Dolan Uyghur Restaurant, Springvale, Melbourne

Heard of Uyghur people and their food? Me neither. They're an ethnic minority from Xinjiang; a region of China that borders places like Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The people are Muslims and their food predominantly Halal. That translates to plenty of lamb and kebabs. And they have a representation of their cuisine down in Springvale (10 Queens Avenue, Springvale, Melbourne, tel : +61 3 9546 0698)

We started off with some Uyghur yoghurt. It tasted like lassi that is lightly sweetened so nothing unexpected or surprising there.

We had a couple of their noodle dishes. The first was their Tohu Goshi Langmeni. I'm guessing that the last word "langmeni" is derived from the Chinese la mian - which means pulled noodles. This one was of the flat variety, somewhat similar to pappardelle in appearance; stir fried with some vegetables and chicken. The texture of those flat noodles were springy and pleasant. Not a springy texture that I could say that I had experienced before though. I thought this was pretty good.

The other noodles looked like regular thick noodles that were chopped to short bits. This dish, called Qanalgan Korma Langmeni was cooked with different vegetables (celery and carrots) and minced lamb in some stock which might have had a tomato base. It wasn't very spicy in spite of appearances but was flavoursome the same.

One of the kickass items that they do rather well was their lamb skewers. These were chunkier than those quite easily found yang rou chuan that we have back home. While this had a less heavy hand on the seasoning, both varieties were delicious in their own cumin-y and salty way.

There were also chicken skewers which were no less tasty. The spice mix as you might have guessed are the same for all their meats. For the first time, it hit me that these tasted very much like tandoori chicken. Too bad the lamb tripe wasn't as good as I had imagined. The seasoning didn't cling very well to the tripe which resulted in some bits lacking flavour.

We ordered a plate of their stir fried lamb offal which included lungs, heart and liver. This was very nicely done. Those innards were thin sliced and rather tender. This dish would have been awesome with rice.

The General Assembly, South Wharf, Melbourne

Had lunch here (29 South Wharf Promenade, South Wharf, Melbourne, tel : +61 3 9682 6007) while we were at South Wharf so this was a totally random pick. This place was kinda like Brewerkz. Craft brew on tap and food to be had. We didn't get any beer though.

Those are boneless lamb ribs with mint sauce. The rib meat was deboned, breaded and fried. Unfortunately it didn't taste as good as it might have sounded. The meat needed more salt. Mint sauce tasted like the over sugared stuff that came from a jar.

The food was then subsequently saved by the Camembert. With honey and thyme and a dense and tasty walnut bread to go with. Wished they had given more bread for the gooey stinky cheese though.

Unexpectedly outstanding was their char grilled chicken breast with textures of corn. The meat from the chook was deliciously smoky while the crisp, char and sweet puree from the corn textures was enjoyable to say the least. These guys sure did a good job out of corn and chicken.

As much as we had enjoyed the Camembert and the chicken, we felt that the most awesome plate they served today was their ravioli. With green peas, Pecorino cheese, lemon and mint along with burnt lemon butter. Flavours were a medley of sweetness from the peas, citrus from the lemon and a nice savoury undertone from the cheese. As a dish, this could possibly be the best ravioli I've ever had to date.

Skewered kangaroo loin from The Meat & Wine Co.

This steakhouse down by Southbank was the response from a couple of friends when I was asking about having kangaroo in Melbourne. I'm pretty sure there're a number of places here that does this stuff but this particular one from The Meat & Wine Co. (3 Freshwater Place, Southbank, Melbourne, tel : +61 03 9696 5333) was something they thought was properly done and deserved a try. To their credit, it was a good recommendation. We were served on a skewer, nicely charred medium rare pieces of kangaroo loin over fried onions and potatoes. I had even found the sweet marinade that they used on the meat enjoyable. If anyone was wondering, that meat was tender like beef tenderloin with a light gaminess which I thought was delicious.

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.