Friends of Mine at Swan Street, Richmond

I managed to meet up with one of the architects that I had worked with as a student intern in one of the medium sized Melbourne architecture firms. She takes her breakfast very seriously, so when she suggested Friends of Mine in Richmond I knew we were in for a real treat. All their food is organic, and where possible, they use local produce so you know that the animals and veggies have all been lovingly nurtured and harvested. It makes you feel happy to know that what you're eating is real good stuff : )

To digress from the breakfast post, when I was working there in 2000, I helped her out on the design and project management for a vineyard restaurant in the Mornington Peninsula area called Montalto - the restaurant has a really lovely view of the vines, and the food is just fabulous. In summer they even do up picnic baskets for people to sit among the gardens. It's definitely worth a visit, even if just to buy olive oil and wines from the cellar door.

Back to breakfast -there's nothing like a good cafe latte to clear the head so that you can look at the menu and see what's good. By the way, on that Saturday morning, the place was absolutely packed. It was a miracle that we managed to get a table since a party of 4 had just left.

I ordered the eggs benedict ($16.90) - described on the menu as "smoked ham hock terrine, perfect poached googies (I suppose that means eggs!), english muffin and teency weency basil". My friend warned me it was "a bit on the small side" - and I was like, come on. This is Melbourne where you struggle to finish what you order! But she was right - it was manageable by my standards, and it was so good I really wished there could have been more. The smoked ham terrine was brilliant. I also ordered a serve of mushrooms on the side, that I gobbled up without taking a photo of...argh.

She had the house smoked salmon ($19.90), which came on a corn pikelet, avocado, herbed creme fraiche and poached egg. She also had bacon on the side for an extra $4. This looked so good, I knew I had to go back.

And so I did. I brought the husband back 2 days later. This time, it was a Monday morning and things were more sane. I loved their menu!

Another coffee to start the day.

View of the restaurant behind my coffee

This time, I ordered the Jack and Jill ($18.90)- this is like their house special, or big breakfast with everything on it - poached eggs, bacon, 12hr roasted tomato, avocado and thyme buttered mushrooms. IT. WAS. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

So good I just had to post another photo of it.

I ordered the smoked salmon. And with my husband, we eat half of what the other has ordered, like all good Asians.

Look at all the goodness oozing out.

The husband loved it so much he wanted to order something like, so we had the Croissant with ham off the bone, bechamel, emmental cheese, and truss tomato for $7.50. It was the perfect combination of slightly sweet and buttery warm soft yet crusty croissant with ham and melted cheese, and tangy tomato.

What the place looks like from the outside.

It's really near the Burnley Station, like 5 mins walk. Parking around the neighbourhood is pretty easy too - on a weekday morning!

506 Swan St, Richmond

15-20 mins drive from from Melbourne City because of traffic not distance

Website: http://www.friendsofmine.com.au/

南北河 or Gold Star Noodle House at Mid-City Arcade, Melbourne

When I used to look for more affordable lunch options as a poor non-income earning student, this place in Chinatown was usually top of my list, ahead of other options like A1, King of Kings, Hills, Nam Loong and Camy Shanghai Dumplings (which used to be tops before The Age reported a huge hygiene problem). So when I went back and was looking for a quick meal, I headed there to relieve my memories of 10 years ago with the pork chop with soya egg on rice. It used to cost $7 - now it's $8.50! I initially started frequenting this place in 1999 for the 台湾牛肉面 but once I discovered the pork chop with soya egg on rice, there was no turning back.

In my did-not-sleep-one-wink-on-the-red-eye-flight condition, I then got confused between MidCity Arcade and the new renovated arcade where Dragon Boat yumcha and the cinema used to be - I was really devastated because I thought they had renovated MidCity and chased out all the tenants, and after walking around in a depressed state on Bourke St, realised I was mistaken! And all was instantly well again.

Since it was 3pm on a weekday afternoon, it was deserted.

The pork chop with soya egg on rice was exactly how I remembered it to be - crispy, tender, and extremely sinful.

And it's best with the sambal chilli that they serve in a jar.

Gold Star Noodle House

Shop 7 and 8 Mid-City Arcade

Bourke Street

Melbourne, VIC

Tel: +61 3 9663 8638

Ba Le at Footscray, Melbourne

I got back from a quick trip to Melbourne in late August and promptly flew off for a 2-week long work trip after that, and I've been so dying to write this post ever since. Sometimes, when I eat a wonderfully memorable meal, I'm thinking as I chew on how to do the blog post - Ba Le was exactly like that. It was SO good that I drove back 2 days after my first time, for a final taste before flying back to Singapore.

Ba Le is a small Vietnamese sandwich shop located about 100m away from Footscray Market near Flemington. If not for the Chinese words, I would never have guessed that Ba Le actually means Paris : )

When we walked in, there were amazing sights of all the food in the display that greeted us. They're a banh mi shop, meaning they do the baguettes filled with meat.

My friend had other ideas - she steered me to what looked like ham, sausages, cured meat and fishcake.

