Cheesy-licious Chicken'O from Old Chang Kee

Old Chang Kee has a new limited time curry puff called Cheesy-licious Chicken'O. Black pastry crust with base fillings that were presumably curried chicken and potatoes like their regular puffs. This one allegedly has mozzarella and cheddar cheese. The puffs were slightly cheesy but not enough to be food porn worthy. I still think lowly of their pastry to filling ratio. But hey, whatever the sheep love to pay for right?

Autumn sushi omakase with matsutake at Kuro Maguro

This wasn't so much of a traditional omakase as one would expect but a selection of the commonly available fish options for sushi at Kuro Maguro along with one matsutake nigiri. Going for $28.20 with the JPassport redemption rather than $70.50. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have paid that "usual" price. The sushi was reasonably tasty and their hon maguro - especially that otoro was delicious. I liked the matsutake but it was a little small to be satisfying. 

Sanma is in season so we got one grilled. I remember that these used to be bigger when I had them last year and that they had totally cleaned the innards. Today's smaller fish was filled with those fishy bittersweet dark bits of meat.

Revisiting Tong Kee Chicken Rice (東記雞飯)

I've been meaning to come back to Tong Kee (#01-25 Tanglin Halt Food Centre, 3A Commonwealth Drive) for quite some time to re-acquaint myself with their chicken rice which I remember enjoying. It's also a chance to better catalogue what specifically I liked about them. Never made it for reasons until recently.

I've previously mentioned that Tong Kee only does roasted/fried chicken. There's no white chicken to be had. We got ourselves a half chook. These guys have been making this one specific style of chicken for a long time so one can reasonably expect that they're pretty competent at what they do. Rice was good enough to eat on its own.

I had also previously mentioned their brown sauce. I used to get them with their hard boiled eggs but they were out of eggs already today. The owner then added that they still had the brown sauce if I wanted them. Couldn't say no. This sauce is a unique characteristic of this chicken rice stall. Do not judge it until you have tried them. The sweet caramelized flavours are much better tasting than appearances suggest

Tong Kee's chilli packs a bit of heat and also some zest from lime. Good stuff. 

A Grill Master burger from Hungry Jacks at Melbourne Airport

Hungry Jacks has a range of burgers which they group under Grill Masters. We assumed that these would be their premium burgers from how much they were charging and that how there were almost similar to the regular menu items but with allegedly better quality ingredients.

We tried a Angus, Bacon and Cheese burger. It was surprisingly not bad at all. Not Royal Stacks good but it's better than what one would normally expect from BK. The beef quality was definitely a notch up from what we could taste. The cheddar cheese tasted better than the regular one and it came with a brioche-y bun rather than the old sesame seed ones.

Compare with the regular "drier" looking Whopper - one can see how have the mighty fallen. Well, now we know what we'll be getting if we ever need to grab a bite at the transit area of the airport.

Briyani feat. The Crystal Method

This dum briyani was made with love by a friend who had been hosting us for the past week. Since none of you will ever get to taste how good it was, there's no point in me describing.

Thanks Crystal.

Asado, Southbank, Melbourne

This Argentinian/Spanish restaurant (Riverside Quay, Southbank, Melbourne, tel : +61 3 9088 8600) came by recommendation of friends. The menu consisted mostly of sharing plates and grilled meats and was pretty good. These guys have one of the better sangria I've had plus I'm of the opinion that they rivalled and likely outdid the experiences at Bochinche and Salta.

Taking lead with the small plates was some salted cod croquettes with pickled fennel, sour cream and dill.

Followed by empanadas stuffed generously with minced beef, olives and boiled eggs.

Their white fish ceviche was refreshingly flavoured.

Then came the lengua - thinly sliced grilled beef tongue topped with chimichurri.

Loved the salty provoleta which was topped with Oloroso soaked raisins.

Couldn't pass on those morcilla. Spiced blood sausages if anyone was wondering.

From the restaurant's asado, slow roasted Western Plains suckling pig of various cuts and very crispy skin. These were from pigs that were allegedly raised outdoors without artificial growth hormones on a primary diet of wheat and barley. It was a very delicious pork, nicely grilled and amazing with those jus that came with the serving.

They also had some pretty good quality and nicely grilled Rangers Valley grain fed flank here.

And for the obligatory greens - roasted Brussels sprouts with Manchego cream, raisins and hazelnuts. One should never mistaken obligatory with healthy. But this sure was tasty.

Starch was some fried russet potatoes which were essentially patatas bravas.