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Sam Sam

21/3/2017

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Work lunch with Lenka took us to Sam Sam where we were quickly seated in a funky little dining room. I ordered the spicy stir fried pork belly and Lenka went schnitzel. Both dishes came with rice. 

Servings are generous and tasty and arrived quickly. The pork was a little sweet so I think I prefer the Seoulja Boy version plus that one has a runny egg which makes all things better. However this was still good and we both enjoyed our meals and concluded that Sam Sam is decent place for a Korean lunch.
Sam Sam Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato
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Seoulja Boy

14/1/2017

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I had a great Saturday! Caught up with Stef and Teresa and we went to a matinee performance of Burn the Floor at the Arts Centre which concluded with a cheeky Bellini at Fatto Bar in the sunshine. It was about 5pm and we wanted a delicious early dinnner. I'd seen social media postings about Seoulja Boy so offered it up as a suggestion and the price point seemed good so off we went.

At just after 5pm, it wasn't surprising we were the only table. We enjoyed a spacious booth a friendly welcome and before we knew it, drinks had been ordered. Cocktails come around $13 and I really enjoyed the tart fruitiness of the number known as Mo Problems.

The dining area is large and roomy with some bar tables, high level seating actually at the bar, booths for larger groups and a DJ station. It's charcoal and neon with the odd shot of hot pink - it feels contemporary, a little bit hip and a lot of fun.

There's some tongue in cheek humour at Seoulja Boy. He's a funny chap; cheeky "Seoulex" logo as well as other fun pokings of that RnB life but credible enough with live DJs playing music at a reasonable volume that it doesn't make conversing difficult. DJ started later in the evening and not when we arrived at 5pm! Also if you enjoy a good quote to make you smile, take a trip to the bathroom for some inspiration.

Through the course of the night we saw couples come in for a date; some lingered, others enjoyed a quick bite to eat. There were families and like us groups of friends so a good cross section of folk. I liked that mix of clientele and that some spent an hour there and others longer and we ended up there for 3.5 hours! But more on that later...
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We decided to go with the $35 per person Feed Me option (minimum 2 people) which includes 4 of the anju (starter size dishes), 1 main and a dessert. For us, the Feed Me kicked off with:

  • Kingfish sashimi, white kimchi and fish roe with yuzu soy dressing and wasabi mayo
  • Nori crumbed prawn Kdog with mustard mayo
The sashimi was prettily presented and a generous serving for the 3 of us; about 4 slices of each. The balance of the citrussy soy and the mayo was good and the fish was certainly fresh. Teresa found a pin bone in hers but no major damage caused.

The Kdog is a plump croquette on a stick. More prawn flavoured mashed potato with a crispy crumb so more soft and fluffy rather than anything dense or meaty in texture. It's fun to eat and I don't like mustard but didn't find the mayo too overpowering.

The other anju dishes were:
  • Lightly salted taro chips
  • Edamame with roasted nori salt

Granted, on paper these two dishes didn't sound that interesting but they were actually very good. The edamame was good quality and didn't have that slimey goo that sometimes happens and the nori salt gave it a bit of a twist to the usual sea salt. The taro chips were crispy and not greasy so had a nice "beer snack" feel to it. Again, generous servings.

Our greediness meant we wanted supplementary items to the $35 menu! We were tempted by fried chicken, dumplings, pancake, corn...but we went with the interestingly described Sushi Slider - tuna on tempura kale, spring onions, fish roe and Seoulja Boy sauce.

It was attractive to look at - cubes of deep red tuna against a white cracker with shades of green running through as well shades of orange sauce and roe. Probably less slider and more sashimi on a cracker if I'm going to be fussy about words. It was a but difficult to eat as the kale is quite tough being the vegetable it is. The sauce is that Korean spicy chilli sauce with some sweetness; gojuchang and it's super tasty but I did feel it overwhelmed the fish a bit.  Not a terrible dish by any means but not as well balanced as the kingfish sashimi.
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As there were three of us dining, rather than three serves of one main dish to share, it was organised that we could have two dishes that each served 1.5 so same volume but we could enjoy some variation. Great customer service, team Seoulja Boy!

