Tina’s Noodle Kitchen (Box Hill)

October 23, 2018 by Helen Le

One cool night we were wandering around Box Hill looking for a place to eat when we came across Tina’s Noodle Kitchen. It was bustling with people so we knew something good was brewing inside! Like most Asian restaurants in Box Hill, it is purposely built for you to get in, eat your meal, and get out. We were fine with that!

We scanned the menu and saw quite a few items we wanted to order but finally settled on a few to share. We started off with the pickled vegetable threads and the beef skewers which included beef, tripe, stomach, ox tongue and mixed veggies in a spicy chilli oil sauce. The pickled vegetable threads were SO good! The vegetables were pickled to perfection and were so appetising, I couldn’t stop eating them! The beef skewers were also really nice however be warned, they are spicy!

We also ordered the wonton in spicy soup. Did I say the beef skewers were spicy? Because the wontons were even spicier! So deliciously flavoured though if you can handle the heat!

For mains Davin ordered the spicy stewed lamb ribs with rice set which came with soup and a side tofu salad. The lamb ribs were of course also spicy! I guess you can see a theme here. The spiciness numbed our tongues but we kept wanting more because the meat was so succulent and fell of the bone.

Given it was called Tina’s Noodle Kitchen, I had to order a bowl of soup noodles. There were so many different bowls of noodles to choose from. I was so overwhelmed! Of course a lot of them (okay probably most of them) were in red hot spicy soup. With all the other spicy dishes we had already ordered, I decided to order a less spicy dish to balance it out. I picked the soup noodles with braised pork belly and pickles. I was relieved to see the soup broth was not coloured red and that I could sip on the broth without my tongue going numb! It was a delicious broth, and the pork belly and pickles complemented it well. But what most impressed me were the actual noodles. They were soft, but not overcooked soft because they held their kind of bouncy texture at the same time. They were the most interesting noodles I’ve ever had. I loved it and couldn’t stop slurping up these noodles. Oh and did I mention the serving size? The bowl that came out for the soup noodles was HUGE!

Overall we had a great experience and the food was good. Just be prepared for a very spicy, tongue numbing night! But if you love eating spicy then this is the place for you!

Tina’s Noodle Kitchen House
Approx $25 AUD per person
Address: Box Hill Central, 1 Main St, Box Hill VIC 3128
Phone: +61 3 9041 7548

Nong Tang Noodle House

October 19, 2018 by Davin Lee

Nong Tang Noodle House is located on Bourke Street inside the Midcity arcade. I have to admit that I have not been inside this arcade much ever since Dessert House closed down, so it was a nice trip down memory lane. We were invited to attend their 1 year anniversary event and it certainly didn’t disappoint! They had rolled out the red carpet, and the entry felt like we were entering a club on a guest list. We sat down to a menu, and a red envelope. Nope… no money in there, but there was a rabbit lolly inside. We used to eat these all the time as kids so the nostalgia was strong!

After a quick intro by the organisers, we were on our way. We really appreciated David Yang (owner) explaining all the dishes to us along, with their Shanghai origins. The menus heading is a 10 course sampling menu, but let me tell you, there was no sampling. These dishes were full blown, and we ended up being more full than a wedding reception banquet! I won’t go through all the dishes one by one, but my favourites were the Xiao Long Bao, Shanghai braised pork meatballs in soy sauce, and the stir fried beef with Chinese broccoli.

I just laughed as I looked around, and seeing everyone squirting soup everywhere as they bit into the Xiao Long Bao. It was a tasty soup and the pork inside was flavoured really well. The skin also had great elasticity and bouncy texture, a must try dish. The Shanghai pork meatball was a dish I had never tried before. It had all the characteristics of quality Italian meatballs, and in a way I was expecting a tomato based sauce. However I was very impressed by the amount of soy sauce flavour they were able to infuse into the meatball.

I’m personally a huge fan of Chinese broccoli, and I always get told off by friends and family for ordering it! Their reasoning is that it’s a lot cheaper to make at home, so there should be no reason why I should ordering it when I’m out. DON’T CARE. I love it too much… and the Chinese broccoli at Nong Tang was the best I’ve ever had! Perfect crunch, extremely fresh, and only the best bits of the broccoli was used in this stir fried beef dish. I made a mention of the Chinese broccoli to David as I left, and he said he paid top dollar for it, I had no reason to doubt him.

