Quan Lua

Being Vietnamese, I’ve grown up eating Vietnamese food at home and at the restaurants in Springvale where I’ve had the pleasure of being served authentic dishes. Don’t ever expect any customer service and a clean environment when you’re eating in these restaurants. You’re there for the food and that is it! However over the past few years I have noticed a lot more modern looking Vietnamese restaurants popping up in Springvale.

We recently discovered a fairly new restaurant called Quan Lua that opened up with apparently really good Bun bo Hue. Now for those that don’t know, Bun bo Hue is a spicy Vietnamese noodle soup from Hue, a city in central Vietnam. Davin and I have both had our fair share of this dish in our lifetime and so when a friend of ours told us how good it was there, it certainly piqued our interest.

Located on Buckingham Avenue along a strip of other restaurants and shops, Quan Lua is a smallish no nonsense restaurant. When you enter, you know it’s the real deal when there are only true blue Vietnamese customers dining inside.

For drinks I ordered the iced kumquat drink which was delicious. Davin has never been a fan of kumquat in general but I love it. He stuck to just hot tea.

But we were there of course for their famous Bun bo Hue so we ordered 2 bowls of it and excitedly waited with much anticipation. They came out in large generous bowls piping hot with the usual sides of lime wedges, mint, bean sprouts and other greens to mix in with your Bun bo Hue. The first thing we noticed was that it was packed full of goodies to devour! They definitely didn’t cheapen out as the bowls had lots of beef and pork slices, cubes of pig blood and large pork knuckles.

The first thing I always do when eating a soupy dish is to take a sip of the broth to get a sense of the flavours. The broth was so beautifully flavoured. It had the perfect amount of spiciness combined with the lovely sour and salty flavours to make it a killer broth. The noodles were also perfectly bouncy and not too soft. Coated in the flavoured broth, I enjoyed slurping up every bit of noodle. The beef and pork portions were generous with the right amounts of fat attached to it, however it was the pig blood that was really special. These cubes of blood was so delicate like jelly, and so fresh! I don’t think I’ve ever had pig blood that fresh before.

Verdict? Probably the best Bun bo Hue I’ve had in a long time! Highly recommend! However if you do feel like another soup noodle dish there, I also recommend their country style chicken noodle soup which is also amazing. The broth is herbal based and also really flavoured. The chicken literally just falls off the bone too!

Quan Lua
Approx $15 AUD
Address: 23A Buckingham Ave, Springvale VIC 3171
Phone: +61 (0)401 211 888

Quan Lua Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Belleville

We were recently invited to Belleville, a restaurant and bar located in a rustic warehouse type building near Chinatown. Think dim lights, chandeliers, scuffed walls and floors, loud music and a DJ to create a casual vibe.

Davin and I started off with a couple of drinks and I ordered a dry martini with olives, and Davin ordered a glass of the Champagne Collette.

For starters we ordered the duck ham with taleggio cream, pickled black berry and sour dough crips. We’ve never had duck ham before but the texture and flavours were nice. Davin thought it was probably on the salty side. We also got the chargrilled calamari with ‘ndjuda, cavalo nero and mussels. This was a really nice dish and the seafood was fresh.

With mains we decided to order the Tasmanian salmon with cauliflower, golden raisins and citrus beurre blanc, and their famous rotisserie free range chicken with jus and miso butter. The salmon was nice and cooked well. The rotisserie free range chicken however was a bit of a let down. The chicken skin was on the salty side and tasted more like one of those charcoal chickens you could get from a takeaway shop. It didn’t stand out for us.

We also ordered sides with our mains and got the rotisserie sweet potato with creme fraiche, aged gouda and chives. This was delicious! It came out piping hot and we loved it. We also loved the chargrilled greens with citrus butter and pecorino. It was so flavoured and the greens had a lovely crunch to it.

Overall, Belleville has a great vibe for if you want to have a couple of drinks and food with a bunch of friends in a casual setting.

