Little Hunter

Little Hunter is the new kid on the block in the Melbourne food scene. Located in a basement on Little Collins Street, and as the name suggest this is not a place for vegetarians to salivate to. This place does have some famous names behind it, collaborating with Pete Evens and ex-Fat Duck sous chef Gavin Baker.... So naturally my expectations were high. I recently went to Heston's Dinner so I was expecting goodness from this place.

To start off we got pork crackling where it was seasoned with paprika and served with an apple dipping sauce. A light fluffy snack to start off the meal, I found the apple sauce interesting. A surprising combination in my opinion. Personally I would not have paired it that way but I guess it would please some people.

Then we got the beef on toast which is finely sliced beef with liver parfait on a thin slice of toast (think 2mm). This was the hero dish for me. It kind of reminded me of the meat fruit (from Dinner) so that worked out very nicely for me. Only thing was this was very small, I could've done with another plate.

The final entree was the Cured Kingfish with seasoned roe. This was nice but nothing 'wow' to me. Again I found the portion a tad small.

A thing worth mentioning was the complementary bread served with chicken butter. The bread was freshly baked, soft and sweet. Worked a treat with the chicken butter, I would've happily had this as an actual entree.

For the mains, I had to try the Blackmore flank which was served with avocado. Served with a sector of avocado with onion garnish, this was a rather simple dish and the meat was cooked to perfection. Charred on the outside and still juicy on the inside. Again as per above comment, more on the small side as a main it would not feed a hungry man's appetite.

My partner had the NY strip, this one was adequate in size but sadly it was charred so much on the outside it was bitter when it entered the mouth. The bearnaise and tomato was interesting on menu but in reality it was just a little lacking. It just didn't do anything for me.

Roast Chicken was a pleasant surprise. Juicy succulent, cannot find anything to fault this dish.

Also had the Yam and Cabbage sides. I would like to argue that it's not really yam but more sweet potato... some may care to disagree. Cabbage was more wom bok but it was still a good pallet breaker all the same and I really like the creaminess of the blue cheese.

For dessert I got the Frangipane  meringue with passionfruit curd, peach sorbet. Nothing exceptional here, peach sorbet was nice though.

Overall I would rate it 15.5/20. Some dishes were nice but sadly they failed to maintain consistency throughout. It's not a bad place to visit but it just somehow did not live up to my expectation. I would go back for the Roast Chicken and Beef on Toast though. If all the dishes were like the Beef on Toast this place would've easily been a 19/20 for me.

 

Maha Burger & Beer Lunch special

Walking into the dim lighted restaurant, you are welcome with a sense middle eastern ambiance laced with class.

This is not my first time, but this was my first time that I had their $15 burger lunch special. For $15 you get a lamb burger and beer. Served on a crunchy toasted brioche bun with olive mayo, onion rings and generous amount of shaved kefalograviera cheese. The thick home made lamb patty is juicy and guarantee to make you walking out happy and satisfied.

If you are vegetarian they also cater with a vegetarian version. Combined with a beer this is the perfect Friday lunch.

If you want a bit extra you can also order coriander flaked chips with lemon.

Big thumbs up from me. I will follow with the 3 course lunch special next time. This joint is on the fast track of becoming one of my favourite hang out spots.

 

Red Spice Road

Red Spice Road is one of those restaurants I tend to always go back to. It's close to my office and also happens to be on the ET card. What I'm going to review today is their lunch special, where they have a choice of 5 dishes and you get to pick 3 to share with the party you visit with.

To start off there is Betel Leaf with Chicken, Chilli, Coriander and Kaffir Lime. This is nice small start to the meal to get your pallet salivating. It is a nice combination of chicken wrapped in the betel leaf and zest of lime.

First up there is the signature pork belly with apple slaw, caramel and black vinegar. This is my absolutely favourite dish here. There has never been a time I have visited and not ordered this dish. The pork is so sticky it will stick to your teeth and the apple slaw provides that crunchy and juicy balance. Must not be missed!

Lao style curry beef with potato and snake beans. This was nice in flavour but the beef was a tad disappointing, felt like it was just cheap beef chuck meat in a curry sauce. It would have been a lot better of a dish if the quality of beef was a bit higher.  The flavours were all there but the meat let the dish down.

