Co-Co-Co-Coconut House

MMMMMM the definite flavour of the month is Malaysian cuisine. Coconut House is definitely one of my favourite eats at the moment! Probably because I conveniently go past it on the way home and it's open late every night!

Coconut House is situated on the Vic Market end of Elizabeth Street, 449 Elizabeth Street. There's two of them, close to each other one that opens late and one that doesn't. I'm quite sure the kitchen is the same and they simply carry food over to the other restaurant, so I don't think it really matters which one you go to. Oh, and it's not BYO either. But you'll get over that pretty quick!

I always end up sitting at the one that opens late, their kitchen opens till 10pm Sun-Thurs and till 2am on Fri + Sat. Since it's so popular and cheap, totes avoid going there on a Friday or Saturday night as the usually non-existent service is especially frustrating when it's busy.

So you go here for the cheap dishes, pretty much everything's under 10 bucks and the dish sizes are just right. They're famous for their chicken rice, but pretty much everything else they do here is delish! The nasi lemak with chicken comes with this amazingly fragrant and spicy sambal and peanuts, so great with rice!

The hainanese chicken and fried chicken and rice or noodle dishes are pretty good too, however the broth is totally gross and tastes like dish water and it's only served with a small dish of chilli sauce. I wish they'd serve it with their amazing sambal!!

The laksa I reckon even contests with Laksa King, although Laksa King wins out, this is a pretty darn good laksa. Generous serving, mixed noodles, just right spicy and not too heavy soup, plenty of vegies and both the meat and vegetarian options are super yummy! It totally beats getting the overpriced laksa from Chilli Padi down the road at Melbourne Central.

My definite must haves when I go to Coconut House are the drinks! I absolutely love the 3 colour tea (or teh as it says on the menu) as it's like a refreshing sweet tea that's bright orange when you mix it up, and this coconut drink thing with tapioca and grass jelly in it! It's not as sweet as the similar Vietnamese version of the drink, but so cold and refreshing that it matches perfectly with the spicy dishes! It doubles up as a dessert! And you can get them in takeaway form too!



So, if you're on a budget totally head down to Coconut House. Don't expect service, you gotta get the menus and order yourself. And try and avoid a busy night coz if you're hungry, you will simply walk out frustrated that you must wait so long to eat the delicious smelling food!

Coconut House
449 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne
(03) 9329 6401

Coconut House Google Place Page

World Vegan Day 2010

 Hello hungry peas,


Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. I've been trying to rest my arms as my osteo told me I have early signs of carpal tunnel in my wrists and should stay off the laptop.


It hasn't stopped me from eating though, so I'll make this blog a quick one. 


Sunday October 31st was World Vegan Day (well actually November 1 was but it's a Monday which isn't very convenient) Every year vegans of Victoria gather at the beautiful Abbotsford Convent and Sam Shan took me along to visit the little festival!


Being a lover of food and somewhat of an asian heritage, I'm not even close to being a vegan. let alone a vegetarian.  While all the animal activists and "ethical superannuation" was all a bit much for me, I had heaps of fun trying out the many food stands.







Enlightened Cuisine had a stall there and I had been dying to try the food at their Southbank restaurant. Their speciality is mock meat and they had all the familiar Chinese dishes like lemon "chicken" and roast "duck". The roast "duck" looked so similar to real duck, that even I felt a bit grossed out

Real looking fake duck

But they had these wicked vegan dim sims which with a small drizzle of soy and hot chilli sauce were amazing!! We ate lots of these! Their fried rice was alright as well, but otherwise this was nothing to rave about. Vegie Hut in Box Hill still reigns supreme in the mock meat department!

nom nom vegan dim sims

We had organic felafel with "tahini" from the Himalayan Bakery stand. They were pretty tasty but the "tahini" was weird as. It left that dry taste in my mouth like the way low fat yogurt does. 

