Pie Face, Cranbourne North, Melbourne

We were in the vicinity and saw Pie Face (1585 Thompsons Road, Cranbourne North, Melbourne). Bought one of their beef and cheese pies to try. These guys were once upon a time darlings of the pie brands here from what I gathered. There has been some criticism over the quality of their pies in the past years but we didn't know any better because this was our first time getting one.

Quite buttery crust and and chunkier meat than the beef pie from Country Cob Bakery. Didn't taste bad.

Country Cob Bakery, Springvale, Melbourne

One of the things we've been looking forward to this trip was pies. After some "research", I had to concede that the options were overwhelming. Country Cob Bakery (890-892 Princes Highway, Springvale, Melbourne) looked like a good shop as any for a newbie because...... 

......it's home of Australia's best pie? 😂 Even the options here was overwhelming.

We settled on a few. They all looked mostly the same on the outside with that buttery brown pastry shell.

Curry scallop pie's not bad. The curry appeared to have a lot of green peas in them and was a little coconut-y. Not as much scallops in it as I thought but I'm not complaining.

The Malaysian prawn pie tasted like an creamy and less spicy version of laksa. Most people back home will never identify this as laksa. It tasted like laksa rempah. Just not exactly laksa. And no laksa leaves. Not bad. Chunky prawns in there.

My favourite was their plain beef pie which had a intensely flavoured, creamy and velvety filling of beef gravy. There's small bits of beef in that delicious gravy and I liked it. 👍🏼

Vanilla slice - or what I also discovered was named "snot block". Our first snot block. The layer inside between the pastry tasted custardy like how I imagined it.

Revisiting Cenzo

We finally made it back to Cenzo.

Sparkling water is a couple of bucks and bottomless.

Wagyu tartar cannoli wasn't memorable. Wouldn't have known it was wagyu if the menu hadn't mentioned.

The lardo tigelle with truffle honey which we liked from the last time has become garlic bread whipped lardo burnt honey. This one was nice...cheesy, savoury and tinged with sweetness. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the tigelle was nicer. 😅

There's a lot of pistachio stuff going around lately. Most of them are second rate. I'm also being kind by just labelling them second rate because the honest description would conceivably be 'con job'. Not this gramigna with pistachio pesto though. It's not just nuttiness in the pesto, it's pistachio specific nuttiness here. With actual crushed nuts. Enriched by burrata.

What I had been looking forward to was their lambchetta. You read that right.

This was awesome. Serious crackling cushioned by a layer of flavourful lamb-y fat over meat. That and its unique blend of bite, greasiness and crunch. Why so? It doesn't have the same mouthfeel as regular porchetta because of the size. Pretty rich and heart clogging. 👍🏼

Tiramisu to end.

Cenzo, Club Street

Cenzo (81 Club Street, tel : +65 9155 8374) opened a couple of years back and is helmed a Drew Nocente, the force previously behind the kitchen at the defunct Salted & Hung. I was given the impression that there was a nose to tail representation they were cultivating back then but I'm not seeing that here in Cenzo. Anywayysss......

This was their vitello tonnato. The dish is traditionally Piedmontese and uses thinly sliced veal covered in tuna sauce. Cenzo's rendition uses grilled veal tongue. Damn. Fricking. Good. Nice sear going on the outside and tender on the inside.

That's lardo tigelle with truffle honey. Bread tasted freshly made and much lighter than appearances suggested. Delicious porcine meltiness with the sweetness of honey cut through with pickled fennel I think. Will be hard pressed not to want to get this again.

Pastrami sandwich's pretty good. Meat's made in house and thinly sliced - more SweetSpot. than Katz's. Layered with slaw, pickles and in between some brioche-y bread. While I understand the acid, I prefer less of it. 

Awesome pappardelle white ragu. It's a rich cream version of a pasta Bolognese minus tomato, addition of guanciale among the minced veal along with liquorice notes from fennel seeds. Served piping hot. Nice. 👍🏼

Love the prawn risotto too. Stock infusion was thick with a rich crustacean sweetness coupled with some spiciness. Luxuriant is the appropriate word here. And charred prawns. 

Hmmm....charred prawns.

So we decided that it would be tiramisu.

Not bad. 

Coffee's decent.

Would love to come back again.

Surrey Hills Grocer, One Holland Village

Surrey Hills Grocer opened up at Holland Village (#03-29 One Holland Village Mall, 7 Holland Village Way, tel  : +65 8189 6372) recently and the venue's pet friendly. All things considered, it's a good place if one enjoys canine voyeurism which involves spontaneous butt sniffing greeting exchange between dogs. 

