Chimac Korean Restaurant

Date: 28/02/2014
Restaurant: Chimac Korean Restaurant
Location: Shop 1 39-47 Peel St, West Melbourne, VIC

One of the best thing to do on a Friday night is to have a drink and a meal with your colleagues. It allows you to bitch about your bosses and everything else inappropriate. Originally, we had crashed one of my good friend's romantic dinner with her boyfriend at Chimac. 

We started chips with a Mexican twist. It was hot with jalapenos, cheese, onion and tomatoes. The best thing is that everyone needs to eat the chips with chopstick! 

 





















We proceeded with Chimac's famous chicken, both soy and sweet. It was so amazing! It taste even better with a beer or as I would prefer some Korea soft drink (bong bong) and Korean spirit (So Ju). 

Words of warning, when you drank a bit too much and ate a bit too much, you start making inappropriate comments that people start staring at you. It's funny cause it is true.

B'Stilla Moroccan Restaurant

Date: 11/02/2014
Restaurant: B'Stilla Moroccan Restaurant
Address: 30B Bray Street, South Yarra

Sometimes in life, the best things are unexpected. Life just throws you something wonderful and somehow you are just happen to be there to experience it. This applies for both food and people. I think the reason why unexpected things can turn out to be the most fruitful experiences is because we have no expectations of what the experiences should be like.

Me and my good friend decided to go to dinner on a random Tuesday. We were originally going to have some Japanese which is not an unusual choice given that I have Japanese every second day. However, we came by a Moroccan restaurant next to the Japanese restaurant we were originally going. The restaurant is called B'Stilla Moroccan Restaurant located at South Yarra.

We decided to share two dishes together. We had the seafood tagine together with cous cous. The seafood tagine was marvelous with fresh mussels, white fishes, octopus and king prawns. The cous cous was a perfect combination which earthy tones of pumpkin, preserved citrus with hints of coriander through it.

The B'Stilla Moroccan Restaurant was a restaurant that I would gladly return for another meal. The staff was helpful and it offered a quiet and intimate setting with modern day Moroccan cuisine. However, one word of caution, book ahead on busy nights. I can't see B'Stilla being a secret gem in South Yarra.

Bottega

Date: 22/11/2013. Restaurant: Bottega. Address: 74 Bourke Street Melbourne CBD. 

How do you impress your new girlfriend for her birthday? Well, you can start by taking her to the best pasta place in town. Initially, this appeared to be a relatively easy task but I quickly changed my mind after tolling the internet for a whole hour. I wanted somewhere that's easy to get to without too much effort after a few people drinks. After much debate, I settled with Bottega and manage to book a intimate table two days before the big event. 

Bottega is situated towards Parliment Station, in between a number of fine dinning rstuarents that Melbourne has to offer. From the outside, my first impression of Bottega is refined. It's decor was simplistic with French influences. All of the tables were well lit with candles but still offered enough privacy and a sense of mystery. 

In any good date, a good glass of wine was required. This was no exception. The wine list from Bottega gave us approximately 5-6 wines to choose from, which seemed relatively limited initally. This was before when I started counting the number of wine bottles behind the bar. I quickly realised Bottega does have an extensive range of wines, but they just have a limited space in their wine list. 

As usual, the always beautiful Dr B and I shared two main dishes together. The first dish was the house made ricotta gnocchi with feva beans, cherry tomato and stracciatella. The gnocchi was light and its flavour simple, clean and polished. The second dish was the house made strozzapreti with clams, mussels, prawns & calamari. The seafood was well cooked but the champion was the home made strozzapreti. Wonderful texture especially over a glass of red. 

However, despite this blog being a food blog, the main purpose of the thing is to spend quality time with Dr B. We would have been happy to be anywhere in each other's company but Bottega just made it that little more special. 

The Village Pizzeria

Date: 16/11/2013. Restaurant: The Village Pizzeria. Address 662-664 Old Calder Highway, Keilor VIC 3036. It's unusual for me to travel to the "west side", but I am always open to new experiences especially having the pleasure of Dr B's company. My first impression of the Village Pizzeria was that it is a small family owned restaurant. As soon as you walk into the restaurant, you see the boys hard at it on the left. Flicking pizza like no tomorrow. I was told by the trustworthy Dr B, that the restaurant was famous for their wood oven pizza.