Belleville
Approx $45 AUD per person
Address: 1 Globe Alley, Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: +61 3 9663 4041
Website: belleville-melbourne.com

Belleville Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Bensons on Martin

Tapas is the best cure for indecisive people, which was the category that Helen and I fell into on a weeknight. It’s hard to keep the budget down on weeknights without opting for Asian food, but ya gotta splurge sometimes! We were interested to find that Brighton had a tapas restaurant called Bensons on Martin with some decent reviews. Brighton is not the first suburb I think of when it comes to a tapas restaurant, but this was the exact reason why we decided to try these guys out.

First thing I noticed walking in was that it didn’t have the buzz of a tapas restaurant. I’m used to a packed house, people chattering, music playing, etc. This was not the case here ,as we even got to pick where to sit. I’m not complaining but it just felt unusual. This was a weeknight after all, so maybe they get busier on Fridays/weekends. We decided to sit by the window to give these guys some free advertising.

The decision was made to get an assortment of tapas and then reassess our fullness. We were off to a flyer with the mussels with white wine broth! Plump and juicy mussels, the broth had heaps of flavour and character. I could also taste the onion and herbs coming through as well, this was a delicious dish. There just wasn’t enough though as I could have done with 6 more, such a tease! The other two dishes I really enjoyed were the scallops wrapped in bacon and lamb cutlets.

Some of the other dishes we had here were a bit hit and miss. It’s interesting because I’m not referring to the whole dishes as a miss, but specific components within the dishes which did not hit the mark. For example, the caramalised onions were overwhelming the stuffed mushrooms, it felt like I was eating caramalised onions on a small plate as I couldn’t taste the mushroom at all. The crispy pulled pork was good for the first two bites before it go so sickeningly sweet that we couldn’t finish it, and the smoked salmon in the carpaccio tasted like it was from a packet at the supermarket. It’s not that I don’t like packaged smoked salmon from the supermarket, but it’s just that for the price we’re paying, we kinda expected a bit more.

The tapas didn’t fill us up fully so we decided to get a roasted duck breast risotto to finish off. The risotto itself was amazing, but once again the inconsistencies shined through as the roasted duck breast was extremely tough. If I had dentures, I’m sure this duck would have ripped it out of my mouth!

Bensons on Martin does some dishes really well but they also a healthy amount of not very enjoyable dishes. The ratio is too high to warrant a return from us unfortunately. If these certain components in the dishes could be improved, then the customers would be in for a stellar experience! We hope that they take some of the feedback on board and continue to improve, and we wish them all the best.

Bensons on Martin
Approx $45 AUD per person
Address: 146-148 Martin Street, Brighton VIC 3186
Phone: +61 3 9596 0443
Website: www.bensonsonmartin.com

Bensons on Martin Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Secret Kitchen (Doncaster)

There is an abundance of places to choose from in Melbourne when it comes to yum cha. We absolutely love yum cha and have grown up with it, often making it a family affair. Anyway not long ago we were advised to try out Secret Kitchen. There are a number of franchises scattered across Melbourne but we ended up going to the one recommended, located in the Doncaster Westfield shopping centre.

As with traditional yum cha, trolleys of glorious food is pushed around the restaurant right to your table for your choosing. We picked our usual favourites which included varied dumplings, chicken feet, tripe, and a noodle dish.

All the dishes were of very high quality and fresh! We particularly liked the noodle dish, which is something we don’t normally order or even see at other yum cha restaurants, but it was delicious! So flavoured but it didn’t taste overly oily. It was so easy to scoff.

The dumplings were all good with generous delicious filling and the perfect, bouncy outer skin. Sometimes you get dumplings where the outer layer is so thick that’s all you can taste, but that’s not the case here!

We also ordered the silken tofu with ginger syrup dessert, one of my favourites! The tofu was certainly silky smooth, with a nice subtle ginger flavour. The syrup was also not too sickly sweet.

The egg tarts were freshly baked with the perfect eggy flavour, and again not too sweet.

Overall it was a great yum cha experience. Service was also really good and staff were super efficient. We will definitely be thinking of Secret Kitchen when we’re craving some yum cha in the future!

Secret Kitchen
Approx $40 AUD per person
Address: ShopL2-2003/619 Doncaster Rd, Doncaster VIC 3108
Phone: +61 3 9840 2248
Website: secret-kitchen.com.au

Secret Kitchen Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato