Chinese
August 4, 2010 | 
Author Duck Duck Goose (Noodle Bar)
QV, 31-37 Artemis Lane, Melbourne
(03) 9005 0888
I’ve been waiting for Duck Duck Goose to open for literally 3 years. There’s a poster of Duck Duck Goose in QV for ages and it was even featured on the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival program in 2008 I think. Often I walk past Artemis Lane, peeking into the construction site and at one point I’ve given up peeking- it looked the same blank space. But one day this year, workers started going in again and the site became a beautiful modern “light” noodle bar and “dark” french cuisine/champagne bar.
We went to the “Light” noodle bar for dinner tonight. With Duck Duck Goose being opened for only 2 weeks,
there are still a number of menu items that are unavailable, the service can be a bit tentative but extremely friendly and helpful.
To be honest the menu is a tiny bit all over the place I felt, there are dim sums for entrees, a choice of noodle soup such as garlic ramen, BBQ Pork Noodle soup, Korean Noodle Soup, Mapo Tofu Noodle Soup, chicken and vegies noodle soup and Beef Brisket noodle soup. There’s also rice: Mapo Tofu Rice, Beef brisket rice…not much choices and to my dismay, there didn’t seem to be a lot of vegies options or stir fry vegies available.
We ordered pan friend turnip cake ($6/4pc) and Thai Curry beef shao mai ($6/4pc). The turnip cake is a bit too floury and soft with too little texture for my liking. I do like the chilli sauce that came with it, it has a tang of spiciness. Yum!
The Thai beef curry shao mai, whilst the pastry was not top notch, was very nice and it’s something a bit different from the usual pork and prawn shao mai.
It has a slight curry and lemongrass flavour and it was freshly steamed. What would improve it a little bit more would be to add a bit more fat to the meat increase its juiciness and a thinner dumpling pastry would have been better.
I ordered a beef brisket noodle soup ($10). I must say I am pretty impressed with the noodles. The noodles are really yummie with a bit of resistance when you bite into it, even when we didn’t dig into it immediately.
The beef brisket was flavoursome- it could have been a little bit more tender but it was acceptable. There’s a bit of beef tendon but those are made into a little bit mush for some reason. Once again not enough vegies in this noodle soup- there was only one piece of chinese vegies! Love the soup though- it has just the right consistency and flavour.
My dining partner ordered the Mapo Tofu rice ($8) which is quite nice also, although I am suspecting (correct me if I am wrong) that they used beef instead of pork here, or this is some very lean pork! Not that it doesn’t taste yummy and it’s fantastic that it’s healthy but it is just more traditional to use slightly fattier pork for Mapo Tofu.
Overall though I am VERY impressed with Duck Duck Goose. With its beautiful decor and spacious setting, to eat nice food with a huge portion size and with the bill coming to $30 (food only) for 2 people, it is certainly worth a try and definitely worth coming back. 7.5/10
P.S. We had a sneak peek of the “dark” side- Duck Duck Goose French Cuisine and Champagne bar and it looked very chic, although the price tag is also breathtaking. Degustation menu starts at $120 pp. Wouldn’t stop me from going there for a drink and try out their bar menu though!
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The Bund
1/206 Bourke St, Melbourne
(03) 9663 0005
I’ve heard some really mixed reviews of The Bund- my Shanghaiese friend said it was one of the most authentic Shanghaiese cuisine she’s ever eaten, but from TummyRumbles begs to differ. We were a bit sick of our weekly traditional of Shoya after Yoga, so we decided to try The Bund instead.
Hubby ordered a set lunch menu $16 includes Chinese Tea, Spring rolls, Chicken and Sweet Corn soup and a choice of rice or noodles on the menu, and in this case Hubby ordered a mapo tofu lunchset.
We were very mystified when the Mapo tofu came before the entrees of spring rolls etc. We soon realised that they have actually misheard and only ordered the Mapo Tofu without the set. Not to be picky but the waiter also didn’t manage to provide a spoon for this dish and so Hubby spent 5 mins trying to eat with his chopsticks before the requested spoon was presented to us.
The Mapo tofu itself was not that great- it’s not “Ma” enough. Normally Mapo tofu uses SiChuan peppercorns that numbs the tastebuds which is the “Ma”. Sadly I couldn’t taste a trace of SiChuan peppercorns.