  • Korean style slow cooked braised short ribs sticky glazed and simmered on a low heat for tender, sweet meat
  • Char grilled Porterhouse steak with Korean spicy ssamjang sauce and roasted garlic
So two different ways of serving cow and each different and delicious. We also each had a bowl of purple rice.

The ribs were just as tender as described and definitely had the sweet sticky glaze but not too heavy. Pretty tasty with the rice and a little but of the sliced green chilli and spring onion to make it a bit fresher. I really enjoyed the steak and we were advised to take a piece of the medium rare meat and have a bit of the chilli sauce, some ribbons of the spring onion and a garlic clove and eat it altogether. What a delicious mouthful and the garlic isn't too intense as it's been roasted to mellow it out.

Now having put in a sneaky sushi slider as an extra and with dessert to come, we really didn't need any more food but talk tuned to one of Seoulja Boy's specialty dishes being the Ddeokbokki Carbonara and we were lucky enough that the original Seoulja Boy i.e. Benny the owner provided us with a complimentary serving to try.

The chewy ddeokbokki (rice cakes kind of like gnocchi) were perfectly cooked; soft but still bouncy and that creamy, bacon and onion sauce was just amazingly delicious. It's definitely a rich dish and I don't know if I could eat a whole serve to myself but I'm they type to struggle with a whole portion of pasta carbonara anyway. This is a must order and yes, share away but make sure there's enough for everyone!

So having put away all this food, we were so full. The attentive waitresses checked in several times to see if we were ready for dessert and we had to ask for a ten minute breather. After a couple of ten minute breathers, we faced dessert. By the way, when we were asked about dessert it wasn't to rush us and we felt no pressure to have to leave.

Dessert was the creatively named C.R.E.A.M which stands for Cakes Rule Everything Around Me! Described has homemade cheesecake icecream and banana cake with a lemon dressing, we weren't sure about how all these flavours would work. But, no fear, dessert didn't let us down. The banana cake was soft and moist. The icecream had a lemon cheesecake tang. It wasn't the smoothest of ice creams and we mentioned that to Benny and he explained that because of some technical issues with machinery, the ice cream was being churned by hand! Well no wonder there were ice crystals and I can forgive that knowing there is some poor kitchen team member having to hand churn ice cream!

Seoulja Boy is a hit! It's not unlike Rice, Paper, Scissors which is close by but it's less frantic. I think it is excellent value for money and I'm looking forward to trying more of the menu. There's an incredible sounding pork belly main dish for two to share which I must sample! It's a place that can be all things to all men - casual lunch joint, quick dine and dash or a longer leisurely meal like our's. Suitable for couples and groups, it's a good place for good times!
Seoulja Boy Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato
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Seoul Soul

17/10/2015

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We were doing our usual weekend grocery shop in Richmond and it was lunchtime. Seoul Soul was conveniently located and I remember having a decent meal there a few years back and Steve fancied trying it.

We ordered some pork dumplings and some veggie dumplings and they were tasty with a crunchy outer shell unlike the steamed or fried dumplings we usually have. These tasted more baked. The pickled veg they were sat on was fragrant with sesame and packed a fiery punch.

We both ordered a stone pot bibimbap and I had the spicy pork and Steve had the beef. With a drizzled of chilli sauce we were set to dig in. The bowl is deceptively deep and there's quite a bit of rice. It was tasty and sometimes I find Korean food overly sweet but this was balanced well flavour wise and I enjoyed the spicy sauce.

The stone pot retains the heat so it does get warm eating it and add the spice then it can get pretty hot. The restaurant itself is quite small and not particularly cool but with it being lunchtime it wasn't too busy so it was good. The food arrived quickly. The service was brisk and efficient but not unfriendly. Pretty well priced and a pretty satisfying and quick option.
Seoul Soul Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato
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Oriental Spoon

27/3/2014

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Thursday night post a few drinks means two tipsy girls need tasty food stat and we stumbled into the brightly lit Oriental Spoon on Elizabeth Street which had only opened earlier in the week, so we were told.