Then we chased around a lady carrying vegan cupcakes and bought some off her. They were from Mister Nice Guy bakery. I dunno what was holding them cupcakes together without eggs and milk, but they were delish! So rich and the icing on top was creamy like butter icing but...what the heck was it made from???

Then somehow, we managed to squeeze in one more serving of okonomiyaki, topped with "mayonaise" and vegetarian sweet soy sauce. This was super yummy and my favourite dish of the day! (dunno where it was from though...)

a pretty star fruit

It was a super fun day, and there were heaps of people there! I found myself asking many times "so...what is this made out of?" and getting a *shrug* as a reply. Especially the dim sims, I mean with meat dim sims we already don't know what's in it, let alone vegan dim sims...



While I remind foodies the fact that only a well off country - such as the one we live in - can pick and choose what they'd like to eat,  I have mad respects for the people who are finding creative ways to make yummy food despite having very limited ingredients! 




Thanks Sam Shan for taking me to World Vegan Day!


xoxo

The Best Dumplings in the World Question Mark?

I was reading a travel magazine that was lying around at my friend's house in DC, and there was an article about a lady who was a travel writer and was a big fan of eating dumplings!


She came across this chain of dumpling restaurants called Din Tai Fung. The chain started out in Taiwan and has steadily grown over the past two decades to dozens of branches across Japan, USA, Shanghai, Taipei, Singapore etc etc etc...to Sydney in 2008, with no doubt a million more stores opening across the world to eventually flood the world with dumpling domination. They claim to make "the best dumplings in the world".


One could easily doubt Din Tai Fung's awesomeness since it's "just a chain."

So when I was in LA, I hired a car and navigated my way on the wrong side of the road from Beverly Hills to Arcadia. This took me about 1.5 hours in peak hour traffic so I was pretty freekin peeved by the time I got there. 

Anyway, Din Tai Fung is famous for their Xiao Long Bao - little dumplings with soup in em, and OH BOY was it worth the effort getting there!!!! WOWOWOWOW!! There was pork xiao long bao and prawn + crab xiao long bao - all so good! And the broth in them was perfect! And you could pick it up with your chopsticks easily without breaking the skin. And I could eat the whole dumpling in one tasty gulp! (without squirting dumpling juice everywhere!) nom nom nom

No matter which chain you go to around the world, every single Din Tai Fung xiao long bao is made with the same recipe, same technique and same measurements. So to test this theory out, I came back home and went straight off to Sydney! After a 20 minute wait in the rain for a table, I got my dumplings and amazingly, they're the same!! (with slightly differing fillings) WOWOWOW!!! And the Sydney one has this super yummy lychee mint drink and awesome desserts!! nom nom nom

So all in all, Din Tai Fung is probably a little bit more expensive than your average Chinatown dumplings (which is still pretty cheap). But these little xiao long baos are yummy!!!


If you spot a Din Tai Fung chain somewhere in the world - eat it eat it eat it!!! 


Sydney - 644 George Street, Sydney (World Square)
Los Angeles - 1108 S.Baldwin Ave, Arcadia


(Expect a wait for a table - even on a weeknight. Try to come at odd eating times and avoid weekends)


http://www.dintaifung.com.tw/en/index.asp


xoxo

Diabetes Cupcakes!

My cupcakes are kinda famous. Not coz they're good or anything, but because they're just chockers full of sugar and butter! nom nom nom


Here is the recipe for my super sugar cupcakes!


125g softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup caster sugar
3 eggs (room temperature if possible)
1 cup flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk


1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius (fan forced oven) or 180 conventional oven. Using your fingers, combine the butter and sugar. Really squish it together until the whole mix is combined and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and make sure the extract is mixed through the entire thing.


2. Sift the flour and the self raising flour into the butter and sugar mix. If you had fun getting your hands dirty, you can use your hands again to mix this dry mix all up! But cupcake purists would probably not do this...