Chicken with Chinese broccoli, garlic and pepper. Chicken was beautifully cooked where it was succulent and the gailan and pepper gave it the vegetable crunch and bit of a kick. It leaves you wanting more. Only wish there was more gailan in it.

Barramundi flake salad with coriander, lemon grass, chilli and rice powder. This was generous with large chunks of fish, heaps of coriander and other herbs to give it a very fresh taste. There is not too much chilli in there which was good as it lets the fish flavours really come through. I was not sure about the rice powder as I could barely taste it.

Overall I would give it a 16.5/20. I would've rated it a 17 but over the many visits here, I find they are quite inconsistent with their portion sizes. You generally get more if you attend in a small group, once the number of people you dine with goes up, the portion size and service goes down. Food is good here, just if you go in a big group you won't leave as satisfied as if you went with a smaller group.

UPDATE: I would like to revise my rating to a 17/20. I mentioned the portion size in a feedback email and I was contacted regarding the issue and the restaurant has looked into it to have that investigated. I find this response very impressive and I highly regard this type of service. Good work to the team at Red Spice Road.

NB: Try out their cocktail and mocktail menu. It won't disappoint, my personal favourite is the Green Asian 

      

Mr Huang Jin

As a work lunch we recently went to the new Mr Huang Jin on the bottom of Rialto. Being the end of year celebration it was, the team went all out. Situated in a part of the city where there isn't many dumpling places and for the price point it was pitching we were all expecting good things

To start with, there was steamed pork and prawn dumplings, pan-fried beef dumplings and pork and prawn wontons with chilli sauce. All the dumpling and won-tons fillings were juicy and steaming hot with soupy base. Great start to a good meal.

Taiwanese beef wrap and the DIY Taiwanese pork bun was next. The beef wrap was perfectly done with the sweet sauce and soft wrap. The DIY bun came fully done, so that was disappointing as I was looking forward to the DIY part. The filling was quite nice though, especially the peanut dusting.

As a joke, we ordered the pungent tofu. For those of you who have been to Hong Kong would know to expect a smelly sock smelly. For those of you with a shock horror on your face, calm down! It was nothing like that, it was similar in the taste from the spices absorbed into the tofu and the sweet sauce that followed but the smell was quite absent. It was a nice surprise as I kept going back for seconds.

Almond crusted lobster balls, twice cooked spare ribs and TFC shortly followed. Almond lobster balls were nice but nothing special. The twice cooked spare ribs had people licking their fingers and the TFC caused a small fight on the table for where the plate should sit. Needless to say we ended up ordering 2 more plates. It's a good play and twist to the classic Taiwanese hawker food. A must try if you go.

Finally there was the prawn with pineapple and the lamb noodles. Both were nice but not outstanding. The prawns were served with mayo and pineapple, something you would expect to see at yum cha.

Overall it is great food. The dumplings were fantastic (to the point that one of my colleagues had a lot of evidence on his shirt after the meal). This is not your cheap and fast dumplings but for the price point, it is worth your dollar. 16/20

Chocolette

I recently learnt that one of my old high school friends that I haven't seen for years has moved into the business of cakes, macaroons, pastries and all things sweet and yummy (that I should be avoiding while I'm dieting). Since I am blogging you can probably guessed that I caved into temptation.

I had a few birthdays in the past few weeks so I ordered 2 cakes from her on separate occasions. The first one featured is the blue cake with a piggy on it, is actually a red velvet cake with cream cheese. Normally when I have a novelty cake I am not big on eating the whole piece as it can get quite heavy. I was please to say it wasn't the case with this one. That pig is so adorable that my partner couldn't bare to eat it.

The second cake featured is 'queen bee' cake. I asked her to get creative this time and I got a white chocolate blackberry cake. This was one of the favourite novelty cakes I've eaten. As novelty cakes require the actual cake to be quite dense to hold up the decorations, a lot of the time they are very dry. I was quite impressed that this cake still was quite moist, and the blackberry layer within it gave it a nice balance of flavour. However the part that is worth mentioning the most is the flower pot next to the cake. The attention to detail is impressive (so impressive that my girlfriend decided to not eat the bees and keep the family of bees as a fridge guardians). Girls, if you are looking for a wedding cake, you should really speak to Colette!