The welcome was warm and friendly. The menu isn't that big but we managed to find a couple of dishes to share.

We had the spicy rice cakes and the kim chee and bacon fried rice...carb overload. We needed some protein so ordered a tonkotsu fillet afterwards. The rice was served on a big shovel so the novelty factor was there in spades...boom!

The spicy rice cakes packed a punch and I liked the chewy texture. The fried rice was flavoursome with salty bacon and then a slight tang of kim chee. Accompanying pickles, kim chee and miso soup were pleasant enough. The tonkotsu was very thin but super crispy and just what was needed.

Oriental Spoon is the epitomy of cheap and cheerful but also satisfying and just what was needed.
Oriental Spoon on Urbanspoon
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Warra Warra

19/2/2014

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My colleague Bianca who enjoys Asian spicy food suggested I join her for lunch as she'd "discovered" somewhere new so I took up the offer and we meandered the CBD  streets and lineways going behind Swanston where a whole new world opened!
We arrived at exactly midday which meant we were the first of the lunchtime crowds and in the 45 minutes or so we were there, the place just filled up with hungry CBD diners mostly the office worker crowd.

There are soup noodles that come under $10 otherwise everything is just over so for many it's probably not an every day lunch. There are lots of choices - the traditional tofu stew caught my eye. I've not had that since 1998 in a Korean restaurant in New Jersey and oh the memories but I refrained for fear it wouldn't live up to that. Sharpened pencils and a tiny order pad make for easy ordering and helps the memory when going up to the cash register but the print is very fine so some squinting necessary.

I was happy to pay the $12 or so for the stewed short ribs that came in a tin pot bubbling with savoury, spicy sauce, huge chunks of potato and pumpkin, tender braised meat and steamed rice. Oh it was soul warming and so delicious.

Bianca had the beef bulgogi which came with rice and a choice of side dishes and she went for the pickles. I sometimes find Korean cuisine just too sweet but my taster of her beef bulgogi convinced me that this was a genuine, authentic sweetness and not the cloying sugaryness that sometimes happens.

The restaurant is light and airy - modern decor and appealingly clean.Service was with a smil and efficient. I think I've found my new favourite lunch spot! Thanks Bianca.
Warra Warra on Urbanspoon
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Seoul Soul

22/8/2012

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We came with hungry tummies and high expectations due to what we'd heard from friends and on the digital grape vine. We, being myself, and the Choongs being Ling and Noah. Barley Boy had another social engagement so the three of us agreed to try and find our Seoul souls.

This little alcove like dining hall is cute and well constructed. We were pretty early dining around 6pm but there were already people there and more showed up as our meal progressed. There's good use of space and it certainly lends itself to food spying and eyeing up what the party next to you orders.
 The dinner menu is quite wide and it's hard deciding where to start so we took the easy opion and went for a set dinner. We were hungry and the $100 price tag seemed reasonable enough and probably around what we'd spend anyway so we went for the four person dinner to share between three.

The first dishes to come out were fishcakes, kim chee pancake and a fried tofu salad and we also had a small dish of kim chee and pickled turnip.

The fishcakes were sweet in flavour and had what's known as fish floss sprinkled over it which is dehydrated fish that is cooked, baked and flavoured so that it's very strong flavoured and has the texture of dry cotton. Fish floss and the more common pork floss are not really my thing and I found the fishcakes a bit too synthetic and artificial tasting for my liking.

The kim chee pancake was nice enough with a light soy dressing and the tofu salad was probably the winner although I didn't expect it to be. The cubes of tofu were well seasoned and crispy and the salad ingredients fresh and crunch and even the random pieces of strawberry and peach didn't offend me.
Next were two rice dishes - bibimbap and spicy pork teriyaki. The bibimbap was really well flavoured and I enjoyed it when it was mushed up along with the egg. It resembled fried rice really with a bit of spice.

The pork teriyaki was pleasant enough but not particularly memorable.
Next came some skewers of prawn, scallop, shiitake mushroom and rice cake. The scallops were very small and didn't have much flavour. The prawns were ok. The shiitake and the rice cakes were probably the better ones and likely to be the cheapest. We'd probably have preferred it if they were all shiitake and rice cake.