3. Make a little well in the middle and crack in the 3 eggs. I beat the eggs up in the well to make mixing a bit easier. Then pour a bit of milk in and mix the entire thing together. Try to mix it as little as possible. If it's too dry slowly add some more milk in until the mix is nice and gloppy but not too runny. As soon as it's all combined stop mixing. If there's large chunks just squish it with your spoon.

4. This recipe only works for mini/small cupcakes. Avoid muffin sized patty pans. I used the white small Home Brand patty pans, they seem to be a little bit bigger than mini patty pans so I can ice them easier. Put the pans in a cupcake tray and fill the pans up 3/4 of the way (about 1 heaped tablespoon). If you don't have a cupcake tray, then putting your patty pans on a normal tray is okay, just make sure there's plenty of space around each patty pans otherwise the cupcakes will expand into each other and go all funny shaped.

5. Bake for about 20 minutes or when they're just golden in colour. I like to rotate the tray once at 10 minutes and so important not to overcook these as they go chewy (coz of the sugar and butter content lol.) Take out and cool on a rack or just on a table, again just distance them out a bit from each other. Voila! Make extras so you can snack on them as you ice them!! Actually, I usually don't ice them coz they're already sweet enough... But it's Halloween and my friends from Peewee are in town so I'ma gona do it!

Passionfruit Icing
Ingredients:


125 gm softened unsalted butter
30ml milk
2 passionfruit
1 tablespoon vanilla
4 cups sifted icing sugar
Icing bags (I had plastic ones - get them from the supermarket or from your best friend's mum's pantry)


1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter by itself for a while until it turns a pale colour. It should take about 5-10 minutes.


2. Pour in vanilla icing and milk, and 2 cups of sifted icing sugar. Beat that until all mixed in. Then add in the other 2 cups of sifted icing sugar.


3. Add in the passionfruit pulp and beat the icing for another 5-10 minutes. You probably don't need to beat it for this long, but the longer you do it the fluffier and more easily spreadable it is.

4. Seperate your icing into how ever many different colours you want. Add colours. I used a butter knife to spread my icing on the tops of the cupcakes and plastic icing bags with the ends snipped off for piping. 


For tips of piping you can watch this youtube video.


For black icing you have to buy the black dye from the supplier, or get it from your best friend's mum who happens to be a cake decorator! Be careful with this stuff as it stains fingers!

5. Chuck the cupcakes in the fridge for a bit to let the icing to set.

Ta-da!! Now watch all your friends eat em and get stained teeth (it comes off quickly) and be surprised that the black icing is passionfruity!

One last thing, try and make your cupcakes on the day or as close to the day of eating as you can! If you need to store them, chuck em in the fridge (coz it's butter icing). They'll be good for 2-3 days.


Yay! Cupcakes are fun!! Thanks for reading!! 


xoxo

Beer Can Chicken

It was jwubbq's birthday weekend and in true jwubbq styles he did an epic bbq eating fest!! And he made chicken (amongst other super yummy treats), and this chicken was SOO impressive that I just had to blog about it!


So, one gets a whole chicken, one can of beer (in our case we had a can of passiona). Take the chicken, rub it with whatever spices and then, take the can and shove it up the chicken's butt. LOL.

poor yummy chicken

Chuck it on the BBQ for about 2-3 hours with the chicken standing up on the can and bbq lid on. 

beer can chicken wedged between two hunks of meat...we are gross

Baste it with whatever sauce you like. Sear it on the bbq before serving. 

And hey presto! We have beer can chicken!! (or passiona can chicken!!)

So simple, but I couldn't believe how AMAZING this chicken tasted!! The liquid inside of the can inside the chicken somehow keeps the chicken moist throughout. It absorbs it somehow? I don't really get it, but it for some reason works!! It was so juicy and soft and delicious!!


If you don't believe me, then you can read Burke's Backyard's recipe! You can't argue with Burke!

