17/10/2017 - Burma Lane

Location: 118 Little Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

We wanted to have a early dinner as my girlfriend could knock off work early due to a conference. I booked this restaurant in advance via Dimmi to enjoy the AMEX Dimmi offer for getting back 20 AUD if you spend 50 AUD and above.

I was hoping that we were sitting upstairs but its probably wishful thinking on my part. 

The restaurant was quite empty when we arrived at about 530pm and we were quickly brought to our reserved seat. We ordered the following: 

a) Cured salmon, smoked tomato romesco, anchovy kewpie, shallot, seaweed cracker
b) Octopus, green samphire, dashi mayo, ink and ginger
c) Beef Brisket, Chu Hou, smokey eggplant, peanut, pineapple relish, pickle

Very small piece of culinary wonder. It was easy to split. Not sure why the waitress told us otherwise.

The octopus dish on the right was really good. It was the one that I enjoyed the most.

Expensive kong ba bun. Tastes pretty good but a bit too pricey

Damage: 61 AUD 41 AUD for 2 pax (after dimmi 20 AUD rebate). I would definitely go back again if the dimmi offer is back. Do remember to book via dimmi and register your amex card and leave a review to earn bonus dimmi points for a 20 AUD voucher when you have 10k dimmi points!

15/10/2017 - Grilled 118

Location: 118 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053

Tried this grilled fish place at Carlton for the crayfish (small lobster prawn) dish that my girlfriend was advised to go try it out. It was quite a walk from the CBD but it was a good thing that the weather was not that hot, so it was a pretty good walk. When we came in, there was quite a lot of people eating the grilled fish. We ordered the following (no grilled fish this time)

a) Shaoxing drunken chicken
b) Small Lobster Prawn (Crayfish I think)
c) Fish Fillets with hot chilli oil 
d) 2 bowls of white rice

Drunken chicken. The wine was quite strong and its a cold dish

This is really good. It numbs the tongue and amazingly cured my cough!!!

The fillets were quite soft and it goes really well with rice!

The leftovers of the prawns! It could barely fit in the bowl! They give you gloves for this dish but your hand still gets oily.

Damage: ~80 AUD for 2 pax. I would definitely go back again to try the fish! I love the spicy prawn dish which cured my irritating cough (amazingly). I could hardly even feel my tongue after eating 1 prawn but I just kept on chipping on the dish because it was really good!

14/10/2017 - Madang Korean BBQ

Location: 493 Whitehorse Rd, Mitcham VIC 3132

According to my girlfriend, this is a new korean restuarant which opened recently. We tried to do 2 walk ins and were rejected so reservations are highly recommended. When you call their number, if no one answers, just leave your name and number and someone from the restaurant will call you back to confirm the reservation. 

Even when we had a reservation, we were told to wait for 10 more minutes to clear up the table, which had patrons before us. We were a party of 3 so we ordered the following: 

a) Fusion Style Set: we got the following

• Black Angus Beef Scotch Fillet
• Fresh Pork Belley
• Garden Salad
• Crispy Tempura Platter
• Corn Cheese
• 3 types of Korean side dishes

b) Seafood Pancake 
c) 2 bowls of white rice to share

Corn Cheese + Tempura Platter (which was good!) I didn't eat much of the side dishes! Was too busy eating the meat!

The sweet sweet salad. Was too sweet for me

The scotch fillet and some mushrooms! Pretty tasty when its cooked! The bbq is hot!

The "royal" pork belly in its purest raw form

The final product which is so yummy! You have to careful though, the oil splatters pretty frequently!

The pancake stuffed with too much kimchi and too little seafood!

Damage: 75 AUD for 3 pax. I would definitely go back again with a larger group. Its pretty good sized food which can feed quite a lot of people. The problem is that you would have to leave a voice message and wait for them to get back to you before your table is confirmed. Walk ins are highly discouraged! Let's hope this restaurant survives for a long time!

09/10/2017 - Dolan Uyghur Food Heaven - Halal Restaurant Melbourne

Location: 166 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000

This is a Chinese restaurant which specialises in lamb. I wanted to try the place for a long time now and we finally did it tonight for dinner. The place is pretty old school and is famous for their lamb skewers. The good part about this restaurant is that the food is good but the place is pretty small. We ordered the following: 

a) Stir fried beef tongue
b) Finely cut and stir fried home made noodles with veg and beef
c) 5 Lamb Skewers (Its something that you must order!)
d) Yogurt drink
e) Rice (Not in picture - Its just a bowl of white rice to go with the beef)

This is so yummy and soft and it goes well with white rice (Said it twice already)

This looks a tad funny but its like noodles ...

