Gami Chicken & Beer, Westfield Fountain Gate, Melbourne

I certainly hadn't expected my first meal in Melbourne to be Korean Fried Chicken. But Gami (Westfield Fountain Gate Level 1, 352 Princes Highway, Narre Warren, Melbourne, tel : + +61 3 8774 3986) wasn't bad at all. This order of boneless chicken we had was tender and crispy without being excessively greasy. This was almost the experience we had from Chicken Up some years back. We did supplement that with some of their spicy seafood jigae which was pretty decent stuff. Certainly didn't expect to find scallops in them.

More rice and fish at Kuro Maguro

We tried a couple of the other donburi at Kuro Maguro today that didn't look like a variant of chirashi or contained tuna. 

That included some marinated aji which I didn't like because of the ginger flavour.

There was grilled mekajiki toro. Grilling seemed to have robbed the swordfish of what was recognizeable about the raw rendition of fish. While it wasn't bad, I don't think I enjoyed that BBQ sauce enough to ever order it again.

What we found pretty enjoyable was their hononiku karaage, which was a little different from the one at their parent Maguro Donya Miura Misakikou Sushi & Dining. This version was battered while the latter as I recall was breaded.

And I said, "What about breakfast at Nassim Hill Bakery?"

So we ended up at Nassim Hill Bakery. Which I remember liking for their hot Reuben with beer bread. 

Those cheddar bacon waffles were good. Textures of thin, crisp and light that were paired up with a little bit of sweet and salty as one could rightfully expect from the Cheddar cheese, bacon bits and possibly maple syrup. So good you could even eat them on their own. Or with the accompanying sour cream. But - their bacon on the side was kinda disappointing. It wasn't smoky at all. And having that smoky element gone from the bacon made it feel hollow. A bacon without soul.

By the way their scrambled eggs and sausage aren't bad at all too. That tightly packed, salty and just that little bit spicy sausage with bread would be just one of those things that I could look forward to in the morning.

Botanico at The Garage, Botanic Gardens

Someone(s) out there spent a lot of time, money, blood and sweat to build this restaurant (Level 2 The Garage, 50 Cluny Park Road, tel : +65 9831 1106). And then they built a website that they thought it deserved to introduce it to the world. Which is why I won't be doing it. Here's a link.

But here's what I think of it. Their ideas are good. Execution is in my not so humble opinion, not so. 

oyster | avocado jalapeño emulsion | smoked salmon roe

Oysters with avocado puree would be what I would call it. Not getting any smoke from those puny portions of roe or the jalapeño. Was hoping for the shellfish to be more chilled. I'm not an expert on oysters so I'll just say they're not bad. 

pork belly | charred pineapple | sherry glaze

Their pork belly was a sweet, savoury and fall apart tender kind of nice. But for what they charged, I was hoping that it would be outstanding rather than just nice.

lamb tartare | capers | mustard ice cream

I liked the idea of lamb tartare because I generally like lamb and I thought this might be on to something. While it was obvious that it's meat, I couldn't identify what meat it was. Too much marination perhaps. Not traditional tartare in terms of spices but the creamy mustard ice cream worked. Not getting the smoked olive oil too. As a dish, it was fine. As lamb tartare, this was forgettable.

Those cheesy crackers that came with the lamb were nice though.

roasted pigeon | risotto | walnuts

There was a roasted pigeon with risotto made with pigeon jus, onions and mozzarella cheese. The rice had a flavour that reminded me of French onion soup. Which was not surprising considering that the soup was essentially a beef stock, onions and some cheese. I liked this. The bird was nicely roasted to a medium doneness and properly salted. Possibly the only impressive dish we had.

carabinero | saffron mellow rice | pork crackers | pine nuts

Those carabinero prawns were tasty. Crustacean-ily flavoursome as one would expect. The rice was sweet. Loads of sweetness coming from some crustacean stock and from what we were tasting, totally devoided of salt. So only the prawns were nice.

jalapeño ice cream | bacon financier | Sarawak pineapple | coriander

Ice cream was not bad. Tasted that jalapeño flavour through the creaminess. Not sure what's the deal with the bacon financier thought. It would seem that Botanico isn't very different from a bunch of other restaurants in town; attempting to slap up some interesting combinations of ingredients and flavours on the menu without any responsibility of having to live up to what they have claimed. 

malt ice cream | 70% dark chocolate | Guinness stout | thyme

Couldn't taste the malt in the ice cream. That's just sad right? They've probably wasted the Guinness as well in whichever item that was suppose to have stout. I'm getting the thyme and chocolate though.

I thought it was a pity that the food didn't quite work out. There was a pleasant outdoor seating that even had air conditioning which I would have wanted to try if there was a possibility of returning. They even pour a nice moscato that was less overpriced than most others by glass.

Trippa from Saizeriya

Saizeriya has tripe on the menu. Must have been a recent thing. No it's definitely not the best or even one of the better one around. Sadly. But one doesn't come here looking for great quality. The flavour from the tripe was a little lacking, however the tomato based broth packed more than a little bit of heat. With a generous application of their powdered Parmesan cheese and some pepper, one can also pretend it's almost a trippa alla Fiorentina with chilli.

A Diwali brunch at Zam Zam

So we spent our first meal of Deepavali at Zam Zam (697-699 North Bridge Road).

We've never been able to get past their mutton murtabak. The mince crusted texture and flavour sufficiently defined that I could eat this without gravy. One of the things that makes Zam Zam better than most if not all of the rest is that they don't get lazy with the onions. Those onions are diced small enough and sufficiently sweated to a pleasant sweetness. Something that I find most of the stalls making murtabaks never figured out for some reasons.

They've a nice creamy kurma on the menu too. Mutton was a dusky pink and fork tender. A good rendition but definitely not the best around. 

What do we have here?  A briyani it appears to be.

Fish briyani. It's fried mackerel with a tangy gravy that's flavourful with onions and a moderate heat from the spices. There was much more of that gravy than there was enough rice to go around.

Very little beats a milky sweet teh tarik to wash down all that food.