Category Archives: eatie-foodies dining out

south side sprawl – rampant consumerism

fish

I take a good while to make a decision to purchase expensive items. I labour over the decision in my head; I weigh up the pros and cons. Usually the pros amount to “I want this new piece of shiny and it’d make me feel happy” and the cons “fleeting happiness is not edible and will not provide sustenance in the absence of food”.

The ‘pro’ argument tends to get louder the longer I obsess. But let’s be honest, I eat too much as it is! What’s a little self-inflicted starvation for the sake of a new shiny?

My latest internal ‘struggle’ was over the purchase of a new fancy-pants lens. I had tortured Gem with insentient talk of the damned thing for months. She was a good sport about the whole thing — she managed to constrain her homicidal mutterings to sleep talk. Well that, and there may have been a few failed smothering attempts. But I digress.

Finally, I gave in and I purchased the beauty.

Then I waited for it to arrive.

And waited.

And. Waited.

Then, after many a passive-aggressive tête-à-tête between myself and the retailer, the lens arrived! To celebrate, a South Side Sprawl was in order. You, the reader, I hope, rejoices.

After scouting Urbanspoon and reading Jeroxie’s review, Claypots Evening Star was decided upon. After some initial confusion in regards to the location due to gross enduncedness on my part, I found the restaurant. I was playing hookie from work and Melbourne was less of a petulant shit than normal, allowing the sun to make an appearance.

the bar

After attracting a glass of Gilgamesh riesling ($7 a glass) I took in the ohm-bee-ants of the place. Mr Dylan’s spastic harmonica was blaring from the loudspeakers and  the aforementioned ‘skylight of the Gods’ was providing  a good view of the kitchen. The kitchen bisects the restaurant and gives diners a view of the urgency in the kitchen and the madness of a busy service. A nice touch.

cooking working hard for the money

After responsibly imbibing inhaling my initial riesling and ordering another, Bob Dylan was replaced by a piano player. A lovely lunch time treat that’s repeated on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. In addition to piano, diners can except one side of the restaurant to be closed off, allowing a band to play and an ad-hoc dance floor to function.



piano

After my brief but intoxicating relaxation period, I resumed my delicious mission, deciding on the garlic clams and bread and fish. I had arrived along with the lunch time rush. Judging by the frantic and often raised voices emanating from the kitchen, I think they may still be finding their collective stride. As such, my food took longer than I would have expected, but it was a lovely day and the wine was doing the trick.

chilli clamschilli clamschilli clams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above show the clams in various states of undress. They were wonderful, with a lovely chilli kick and chargrilled smokiness balanced by the freshness of the coriander. Unfortunately the one piece of bread was not nearly enough to mop up the broth, with the delicious concoction seemingly taunting me from the bottom of the bowl. At $12 it was a generous serving size, and it has me in the mood for more clams. Speaking of clams, the clam chowder seemed to be a crowd favourite amongst fellow diners.

bread and fish

While I could have quite happily stopped at the garlic clams, I’m glad I had the bread and fish. Throughout my childhood I was tortured with my mother’s overcooked trevally. Fortunately for me her sadistic streak rarely surfaced. Even so, I was sufficiently scarred that I avoided the aforementioned fish, errantly assuming the fish to be bland, rather than blaming its heavy-handed preparation.

Fortunately this was nothing like the trevally of my childhood — meaty and perfectly seasoned, it was the star of the dish. The bread was fairy floss fluffy with the onion and lettuce providing a nice textural contrast, if not a lot flavourwise.

fish

 

tapas

One side of the kitchen is skirted by display cases showing the day’s fish and tapas offerings. You really get the impression of the seafood being super fresh, almost like you’re sourcing the fish direct from the a fishmonger. Unsurprising given the restaurant’s location in the South Melbourne market.

Lunch was finished and I had to vacate with new camera lens in hand. I was slightly rueful that I had dined solo. Unfortunately I didn’t have the extra dining companions required to (shamelessly) indulge in further gluttony. Next time I won’t make the same mistake.

 

Claypots Evening Star on Urbanspoon

not the one in Chinatown!

I know, I know, Camy Shanghai Dumpling House in Chinatown is gross. When I say gross, I mean I’ve seen things there that have made me and fellow diners want to puke. Still I ate there countless times after and the only reason I stopped going was I saw a worker, possibly owner, manhandle a bogan couple in the alley. I kid you not: actual violence. It was like I was on Victoria Street in Richmond…

Thankfully, the Box Hill David and Camy’s Noodle Restaurant is another matter altogether. A few months ago as a treat whilst catsitting, three of us headed out and of course ordered far too much. In fact, one of the dishes we ordered didn’t come. Thank goodness for such small mercies!

Of course, David and Camy’s was packed. The Box Hill one looks a good deal less seedy but yes, the service is as…efficient. Let’s face it, we come because they give us good, cheap, reliable dumplings. But god, what ones to order? I guess it makes sense to go fried, steamed, vegie and meat in some combination, right?

Behold, steamed pork dumplings with chilli oil, nom. I absolutely love steamed dumplings with thick skins. Hit me up!

steamed pork dumplings with chilli oil

Under pretense of ‘health’, vegetable dumplings. Don’t worry, they’re fried, so that cancels out the vegie goodness, hehehe.

fried vegetable dumplings

And what these beauties look like inside. Damn, they were (temperature) hot! So don’t be too tempted to inhale them. You will get burnt.

vegetable dumpling, detail

The last dish, the dumplings in chilli oil, was what truly defeated our stomachs despite the amount of generally digestive-aiding Chinese tea drunk. I think Tristan really took one for the team and with considerable effort demolished them when me and K could not.

dumplings in chilli oil soup

An excellently cheap late lunch and boy did it ensure I didn’t need dinner. You can roughly expect to pay about $10 a person, maybe $15 if you’ve gone all out. Bargain basement meal: achieved.