Other than cakes, I learnt that Colette also sells macarons on a regular basis at a number of markets. I was lucky enough to try some of these flavours. My favourite would have to be her vanilla raspberry jelly, even after a day in the fridge there was still a wonderful balance of chewy, softness and bite. The raspberry centre was not overly sweet as you find with a lot of other jam like centres. Other worth mentioning is the blood orange and earl grey tea flavour; a different play on your traditional flavours. There was also a chocolate mint in amongst the mist of macaroons I tried, this is not your typical mint flavour as it tends to side on the stronger mint flavour. Not bad if you like strong mint flavours but personally it was a tad too strong for my liking (but this is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of mint).

If you ever pass Chocolette’s store this is one not to be missed.

Cumulus Inc

There was a cause for celebration, and my boy really wanted to go back and check out Cumulus Inc for dinner, so off we went on a rainy Saturday and waited 45 minutes for a table. This is not my first visit to Cumulus as back in the days when my BF was trying to impress me during the 'chasing stage' of our relationship we came here for brunch. Anyway enough of my life story and onto the food.

From all the waiting, I was starving by the time we sat down so I just had to get olives or anything just to settle my stomach. The olive for $7 were a nice selection and a nice treat to start off the meal with the house sour dough.

First up was the Tuna tartare with pea salad. This was a favorite from our previous visit and still lived up to our expectation this time. Fresh chunks of Tuna with a wonderfully tossed mash pea salad.

As a side we ordered the potatoes with red wine vinegar and mustard. This was a tasty treat on the side, went great with the O'Connor steak. The steak was full of organic flavor and texture, the way it was cooked highlighted the grade of the beef and really allow the juices to come through.

There was also the zucchini special of the night, which was done with cream fresh..... it was char grilled and served with asparagus. It sadly did not please me one bit. I regret ordering this as all I could taste was burnt zucchini. I just wished I stuck with my original decision on the cauliflower.

To finish off the night, we got the strawberry jelly with coconut sorbet and granita. This was just YUM. If I had room in my stomach I would've ordered a second one. ;)

Overall 17/20. It really does live up to it's expectation and image. The food is a modern and fully respects the produce.  

 

N2 Extreme Gelato

I accidently came across this on a blog and was very keen to try it. Just so happened, I was sent to Sydney for work last week.

For those of you who haven't heard of it before, the concept of N2 is that they make the ice cream on the spot for you.... only catch is........ they add liquid nitrogen into the mixture so it turns into an ice cream consistancy straight away.

This place is tucked into Dixon's place near Chinatown. Once you get there, you are greeted with the sight of people wearing lab coats behind the counter in front of a number of KitchenAid mixers.

The flavours you get here, aren't exactly your usual vanilla, chocolate, strawberries and cream etc. Like the way they make their ice cream, the flavours are also a bit experimental. During my visit the flavours they had were butter popcorn; banana, peanut crumble; earl grey, caramel; coconut and pomegranate tea; mango sorbet; pineapple milk; sandy beach and; sour cream, chocolate. 

Unfortunately, I was able to try all the flavours. I ordered the butter popcorn, earl grey caramel and banana peanut crunch. Surprisingly I liked the butter popcorn the best. This tasted like butter popcorn laced into a vanilla like gelato with small popcorn bits. It may sound strange but the flavours actually work very well together.

The earl grey caramel was also very pleasant with the hint of tea infused into the mainly caramel gelato. Banana peanut crumble was...... very strongly banana scented. To me it tasted like a strong combination of both artificial banana flavouring and fresh banana. Personally I found this a bit overpowering but my partner loved it.

I also managed to get a sample of the coconut, pomegrante tea gelato. My guess is they used coconut water to get the final flavour. It was very sweet smelling and also taste very much like coconut without the heavy milky flavour. Not a bad choice for summer.

If you are in the area, you should really give it a go. At $6 a serving it is quite a generous size and for that price you also partly get the show. It might be a bit of a gimmick but I am a sucker for these type of things.