Pacific Seafood BBQ House, Melbourne

My Favourite Chinese Restaurant in Melbourne

The first time I came to Pacific Seafood BBQ House (mostly known as Pacific House) was probably 3 years ago. It was also the first time I had their Singapore Chilli Lobster. Since then, I've been longing to come back and have their lobster again. I've came back for other dishes but not the lobster so, before I fly to Melbourne last week, I asked my sister to make a booking because, I need to have their Singapore Chilli Lobster badly! Actually, apart from the Lobster everything else is really good too.

This is a very popular chinese restaurant among the Melbournians. You can expect long queues most of the time. Hence, booking is highly recommended. Food is superb and fairly priced. Service is really fast too, however don't expect any friendly service here.

This meal is a very special meal for me, as we were celebrating my sister, her husband and my birthday. It was a birthday fiesta! 

We had one of their very popular dishes, The deep fried chicken covered with salted egg yolk. This is so good! but like my brother in law said, this is the perfect recipe to heart attack, high in fat and salt. But we couldn't care any less, it was too good to say no to.

We also ordered the Venison meat, I think it was stir fry with ginger and shallot (I wasn't paying much attention when my sister made the order). The Venison meat was unbelievably tender. Even some of the fine dining restaurants couldn't achieve tenderness like this.

Pacific House is also popular for their BBQ pork and roast pork.

We ordered a garlic stir fry vegetable to balance our heavy dishes.

Then, we had the legendary Singapore Chilli Lobster! The sauce was so tasty, accompanied with Chinese thin egg noodle, it was heaven in my mouth! This Singapore Chilli sauce can be cooked with crab too.

My sister bought us a birthday cake from Laurent Patisserie. It was a chocolate and passionfruit mousse cake. The chocolate was rich, the passionfruit was sweet and sour but refreshing at the same time. Yum!

Please note: All the dishes were priced around twenties, except the lobster which was pretty pricey. It was $365. We didn't expect the lobster to cost so much, but we all agreed that it worth every dollar of our money.

Overall, I love this restaurant, food was really good, price is reasonable (except for the lobster). Hence, one of my favourite place to dine and for many Melbournians too.

Pacific Seafood BBQ House

1/210 Toorak Rd

South Yarra 

Ph: (03) 9826 3838

The Press Club, Melbourne

It's not an easy thing to secure a table at The Press Club. Owned by one of the Masterchef Judges, George Calombaris, this charming Greek restaurant is definitely one of Australians favourite eateries.  My sister tried to make a booking for dinner one and a half months ago, but the staff told her the earliest she could get a table for dinner on Saturday is three month later, so with some luck she managed to secure a table for us for lunch last Saturday.

 

My sister said that their lunch menu is not as good as dinner. They do serve a la carte for lunch and they also have set menu which they called Kerasma (which means to treat and to share in Greek) for $55 per person, it consists of chef's selection of entree, main and dessert. We decided to go with the Kerasma.

 Complementary Olive and white breads

Wild olives in olive oil & Black Salt

Entrees (There were three types of entree):

1. Squid Salad and Pickle Cucumber. It was quite refreshing and light to start off the meal.

2. Pork and Honey Apple Press. The pork cube was surprisingly tender,the spices was flavourful and never knew pork goes so well with apple. 

3. Duck Croquette. The filling was rich and creamy and the skin was soft crisp. There was a prominent flavour of cumin accompanying the croquette. It was my favourite entree of all three.

Mains ( We were served two different mains, where we had one each):

1. Sword Fish with Tomato salsa. The fish was really fresh, seasoned well and cooked to perfection. The tasty salsa sauce gave the whole dish an extra flavour, it definitely complemented the fish well.

2. Braised Beef with Eggplant and Caramalised Onion.

This dish was mind blowing! Every single component of it was delicious! The beef melts in your mouth, it was really rich, sweet in flavour and it's aromatic, which highlighted the beef. The Eggplant has a pleasant smokey smell, it was really unique. The caramalised onions was probably one of the best I've ever tasted and it was a perfect match for the beef.

Separately, we ordered their famous chips to share. In fact it was really crispy and fragrant. We couldn't figure out why the chips smells so good and different compared with other chips we have in other restaurants, but it was just different in a very delicious way. I wonder what's the secret behind it. The chips were served with beetroot dip. I didn't like it cos I'm not a big fan of beetroot.

Desserts (There were three types of dessert):

I really enjoyed the choice of desserts they served, they were all refreshing and light. Perfect to end the rich and tasty lunch.

Icy cold Apricot Sorbet  &  Orange Cake.

Muesli Cube

I'm not sure what exactly this muesli made from, but it was so yummy! I loved it! I could taste the Pistachio and the muesli was topped with a layer of fruit jelly. The overall flavour was just unexplainable. I just couldn't love it enough. If only they have this kind of muesli bar on sale on the market. 

The Aphrodite

Finally, the reason we came to Press Club. We came to Press Club with a mission to try on their famous dessert, the 'Aphrodite' that was made famous by the Masterchef show. Elements you could find in this beautiful dessert are white chocolate mousse, cheeries, roses, soil and scent. 

While serving the dessert, the staff told us the inspiration of this dessert came from the Greek's Goddess of love who walks along the garden of roses. This is not only a dessert for your palate, but it was also a feast for the eyes and for the imagination. Savouring this dessert was an experience by itself. The flavour of this beautiful dessert was another glory. 

The waitress came and sprayed some roses scent before we started, it did awake our senses. The combination of the roses scent, cheeries, jelly and dark chocolate crumbs were perfect. It was a little sweet and a little soury. Just how I like my dessert to be.

