SOI VIII restaurant in Griffith 27 March 2019

Wednesday 27 March 2019

Diners: Ron, John, Jim, Karen, Kim

Entrées

Chicken mince, crab and water chestnut patties – delicious. These came out nice and hot.

Battered vegetables – the batter was crispy and had some shredded coconut. Also delicious and a bit different from Japanese tempura.

Mains

Panang duck in a spicy red duck curry sauce with grapes – was a little too spicy for us but had nice flavours.  We liked the grapes!

Pad Thai with prawns and chicken – nice sauce, generous size.  This dish was also a bit different from the usual drier style of fried pad thai noodles.

Wok tossed squid and prawns with garlic and herbs – this was our favourite dish.  The sauce was delicious and had a nice charred flavour

Massaman beef curry – delicious curry, very tender beef.

Coconut rice and plain rice

Dessert

Fried ice cream – good

Comments – reasonably priced.  The restaurant is spacious and on the night we were there it was not too crowded so it was easy to have a conversation.

Flavours of India 13 March 2019

Present: Jim, Karen, Kim, Ron, Megan Andrew who kindly put off his return to Ballarat for a day so he could be with us.

We had:

Sweet potato and Spinach chaat which was deemed delicious,  crunchy, with a wheat crisp which added great texture to the dish.  A favourite.

Gohbi Manchuria, which was a cauliflour something but didn't taste like cauliflour.  Deepfried and battered, spicy, very tasty, a combination of Chinese and Indian .

Masal fish fried: Only okay, not the best option, didn't taste like fish, Andrew said good.

Coconut lamb: comments were very good and really good.

Anglers Fish curry: Fabulous, loved the subtle flavour of the curry leaves, very tasty.

Butter Chicken: Good,okay (a bit too much tomato) disappointing from Andrew, 5/10

Chana Masala ie chick pea curry: good, tomato based and tasty

Beef saag, good to very tasty.

Desserts were presented well, gulab jamun came with a mousse type thing and not much syrup; the kulfi was a bit over the top but tasty all the same.

Green Bamboo at Swinger Hill on 27-2-19

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Present:

Everyone, Jim, Karen, Ron, Megan, John, Andrew, Kim.  Andrew is still with us from Ballarat, we are trying to keep him here for as long as possible.

Jim brought along some wonderful French champagne which we all greatly appreciated and could get used to.

Comments below are an amalgam of comments written by all of us on the night.

We had;

Rice paper rolls: very tasty, fresh, met expectations, great flavour

Spring rolls: hot and fresh, 5/5, crisp, yum, good

Caramelised prawns without the pepper: probably needed the pepper, otherwise a bit bland.

Lemongrass lamb: Favourite of Megan, Kim and Ron.  Very flavoursome with strong lemongrass flavour which married well with the lamb, delicious.

Pork and green pepper: nice pepper flavour, very subtle and tasty, melt in mouth , good.

Mint leaf chicken: This was the winner, lovely and fresh, strong Vietnamese mint beautifully cooked, exceeded expectations, flavourful, very nice.

Beef curry: Karen thought it looked more like beef in a curry powder sauce a bit disappointing: others thought it was a great compliment to the other dishes.

Pepper fish in hot pot: Tasty, very nicely done. Other commets Okay.

Fried icecream was delish, yum, not oily;

Momoda Restaurant Civic 13-2-19

We all made it to this meal, John, Megan, Ron, Karen, Kim, Jim (a bit late) and Andrew (returning from Ballarat for a few weeks).

No detailed review because it was a special dinner.  We had the "feed me" option which was a great way to go but way too much food.  Hard to pick the favourites, maybe the sashimi kingfish or the kangaroo spring rolls.  The egg plant chips always a winner.  Somehow we managed dessert, but not one each.  The winner there was the deep friend black sesame icecream.  Very yum.  A new venue around town, Asian with a touch of fusion, a spin off from Wild Duck, hope it continue to flourish.

Main downsides were that we couldn't BYO and that the music was too loud.  Oh well, we are getting old....