Hong Kong Express

For lunch today – we wanted to try something different. We went to Koroki Casual Dining/Bar in Liverpool Street, the upper end of Bourke street, near parliament station.

Koroki is a cute, small little restaurant tucked away with only 20 or 30 seats at tables and around the bar.

For lunch – they have a small but affective lunch menu, similar to a bento box.

You can’t have a Bento Box without a Miso Soup!

You choose 3 items from the menu, I chose Terriyaki Chicken, Beef and Onion and Chicken Arg ( I think that’s what it said on the menu. )

While the menu was very small, the taste was all delicious! My place was almost licked clean!

Over-all it was a good experience, though maybe just a little bit short of the amount of food, but it was very tasty and well priced.

I’m stealing your photo Betty! I love this photo so much.

Coda was such a great place to eat. The atmosphere was amazing (as Betty has captured here!).

Not long left now till I fly out! can’t wait!

I’ve finally managed to get some Pics in of the abanonded brick factory at Box Hill. Also got some shots around box hill.

Birthdays Ahoy!

This is the busy time of year, at least with work colleagues, for birthday lunches and dinners.

Tonight, for Michelle’s birthday, we went to “The Butchers Grill” as a surprise. The Butchers Grill is a fairly new restaurant; Vegetarians not recommended!

Any Vego’s who want to dine here should know, there are no vego options on the menu, only a note saying “for vegetarian options, please ask the waiter”.

From entering the restaurant, you can tell they’re trying to make a kitsch classy look. The chandeliers are bright and you can’t miss them.

The Library of Wines (pictured above) is a attraction point while dining. They’re all organised in a very interesting way with one bottle standing in front of the stacked bottles.

For starters, we had the Chilli & Fetta garlic bread. The Chilli gave it it an amazing zing, along with the Fetta cheese.

We also had a few dips. The cucumber was my favourite, but the eggplant was also excellent. I was disappointed at this, not because it was bad, but because we didn’t have enough bread to keep on eating!!

For mains, I ordered the Beef Raznjici. The beef was so tender, still rare inside and juicy. The home made yoghurt included added a soft delicious flavour to go with the beef shish kebab.

The bread was lightly toasted although was hard to suit with the rest of the plate. No complaints though, it was very suited to a slice of beef, lettuce , some raw onions and the Yoghurt.

The other impressive mains ordered with both the mixed grills.

The meat mixed grill includes: Chicken, grilled pork sausage, lamb cutlets, chevapchichi, pork loin chop; while the seafood: Kilpatrick oysters, calamari, scallops, fish fillet, garlic prawns.

The presentation was fantastic, but who cares about that when it’s the taste that’s important. The taste by the way, was fantastic.

I bet you can see at this point, you’re pretty much stuck with a protein hit here.

The steaks, while I didn’t have one, were exceptionally presented and looked to be cooked to perfection.

Wait! There’s more! This isn’t where the menu stops. Because we had the fortune of coming on a Tuesday, we received half price food as long as we ordered desserts.

I ordered the Chocolate Granche at the suggestion of our very friendly waitress.

She was dissapointed that no one at our table ordered it, as it was her favourite, so I changed my order. I was in no way at all dissapointed!!.

The chocolate was very rich, but light at the same time. It was similar to a mud cake, but almost as light at mouse though with the flavour of ferrero rochers!

The crepes were also fantastic, light, but full of delicious flavour.

We were all incredibly impressed with the service and the food from this new boutique resturaunt.

I would seriously recommend this as a must for a meat lover, but, might give it a try on a Tuesday night to avoid a exxy bill.

If you dont mind paying for it, you’ll get the service you desire from The Butchers Grill as well as the food to match the price.

Betty’s last night in Melbourne – we went to a newer restauraunt. Coda has recently opened up in Flinders Lane.

The sign, pictured to the left, is the only way you’d notice this subterranean getaway.

Across the road from Yu-u, it seems to be a popular place for resturaunts to pop up.

We didn’t make a booking, as you really need to book far in advance for this place, so we just rocked up and were seated waiting till we could get a seat at the bar.

Once inside, the dull-lit room came to life. From seated at the  bar, you have a clear view of the whole kitchen at work, along with the bartender directly infront of you serving.

The Coda menu is very asian inspired, but with some contemporary influences.  The menu is very lacking for the vego’s who might attend, which is the only major drawback from this resturaunt.

With only one starter and some of the sides the vegetarian dishes available, they might end up going hungry.

The most tempting starter on the menu was the roasted stuffed chicken wings. Filled with pork, glass noodle, jicama and spring onion relish. I didn’t have a chance to try these as we had a late lunch and wouldn’t be able to stuff myself that much.

I ordered the Hopkins River steak bernaise charcoal grilled with the fries side.

The steak was perfectly seasoned and cooked to perferction. The bernaise sauce was a little on the salty side, but thats to my liking anyway.

Betty had the Vego San Choy Bao, listed on the menu as “Eggplant and tofu lettuce delight, enoki mushroom, crispy garlic and black vinegar.” As sides, she also had “Coda slaw, wombok, carrot, hot mind and red cabbage” as well as the “Wok fried morning glory with garlic and ginger”.

Over all, the meal was excellent and the service was to match. The menu was very original and interesting, just lacking for vegetarians.

Lastly, a shot of the menu hanging from the back of the bar.

With guests in town from Sydney, the epic food blogger Betty, it was decided to visit Hardware Lane for dinner. We strolled up and down the lane way, getting hassled by the maitree’d's  in a typical Lygon street fashion. Well, maybe a little bit less aggressive.

When walking past The Mill, it was the only place we didn’t get hassled, so we decided to try it.

The menu differed a bit from the usual Hardware Lane Italian/Spanish treats to a bit more of a contempoary menu.

The meal was well priced, $125 for 5 people. Service was adequate and the food was quite nice.

A much better experience than I had with Von’s, but still not my favourite pick of the lane.

So with DST kicking in, it means that the 7am shift has been even more painful this week.

By the time I’m reaching work, the sun is only just rising. Painful, but at least it gives a nice view to the city.

With Ric in town, it was decided that we’d go for Sichuan. Dainty Sichuan, krudboy’s favourite joint, has moved to South Yarra, but Sichuan House has opened in its place.

The dish pictured at the top, “Ants Climbing the Trees” is a famous Sichuan dish, and was one of the hottest there (although it only had one chilli on the menu).

We also had a pork and garlic dish (pictured below) also with only one chilli on the menu.

It was my favourite dish out of all of them, as it still had flavour that wasn’t masked by the chilli and numbing heat of the Sichuan pepper.

Some of the other dishes are pictured below, including the soft shell crab and the very hot beef.

The service was OK at Sichuan house, the waitress laughed when I asked for water and brought me 2 x 2L bottles. It was a life saver

…must be doing extra business today, as someone was pretty desperate to get their $2 deposit back from the trolley.

Note – this was only about 500m away from the shopping centre, or even closer to a car park. The $2 must have been pretty pretty good.