Fukuryu Ramen restaurant review

Fukuryu ramen seems to be quite popular ever since their business started earlier this year. Some reviews even rated it as the best ramen in Melbourne. Wow, how can I not try? However, I haven't had a chance to pop by until recently!

Fukuryu ramen is situated on the first floor at Corrs Lane, a small lane way in Chinatown. It's quite a big ramen restaurant. The design of the restaurant is quite basic. The customers are required to place their orders at the counter and the food would be delivered to the respective table. Similar to the usual ramen restaurants, the menu is quite simple.

I ordered the signature tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen and my colleague had tam tam (spicy) ramen which cost $12.90 each for a regular size bowl of ramen. According to my colleague, the price has increased quite a bit over less than a year. It was $9.90 in the past. Wow, that's quite a hike really. Must be because they're popular now?!

The food was served pretty quickly. The tonkotsu ramen actually looked quite good but wasn't authentic as the traditional tonkotsu ramen doesn't come with cloud ear fungus. Taste wise, the noodles were cooked al dente, the texture was good. On the first few bites, it was actually not bad. However, as I tasted more of the soup, I found that it's a bit too salty and too garlicky for me. Besides that, the char siew hadn't achieved the melt-in-the-mouth texture and the marinated soft boiled egg was a tad too salty. It was certainly not the taste of a traditional tonkotsu ramen. If you have been to the ramen restaurants in Japan or at least have tried the Hakataya Ramen in Gold Coast before, you would know how a traditional tonkotsu ramen should taste like. 

The presentation of the tam tam ramen wasn't as pretty as the tonkotsu ramen. I didn't have a chance to sample the food. According to my colleague, the soup was very tasty and the spiciness was about 1 out of 5 which is not too spicy. She actually quite enjoyed the ramen but agreed that it wasn't as good as Hakataya's.

Well, to me Fukuryu ramen isn't as good as I thought and it certainly not the best ramen in Melbourne from my perspective. Having said that, I haven't found an authentic, best ramen restaurant in Melbourne yet.

Japanese cheesecake recipe

I love Japanese cheesecakes. It is soft and light unlike the usual cheesecake. But who doesn't? Japanese cheesecake was always in my list of cakes to make. In fact, I have had all the ingredients ready months ago. However, I just couldn't find time to execute as it requires more than 1 hour of baking time excluding the preparation time. I wouldn't have the cheesecake on the table if I didn't realise that my cream cheese block was going to expire in 2 weeks time.

Well, Diana's cotton soft Japanese cheesecake is the recipe I followed given its popularity. I made a slight modification to reduce the sweetness and acidity. It was a success albeit some cracks on the cake top - my oven must have been too hot! Make sure you keep an eye on the cake and reduce the temperature if it starts to crack. Otherwise, you'll end up a crack-top cake like mine. Despite the look, the texture of the cake was soft and smooth. Most importantly, it tasted great!

Personally, I would prefer to eat the cake fresh after its cooled in the room. However, if you need to store the cake or the left over in the fridge, make sure you remove the cheesecake from the fridge 30mins prior to serving in order to get the right texture as chilling the cake makes it firmer/harder.

Recipe:

(Make one 8 inch cake)

100 ml milk

50g unsalted butter 

250g cream cheese 

60g cake flour

20g corn flour

6 egg yolks  

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/4 salt

6 egg whites 

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

110g castor sugar

1. Heat up the milk until warm. Pour warm milk onto cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl. Melt the mixture and mix well over a pot of hot water. Some recipes suggest to sieve the mixture at this point to get rid of the small slumps. Interestingly, my mixture was silky smooth so I didn't sieve the mixture. It's up to you to decide. 

2. Cool the mixture. Add in the cake flour, corn flour, egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and mix well. Leave the cream cheese mixture aside.

3. Beat the egg white in a mixing bowl.

4. Add cream of tartar as soon as the beaten egg white starts to foam.

5. Gradually add in the sugar when the egg white starts to thicken. Beat until soft peak stage.

6. Add the egg white mixture onto the cream cheese mixture in 3 batches. Mix until they are almost combined on each addition. Lastly, scrape down and fold until everything is evenly combined. Bang the batter on the table for a few times to release the big air bubbles.

7. Pour the batter into a 8 inch round cake tin. I used a non-stick cake tin. Otherwise, you could lightly grease and line the bottom and sides of the pan with parchment paper. 

