Barbeque Nation Torrens - 4 October 2017

 

Jim, John, Karen and Ron.



Mix Platter – chicken tikka, seekh kebab, vegetable samosa, onion bhajee. Served with a green pesto like sauce and a red slightly sweet sauce. All were good.

 

Leg of lamb curry – sauce was nice, but lamb was very strongly flavoured.

Goan fish curry – fish was in nice big pieces, sauce was nice and a good texture, but was too salty.

Butter chicken – definitely the best to be found. 

Mango kulfi – really good. 

Gulab Jamun – nice and fluffy, not too sweet.

 

 

 

 

Chong Co Kingston on 20 September 2017

Attendees:  Kim, Jim, John and Andrew (scribe)

 

Entrée:     Crispy Crab Net Rolls.

Note:  Nice, but small, diminutive, ephemeral.  Lacked a strong taste.  Could not taste the crab, but could taste tarot.  Encased in a fine gauze like mesh

Mains

Kangaroo with Mixed Herbs Stir Fry

Note:  We ordered a toned down mild chilli heat version of this dish.  Which the staff graciously provided.  This dish is usually served with high chilli heat.    Lean thin cut tender moist slices of kangaroo meat which tasted beef like.  Slices of onions and vegetables.  Peppercorn clusters.  A moist stir fry.  Interesting and delicious

 

Crispy Soft Shell Crab

Note:   Sweet sauce.  Meaty crab pieces.  Very delicious

 

Beef Mussaman Curry

Note:  Great presentation. Sweet and delicious.  Flavour had soaked well into the meat.

Prik-Khing Moo Grob  (Crispy Pork Belly in Red Curry Paste)

Note: Spicy blachan like rich sauce.  Yummo

All the mains were good.  Good differentiated selection of mains.  No duds.  The attendees had no trouble in finishing all the mains.

 

 

Desserts:

Banana Fritters.

Note: Coconut shred encrusted banana pieces with a debatable hint of a toffee like coating.  Yummy.

Sticky Date Pudding

Note:  All pudding no date.  The pudding had a cake like texture..

Wine:   Provided by Jim.

Wood Park Reserve Zinfandel

Noise level of restaurant:  Noisy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

China Tea House 6 September 2017

 

 

Jim, Karen, Kim, Ron, John, Megan

 

 

Duck pancakes: Very juicy pieces of shredded duck on a large thin pancake.  Okay, but the pancake tended to disintegrate fairly easily which made it a bit difficult to eat.

 

Tofu and Mushrooms: One of our favourites at this restaurant.  Beautiful flavour with a mix of mushrooms.  Ron was not in favour of ordering this one until he ate it, then was converted.

 

Slow cooked pork belly was the standout dish for the night, thin slices of pork in a sweetish sauce with a few chillies.

 

Sizzling prawns in Singapore sauce was a bit disappointing, it was too tomatoey and not much else in the flavour.

 

The Chicken with chilli and basil was fragrant, had a nice amount of chilli with a  lovely basil flavour.  It got a tick.

 

And the Seafood with Beijing sauce was only okay, it had an odd flavour and was not very special.

 

Overall, a good meal.  The restaurant was fairly crowded but not too noisy.  The car parking outside is a bit hectic, but the evening was finished off with a traditional visit to Goodberry's.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regal, Belconnen, 23 August

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kim, Jim, John, Ron, Megan (Andrew holidaying in Ballarat, Karen basketballing)

 

This is tucked away in an obscure (for us Southsiders) part of Belconnen behind the Mall in one of those semi industrial/commercial areas.  The positives in that are that there was lots of parking nearby and that the restaurant wasn't packed.  But almost all of the people in there seemed to be of Asian background, which is a good sign for a Chinese restaurant.

 We scoured the specials menu, which is what we always do in an Asian restaurant, and came up with :

•  Soft shell crab salt and pepper
• Golden silken tofu
• flaming pork chop
• Roast duck Beijing style
• ie pancakes then stir fried with vegetables

The duck pancakes were brilliant, some of the best, not greasy, tender, well presented, absolutely delish,  as was the accompanying duck with veges, which had a great sauce.

