Review - Red House Asian Kitchen

Red House Asian Kitchen
1389 Ferntree Gully Road
Scoresby
Victoria

Cuisine: Asian
Taste Rating: 7.5/10   Value Rating: 7.5/10

Visits:
Sat, 23 Feb 2013
Sat, 23 Mar 2013

Sat, 23 Feb 2013

Red House Asian Kitchen opened on 8 Feb 2013. It is a welcome addition to this shopping strip in Scoresby. Nearby are Cinta Raya Malaysian restaurant and Shirley's Asian Grocery, a good-sized grocery shop. There is parking at the front and the back of the restaurant, or further along the shopping strip.

Front of Red House Asian Kitchen

Red House specialises in Asian-style meats like roast duck, roast pork belly, BBQ pork, soya sauce chicken and marinated cuttlefish.  The menu also has a large variety of dishes, as well as special dishes on the wall written in Mandarin.  

Meat Menu above Counter

Ducks, Pork Belly
Photo courtesy of Daniel from Red House.

Roast Duck

Photo courtesy of Daniel from Red House.

Opening the door as we arrived for dinner, I expected the place to be quiet as it had opened just two weeks ago.  Surprise! The restaurant was bustling with wall to wall diners. While we were there, most of the diners were Asians - this is what most people use to judge the quality of an Asian restaurant. So far so good.

One of the owners, Simon was managing front of house. We were served by friendly and helpful Daniel, who I assumed is the head waiter.  We were told that the chef used to work for one of the upper end restaurants at Crown Entertainment Complex. From the A La Carte menu, we ordered Peking Duck pancakes, Lamb Spring Rolls and Special Fried Rice. From the special dishes on the wall menu, we ordered Lamb Spare Ribs Hotpot, and Yellow Chives with Calamari, Octopus and Vegetables.

The dining area is not huge. The tables are arranged in such a way that you may find yourself zig-zagging if you want to walk from one end to another. There was a good number of waiters working that night. They seemed to do a good job navigating around the tables. The service was good and quick. 

So what was the food like? The Peking Duck is made with roast duck, as is the case with most Chinese restaurants, unless you go to a restaurant that specialises in Peking Duck. Red House specialises in roast duck and I must say the duck tastes nice here - lean juicy meat, with glistening reddish caramel duck skin. For those who like duck fat, there is a sweet layer of duck fat under the skin. I don't like fat so I remove it. The pancakes were assembled in the kitchen, not at the table.

Peking Duck pancakes

The Lamb Spring Rolls were interesting - I have never come across lamb in a spring roll before. The spring roll skin was crispy. The lamb was minced and had a slightly spicy flavour, possibly of cumin. The filling was slightly oily, with a fair bit of juice. The taste was quite nice - it reminded me of lamb souvlaki!  

The Lamb Hot Pot gravy has a nice rich flavour, although it is a bit salty. The lamb is very tender, yet retains its flavour without leaching it into the gravy. It does not have a strong gamey taste, which is how I like it. The only negative for me is that there are thin layers of fat between the meat. I can't stand any fat in meat, however other people will likely find these thin layers of fat add to the character of the dish. This hotpot comes with a side bowl of chilli oil, which tastes similar to that for Shanghai dumplings.

Yellow chives with calamari, octopus strips, snow peas, carrots, celery and button mushrooms. The calamari was tender and the octopus had a nice chewy texture. The flavours are nice. Compared to the other dishes, this was a bit on the pricey side at $25.80  for the ingredients.  The overall look and feel of the dish is messy with small pieces of vegetables overshadowed by the larger pieces . The button mushrooms are out of place in a Chinese dish.

The Special Fried Rice is nice. There is a good amount of egg which I always look for in a fried rice. The prawns are larger than normal for SFR. The BBQ pork is nice. 

Overall, we were happy with the meal and the friendly service. There is a good variety of dishes on the Red House Asian Kitchen menu, better than the average restaurant in the suburbs. We would like to try the other dishes here.

Sat, 23 Mar 2013

We went for a second visit to Red House, this time for lunch. It was a larger group of 16 people. Our two tables were tucked into the back corner. The place was busy. Service was prompt and friendly. The food lived up to expectations, with positive comments from the group. We ordered double serves of each of the following main dishes, and 4 serves of the dessert red bean pancake, as photographed.

 Assorted BBQ Platter (3 choices) of 

Soya Sauce Chicken, BBQ Pork and Roast Duck. 