The only problem was that we decided to try anything but pizza dishes. The first dish that we had was the calamari with garlic sauce with potatoes, carrot and broccoli on the side. The gnocchi was factory made but cooked well. The creamy sauce was comforting and perfect for a cold night. The Village Pizzeria was certain not stingy about the amount of calamaris. There were more than enough for both of us.

The second dish we had was the linguini in bacon basil pesto, virgin olive oil and chilli. Unfortunately, the linguini was factory made and slightly undercooked. The combination of using the basil pesto and fresh chilli was a mistake. The fresh chilli was just a little too sharp in flavour and did not work cohesively with the basil or the olive oil. I have no doubt that their pizza would be excellent but life is too short for not trying out new experiences. I am sure that there will be another post updating their specialty.

San Paolo Solarino

Restaurant: San Paolo Solarino – Pasta and Wine Bar Date: 07/10/2013 Address: 7 Howey Place, Melbourne CBD. The San Paolo Solarino Pasta and Wine Bar is situated in the heart the central district of Melbourne. At first glance, it appears to be a café rather than a fine dining restaurant. We had decided to attend the restaurant after recommendation from Urbanspoon, whom rated San Paolo Solarino at 87%.

   

 I think dinning is all about experiences. It is a combination of the food, the service, the atmosphere, and the company that you are with. I am of the view that the enjoyment of food is exceptionally subjective and it greatly depends how the person is feeling at the time. The experience that San Paolo Salarino provided was exceptionally intimate, perfectly fitted for a date. The ambience is relaxing allows the main focus on your date. Everything else was just supplementary, including the Spanish waiter whom I could not understand.

   

 We ordered two dishes from San Paolo Salarino. I had the prawn risotto with capsicum, rocket and a light garlic sauce. My friend, the wonderfully amazing Dr B had the gnocchi in a tomato and cheese sauce. The risotto was well cooked and its ingredients were relatively fresh. However, I found that the risotto lacked genuine flavour due to the lack of seasoning and utilising proper stock. The gnocchi was uncomplicated and the tomato sauce would have a momentous difficulty in hiding the poorly made gnocchi. The gnocchi was too soft suggesting too much potato and not enough flour. However, I recognise that everyone has different expectation when it comes to a gnocchi. For example, for Dr B, the gnocchi was not soft enough.

 

Overall, the experience of San Paolo Solarin remains positive. I would recommend it for people who are looking for a quiet place where they have the optimal environment to connect with each other.

Famili rav

Date: 27/10/2013. Restaurant: Famili Ria. Address: 1115 Riversdale Road, Surrey Hills. Famili Ria is a family owned traditional Indonisian restaurant. The location is easy to get to but also easy to miss. My first impression of the restaurant is that the decore was relatively simple, and won't be able to accommodate any more than 20 people at a time. Admitabily, this was also my first time with Indonisian cuisine, so I didnt know what to expect. The selection was relatively simple, and so is the texture of the dishes. Generally speaking, the food was simple and almost had a home cook element to it. The sauce was sweeter than I had anticipated, but somehow acted perfectly in the overall presentation. The portion was smaller than I would have liked but what wonderful to order a few more to share with friends. Another great little find!!! Special mention to Mr & Mrs Wu for the invitation and quality company.

Date: 19/10/2013 Restaurant: il Fornacio Address: 2C Acland Street, St Kilda. Il Fornacio is a mid-size cafe situated in the heart of St Kilda. It is a busy cafe, perfectly suited to a Saturday brunch. The coffee and food is reasonably priced. Good variety on the Manu, covering vegetarian dishes. I had the ari gold, which is il Fornacio's own version of the big breakfast. As one would expect, the portion is geared towards two people rather than one. The kransky is a lovely german twist to the good old Aussie dish. The negative part to il Fornacio is its staff. It is really difficult to get their attention for them to take an order. It look us approximately 15 minutes to just get someone to take an order for a coffee.