Advertised as having one of the “internationally acclaimed chef” who cooks “authentic Chinese cuisine” featuring Shanghaiese dishes I expect the Xiao Long Bao (XLBs) to be perfect. Sadly this is not the case. Tummy Rumbles was right, Hu Tong does a better version- a WAYYYYY better version. The XLBs doughs are thick, it’s stuck to the paper so when you pull it off the whole bottom fell off and the yummy soup leaks away. The pork inside the XLBs are not fragrant and very bland. Not impressed at all to be honest.
Next up is the sliced eels stir fry noodles. This is actually the most acceptable dish of all. It has a good
balance of crunchiness from the wood ear, noodles offer a slight resistance when you bite into it. It has a subtle ginger flavour and well seasoned. Not bad.
Overall though, I would say that The Bund ‘s PR have backfired- so many people have high hopes that The Bund would beat HuTong as THE best Chinese Restaurant in Chinatown but sadly it has failed miserably. 3/10
Ayiguli
323 Swanston St, Melbourne
03 9939 1632
For a moment I was transported away from Melbourne. The red and yellow decor, the smell of lamb, the plastic pikachu and Winnie-The-Pooh plates reminds me of some dodgey fast food place in Hong Kong. Only the sound of tram bells snapped me back into my present state. It took a lot of courage to drag hubby to this greasy joint and here we are.
The food is not cheap- $24 for a plate, albeit a BIG plate, of Grilled Lamb with egg noodle. It was a weird experience, perhaps only because I am not entirely familiar with the Xin Jiang cuisine but the lamb is smokin but the noodles are cold. I asked the waitress why it’s cold and apparently it’s supposed to be like that, so ppls, don’t be surprised.
Other than that little weird episode this dish is quite nice. The lamb is well seasoned with cumin and chilli, although it’s not as spicy as it looks (for me anyway). The noodles are mixed with vinegar, so it really cuts the fattiness out of the lamb. The lamb looks like the ones we could get from those Chinese supermarket for hot pot, it’s very tender though.
Sorry I retract the previous food is not cheap here comment, what I wanna say is that the food are weirdly priced. One dish is $24, others are just $2. Like this beautifully char grilled chicken wings, it’s only $2.
The flavours are actually quite similar to the lamb- once again cumin and chilli powder are the predominant spices used, but has the added flavour of char-grilledness- crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside.
Other $2 snacks includes lamb skewers, and for the more adventurous, lamb kidneys and grilled chicken entrails… hmmmm….we didn’t managed to try those so if anyone has tried it let us know how they are!
By this time we are super full already, but we already ordered Lamb stuffed bun $10. Not too sure why this came out cos this does not look like a bun. It looks like those Spring Onion pastries but with Lamb and vegies inside. It’s really really oily but the pastry is quite nice, if you close your eyes and not look at the oil that squishes out when you take a bite.
Let’s just say Ayihuli is not everyone’s cup of tea- Hubby definitely don’t like anything except maybe the chicken wing, but then again he never liked cumin in the first place. But if you wanted to try something a bit different, this is the place to be. 5/10
Tags: Kam Fook Yum Cha
Level 2, Doncaster Shopping Centre
03 9005 1888
Another week, another opportunity to go to Yum Cha- I am getting extremely lucky as Hubby HATES yum cha 
This time we went to Kam Fook in Doncaster Shopping Centre. Kam Fook Doncaster is the sister restaurant of Kam Fook in Sydney, which is famous for its Dim Sums. We are lucky to sit near the kitchen, where fresh stacks of bamboo piled trolleys were being pushed out constantly.
Kam Fook certainly have some interesting dishes that rarely gets an outing in the city. There are hot soft shelled crab parading with mango sago sweet soup, chewy glutinous rice balls, briased offals, stir fry noodles that are heated up in front of guests, various dumplings such as mushroom dumplings, scallop dumplings, duck and preserved vegies dumplings. Although it has some variety, the quality is quite inconsistent.
The dumplings are either too dry (duck & preserved vegies) or too gluggy (mushroom dumplings which fell apart when picked up and stuck to the roof of my mouth), the only highlight is the prawn dumplings, which is quite fresh. The BBQ pork buns are fresh and hot, although presentation wise the BBQ Pork and sauce are leeking out of the bun.