That was a thoroughly disgusting set of pictures. LOL. Sorry vegetarians. But that chicken was delish!

xoxo

Beer, beer the magical fruit

The best thing about being a Melbournian, besides the sun, surf and babes (Antarctic chill, St Kilda and bogans), is.. beer! We have an insatiable love for it and not only that, we have a great taste for it too. And because of this, we have the best beers on tap and on the shelf, and we manage to stir up enough business to sustain the best microbreweries in the entire universe. eff yeah. 


So before you go and order another Coopers (SA), James Squire (NSW), a fuckin Corona or a dreaded but somewhat dear to our hearts Carlton Draught, try one of these instead and support the micro-beer economy of our lovely city!


White Rabbit Dark Ale - Healesville 
($3.99 each or $21 6 pack @ Dan Murphy's)


I get sad when I drink the last sip of this beer. It's always over too soon and I always want more but my wallet says no so I get a Carlton Draught instead and then get all depressed. 


It comes from the Little Creatures brewery and has been produced with some hardcore brewery methods and fancy equipment that is apparently similar to wine-making. Anyway, the point is that it's been made with lots of love, care and ridiculous attention and it's all worth it coz this is a stunning little beer. It's a creamy beer with a big malty body that rounds out to a lovely freshness that makes ya smile with yummy fuzziness.


I haven't managed to find the white ale to try yet but I heard it's top shiz. But you can find the dark ale on tap at lots of bars around town as it seems to be the "IT" beer for the summer (think Mean Girls). Oh! And most importantly, it has a really pretty label if you get the bottle! I just finished my last sip while writing this blog. Cries. It ended already? 

O'Brien Premium Lager - Ballarat
($3.99 each or $21 for 6 pack @ Dan Murphy's)


I usually don't like lagers, but Dan Murphy's didn't have the Pale Ale singularly. But this one's aaaalright. No actually, it's pretty friggen awesome based on the fact that it's GLUTEN FREE. YUP. GLUTEN FREE. Not low gluten. GLUTEN FREE. how the!?!? 


They also produce the world's first low alcohol gluten free beer. Say wuh? Where the fuck does the taste come from??

Anyway, back to the lager. As I mentioned usually I'm not a fan of lagers, they usually taste too watery and weak for my liking. This one though, has flavour. It's got a nice slight bitter tang to it and starts and ends smoothly. And it's not overpowering and doesn't taste like pee as shit like VB does. It's a nice simple beer that pleases and is somehow tasty while being gluten free. (I still don't understand how!?!?)


This beer is perfect for a summer bbq! If your friends like Boags or Heineken (like mine do) and you're looking for an interesting alternative that caters for your caeliac friends too...well definitely give O'Briens a go. Just excuse the lame looking label.  

Hargreaves Hill Pale Ale - Yarra Valley
(just get it at Dan Murphys, it has everything)


This beer comes from a nano-brewery and restaurant in the Yarra Valley. On Monday nights they have a Foodie's Night with poultry  dinner + matching wine for $25 that I've been dying to try but I cbb driving to. 


This beer, is a very pretty beer. It reminds me of the Hightail Ale which automatically makes me swoon but without the heavy aftertaste that many who dislike about the Hightail Ale mention (which I love!) Instead it has an interesting bitter lift at the end that keeps me interested for the next sip. It's summer and flowers in a bottle and it seems to be disappearing at a quicker rate than I'd anticipated. Similar feeling of loss as I felt with the White Rabbit dark ale. Definite must try and I think it'll be a "love or hate" summer beer. 

Mountain Goat Steam Ale - Richmond

($3.99 each or $21 6 pack - I think all these beers are the same price...)

Muther effing Mountain Goat is my most effing favouritest brewery ever. I have been a huge fan of the Hightail Ale ever since EVER and as I'm getting drunker, my love for Mountain Goat grows. I don't even remember life before Hightail Ale. If the Mountain Goat brewers were with me now, I'd put my arms around em and tell em how much I love em and how they've seen me through all the good and bad times and then tell them drunken stories while slurring all my words and eventually I'll fall asleep on one of their shoulders. 