Assorted BBQ Platter  (another view)

This is a good way to try the roast meats at this place. The duck was nice as before. The soya sauce chicken was good too. As I don't like fatty meat, the BBQ Pork didn't appeal to me as much.

Enoki Mushrooms and Dried Scallops with Spinach.

I liked this vegetable dish.  Nice flavours, nice texture. The spinach was fresh and easy to eat. The enoki and dried scallop provided a nice contrast in texture. 

Pan-fried Pi-pa Beancurd

This minced beancurd dish is good. Nice size, tasty and not obviously oily. Watch out when you bite in as the tofu is piping hot! I don't like the Chinese sausage mixed in with the tofu mince but this is a personal preference as others like this ingredient. Pipa is a Chinese musical instrument. I like how this dish is made by using a Chinese soup spoon to shape the tofu mince into a pipa shape before steaming and frying.

King Prawns (in shell) coated with salted egg yolk.

I liked this prawn dish. The egg yolk batter is tasty. You can order this dish with or without prawn shells. Having tried this with prawn shells on, next time I might try it with prawn shells off, just to see which one I prefer.

Pork Belly with Taro in Hotpot

A nice dish enjoyed by most people at our tables. Again my dislike of fat pork meant I only tried a bit of the lean part of the pork, and more of the yam slices and the rich gravy. 

Red Bean Pancake

Red Bean Pancake (Close up)

We didn't ask how big a serve of red bean pancake was, before ordering four serves. It turned out that each serve was cut into 16 pieces! So we had plenty to share. The pancake is oily but nice. Indulge and feel guilty at the end of the meal!

Oranges to finish the meal

Complimentary oranges at the end of the meal, which is a nice touch from Chinese restaurants. It used to be more common but not many places do this nowadays.  

Front part of the dining room. Lunch is over and the other tables have been reset. 

Menu

Sarawak Laksa Paste

Hi Everyone,

From simple origins, the Sarawak laksa paste is also available on the Internet nowadays. 

This is a good article about the original Swallow brand laksa paste. Sarawak Laksa Paste

It has a funny insight into how people gather when someone acquires a packet of the laksa paste, have a satisfying meal, make promises to catch up but are too busy to follow through, until the next packet of laksa paste arrives. Sounds familiar - not just for laksa, but for most other things in our busy lives? 

The Swallow brand paste is no longer in production. A branch of the same family now produce the Barrett brand laksa paste. The only catch with ordering over the Internet is you have to buy in bulk! Barrett website

Cheers,

 

 

Review - Chilli Cafe

Chilli Cafe
168 Russell St
Melbourne

Cuisine: Thai
Taste Rating: 7.5/10   Value Rating: 7.5/10

Latest Visits
Fri, 25th Jan 2013
Fri, 24th Aug 2012

I've been to Chilli Cafe several times over the years.  The latest was with three friends for lunch.

The red curry is the favourite of a couple of friends and that is what they order every visit, without looking at the menu. I like to try different dishes so have to check the menu or the Specials board every time.

On the whole, this is a great place for curries at an affordable price. It is very popular with office workers on their lunch break. The narrow dining area is always full at lunch times, with a queue frequently forming in the middle to order. We make it a point to get here early to get a table.

Fri, 25th Jan 2013

3 Curries and 1 Noodle Dish

Penang Beef Curry

The menu said "Beef cooked in red dry curry & coconut milk". I was expecting a drier rendang type curry. However, there was a fair amount of gravy. The gravy did have the peanutty taste of rendang and was quite nice. The beef slices on top looked a bit dry but on the whole was tender enough. 

Beef Noodles

The menu said "Stir fried noodles topped with mince beef in tomato based sauce". This was a surprise find on the menu. "Beautiful" was the feedback from the friend who ordered this. There was a generous amount of ingredients, including beef slices and not minced beef, and kway teow noodles. The sauce was a tasty tomato sauce-based gravy. The fresh red chillies was a request. I said this was a surprise find for two reasons.  One, it was a tasty noodle dish in a place where we normally order curries. Two, it was very similar to a local dish in Sarawak, Malaysia called "tomato sauce noodles". The only negative feedback was that there was an oily aftertaste, even though the noodles were not oily while eating but this did not spoil the dish.

Red Curry Chicken

The menu said "Chicken cooked in red curry with vegetables". Feedback from friends who have this dish every time. Tasty but today the curry is "saltier than normal". I tried a piece of the chicken and it was tender enough, in a nice red curry sauce.