The grilled dishes came soon after - belly pork covered in a sweet slightly spicy sauce and grilled beef short ribs along with one bowl of rice. The pork belly was nice enough and the short ribs although well flavoured were quite tough. There was also a bowl of hot soup. Good thing we are all good friends who don't mind the dreaded double dip because we weren't really offered smaller individual dishes to pour it into. The soup was tasty at first but towards the end started to taste overly salted.

Service throughout was quietly effective - not overly warm and friendly but distantly polite and efficient.

So did Seoul Soul speak to our souls? We left not overly full in spite of getting a 4 person banquet when there were three of us. Some of it was tasty enough such as the teriyaki and the grilled dishes but others were a bit of miss. It's ok priced but I wouldn't be rushing back in a huge hurry. A big bowl of pho for $8 would probably warm my soul more.

Seoul Soul on Urbanspoon
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Guhng

2/11/2011

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Wednesday night dinner date with Stefanie and we decided to try Korean BBQ. I booked a table for 6pm. Stef arrived first and they didn't seem to have the booking but that was fine as we still got a table.

Lots of menu choices and set menus and we choose one we like the sound of. The pickles and beef salad arrive first and our BBQ is set up with hot coals.

We try all the different pickles and I try to figure what is what. Stef is far more sophisticated and seems to know what she is eating!

Our set menu came with different cuts of beef and a pot of kim chee soup as well as  bowl of black rice each.

The soup is like a spicy minestrone...pretty tasty so no complaints. The beef is put on the BBQ for us and cooked and turned over and cut into pieces by the wait staff which is good as I wouldn't really know what I was doing. The dipping sauces for the beef are yummy. They consist of a slightly sweet teriyaki style one, a spicy chilli bean one and salty oily pesto like one.

We being the hungry girls we are and lunch seems a long long time ago order some extra dishes - dumplings and some belly pork. We also end up ordering some chicken as I decided I could eat more! The dumplings are a little hard and the filling is strangely sweet - probably not a favourite to order again.

All the meat was good and enjoyable. The rice was sticky and good bland accompaniment to everything else.

We chose the green tea tiramisu and the blackberry panna cotta for our desserts. Both were light, not too sweet and sugary and were a pleasant end to the meal. I preferred the tiramisu and Stef preferred the panna cotta but we liked both.

The restaurant filled up and was pretty busy for a Wednesday night. Lots of Korean people too so must be fairly authentic. I liked the way we weren't rushed and we spent close to three hours there just chatting and grilling and eating! The cold tea they provided know as corn tea was a little strange at first but then after the first couple of cups, was a refreshing alternative to the usual water.

It's not cheap at Guhng. The Entertainment Card softened the blow but it was pretty good grub so if you're in the mood for Korean, it's a good option. I'm not sure the set meals are enough as we greedily had extra and if we hadn't have ordered the add ons, I reckon we'd still be hungry. Of course that could be because we eat more than the average person...

Guhng (The Palace) on Urbanspoon
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Shinssi Hwaro Korean BBQ

12/2/2011

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Charis' last meal in Melbourne was Korean BBQ. We'd been wanting to try this out for a while and a cool Saturday evening seemed ideal. A quick phone call to check they had room for us and that it was BYO and we set off.

Tucked down an alley with other Korean restaurants, there weren't too many people when we arrived. This soon changed later on and pretty much every table was busy. There were lots of Korean students so thumbs up for authenticity. The wait staff were very friendly and showed us to a booth table tucked away. We were shown a buzzer we could press to request service and left to browse the menu.

We were served our appetisers which were small dishes of kim chee (pungent, sharp and spicy), pickled cucumber, beansprout salad, marinated beancurd strips (sweet and soy like) and some garlic bak choy. My fave was the bak choy follow by the beansprouts. Charis and Steve enjoyed the kim chee.

We expected the BBQ to be gas so we were pleasantly surprised when the waiter bought some incredibly hot, glowing coal and put it into our table top BBQ.