Anyway, the Steam ale is the latest addition to this lovely family of yummy beers and it's Mountain Goat's first organic beer. That's friggen exciting. It replaces the Pale Ale and along with it brings a new design label to the entire range (looks are SO important). 

This beer is fresh and crisp, and as with all the Mountain Goat beers - I think tastes better on tap. It has a ring of flowers but it's refreshing and bubbly rather than intense in hopsy/malty flavour as ales usually are. I can't imagine anyone not liking this beer (unless you don't like beer altogether). Definite beer to try before you die. 

I didn't mention at the beginning of this blog that I'm drinking these beers as I'm writing about em. And I've just drank and written about 4 beers in the space of an hour which is a lot for my little asian body to handle. So, I'm thoroughly drunk. But this summer I implore you to PLEASE go and try some microbrewery beers before you go get hammered off cheap beer/goon. 

Happy eats and drinks and thanks for reading!!! :)

xoxo

Welcome to the Yummiest Food Blog Ever

Hey friends!!

Welcome to my first ever blog!! Thanks for even attempting to read it!!

This is a blog about all my super yummy food adventures! It's not really intended for critiquing restaurants, but rather it's just sharing my love for eating! You can become a Hungry Pea and help me contribute to it!!

Anyway!! Where do I start?!?!!

Burgers!! I just came back from New York more burger than person. Americans know how to do burgers. and CHEESE. American cheese rocks my socks. Here are some of my fave burgers eaten!

Shake Shack - Madison Square Park NYC

Perfectly crafted little burgers. You know it's a well stacked burger when you get to the end of it and the whole thing is still together instead of a giant mush in your hand.

http://www.shakeshacknyc.com/

Peter Luger Steakhouse - Brooklyn NYC

More famous for it's overly expensive steaks, if you go at lunchtime before 3pm they have a cheap burger special for 10 bucks. The waiters make ya feel bad about ordering something cheap, but ignore em. This burger is the shiz. It's pretty much just meat and bun, but the meat is incredible! And the optional side bacon was amazing! They burn the rind to add to the delicious smokey taste! Add a lil bit of their famous steak sauce and it's burger heaven!

http://www.peterluger.com/

 (I was so hungry I started eating before remembering to take a photo)

Counter Burger - Santa Monica LA

Totally customisable burgers are a great idea, but I have a terrible enough time deciding on what to order, let alone choosing every single little detail of my meal. So I got a 4 mini burger taster thing with matching sauces and beers. American beers suck though. Oh! And what's cool is that there's one in Sydney. Go you Sydney-siders. But yeah, customisable burgers that tries to use the freshest ingredients sourced around the area so every Counter Burger will be different!

http://www.thecounterburger.com/

Sydney location:

118 Willoughby Road
Crows Nest NSW 2065

http://www.thecounterburger.com/crowsnest/

And! What I loved most about burgers in the US was that they were good and cheap! None of this overpriced gourmet burger shit (Grill'd SHUN). Anyway, my favourite burgers in Melbourne right now:

Lord of the Fries Spicy or Original burger with Vegan cheese! 

But I'm so poor at the moment I can't afford the 50 cents extra for vegan cheese. Eat it whenever you're waiting for a tram at Flinders Station or Cnr Elizabeth + Flinders St or Melbourne Central!! And it's all vegetarian so certain best friends can eat them too.

Bogan Burger @ Napier Hotel

I wish I could remember to take a photo of this burger but I get too excited when it comes out. It's famous for being Melbourne's biggest burger! It's a chunky turkish bread with steak, chicken schnitzel, potato cake, bacon, egg, cheese, onion, pineapple and beetroot served with side salad and wedges WOW! And it's not just ridiculously gluttonous, it's super yummy too and! most importantly! It's well stacked! I would recommend sharing this burger with someone and resisting the urge to buy a pint - a pot of beer is suffice with this burger!

Napier Hotel - 210 Napier Street Fitzroy
http://thenapierhotel.com/

Happy eating!! (thanks for reading)

xoxo