The braised beef tendon is better than Gold Leaf, quite tender and gelatinous, however, the sauce has a burnt garlicky taste- not good…
The soft shelled crab was fantastic- it smells great, tasted great, texture is crunchy and not too oily. Highly recommended.
The sweet tofu dessert is not as good as Gold Leaf, it didn’t have that hint of ginger so it’s just plain sweet.
Kam Fook is better than the usual suspects in Chinatown, but the yum cha doesn’t really shine as much as I expected. Will have to keep looking! 7/10
Gold Leaf Restaurant
Shop CSF 02, Lvl 1, 10-11 Star Circus
Waterfront City Shopping Centre
Harbour Town, Docklands
03 9670 1128
Gold Leaf Restaurant (Docklands) is one of the newest yum cha places near the city. Beautifully decorated with chandeliers and an opulent feature wall, it resembles the nice modern chinese restaurants in Hong Kong. 
We had the usual suspects, prawn dumplings, pan fried rice noodle rolls, BBQ pork buns, steamed beef meat balls, steamed pork dumplings and spring rolls. They are not bad at all, way better than the yum cha choices in the city. Once we tried this, there’s no going back to the Shark Fins and Orientals in the city- EVER.
The non-traditional Aussie yum cha choices are less spectacular however. The chicken feet was good, however the beef brisket needs to be braised a bit longer, it’s not gelatinous and soft as required. The taro puffs tasted OK, but it has a weird curry aftertaste which is rare for taro puffs. 
The sweet tofu dessert is yummie though, the syrup has a hint of ginger in it, which gives a bit more depth to the dish. Egg tarts were good and we found that if we go there later, the food is fresher cos the turnover is higher. Highly recommended to go there at about 12:30 or after- but remember to make a booking! 7/10
Plume
546 Doncaster Rd, Doncaster
03 9840 1122
Once again, I can safely say that Good Food Guide’s taste in Asian food is pretty average. Plume is the perfect example- it might have the “ambience” and the half-hearted attempt at service that food critics seek, but the food in Plume really lack the taste and value that is really important to me. Many of us go out to eat for a special occassion, 
and expect good, hearty food from Chinese Restaurants, sadly Plume is not the restaurant to go to.
We ordered soft shell crab- it’s not bad and it’s beautifully decorated, but $17 for 3 tiny pieces are quite pricey.
Crispy chicken is not as good- the skin should be golden, thin and crispy, but this one looks a bit too brown and the skin is more chewy than crispy. The meat itself doesn’t taste too bad though.
Spicy eggplant in a claypot is quite tasteless, it needs a bit more kick to it and it lacks the fragrance.
We also had a beef with pepper sauce- it’s not too bad but the dish is just quite tiny and with 7 of us sharing this dish, we could hardly get a decent spoonful each.
The lamb claypot is a really good dish to order in a chilly winter night, it really warms you up and get your blood pumping. Sadly lamb claypot in Plume is didn’t produce the same effect. First, the dish is not hot enough. Secondly, it needs a more prominent gingery, fermented bean curdy taste. Thirdly the lamb did not have enough flavour- it’s really a failed dish.
The five boys are still really starved after scrapping all the sauce from the dishes to go with rice (one guy had to order 5 bowls of rice cos the dishes and rice are so tiny). They decided to order the salt and pepper squid to hopefully fill their half empty bellies. Once again, a disappointingly small dish was dropped off at our
table. The batter is just not up to scratch for a Good Food Guide restaurant- It’s thick and oily. The squid is quite tough and doesn’t taste really fresh at all.
Service is not very good either, once the captain saw that we are quite young and not ordering highly priced dishes of fresh seafood, they basically gave us minimal service, and when the bill was presented, expected a tip.
I would honestly only give this restaurant a 4/10 and my tummy a 3/4 full.