We ordered the tofu despite Ron's objections, but he changed his mind once it came.  It had been fried in a casing, and served with an egg white and seafood sauce, which had a fabulous texture.

The crab was a bit chilli for some, otherwise not too oily and declared to be "very nice"

The pork was presented well, but was really pork pieces done in a sweet sauce with a slight smokey flavour.  Very nice as well.

 

We will go back especially to have the banquet menu which is stuck up on the wall and written only in Chinese but which is for a minum of 6 people (we were only 5).

Lantern Room Wednesday August 9 2017

This was one of our posh birthday dinners, we were ALL there.  Because it was special, no one wrote it up, but suffice to say, we had the expensive degustation, and some very special wine, and the Lantern Room did not fail to disappoint.
One thing to add, we had a table towards the back of the restaurant next the bar, and the noise level was minimal, the whole evening was a great success.

Thai Urban July 26 2017

Jim, Karen, Megan, Ron, John

We had:

Peking Duck pancakes

Red Curry duck

Jim's sweet pork belly
Garlic Pepper beef
Chilli and basil prawns

The pancakes were a bit messy.  They came as one big pancake with lots of hoisin on top and inside.  Each had a few bits of duck and lots of veges, carrots, lettuce, cucumber.  They were kind of nice for a change but not spectacular, wouldn't go back for more.  Very messy to eat and we ended up using our knives and forks.

The Duck curry was standard and pretty yum, enjoyed by all. 

The pork was everyone's favourite, it was melt in the mouth, star anise, soy, sweet flavour.  There was much discussion about what the ingredients could be and who had the best recipe at home for something similar.

The prawns were very nice, light with good veges, not too spicy, tasty.

 The beef was another favourite.  It was lovely and tender, we could taste the garlic and the black pepper addition really lifted the dish.

 The dessert was the roti banana and green tea icecream, both lovely.

 The restaurant wasn't very full at all so conversation was easy to hear.  The downside was that the heating wasn't working all that well and so each table had it's own heater.  Oh well, can't have everything.

 Overall it was very reasonably priced at $30 each, great value.

Green Bamboo July 12th 2017

The night before a State of Origin match must be a popular night for restaurants as we arrived to find the normally quiet Green Bamboo restaurant bustling with patrons. While we waited to order, Ron regaled us with tales of his recent culinary adventure in New Zealand.  If the choice of a suburban Vietnamese restaurant was a letdown after such a trip, Ron didn’t let on.  He was as keen as always to have a restaurant night with the group!

There were only 4 of us this time for dinner – Ron, Megan, Jim and Karen.  For entrée, we ordered rice paper rolls. The rolls were fresh and well-packed and the filling was reasonably nice especially the pickled carrots and capsicum.  However Megan was disappointed with her first bite which was all chicken meat.  The peanut sauce served with the dish was also a little bland. The overwhelming flavour was peanut butter and it needed something more to add interest and depth.

After entrée, we ordered 4 mains – Vietnamese mint beef, caramelised pork, battered fish salt and crispy skin chicken with red fried rice.   The unanimous favourite was the battered fish which was beautifully light and crisp. For some reason, the kitchen provided us with the “no chilli version”.  This was a shame as it needed this extra flavour to cut through the fat and balance the salt.   Our second choice was Vietnamese mint beef.   Karen thought the meat was a bit chewy but it did have some nice flavours which were well-matched with the beef. 

In contrast, the caramelised pork was a standard (rather than stand out) dish. We got what we expected but it was pretty boring.  Similarly, the crispy skin chicken wasn’t very exciting.  The chicken was done well – tender chicken with a nice crispy skin.  We were particularly interested in trying the fried red rice accompanying the chicken. However this had a strong smoked paprika flavour which was an odd match with the Vietnamese style chicken.  The dish was also served with an Asian coleslaw which gave the impression of Southern USA food rather than Vietnamese fare.

For dessert, we tried the banana fritters and fried ice cream options – standard desserts done reasonably well.

Overall the meal was well-priced but pretty standard. Perhaps after Ron’s tales, we were expecting  a more adventurous night…oh well, there’s always next time!