Notice there's one thing missing in the Aphrodite? It was the smoke effect that was seen on TV. My husband actually asked them why it wasn't serve they way we saw it on masterchef. The staff explained that due to the high cost, the smoke was only serve for the purpose of the show and for function only. Oh well, it would have been better if we could experience that as well, but overall I still love this dessert very much.  

But please note that the scent of the roses are quite strong, so if you don't usually like roses, you might not like this dessert.

Overall, I think the lunch in The Press Club was pretty good.

Did this two hatted restaurant live up to my expectation? It certainly did. 

For $55, I think it was a great value.

Just make sure you book early! 

Press Club

72 Flinders Street
Melbourne 3000 Australia

Ph: (03) 9677 9677

Efendy Restaurant And Meze Bar, Balmain

Interesting Food Missing The Interesting Flavour

Efendy is a Turkish restaurant located in Balmain.  I've been hearing and reading good reviews about this restaurant. They serve fine traditional Turkish cuisine with modern views. Despite the good reviews, it was a pretty average experience for me,  maybe what they serve don't really suit my palate. I guess I still prefer my Turkish food from a kebab shop. 

We had the fixed menu of 4 mezes and 1 main of our choice for $43. Mezes are small dishes served before main meal.

 Complementary Turkish Bread

Complementary Amuse Bouche: Creamy Lamb Soup

Meze 1: Humus

There were 9 different kind of mezes to choose from. First, we picked Turkish most famous dip 'Humus'. I found the texture of the humus too thick and I'm never a big fan of humus, so I didn't quite enjoy this one.

Meze 2: Patlican

Then we had the Patlican. This dip is made from roasted eggplant, capsicum and pomegranate salad. I love the flavour and the soft texture of this. One of the most enjoyable dishes of the night.

Meze 3: Kadayifli Karides.

This is my favourite dish of the evening, it is shredded pastry wrapped king prawns served with Muhammara. Muhammara is a spicy dip made from walnut, capsicum and garlic. The crispy pastry and the rich Muhammara were match made in heaven. I wish I could have only this the whole evening.

Meze 4: Pacanga Boregi

Our last meze was this yummy triangle pastry with pastrima (air-dried beef) and kashar cheese. It was really tasty and nothing can go wrong with melted cheese. It was delicious!

Main 1: Kiremite Kofte

One of my friends had this traditional claypot baked lamb kofte (which is something like lamb meatball), brown mushrooms, kashar cheese and matchstick pommes frites.

Main 2: Kuzu Tandir

I had this 7 hour slow roasted Bultarra Saltbush lamb shoulder, aromatic baldo rice, currant, and pine nuts. Served with sauteed picked winter vegetables on the side. The lamb was very tender, the lamb was really milky in flavour but the overall flavour of the dish wasn't anything extravagant.

Meze 3: Pilic Topkapi

My husband had the roasted organic chicken with spinach, capsicum and halloumi barley pilaf with roasted almond and dried apricot. The chicken was very dry, if only they could serve it with some sauce to complement the dry chicken breast meat and portion is definitely too small for my husband.

Meze 4: Cokertme Kebabi

One of my friends had this chargrilled rock valley veal backstrap medallions, tirit, iskender sauce and garlic yoghurt. It was the best one of all four main dishes.

We also ordered 2 salads to share. The Efendy Salata which consists of rocket, feta cheese, dried brown Turkey figs, and Hazelnut. The other salad we had was the Ahirdagi Salata which consists of finely chopped tomato, cucumber, red onion, walnuts and pomegranate. It's sad to say but I actually enjoyed the salads more than any of the main dishes.

Efendy Salata

Ahirdagi Salata

Overall, I don't think Efendy is right for me. The menu is impossible to understand. The food tasted pretty bland and portion is quite small. Our table was really tiny too, we had to quickly finish up the food before the next one being serve. Although, I have to say the staffs were quite friendly.

Efendy Restaurant and Meze Bar

79 Elliott Street (Corner of Darling Street) 

Balmain - 2041

Australia
Ph: 02 9810 5466

MakMak Macaron

Macaron ~ The Delicate French Invention

Another reason I went to Baffi and Mo for brunch was because I found out that they sell the Mak Mak Macarons. MakMak Macaron is also available for order online through their Facebook. Baffi and Mo is selling them a bit more expensive ($3 each) and they didn't have the complete flavours for me to buy . So, me and my friend decided to make an order online. You get 12 Macarons for $25 and we had them delivered to us for an extra $5. So, me and my friend had six macarons per person.

I'm not usually a big fan of macaron, but when someone says it's better than the one from Adriano Zumbo, I knew I have to give it a try. What I like about their macaron is, it's not overly sweet and the shell is pretty crisp and delicate. I haven't try Adriano Zumbo's macaron should who am I to judge, but MakMak Macaron definitely change my perception towards macaron, I'm starting to like it. Not just because they taste good but I was having so much fun photographing them as well =)

Salted Caramel: It's salty! and I think it tasted abit weird. Apart from beings salty I cant really taste anything else. Don't think I like this one.

Raspberry and cardamom-scented white chocolate 'rice pudding': What a long name for such tiny dessert. But I quite like this one, there's a raspberry jam covering a chewy white chocolate rice pudding in the middle.

Mocha:  This is probably one of  the less sweet one from the bunch with a bittersweet coffee flavour.

Raisin Toast: Love the flavour, I can taste the cinnamon  in it too.

Black Sesame: A perfect black sesame flavoured macaron!

Peppermint & Chocolate: The shell has a noticeable peppermint flavour and it can never go wrong when it's paired with chocolate filling.

I actually prefer to keep them in the fridge before eating it, I like it when the filling becomes a bit more chewy.

Overall, I think it was a great buy!