Pacific BBQ & Cafe
213 Lonsdale St, Melbourne 3000
03 9663 9288
I’ve been meaning to blog this place for ages, but it always looks so good that I ate it before I had a chance to take photos. Finally, I was disciplined enough to take a photo first! And what I lovely photo! It makes my mouth water just looking at this. Pacific BBQ place is famous for its roast meat, so if you don’t know what to eat, you must try their Roast & BBQ selection. Mixed roast on dry egg noodles ($11) is a combination of two chinese roast meat (BBQ pork, Roast duck, soya chicken or roast pork) with noodles or rice. I chose dry egg noodles which is heavenly, its texture firm, almost like the ones in Hong Kong. For the roast I chose Roast duck and soya chicken. The roast duck is beautiful, although a bit fatty. The soya chicken tasted nice but the meat is a bit tough, possibly because of the part of the chicken that was on offer. You can specifically ask for chicken maryland thighs for an extra $1.5
I’ve had quite a number of chinese broccoli w/ garlic $15 in different chinese cafes, but most of the vegies are too oily, salty or the vegetable is quite old and tough. This one is not as oily but it’s nothing special, some of the stalks are quite tough.
This is the baked curry beef brisket on rice $12. This is really flavoursome and cheesy- yes, cheesy!! Somehow baked cheese works with beef brisket curry. The beef brisket is very tender, it was so hard for me to have a bit of Hubby’s cos he’s guarding it like a hawk.
The food is good, service and delivery is fast, just make sure that you don’t go there during peak hour as it gets extremely busy! 7/10
Desi Dragon
Cuisine: Indian Chinese
1/60 MacGregor Terrace
Bardon, Brisbane
Ph: 3369 9558
I enjoy trying new things when it comes to food and I have never had Indian influenced Chinese food before. I took a look at the menu in advance and was intrigued by the notion of Szechuan potato fries and salt and pepper paneer. I had been working up quite an appetite before dinner and the first entree was the Szechuan potato fries ($7). I don’t know why I’ve never heard of potato fries with a szechuan sauce before but they were very tasty. Not very spicy at all though. I wondered if I was enjoying them so much because I was really hungry but everyone else confirmed that they were indeed good for eating.
Next up was the Chicken Saiwoo ($10), buffalo wings tossed in a sweet chilli and shallot sauce. The sauce was sweet but again not spicy. Regardless I was a little disappointed that I had to share the four pieces of chicken.
Our dinner guests had ordered the Happy Dragon Platter for 2 ($19), an entree platter with two buffalo wings, a bowl of Szechuan fries and also paneer and pea wontons and lamboo tikki (some lamb and bamboo rissoles, get it?).
The salt and pepper paneer ($9) was really strange as it was neither salty nor peppery. I was expecting something similar to a nice piece of deep fried camembert but the paneer did not have much flavour and the batter did not add anything to the dish.
When we ordered our mains we asked for them to be served with medium hotness but I’m not sure if the waiter misheard us or underestimated our ability to consume chilli. If only he knew that I have always suspected that one of us sleeps with a bottle of mega death chilli under his pillow (ahemyangcough). The only dish that was a bit spicy was the Chicken Manchurian ($25), chicken dumplings tossed in a soya garlic shallot sauce.
The goat shank Szechuan style ($28) was my favourite dish. The meat was so tender and went beautifully with the herb sauce.
The chilli chicken ($25) was good, though again not spicy. There were dried whole chillies in the dish but I avoided biting into those. I also realised after a few bites that there were whole peanuts in the dish and somehow I survived without my allergies affecting me.
For a fourth main we had a designer main, where you match a meat (or paneer, tofu or vegetables) with one of their sauces. There is a choice of six sauces, Szechuan, chilli garlic, hunan black bean sauce, satay sauce, sweet and sour or ginger and lemongrass. Hubby likes to bring balance to the world by eating the foods I can’t, so he ordered chicken with the satay sauce ($21). He finished most of it off so it appears to have met his love of all peanut foods.
To accompany our mains we had some plain egg fried rice with chicken ($14). I really liked their fried rice, it wasn’t too greasy. One bowl was just right for the four of us after entrees and four mains.
We were much too full to try any dessert but I was very curious about the crisp honey sesame noodles with ice-cream ($7). Our dinner was finished off with the presentation of a small wooden chest which contained a bounty of fortune cookies and of course our bill.