The only dish which wasn’t as good as the rest, was the pork and prawn wonton in chilli oil. I felt as though they they may have toned down the spiciness for this event, and the wontons were overcooked. The wonton skin disintegrated as I picked up the wonton and all the filling came out. It was only one dish from the 10 course menu, so overall it was a highly successful event!

We’re fully aware that for an event like this, we would be eating the highest quality versions of each dish. I truly hope that the quality of these dishes carries through to other customers when it’s business as usual. They do have a relatively high score on Zomato prior to us coming, so we’re confident they’ll provide a great dining experience to everyone. We wish Nong Tang Noodle House all the best for years to come!

Nong Tang Noodle House
Approx $30 AUD per person
Address: Midcity Arcade, Shop 16/200 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Phone: +61 3 9639 9258

Le Clec

October 15, 2018 by Davin Lee

Insert [fancy French name] and watch them roll through the doors! Don’t all eateries wish it was that easy, the fact and the matter is these guys work their butts off to get where they are. This was exactly what crossed our minds when we saw the high ratings for Le Clec, and we were eager to see whether these ratings was justified.

We rolled up and got positive vibes right off the bat. The place was bright, warm from the wooden setting, and they even had Scandinavian style chairs, everybody loves Scandi chairs right? We were escorted to the enclosed back area which had plenty of natural light, without the bothersome bees. I seem to be a bee magnet, they always find me when I’m sitting outside!

There were 4 things which I loved about this menu, normally I don’t have 4 things to love about any menu.

1) They list their kitchen closing time (2:45PM). YES YES YES! Everyone could learn from this, especially the brunch cafes. Most cafes don’t serve food till their closing time, so let’s be transparent and put it on the menu.
2) There’s a ‘must try’ logo on their signature dishes. This is advertising the dishes they do best, takes the guesswork out.
3) Creative dishes – plenty of ways to skin a cat, all their dishes have their own special twist to it and it looked very promising indeed.
4) Reasonable prices! All the dishes on the menu were priced very well. To give you an example, my crispy salmon was $22 and a glass of wine to go with it was $6. A salmon and wine for under $30 presents exceptional value.

Well anyway, enough with the menu admiration, let’s move onto the food! My crispy salmon was out of this world! The skin was as promised – CRISPY, but the highlight was without a doubt the lemongrass, chilli broth. The broth complimented the perfectly cooked salmon beautifully. It was sour with a little chilli kick, very appetising! I was not expecting to be getting flavours like this for my first meal of the day, but I certainly wasn’t complaining. Being a huge mushroom fan, to get King Oyster mushrooms with this dish was just the cherry on top.

I looked across the table at Helen to get a glimpse of her reaction with her truffle scrambled eggs. I asked her how the eggs were, she responded with “It’s salty”. At this point sweat is building up on my forehead and I could feel my body shivering. She eats so much saltier than me, and for Helen to say something is salty, it must be pretty bad! I tried some of the scrambled eggs and my jaw just dropped, gasping for water. This was way over my salt tolerance threshold, and in this case Helen’s as well. She didn’t end up finishing it, and when the waiter come around we told him about it. To our surprise, his response was along the lines of ‘I’m sorry about that, however next time you should ask the chef to put less salt if you prefer to eat more plain’, suggesting that Helen was being particular. I just looked at him as if to say ‘Are you serious dude? Did you just apologise, but not apologise?’ I know for a fact that Helen eats really salty, and for him to just make this assumption without tasting the food was completely absurd! I didn’t feel like he was being intentionally rude, but he just sounded a little condescending. I never knew it was our responsibility to control the salt levels from their kitchen, otherwise it would work like bubble tea right? (No salt, 25% salt, 50% salt, etc.)

Credit where it’s due, the salmon was amazing but the truffled eggs + waiter, was not good at all. The saltiness could be a one off, and others may have had a different experience, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt here. They offered us a discount voucher as we were paying the bill, but whether that would entice us back is a different story. All in all, I wouldn’t rule out Le Clec as one of my recommendations to other people, it just may not be a place we’ll be returning to in the foreseeable future.