omurice

I don't know why Japanese people seem to be the only ones to have stumbled on the secret formula for amazing food - the addition of rice to other foods (Japanese or otherwise) will increase the awesomeness exponentially. 

Don't trust me? Then you have to try their taco rice. Or if you're looking for a more 'Italian' influence, maybe, some doria, which is essentially a gratin with rice in place of the pasta. And people in Nagasaki swear by their Toruko rice (Turkish rice). 

on my plate - xiao long bao @ Hutongs

I must admit - these became one of my favourite dumplings at yum cha purely because of the novelty - I love the idea of biting into a dumpling only to find it filled with steaming hot soup. That being said, I'm usually disappointed when I do order them since nine times out of ten, they're not as juicy and full of flavour as I had imagined them to be. Unfortunately, I've found out the hard way that places that do a mean Shanghai pork bun are few and far between.

After hearing that xiao long bao was Hutong's speciality, there was a part of me that was expecting them to be overhyped. Could they really be bursting with that much soup?

It took a couple visits, but I can now safely say yes. I couldn't tell if they were that juicy or I was salivating that much, which is why I had to go for a second time. And order two serves. You know, just to be sure.

Hutong
14-16 Market Lane
Melbourne

ga prow gai thai basil chicken

In hindsight, one of the benefits of working at the family restaurant when I was younger was the free meals that came with every shift. Request anything on the menu (and sometimes off the menu), and the cook would whip it up on the spot. Of course, being raised on Thai food my whole life meant I never really appreciated it, and just thought of it as 'food'. It was only when the restaurant closed down and my mum returned to Thailand did I then start to miss Thai food, and also realise that some of the other local Thai restaurants didn't really cut it for me.

It's been almost nine years since the restaurant closed, but I still remember the look the cook would give me every time I requested my meal: Khao Ga Prow Gai, hold the basil. With my limited Thai, I didn't realise what I was saying, and only on a recent trip to Thailand and talking to my mum, did it finally click.  I was asking for 'Basil chicken and rice' without the basil.

Those strange, judgemental looks I received finally make sense.