Always a queue in the middle at lunch times

Fri, 24th Aug 2012

 Chilli Cafe entrance

Specials Board

Order Counter

Add more Spice with Chillies

Red Curry Chicken

Green Curry Seafood

The Queue at lunch time

Mr Mason
530 Little Collins Street 
Melbourne

Visits Thu, 8 Nov 2012
           Thu, 29 Nov 2012
           Thu, 10 Jan 2013

Cuisine: French inspired
Taste Rating: 7.5/10   Value Rating: 7.5/10 

I had a fantastic lunch at Mr Mason and have been back twice since. Each time, I have been happily satisfied with my meal and my dining companions have been similarly happy. 

I have to say this up front - the chocolate souffle at Mr Mason is to die for! Freshly made and delivered hot to the table, the smell of the chocolate wafting up is heavenly and invites you to hurry up and dig into the dessert.  The souffle is nicely moist in the middle and has a great dark chocolate flavour. Broken pieces of honeycomb provide a nice contrast in texture. As does the vanilla bean ice cream.

I have ordered from both the regular A la Carte menu and the Express Lunch Menu. I prefer the Express Lunch Menu because it changes weekly. Also, there is an interesting point with this menu. It says 'One Course for $15', 'Two Courses for $25' and 'Three Courses for $35'. You would assume this means one each of entree/main/dessert. But that is  not the case. You may choose two mains for $25, or two entrees for $25, for example!  I like the freedom of this. Some days, you may feel like having one main and one dessert, on hungrier days you might like two mains. 

My only gripe is that the chocolate souffle has not appeared on the Express Lunch Menu when I have been there. So we ordered it separately from the A La Carte Menu, to go with our Express Lunch mains. That is how much I liked this dessert! 

We found the service to be friendly every time. There are French and non-French staff. At our first visit, the waitress for our table was French, and had a first name of Paris!  

There is a Mr Mason free membership which provides you with food and beverage related benefits, and member invitations to in-house events.

On the whole, Mr Mason is a good place for a work or social lunch. The French inspired food is good quality at reasonable prices, especially on the Express Lunch Menu.  The service is prompt. The staff are friendly and helpful.  

Thu, 8 Nov 2012

 Entrance at Little Collins Street

 Nondescript Entrance, Notable Food

 Bar

 Bust at Bar

 Chic Seating

 Lighting Feature

 Lounge Area with Wall Heating

One of the Seating Areas

Menu 

 Chargrilled Rump Steak, Roasted Garlic and Onions, Buttered Beans

 Grilled Rump Minute Steak,  Hand cut Frites, Dijon Mustard, Petit Salad

Chicken Liver Parfait, Toasted Brioche, Apple Chutney

Interesting - cut bunch of garlic - with the Chargrilled Rump Steak

 Chocolate Soufflé, Broken Honeycomb, Vanilla bean Ice Cream

Another view of the Chocolate Soufflé, 

Thu, 29 Nov 2012

Crisp Confit Chicken Leg, Mograhbieh Cous Cous, Beetroot, Goat's Milk Curd

  Sticky Beef Salad, Chilli Orange Glaze, Iceberg Lettuce, Mint

 Pork  fillet Wellington, Sweet Potato Puree

 Chocolate Soufflé, Broken Honeycomb, Vanilla bean Ice Cream

Thu, 10 Jan 2013

 Salmon Tartare, Crème Fraiche, Crusty Baguette

 Kingfish Ceviche, Lime, Cucumber, Mango Granitè

 Country Terrine of Chicken, Capers & Jamon, Pickled Vegetables, Toast

 Confit Pork, Spiced Cous Cous, Carrot Puree

Tagliatelle, Mussels, Clams, White Wine, Cream

 Profiteroles, Vanilla Custard, Cherry Puree, Chocolate Ice Cream

Another view of the Profiteroles

Review - Decca Bar

Decca Bar
95 Queen St 
Melbourne

Mon, 5th Nov 2012
Fri, 9th Nov 2012

Cuisine: Modern Australian
Taste Rating: 7.5/10   Value Rating: 7.5/10 

Went to Decca Bar twice recently for lunch catchup with friends. Had the Black Angus Decca Burger both times - tasty lean Australian beef patty, fresh brioche bun, slightly melted cheese, easy to eat while talking, does not drip everywhere like some other burgers do. :)

I believe Decca is under a new owner - Greg is the guy. Makes everyone feel very welcome with his smile and friendly personality! Overall, a nice spot to meet up, basement venue under an Art Deco building, compact and cosy, small menu with food cooked by chef, reasonable prices, club at night. Enter at street level and walk down the stairs.

If anyone is interested in Melbourne history, here is a link to the building
National Trustees Executors Agency building