David & Camy Noodle Restaurant on Urbanspoon

HK: missing first #fatty date

“Ah can’t get no sleep.”

Looking back months after, I can’t believe how much insomnia in Hong Kong got in the way of so many of the plans me and Tristan had in place. Given that there was a great deal of overlap in when Billy and Anna were there, plans were made to hang with them.

I am really sorry to say lots of late morning, lunch type plans were botched. This one particular day, Tris and I had missed the initial Tim Ho Wan meet-up with the aforementioned wonderful #teamfatty. So much of this could have been avoided if I had met and brought/procured my current best friend (who is cheap, low maintenance and listens to all my boring stories. What is not to love, seriously?).

Petrified, Tris and I made the trek out anyway. I’m not sure how it always end up like this, but usually, Tristan cowers behind me and nudges me forward to find out what the fuck we’re supposed to do. It is almost comical given my crippling anxiety issues and given our relative heights, I’m sure it looks like a comedy skit in the making.

It is this one place that has made me decide that I must at the very least learn my numbers in Canto. This is how this Michelin-fêted place works, if you do not know Canto. Push your fucking way through to the door bitch and somehow communicate how many diners there are and fight for your right to a menu. I am forever grateful to the random dude that walked past me and said “er, I think you’d be better with this”, handing me the English menu.

Tim Ho Wan menu

Tick off what you want and hand it back and you’re told your number. I got a good glimpse at the door bitch’s book: it’s meticulous. A Chinese character is put next to the foreign diners’ numbers. If you miss your turn, you get put on another list and may God have mercy on your soul if you keep missing your number which they call out in Canto.

Once I’d got this sorted, I made sure to pass on this information to any remotely lost-looking foreigner that came past (which are many in number, comforting after the fact). Solely due to this, I managed to chat to a few struggling Melburnians and we bonded over the wait.

Which is worth it, I might add.

Behold, the best barbecue pork buns either Tris or I had ever experienced. Slightly sweet and feather-soft pastry encased marvels. I admit, given the first world trauma that was getting into Tim Ho Wan, I was mega pissed off that he decided that he deserved two of these because he enjoyed them more?! Whatever you reckon, mate.

Continuing with his executive fatcat decisions, I was allowed to have the extra roll of vermicelli wrapped pork liver. Ah the benevolence (what Tris was not admitting at this juncture is he was still NQR about offal). No matter, I got a good deal and looked less the tourist for eating offal: I needed the cred.

One of the most substantial offerings we chose was the fried glutinous rice with assorted preserved meat. This is definitely the sort of item I tend to neglect when I have yum cha back home and boy am I glad we chose to order this. Though the texture is markedly different to something like the vermicelli stuffed with pork liver, it wasn’t just delicious but pleasing. It actually reminds me of my (Filipino) grandfather because the rice was crispy though not quite burnt and both me and him love that almost burnt rice at the bottom of the saucepan, in Tagalog I believe it’s called tutong. This is like that, but of course with delicious other things added!

A simple but brilliantly executed yum cha item is the steamed spinach and garlic dumpling. I love how translucent the dumpling skins are and how jewel-like it makes the contents seem. So bloody good.

Similar such dumplings were the steamed fresh shrimp ones. In brackets, it has them marked as ‘ha jiao’ but my Google-fu tells me that we perhaps Anglicise this to ‘har gau’ and other variants Again, beautiful translucent skins perfectly encasing their succulent contents. Both these and the ones above didn’t really need much in the way of soy for dipping.

The other classic yum cha staple is the shu mai, marked on Tim Ho Wan’s ‘foreigner’ menu as streamed pork dumpling with shrimp, giggle. They look gorgeous and were so juicy.

Another item I tend to neglect when back home is congee. I like congee as it reminds me heaps of goto which I’ve since discovered is the Filipino version of congee. Though I call it goto, it is also more widely known as lúgaw, and sometimes by its Spanish term arroz caldo. In any case, if you want a dish when you’re sick or down, this is the one to lift and restore both body and mind. Sadly, it’s not very photogenic. The congee available was peanut and pork bone.

There were a few dessert items: upon reflection, I’m wishing we also went with the very exotic sounding tonic medlar and petal cake but what we went with was double doiled (sic: I assume ‘boiled’) snow fungus with lotus. Tristan isn’t as fond of these sorts of things as I am but after having dined at First Taste in Box Hill on similar things (my sincerest apols in advance for linking to a woeful post on my personal blog).

It’s sweet, but more of a thin, delicate broth with a slight sugariness. Again, the interest in is the texture of the snow fungus. It reminds me of seaweed. I loved it but Tristan admitted it wasn’t so much for him.

Whoops, silly me, I forgot to mention, no yum cha experience is complete without tea: both of us made sure to elect for pu-erh but tea is tea so we have no pretty picture to offer you.

So now we come to the damage afterwards.

Dining on some stellar dim sum for roughly $15 AUD. For two fatty-wannabes. As the youngsters say, epic win. I also highly recommend you read Billy’s take when him and Anna went: he recounts a remarkably different Canto-knowing experience, grin.

Where? Tim Ho Wan
Address 2-8 Kwong Wah Street, Mong Kok
phone 23322896
MTR this post gives excellent directions to it and I confess I don’t fully remember, sorry!