February 5, 2019 by Helen Le

Le Charme De Saigon

We had the pleasure of being invited to Le Charme De Saigon, a Vietnamese restaurant which recently opened on Little Bourke St in Chinatown, Melbourne CBD. We dined in the lovely company of Bearabbit, Tim.E and Simmy.

I instantly loved the decor of the place upon entering. Recently renovated, the walls and trimmings were painted a dark modern teal, with lovely lotus lamps, and tree like lights hanging from the ceiling. It certainly had a nice charm to it!

We started the night off with some cocktails, Davin ordering the Salted Caramel Expresso Martini, and I ordering the Ultimate Lychee Martini. My lychee martini was really nice and refreshing. Davin’s cocktail was on the sweet side and didn’t have that strong coffee flavour we generally look out for. It may have been that the salted caramel and kahlua was overpowering the coffee itself.

For food, we started off with a tasting plate called ‘A Little of Everything’. It had spring roll, viet sausage, shrimp cake, chicken skewer and prawn crackers. This was a lovely appetising starter dish and everything was fried to perfection. The batter on everything was light and crispy.

We then had the lamb san choy bow and DIY crispy duck with bao (steam bun). Both the lamb and duck was fried with crispy skin. The sauces that went with both dishes were probably more on the sweet side for us. The duck in particular was quite dry, however we understand this dish cooked authentically is supposed to be this way, therefore knowing that, it made more sense to us.

The Saigon curry beef brisket stew with baguette came up next. This was a delicious dish! It brought back memories of my grandma making Vietnamese curry for me when I was little. The sauce was flavoured to perfection and it had a lovely consistency with the perfect amount of heat to it! I loved dipping the bread and scooping up all the curry sauce. The beef itself was a bit tough however overall it was a great dish.

The North Viet supreme soup with fish fillet was also really nice and flavoured. It was an appetising dish. Davin’s favourite dish of the night however was the stir fried clam with X.O sauce. I have to say it was a really tasty dish! We haven’t had this in a while and it was full of flavour. It even had the lovely crunchy chinese donuts mixed in and soaked with the X.O sauce.

We also really liked the Saigon seafood rice broth, the seafood was really fresh and we loved the crispy rice in the broth which gave it a different texture with each bite. This is a dish we would definitely order again!

Overall we had a great experience, and the food was good. Being Vietnamese however, I do note that a lot of the dishes are more Chinese or Malaysian than authentic Vietnamese. Perhaps it should be labelled more as an Asian restaurant than Vietnamese. Anyway, if you’re ever around this area, check it out and let us know your thoughts!

Le Charme De Saigon
Approx $35 AUD per person
Address: Shop 3, 178 Little Bourke Street, CBD, Melbourne
Phone: +61 3 9663 3321
Website: le-charme-de-saigon.business.site

December 2, 2018 by Helen Le

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

June 17, 2018 by Davin Lee

Red Panda

It’s been a family tradition of ours that the birthday person shouts a meal for the rest of the family. I had already agreed to host dinner at my place for mum’s birthday, but rules are rules, and mum took us to Red Panda on her actual birthday. Mum was pretty excited about taking us here, she said that they’ve got a few special dishes which other Chinese restaurants don’t have. I personally don’t get too excited about trying new Chinese restaurants, but her energy rubbed off on me, and therefore I was eager to try these guys out.

Red Panda is located in a fairly quiet area in Wheelers Hill. I must have driven past this restaurant a million times and have not noticed them. I remembered the Salvation Army on this strip of shops, but that was it. A quick search on Google maps and I knew exactly where I needed to be. Red Panda felt and looked like a typical Chinese restaurant, they had a little takeaway counter which led into the main dining room. I sat down and my bum cheeks sunk into the chair! I found this a bit hilarious… these chairs have probably had their fair share of bottoms through the years! There’s also the fact that they’ve got carpet, I’ve never been a fan of carpets in restaurants. Apart from these 2 niggly things, the restaurant looked really clean and there was adequate spacing between the tables.

Mum had quietly whispered to me that their vegetables were a bit old and tough last time. I asked her which ones she ordered and suggested to order a Chinese broccoli this time. I also thought it was best we told them about her previous experience and confirm that their Chinese broccoli was fresh this time. There’s nothing worse than eating old Chinese broccoli as it gets stringy and tough. After being deprived of vegetables from our Japan trip, I was looking forward to some quality veggies back home!

We started off with 2 pigeons as entree, I was shocked to find out they were $28 each! I can’t remember the last time I had pigeon, so I cannot comment whether or not that was a reasonable price, but it felt expensive. It felt like an eternity before the other five dishes arrived, it was probably our fault because we asked for all the dishes to arrive together. I do not know the exact names of each dish because it was all in Chinese, but I can certainly tell you which ones were the best! My favourite dishes of the night were the fish balls with vermicelli, deep fried chicken spare ribs and the egg yolk coated eggplant. The fish balls had a bouncy texture and came with an awesome tasting soup. The chicken spare ribs were deep fried beautifully, crunchy texture and had a sweetness to it too. I enjoyed the egg yolk coated eggplant because it was just special and I had never had a dish like this before.