8. Bake the cheesecake in a water bath in a pre-heated oven at 160c for 1 hours 10 minutes or until golden brown. 

9. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool on the wire rack.

10. Gently separate the cheesecake from the cake tin. Cut (without sawing) and serve.

Note: if you want to chill the cheesecake, make sure you remove the cheesecake from the fridge 30mins before serving. Otherwise the cheesecake will be a bit firmer and not cotton soft.

Dish'd Food Store review - part 2

Continuing from my first Dish'd Food Store review, here I have tasted a few more Dish'd meals. In fact, I have made my second order on the following week! Is it that good? Well, I think the food is not bad but most importantly it's very convenient. Ok, let's take a look at the meals that I have consumed recently.

Cod en papillote with julienne carrots, fennel and almonds in a citrus sauce is the first en papillote dish I had from Dish'd. What is en papillote? En papillote is a cooking method where food is baked in a folded pouch or parcel usually made from parchment paper or aluminium foil. Instead of baking, it creates a steaming effect similar to my oven-steam recipes! Apparently, the pouch is suppose to be opened in front of people so that they could smell the aroma! Well, the cod was not bad but I'm not a fan of fennel and almond. Hence, I'll give this dish a pass next time.

The vegetable lasagne has topped my list to become my favourite pasta from Dish'd now. I love the whole egg pasta as well as the bechamel sauce and cheese. Serving it with some fresh salads would make it a perfect and complete meal.

Next is the Mozzarella and mushroom pizza with caramelised onions on a whole wheat crust. I must say that the pizza didn't taste anything like a frozen pizza. It was juicy. The taste and the texture of the mushrooms were like fresh mushrooms. However, the wheat crust was a tad hard for my liking.

Another pasta dish that I've tried is casatella and mascarpone ravioli with tomato and basil sauce. The ravioli was cooked al dente just like the other pastas. However, I found that the tomato and basil sauce was just average.

Hake en papillote with grilled zucchini, cherry tomatoes and pesto sauce is the fish papillote I like the most from Dish'd's menu. The fish tasted fresh and I love the grilled zucchini. Not to mention the exceptionally good pesto sauce! It's a perfect fish papillote dish with the balance of flavours!

Well, like I mentioned before, the dishes are pretty good and are the best frozen which I've tasted. However, due to its small portions, you'll probably need to add some sides such as salads to be filling :)

Dish'd Food Store review - part 1

I have been searching for home delivery meals as an alternative to take away food for our dinners on the busy weekdays. A quick search on Google actually returned a number of options. Coincidentally, The Age recently published a useful review of affordable home delivered meals.

There are some variations among the home delivery companies. Some offer ready made food that you could easily heat up while others offer easy-to-prepare meals with all the required ingredients and instruction packed in a bag. Then, there are also weekly meal plans offered by companies such as Lite n Easy and Weight Watchers. In addition, I actually found one Asian restaurant called The Happy Wok which delivery freshly cooked food on a daily basis! Unfortunately, where I live is not within their delivery zone.

In the end, I decided to try Dish'd simply because the delivery timing, budget as well as the food choices suited me just fine. Moreover, there's an introductory offer of $30 discount and free delivery on the first order when you spend more than $50! Another plus point for Dish'd is they provide a very convenient next day delivery.

I received my order on Friday afternoon for the purchase I made on Thursday night. So quick and efficient! The frozen food was delivered in a polystyrene box that was packed with dry ice. 

Wow, look at my one week worth of food! Most of the food Dish'd offers only require microwave and are ready to be consumed in a few minutes. How convenient isn't it! Let's take a look at some of the meals that I've tasted.

Porcini mushroom taglierini was the first meal I tried. It was cooked in just 5 minutes. :) The pasta was cooked al dente. I was impressed to find that Dish'd provided real mushrooms in the pasta! To be honest, it didn't taste anything like frozen food. Taste wise, I reckon it was just average as the sauce tasted like mushroom soup.

Next, sea bass with spinach. If the dish was served on a plate, I won't be able to tell that this was frozen food! The fish was juicy and yummy. The tomato, extra virgin olive oil and parsley sauce made it a really nice fish dish. One of the better Dish'd meals.

Ricotta and spinach tortelli mezzaluna is my favourite pasta! The al dente pasta together with the butter and sage sauce made it a simple yet delicious dish! I would certainly order more next time.