We opted for the all you can eat meat where you get to choose as much meat you can eat and also an entree each. Steve ordered beef and veg on rice with an egg, I went for beef soup which had a few glass noodles in it and it came with a bowl of rice and Charis went for kim chee soup which also came with rice.

Meat wise we had different marinaded cuts of beef, some plain Scotch fillet,beef ribs, marinaded pork and chicken and some marinaded octopus. I was quite excited about the marinaded octopus but found it too sweet so we left most of that. Steve couldn't bring himself to eat the little octopi.

Dessert was a scoop of cheap Neopolitan ice cream which I could take or leave and some deliciously refreshing watermelon.

We enjoyed the BBQ experience and it's pretty good value particularly with BYO wine at $3 per person. It's definitely a group activity and more fun with more people. I'd return to this particular establishment as the meat was decent quality for the price, the wait staff were friendly and there's a pretty wide menu to choose from.

Shinssi Hwaro Korean BBQ Restaurant on Urbanspoon
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3 Kingdoms and Monga Dessert Lounge

4/2/2011

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Friday night adventure to Box Hill! Steve and I decided to get there by train which was made more exciting by the fact that a candidate of mine told me not to get the train back from Box Hill after 9pm "because bad things happen there after 9pm!" Our journey there started off grey and then the rain fell. When I say fell I mean it poured. Rivers were created on the platforms of the stations we passed through. We could hear it hammer down on the roof of the train.

We were greeted at the station by Ling and Noah and we headed to 3 Kingdoms. The trip involved a subway and wading through ankle high water. Ling got a piggy back from Noah to keep her shoes dry!

3 Kingdoms was reasonably busy. It smelt good as we walked in and we were hungry so good signs. We shared some fried dumplings which were tasty, kim chi pancake and spring onion pancake. The pancakes were ok - more veg than pancake. The courses came out one at a time too so it was quite a long meal. Noah ordered a fermented rice drink which came in a can and the response from both Ling and Noah after first sip wasn't enough to make me want to try.

Main courses - Noah had beef bulgogi, Steve and I had bibimbap which was a stone pot with beef, veggies and fried egg in it which I topped with chilli sauce and Ling had teriyaki fish. Ling's dish came out really late and tasted a little odd. Kind of sweet and salty at the same time. The bibimbaps were pretty good; lots of rice but not really authentic as the egg was too well done. Usually it's raw and you mush it altogether to get a bit of sauce from the egg so the dish ended up being a little dry. The beef bulgogi tasted fine - not exceptional but fine. It looked a but stringy too.

Wouldn't bust a gut to return but it was acceptable and the company made it fun.

We then went for Chinese dessert at Monga Dessert Lounge. Got to say I'm not a huge fan but because we were in Box Hill and the weather was humid like Hong Kong, it felt like the right thing to do. Plus it's Chinese New Year so I guess I should do things that are the traditions of my people.

Once again Ling's dish was delayed but Steve's waffle with green tea ice cream and red bean paste was even later. The waffle and ice cream was good but the red bean paste was a little bit too much like Mexican refried beans which don't really go with waffle and ice cream so Steve pushed the paste to one side. Lings sweet green bean (like a pulse rather than the vegetable) with kelp was declared ok but she wished she'd ordered her usual red bean sweet soup. Noah had a basil seed and watermelon dish with coconut milk that looked like frog spawn with balls of red melon. Nice colours. I had the sago with coconut milk and ice cream which was like runny rice pudding and nice enough but far too much coconut milk so I couldn't finish it.

I think we'll return to Monga Dessert Lounge and bring my mum as she likes stuff like that but Chinese desserts are not really my thing.
3 Kingdoms on Urbanspoon Monga Dessert Lounge on Urbanspoon
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    Fine Print

    For those that know us, this section will probably come with no surprise! Steve and I love eating out so this is our record of our time in Australia.

    This is a blog that is 100% written and edited by Steve and I. All opinions expressed are our own and are not influenced by any third party.

    Any sponsored posts are easily identified as such.

    Thanks for reading barleyblog.

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