So remember the Chinese broccoli I was so looking forward to? Well they were old and tough! You know when you’re so deprived of something, then you think you’re gonna get it, and it turns out to be absolute sh*t? Well that’s the emotions I went through! My mood meter was sitting between annoyed and angry. To give you an idea how bad they were, we couldn’t even chew through a lot of the stems because they were so stringy. To put it bluntly, they need to fire their green vegetables supplier because they shouldn’t be serving this quality to their customers. The other dish that was disappointing was the enoki mushroom and tofu dish. It tasted quite ‘fishy’… I questioned mum what it could be, and she suspects that the dried scallops they used were probably not fresh. I’ve never had this experience before, but I’ll take her word for it.

Overall, the dishes here were a bit hit and miss. I noticed they really excel in a lot of the fried dishes, but I would never come here for greens. It’s not a place I would personally come back to, but if mum wanted to come here again then I would join her. Sometimes it’s not just the quality of the food, but also who you eat it with.

Red Panda
Approx $35 AUD per person
Address: 4/192 Brandon Park Dr, Wheelers Hills VIC 3150
Phone: +61 3 9561 3256

September 27, 2015May 6, 2018 by Davin Lee

Yum Cha at Tao Tao House

Since it’s Sunday today, I thought it was only fitting that I post a yum cha review! Last weekend, Helen and I were really craving for some yum cha when we woke up. I was kind of sick of the bad quality yum cha we’ve been getting around our area, so I quickly jumped online to see if there were any other alternatives. I came across Tao Tao House through my research and quickly learned that the chef had worked at Flower Drum for nearly 20 years. He also worked at Golden Dragon Palace afterwards, another very reputable yum cha place. Quite an impressive resume there, I quickly called up Tao Tao House to make a booking.

When we arrived I noticed that Tao Tao House was a lot smaller than other yum cha places we go to. Normally yum cha establishments are huge with a sea of people, but this had a more smaller and intimate feel. The interior had a bit of a purple colour scheme happening with purple chairs and purple table clothes. A little different from other yum cha places, but it was quite nice and I quickly got used to it. The waiter seated us down straight away with some jasmine tea. One thing I hate about a lot of other yum cha places was the wait to get the first dishes on the table. No such problem here, a lady walked by with a tray of food and we were well on our way!

We quickly filled our table with food. The dishes we ordered were Har Gau (prawn dumping), scallop siu mai, chive prawn dumpling, Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, chicken feet in black bean sauce, BBQ pork puffs, Xiao Long Bao (pork soup dumplings), prawn rice noodle roll and Chinese egg tarts. All the dishes were extremely high quality, and I was very impressed with both the taste and texture of each dish. Some of my highlights include the Har Gau, the prawns were very fresh inside and you could taste the prawn pieces in the dumpling. At some of the other yum cha places, the prawn in the dumpling can taste mushy. The Chinese broccoli was really crunchy and blanched perfectly. The oyster sauce was light, and flavoured the broccoli nicely without being salty. The chicken feet was so good! As soon as I tried one, there was a burst of flavour in my mouth. The prawn rice noodle roll had a very thin outing which just dropped over my chopstick when I picked it up. A lot of places make the rice noodle roll way too thick, which can taste very doughy and non appetizing. The prawns inside were once again very fresh. As much as we wanted to finish with a mango pudding, we were just too full. We enjoyed some fresh Chinese egg tarts for dessert. The pastry was very light and flaky. The egg filling inside was silky smooth and actually tasted like egg, and not just a sweet filling. Simply delicious…

It felt like there were a lot of staff there for a smallish place. We never had any trouble getting anyone’s attention, which can sometimes be a problem at really busy yum cha places. The customer service here was actually really good. They were not only switched on and very efficient, but also spoke nicely and were very friendly. A very pleasant surprise in the yum cha scene. The food kept coming out with next to no waiting time, and we got full pretty quickly. The price at Tao Tao House is a little more expensive, we found ourselves paying about $20 more between the two of us compared to other places. No complaints though, as the quality of the food justifies the price. This is the best yum cha I’ve had outside of Hong Kong. The search for great yum cha certainly doesn’t end here, I will continue to try other yum cha places in Melbourne and will definitely keep you guys up to date. I highly recommend Tao Tao House and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too!

Tao Tao House
Approx $50 AUD per person
815 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn VIC 3122
Phone: +61 3 9818 0968
Website: www.taotaohouse.com.au