Tag Archives: myaree

Blend Cafe @ Melville

Posted in Food, Italian, Modern Australian by

Whoa. I realise it’s been a while since I last posted something food related. With working and all that studying 24 hours in a day is seriously not enough. But rest assured I have been eating out quite a lot too since I don’t have much time to cook a proper meal so I shall get the blog up and running again with more restaurant posts for the weeks to come.

I’ll kick it off with Blend Cafe, a local neighbourhood cafe in Melville serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, home-cooked style. I say home-cooked because I find the food here to be unpretentious. It’s simple, fresh and tasty. I started coming here for those nighttime dessert cravings. They serve good coffee and one of the better tiramisus.

Left impressed with their coffee and sweets each time, my family and I finally made it for breakfast. It’s the usual breakfast menu with eggs and bacon, eggs hollandaise, muesli, etc but what really stood out for me was the baked beans. It’s not those canned baked beans for sure. I don’t even like baked beans but I found myself wanting more. The beans are cooked just right, not too hard but not mushy, and the taste was just divine – tangy with a hint of spiciness. The dish below is a potato cake with poached egg, hollandaise sauce and oozing lava of baked beans.

We enjoy coming to Blend so much that even my little cousin asked to have his birthday dinner here. And so we did. The cafe was pretty packed for a Monday night (but then again, this place is always packed) but we made reservations so we were seated straightaway. The dinner menu was not overly exhausting and nothing particularly special. Still, we were able to find something we like and something that suited everyone’s tastes.

Here’s a run down on what we had that night from the top, left to right -

* Gamberi - fettuccine with prawns in creamy tomato sauce; very fresh pasta with succulent prawns – you cant go wrong with that

* Copacobana pizza – with sausage, ham, pancetta and pepperoni; the boys loved it

* Salt and pepper calamari – served with an Asian style lime and fruit salsa as dipping sauce and I polished it off before anyone else could. It was very refreshing to contrast the heaviness of having deep fried squid

* Fettuccine alla vodka – pasta with chicken and spinach in creamy vodka rose sauce; very tasty pasta and tender chicken. Loved the sauce.

* Paella – finally a place where the paella rice is cooked just right. Serving a bit small to be shared but it was good nonetheless

* Prawns with rice – an item on the specials menu but was nothing really special about it. Rice used was the same as paella rice so it was basically a wet paella with prawns in tomato sauce

* Surf n Turf – scotch fillet steak with mushroom sauce and prawns. tThe mushroom sauce was good and steak was tender and tasty but it came short of a medium done steak.

Overall a gem in the suburb of Melville where you can have a great night out.

My rating: 8/10
Blend Cafe on Urbanspoon

www.blendcafepizza.com

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Cora Korean Charcoal BBQ @ Myaree

Posted in Food, Korean by

For $35 you can head down to Cora Korean BBQ in Myaree and indulge in all the meat, jap chae and kimchi you can eat. The concept is simple, really. This is a Korean BBQ buffet restaurant where you help yourself to marinated raw meat and cook it on the charcoal grill in the middle of your table. Korea’s famous jap chae noodles are available too and I sure ate several platefuls because it was very delicious (although a little too much sesame oil).

Cora BBQ: charcoal grill

On hand are marinated chicken, beef and pork. Nonmarinated meat and seafood is available too like the pork belly strips and prawns, mussels, and octopus. The charcoal grill certainly adds flavour to the meat. There is unlimited rice and miso soup that you can consume too. I’ve noticed a little salad bar but, quite frankly, those vegetables did not look fresh nor appetising so we passed on those. We merely had kimchi and that was good. Dessert came in 2 kinds – a butter cake and a chocolate cake sliced into very small pieces. Nah, we weren’t impressed with those.

Just ensure that you only take what you can actually eat. Cora charges $5 per 100 grams of leftovers and this little not is plastered on the tables. Hmm, I’m not sure if anyone’s actually ever been charged of this.

Overall, this Korean BBQ place is worthy enough to try. Needing more ventilation aside, food is truly well marinated and seasoned and the staff is very helpful. Our highlight for the night was having the Korean rice wine that looked like soya milk. It’s not very strong and has a subtle wheat taste. You drink it in bowls too!

Cora BBQ: rice wine

My rating: 7/10
Cora Korean Charcoal BBQ on Urbanspoon

Happy Star @ Myaree

Posted in Chinese/Asian, Perth by

My family’s connection with Happy Star goes a long way back to the Chinese restaurant’s humble beginning in 2007  when it was first known as Myaree Chinese Restaurant. Then the business was sold and the new owners named it to what is now called Happy Star. And then the business was yet again sold but the current owners kept the name, which is a brilliant idea as this little restaurant has a long list of happy clients thanks to the second owners.

This restaurant is the go to place for a quick takeaway, a lazy day when you don’t feel like cooking, a Sunday lunch or a big celebration. Being close to my house, needless to say, we are regulars here. As much as I love this place, I won’t lie – the chefs have their off days too. Taste has considerably changed when the current owners tookover, and not in a way. We missed the tastiness of what was served up by the 2nd owners and there was something clearly lacking in the dishes prepared by the new chefs. That, coupled with the fact that they messed up our orders for Chinese New Year’s dinner, convinced me not to go back unless really necessary. They messed up our family’s favourite “Yam Duck” by giving us tasteless yam with no visible duck meat (only skin and bones). It was a busy night with everyone dining out to celebrate the new year and the kitchen was terribly busy but this was no excuse to produce crappy dishes.

Alas, last night, things changed. I have not stepped into this restaurant since that awful Chinese New Year experience so I was hesitant to go again. But so much has changed. First thing I noticed was the menu. The owners have had new menus printed out in glossy book-type menus instead of the brown file inserts type of menu that they used to have, passed down from the 1st owners. More importantly, the dishes have greatly improved! Everything came out to restaurant standards. We ordered a few new dishes too.

“Yam Duck”, definitely 100% better than the ones we had before. The yam was smooth and tasty and the duck was virtually fat-less with a crispy skin.

Happy Star: Yam Duck

 

“Deep Fried Eggplant with Salted Egg”, the goodness of deep fried veggie with a hint of salted egg coating. Absolutely divine!

Happy Star: Deep Fried Eggplant with Salted Egg

 

“Steamed Chicken with Soy Sauce”, this is more than just an ordinary steamed chicken with soy sauce. This version here is loaded with sesame oil and fried onions so it was much more fragrant than, say, Hainanese chicken dish.

Happy Star: Steamed Chicken with Soy Sauce

 

“Tofu with Minced Meat Sauce”, silky tofu with minced meat in a sweet tangy sauce.

Happy Star: Tofu with Minced Meat Sauce

 

“Peking Pork Spare Ribs”, the sauce was just great! Sweet and vinegar-y that works really well with pork.

Happy Star: Peking Pork Spare Ribs

 

“Lo Han Zai”, a vegetarian dish. There wasnt really nothing special with this dish..tofu, mushrooms, black fungus, brocolli. We just needed a vegetable dish and this was an alternative to the usual spinach with garlic that we usually order.

Happy Star: Lo Han Zai

 

We may have ordered too much food but every dish was polished! I’m just glad that Happy Star is back to serving great and accessible food.

My rating: 8/10

Happy Star Noodle House on Urbanspoon