There was a lot of incredible looking stuff on display

This was what we ordered: fish cakes, pork with sticky rice cakes, and the large flat cake in the middle with cinnamon (verbatim). From the internet, I learnt that these preserved meat rolls that look like sausages are called cha lua, or silk sausages.

And we also picked up one kilogram of the rice noodles - these were similar to cheong fun.

The shop owner slicing off a wedge of the flat stuff with cinnamon for us

All the stuff that we couldn't buy

After that, we headed to the Little Saigon Market round the corner to pick up mint, holy basil, and lettuce, before heading home. Here's the entire spread:

All the pork/fish cakes all sliced up, about 5mm thick. The stuff on the bottom right is the pork cake with sticky rice - the grains clearly visible.

My friend made the dipping sauce by mixing fish sauce with sugar and water, with minced garlic and chillies added. Tasted just like the Mekong spring roll sauce! Ba Le sells this sauce too, but my friend's was better.

We couldn't find the correct lettuce, and had to settle for iceberg instead. The lettuce is supposed to be the variety with the curly leaf edges that is used for popiah.

Sitting out on the balcony for breakfast in 12 deg C weather!

So she used scissors to cut the rice noodles into 5-cm wide pieces.

First the greens go into the bowl

This is what the rice noodles look like up close. They were amazingly soft and supple. Better than any kuey teow, kuey chap, or cheong fun that I've ever eaten. The stuff that dreams are made of.

Stage 2 of assembly

Throwing on the lettuce and meat slices

And finally adding the sweet/salty sauce before devouring the first of many bowls. It was perhaps the most memorable meal of my Melbourne trip.

PK, I love and hate you forever for creating this life-long desire for Ba Le. I'm even craving it as I'm typing this post out now.

Ba Le

Shop 3, 28A Leeds Street

Footscray, VIC 3011

Tel: +61-3-9687 2985

Xi Yan at Craig Road

Xi Yan along Craig Road is a lovely Chinese restaurant within two conservation shophouses - they serve set menus for both lunch and dinner, and we happened to be there to celebrate a friend's birthday on a day where they had a special set lunch for $28++.

It was pretty interesting to see the menu printed out on the table.


Loved the teacup and chopstick holder

Tomatoes with wasabi sesame sauce. Nice, but very miserable for 6 people!

Next course: spare ribs with tangerine peel - again, this was for 6 people! We had like, 3 to 4 eraser-sized ribs each. When you consider that most of the piece consists of bone, it's a hard thing to swallow.

Fortunately the third course was a huge bowl of noodles- basil prawns in a spicy wine broth. Now this was REALLY yummy - I licked up every drop. The noodles had a really nice texture - soft but not falling apart, similar to mee sua but slighty firmer.

Only two prawns per bowl : (

Dessert - one half pear per person. Fortunately the noodles filled us up, so this was a nice ending to the meal.

Verdict: Good food - very yummy in fact - but go only if you're feeling rich and not too hungry.

38A Craig Road

Singapore 089676

Tel: 6220 3546

www.xiyan.com.sg

Meng Cheong Teochew Food Stall at Ghim Moh Market

Another of my favourite teochew muay stalls is at Ghim Moh Market. Way back in the 90s, when I was wearing a white shirt and green skirt, I used to eat at this stall pretty frequently when we had the opportunity to escape though the side gate. Since I happened to be in the area for a meeting, I was very pleased to be able to visit my old haunt.

It was super crowded! Argh. They used to do table service. Now you need to queue!

All the yummy stuff on a tray

Chai Poh Nng and fishcake - teochew muay staples.

Tau pok and lor bak - such good flavour!

Chye buay - another teochew muay staple. In case you're wondering why everything is a staple for me, it's because I really like to eat EVERYTHING.

The fish cake has chye poh inside - oh so yummy (I don't know why iphone rotated my photo like that and I can't rotate it back)

Lim Joo Hin Eating House - Teochew Muay

Teochew porridge is one of my absolute favourite foods - I can eat it any day, any time. So when I saw Tan Hsueh Yun feature this place in her facebook page, I marched the husband down the next day to give it a try.

Lim Joo Hin is located along Havelock Road, close to Beo Crescent. I love the idea of eating good old hearty food along the open walkway.


There's a lot of stuff on display. More flavours than Baskin Robbins.

I love the grain-iness of the muay.

Taupok - a must have for teochew muay. This was good - the braising sauce wasn't too salty nor porky.

Chye buay - another teochew muay must have.

I love hae bee hiam with my porridge.

The husband loves lor ab, or braised duck. I thought it wasn't too bad.

Fishcake - good for dipping in the tangy chilli sauce.

I liked the beancurd skin although the husband wasn't a fan.

The minced pork wasn't too fatty

And we had to order the token healthy veg

And one of our favourites - braised peanuts.

It was a fabulous meal - and considering what we've been spending on food, great value for money.

Lim Joo Hin Eating House

715 Havelock Road

Tel: 62729871

Apparently open from 11am to 5am, although I've never been there past 10pm.