Another fish dish - sea bream with vegetables. I must say that the fish together with the extra virgin olive oil, lemon and mustard sauce was good. However, the steamed vegetables such as carrots and broccoli reminded me of airline meals.

I really like the fact that this Dish'd frozen pasta tastes just as good as fresh pasta. Penne pepperonata is another yummy pasta dish. There were a lot of roasted red capsicum in the pasta. If you like strong tasty sauce, this meal is right up your alley. Interestingly, the packet indicates a serving size of 4 but I reckon it was just nice for 2 serves.

Overall, the dishes were good and they never tasted like the usual frozen food that you get from the supermarket. Apart from the small portions, I reckon this is the best frozen food I've tasted so far!

P.S: Look out for more Dish'd reviews in my upcoming posts (Dish'd Food Store review - part 2).

Paperboy Kitchen restaurant review

There are so many Vietnamese restaurants in Melbourne CBD. However, this hasn't stopped new Vietnamese restaurants from popping up. It's good for the consumers though as we have more options when it comes to Vietnamese food.

Well, Paperboy Kitchen is one of the new Vietnamese restaurants that started operating earlier this year. It's a modern Vietnamese restaurant selling bread rolls (banh mi) and rice noodles bowls. The setup of the restaurant is very much like a cafe where you can grab a quick meal for lunch. It's worth mentioning that Paperboy Kitchen only opens for lunch from 11:30am-3pm on weekdays. I have been ordering take away now and then from Paperboy Kitchen during my lunch break.    

Paperboy Kitchen's menu is very simple. First, you choose either bread roll or rice noodles bowls. After that, you decide on the the fillings. There are BBQ chicken, spicy BBQ pork, satay tofu, pano fish and pulled lamb to choose from. I kind of like this concept as I don't need to spend too much time in deciding on what to eat.

I had BBQ chicken roll on my very first visit. The bread roll came with some spicy popcorn on the side which was quite interesting. Apparently, all the meals are served with a small plate of spicy popcorn if you're to dine at the restaurant. The BBQ chicken was very tasty. Together with the Asian slaw, carrot-daikon pickles, sriracha-mayo and coriander, it makes a perfect bread roll. To me, this is one of the best Vietnamese bread roll or banh mi I have had so far. Not too mention the portion is huge!

On my recent visit, I tried rice noodles bowl with BBQ chicken and topped with a free range egg. The BBQ chicken was as tasty as before. The rice noodles together with the veggies and its salad dressing and sriracha-mayo made it a very refreshing and light meal as compared to the bread roll. Oh, by the way, the free range egg was lightly fried with the white that was just set and a soft runny yolk which is exactly the kind of egg I love to eat.

Overall, Paperboy Kitchen is a good choice for lunch on a busy work day. I'm glad that my office is nearby which means there are more opportunities to try other meals in the future.

Shira Nui restaurant review

There are a number of Japanese restaurants in Melbourne. However, when it comes to authentic Japanese cuisine, Shira Nui is my first choice. Mind you, Shira Nui is a popular Japanese restaurant with a lot of regular customers. So make sure you reserve a table in advance to avoid disappointment.

Well, Shira Nui is not one of those cheap-eat Japanese restaurants. In fact, it's quite pricey but given its quality and authenticity, I reckon it's worth it. Having said that, they do have a lunch menu that is a lot more affordable.

We had lunch at Shira Nui on our recent outing where we reserved a table one week earlier. We ordered a sashimi lunch special and grilled unagi (eel) don which cost $19.50 and $21.00 respectively.

The sashimi lunch special came with appetisers (a small bowl of yummy pasta and another small bowl of preserved veggies), chawan mushi (steamed egg custard), pickles, miso soup, salad, rice and sashimi. The appetisers were yummy and the chawan mushi was smooth and soft as usual. Besides that, the salad, with its light Japanese dressing, was very refreshing. Most importantly, the sashimi was very fresh and professionally cut by the sushi master! This is a dish that we would order whenever we have lunch at Shira Nui.

In the past, Nigiri sushi lunch special would be on our table too. However, I decided to make a change this time by ordering the grilled unagi don as I was after something that's cooked instead of raw fish. Well, the grilled unagi don came with less sides than the sashimi lunch special. There were only an appetiser, pickles and miso soup served with the grilled unagi don. It was a generous serve of unagi in the don and the unagi was juicy as well as tasty. However, the portion of the rice was a wee bit too small for a big eater like me :p

Overall, it was a great lunch and we were happy that our Japanese food craving has been fulfilled!