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.

on my plate - chocolate cream tart @ le petite gateau

"Urgh. Chocolate."

It's not what you'd normally expect to hear from someone who thinks about food 24/7, but I've found that recently, I'm not as pro-chocolate as I used to be. I don't hate it, but I usually find myself choosing fruit-based desserts over cocoa ones. I don't know why - maybe because my taste buds are maturing. Or maybe it was the excessive chocolate binging that would happen on a weekly basis for about a year. I guess we'll never know.

But add coffee to the equation, and all my aversions to chocolate will soon be forgotten. This coffee chocolate cream tart found that happy medium between cloyingly-sweet and overly bitter. The vanilla bean-infused cream balanced out the bitterness of the dark chocolate and coffee filling. And true to the shop's name, the cake was quite petite. It's probably a good thing. I'd hate for me to lose my taste for mocha-flavoured things too.

Le Petite Gateau
458 Little Collins St
Melbourne

on my plate - rotisserie wagyu steak @ Rockpool

I should've expected it after seeing the painted portrait of a cow that hung beside the main entrance and also on the menu. A few red flags should have been raised after seeing their menu listed 11 different types of steak, ranging from wagyu, grain-fed, and grass-fed. And even with my brother's continued insistence that Rockpool's steak is one of the top five steaks he's ever had (he certainly takes his beef seriously), I was still slightly unconvinced about it being that good. This is also despite the fact that Rockpool is one of the restaurants of universally acclaimed Australian chef (and Iron Chef) Neil Perry.

What can I say? I'm a little slow on the uptake. All doubts I had about their steak were quashed after this rotisserie wagyu steak served with chimchurri sauce. The medium-rare beef was unbelievably tender and full of flavour. I could've eaten it as it was, but the chimchurri sauce added just a bit of flavour without overpowering the taste of the beef. I may not be a chairman Kaga, I'm pretty certain about whose cuisine reigns supreme.

Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne
Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex
8 Whiteman St, Southbank

on my plate - sakata coated prawns @ izakaya den

To say Japanese is a difficult language to learn is a bit of an understatement. After this amount of studying, I still don't really understand the subtle nuances. Take some words to describe crunchy foods: paripari for thin crispy things like chips,  sakusaku for crumbly foods like cookies, and karikari for foods that are harder. Yeah, I still have no idea how they all work exactly.

And I've been trying to wrap my head around the concept of puripuri. I've heard it being used to describe ikura or caviar - the way that the bubbles pop in your mouth and release the liquidy centres when you bite into them. I can understand if its used in that context, but how do people use that word to describe prawns?

My moment of clarity came last night while sampling these at Izakaya Den last night. Prawns in a rice cracker coating deep fried and served with a citrus mayonnaise. The prawns were plump and firm to bite,  but once you bite through the crunchy coating and the flesh, the juiciness and sweet seafood flavour explodes in your mouth. It was a puripuri moment indeed.

Izakaya Den
114 Russell St
Melbourne

on my plate - linguine with baby octopus, chilli and garlic

Has baby octopus always been this cheap? Had I known I could find it for $6 a kilo, as opposed to $25/kg calamari I would probably be more inclined to cook seafood more often. I was searching for tuna to try out Gary Mehigan's linguine with fresh tuna, chilli & garlic recipe, but I at that price, I'd be stupid not to buy octopus, right?.  Linguine tossed in a garlic and chilli-infused olive oil sauce, topped with rocket and pangrattato. I've tried making olive oil-based pasta sauces without much success, but this one has converted me - full of flavour without tasting too oily. That, coupled with the subtle kick of chilli, the crunchy texture of the thyme pangrattato breadcrumbs, and the tender octopus is seriously amazing.

Questionable Asian buffet experiences aside, it has once again confirmed my theory that you should never really pass up on cheap seafood.