaurant. The BBQ chicken was very tasty. Together with the Asian slaw, carrot-daikon pickles, sriracha-mayo and coriander, it makes a perfect bread roll. To me, this is one of the best Vietnamese bread roll or banh mi I have had so far. Not too mention the portion is huge!

On my recent visit, I tried rice noodles bowl with BBQ chicken and topped with a free range egg. The BBQ chicken was as tasty as before. The rice noodles together with the veggies and its salad dressing and sriracha-mayo made it a very refreshing and light meal as compared to the bread roll. Oh, by the way, the free range egg was lightly fried with the white that was just set and a soft runny yolk which is exactly the kind of egg I love to eat.

Overall, Paperboy Kitchen is a good choice for lunch on a busy work day. I'm glad that my office is nearby which means there are more opportunities to try other meals in the future.

Mama's Buoi (Melbourne) restaurant review

Mama's Buoi is a new modern Vietnamese restaurant situated at GPO where Ramen Ya was formerly located. It's owned by the business owners of Roll'd to offer home-cooked style Vietnamese cuisine. So we decided to give it a try after our shopping at H&M.

The design of the restaurant is quite unique. It has the old style hawker street look and yet stylish. The food offered on the menu is quite different from the usual Vietnamese fare. It has more Vietnamese dishes instead of the usual pho and rice paper rolls.

At the end, we decided on a curry chicken with banh mi (Vietnamese baguette), grilled pork vermicelli salad and a small beef pho to share. The small beef pho is only $7. It's good for small eaters. Unfortunately, I'm not one.

We were quite impressed with the curry chicken. It has all the right flavours. Besides that, the curry sauce wasn't too thick, so it went pretty well with the baguette/bread. It's like having baguette with soup. Furthermore, there was a generous serving of ingredients.

I especially like the grilled pork salad. The pork was tender and the light dressing together with the fresh greens and vermicelli was so refreshing.

We are actually not a fan of pho, but we found that the beef pho was not bad.

Overall, the food was good and the service was extremely good. Thanks to the waiter for constantly refilling my glass with water without asking after the first refill. I'm just one thirsty person when it comes to dining. ;)