One of the main motivations coming here was definitely not the queue we had to endure nor the chance to catch glimpses of many a cute corgi within petting range but the tapas from MoVida from Melbourne which I was curious about.

We tried the anchoa which featured Cantabrian anchovy on crouton and smoked tomato sorbet. It was for a brief moment refreshing from the sorbet but ended up being mostly salty because of the anchovies. Also kinda awkward to eat with utensils or with hands because those thin crotons crumbled easily while the anchovies don't yield as kindly with the sorbet melting.

That's the pez real with smoked kingfish, pine nut sorbet and pine nut gazpacho. Sorbet's tangy...which I did not expect out of a pine nut sorbet. Not bad tasting.

Tartar on almond & horseradish cracker and pickled turnips. I could only taste the beef tartare. The rest were all textures.

Pleasantly surprised by their orange caramel bacon benny. There's an orange caramel fish sauce glaze on that thick cut of belly bacon - that was nice. The Hollandaise sauce was also orangey and buttery - found that quite addictive. Too little glaze and sauce methinks. We asked for more of the Hollandaise and they obliged.

Wagyu truffled donut was pretty overpriced in retrospect. Sauce on the side tasted like a truffled mushroom soup. Meat was passable as long as one doesn't think wagyu - it was properly seared on the exterior with a medium doneness on the inside. What was really bad about it was the lack of salt that could have brought out the flavour of the meat. 

Menu also described a Poolish donut. Didn't know what it was. Was thinking it would be sugared or glazed but it was neither.

Something did not agree with me for their honey earl grey wild lavender cake. It was kept somewhere sufficiently cold that the lavender infused buttercream had texture like cold butter, not buttercream. I like buttercream to have texture like cream. Leaving this out for a half hour just to let it get there did not make sense.

Yuzu sparkling coffee's delicious. Yuja tea marmalade, coffee and sparkling water. Nice! 👍🏼

Boomarang, The Quayside

Have finally gotten over my curiosity about Boomarang (#01-15 The Quayside, 60 Robertson Quay, tel  : +65 6738 1077) today. Part of the reason why the curiosity was because, I've never been able to definitively describe what's Australian about Australian food due to the cultural confluence that has been part of their cuisine.

I won't pretend that Boomerang is a definitive of that because it won't be and cannot be. But it is still a casual representative? Superficially?

There's Suntory Black on tap. Did not expect this.

These are known as prawn cutlets on the menu. Deep fried coconut crumbed prawns is what they were. No coconut taste so it was pretty meh. Overpriced for it's portion but I won't complain because I came here of my own accord and didn't have a gun over my head to order them.

Kangaroo burger was....kinda boring. I've had kangaroo before and have enjoyed it. This one wasn't delicious. At least I didn't think it was. Won't find excuses for it. I'm not sure what to make out of that patty but it didn't taste satisfying. For some reasons, they didn't salt the meat much.

Pizza's called Far North Queensland. Prawns, salmon, calamari and spinach on a mango chutney base. Did not expect the crust to be so biscuit thin. It was okay. Okay meaning that if I ever came back I won't be ordering it again. The accompanying yoghurt on the side was nice though.

The closest place I could relate to in Melbourne was The General Assembly and those guys were way better for what we ate.

Cowaramup, Telok Blangah Road

Heard about Cowaramup (404 Telok Blangah Road, tel : +65 8500 1111) a while ago. They're apparently Australian styled and set up with the chef Jimmy Teo who's also responsible for Meat 4 Meet at East Coast Road so there're parallels in the menu which I had initially thought to be the same dishes. Didn't taste so. Sadly by the time we visited, the fried sweetbread that used to be on the menu a couple of months back were not longer available.

I remember this as the double bacon cheese burger pappardelle on their older menu and it's been renamed to omit the 'double bacon cheese burger'. Someone must have noticed that it was outright misleading because this was just a bolognese with some cheese sauce. No onions, or pickles or cheese burger cheese in there that would have made it cheeseburger-y.  

One of the parallels in the menu mentioned earlier was their lamb cutlet. Looked very similar to the one at Meet 4 Meat. Just more expensive and smaller portions. The flavour from one at Meet 4 Meat made me think of balsamic glaze while the sweetness of this one tasted more sugary like char siew. Not bad tasting but I felt the lamb flavour was a tad subdued. Menu also mention corn ribs but this was obviously some generic mesclun salad on the side. Would have been basic courtesy for them to mention what they're failing to deliver.

The ordering person registered medium rare but it arrived more like medium well.

Duck Wellington's not bad. The crust looked like it had a nicer egg wash and was more buttery than the one on the Beef Wellington at Meet 4 Meat. Generous portions of duck and foie gras in this one. Not bad.