It was a little pricey and I’m not used to paying a lot for Chinese food having been brought up in a family where no one likes to spend a lot of money on food mum and dad tell you they can make at home. But I don’t think mum has ever told me she can make Szechuan style goat shank and it was an adventure trying something new. An exciting night out for a foodie.
Fu Guang Yuan Tea House
141 Queen St, Melbourne
(03) 9642 2388
So many people have raved about Fu Guang Yuan Tea House, which has fantastic vegetarian lunchbox sets, so I finally decided to trek up to Queen St to try it. Unfortunately when we got there, the menu had shrunk substantially, and “lunchboxes” became “Droplets Set Menu” and “Droplets” it was. For $6.80 you either get four droplets of Steamed Crystal Dumplings or 3 droplets of Steamed buns w/ BBQ fake BBQ pork stuffing w/ tea and dessert.
The fake pork buns are quite nice, it really does taste like pork. Although the bun is a bit bland, but considering that this is a full vegetarian restaurant, they can’t use ghee or pork fat to make the dough tasty like other yum cha places.
The dumplings were nice too, but the stuffings are quite inconsistent, one dumpling has a variety of vegies, such has corn, spinach and mushroom. But another one is full of spinach with only a bit of other vegies.
I ordered a stir fried rice noodle w/vegetarian BBQ pork, vegs, tofu, bean sprouts and carrots ($12). It’s OK, probably has more MSG than other chinese takeaway to make everything more flavoursome, but it’s really oily. My lunch buddy’s dish (same dish) was slightly cold. We wondered whether the dish was stir fried when ordered or just reheated. For $12 I sure as hell hope they freshly stir fried mine.
The dessert from the Droplets Set menu came- it’s a tiny cake that looks like a green tea tiramisu cake. The cake was actually quite nice, green tea mixed with white chocolate mousse, with a thin layer of chocolate in the middle and sandwiched with green tea sponge. It’s a tad bit too creamy and sweet, but it’s the best out of all the dishes we had.
At a nearby table, another couple complained about the lack of set lunch menu. We also bumped into one of my lunch buddy’s friends and she told us that Fo Guang Yuan has decided to place emphasis on the tea and pastries rather than the other food and hence the menu was simplified and lunch boxes has disappeared. Well, I hope they bring back the lunchsets and the yummie food they used to have, because the once packed Fo Guang Yuan has actually got empty tables at peak lunch hour and who is to blame but themselves? 3.5/10
Dessert House
313 Swanston St, Melbourne
03 9663 2284
If you want something cheap and quick, it’s hard to go past Dessert House. They don’t just do desserts, actually their main focus is Hong Kong-style cafe dishes, an early, cheap and nasty version of Asian Fusion.
I’ve been there quite a number of times and if you are a gourmet foodie, stop reading now. This is nothing grand, it’s more like a Hong Kong style of junk food. Reliable dishes are the Seafood fried rice with XO sauce, chicken and sweet corn with rice, char keow teow and most of the stir fry noodles.
Unreliable dishes includes this one- deep fried chicken wings with chips, side salad and sweet chilli sauce ($7). I would recommend not to eat the limp salad with gooey salad dressing. I would also recommend not to eat the limp, oily fries. I would further recommend you not to eat the greasy wings that’s no longer (or actually was never) crispy. The sauce is alright though! May I just further add that the oil in which they fry this fries and chicken wings must be old, and they must have fried FISH in it, because this chicken wings and fries tasted like fish?
For my mains I ordered a baked mixed and match rice ($11.30). You may be wondering what mix and match rice is. The concept is simple. It’s like those fashion mag that features 6 key pieces of clothing and you mix and match to get 20 new looks.
Choose 1 meat: Chicken/beef/ pork fillet
Choose 2 sauce: Black pepper/ White/ tomato/Portuguese
Choose 1 carb: Rice/fried rice/ Spaghetti
I chose baked chicken fillet with black pepper & Portuguese sauce on fried rice. The portuguese sauce is quite nice, very creamy with a hint of curry, whilst the black pepper sauce seemed a bit overcooked and turned into a blob of black goo. The chicken fillet is huge and hubby and to eat half of mine. The fried rice underneath is nothing special, just plain rice with oil and bits of egg.
Really, there’s not much expectation that this cafe will serve top notch anything, but if you want a cheap and quick meal, this is a right choice for you.