Skewers are awesome with cumin on top of it. The yogurt drink is just ok. 

Damage: 46.60 AUD for 2 pax. I would definitely go back again. I might try the lunch special. The prices look pretty reasonable for that. I might even hazard a few spicy dishes to check if I would sweat from eating their spicy dishes.

07/10/2017 - Queens Street Rescue

Location: 1/189 Queen St, Melbourne VIC 3000

It has been a long time since we had brunch together, so we booked this through Dimmi to get the Amex 20AUD back offer. Basically, Dimmi would refund you 20 AUD if you spend 50 AUD on the restaurant that you booked. I personally have not received the refund yet, so I hope I am right. In order to chalk up 50 AUD for this brunch, we ordered the following: 

a) 1 Soy Latte and 1 Skim Cappuccino
b) The Rescue Big Breakkie 
c) Smashed Avocado + Poached Eggs + Chorizo

Coffees were quite bad and bitter. One of the few places in Melbourne where I don't like their coffee at all. 

Heaps of Bacon and Eggs. After a while, it gets sickening ....

Not a fan of avocado but my girlfriend is a big fan. The chorizos were quite salty ...

Damage: 55.90 AUD for 2 pax. Honestly, I won't try this place ever again for brunch / Coffee again at all. If not for the amex offer via dimmi, I won't even know of this place. Now, I just hope to get the 20 AUD from Dimmi and my 2000 points (1000 for reserving + 1000 for leaving a review) If you chalk up 10K points with Dimmi, you get a 20 AUD voucher.

06/10/2017 - Woodland House

Location: 78 Williams Road, Prahran, Victoria 3181

It was my birthday and my girlfriend booked this place one month in advance to celebrate the occasion. We took number 6 tram from Prahran Station and then alighted at Stop 35. After a short walk, we were greeted by the following scenery: 

Very big and old school!

Big oak door which looked like it was closed. But the waitress opened the door immediately when we tried to open it. I suspect they have some form of camera.

Artistic view in restaurant. 

Warm bread with butter! I only had one piece cos I wanted to enjoy the rest of the dishes!

Red wine was better than the sweet riesling. 

After ordering a wonderful red wine and a sweet wine, we proceeded to order the full set menu which had heaps of food!

a) Grilled Scampi, Salted roe, saltbush
b) Scallop, Thyme and brown butter
c) Purple Taro, Feta
d) Kangaroo and pepper berry sable
e) Fried Duck tongue with bamboo salt 

The scampi was really delicious! The tongue was pretty salty for me.

The above came as a whole. The rest of the dishes came one at a time and we were so tired after the whole dinner because it lasted for nearly 3.5 hours before all the dishes were served!

1) Murray Cod, Spanner crab, smoked soured cream

The cod was a tad too dry for me. But the sauce was pretty good.

2) Broad beans, cured pork fat, abalone, sardine dressing

This is my favourite dish. Love the abalone.

3) Gippsland rabbit, dried mustard leaf, turnip

The rabbit that tastes like chicken to me.

4) Lamb sweetbreads, dried garlic and miso, radicchio

The purple thing is really quite weird.

5) Cape grim short rib, preserved plum, horseradish

The meat is sooooooooooo soft!

Eating this together with the meat above is heavenly!

6) Tete de moine (Cheese), lily pilly jam, stout and gingerbread

At first glance, it looks like cauliflower snow fungus. We were really surprised that it was cheese and it goes really well with the bread!

7) Yogurt Sorbet, blood orange, beetroot homeycomb

The honeycomb sticks to your teeth when you bite on it. Its a bit too sweet for me though.

8) Blueberries, vanilla, whipped caramel

Blueberries were so fresh and awesome!

9) Tea and petit four  

The peppermint tea was really nice but the camomile tea that I ordered was just normal ...

a nice touch of strawberry ice cream and chocolate and a happy birthday set of wordings. I think we were too full to appreciate the food properly...

Damage: 372 AUD for 2 pax + wines, which is not a cheap price to pay for fine dining. But then considering the food that were served and the length of the service. Its still quite worth it. I enjoyed it very much and it was something different from the dinners that we had. And yes, they accept AMEX with no service charges!