Nine Elephants Thai restaurant review

We'd been dining at a few restaurants in Docklands lately after spending time at a nearby children playground. There aren't too many choices actually, as most of the restaurants closer to the office side of Docklands are closed for business on the weekends. Nine Elephants Thai restaurant is one of those restaurants which opens on Saturday for dinner. It's located on a quieter street especially on the weekends. If it wasn't for a friend's recommendation, I won't be looking for a restaurant on this street. It's a small restaurant with nice decor and ambiance. They don't have a baby high chair but they do provide a booster seat which is good enough. 

There's quite a wide selection of food from the menu. All are the standard Thai food that you get from a Thai restaurant. For most of the meals, there are four levels of spiciness namely mild, medium, spicy and Thai spicy to choose from. However, I got to warn you - do let them know if you can't take spicy food. The mild spiciness on certain dishes can be quite spicy for some (I'm serious).

Here are some dishes we've ordered over the last two Saturdays:

First, we had the entree size, clear soup version of seafood tom yum with medium spiciness. Looks can be deceiving. It was actually quite spicy but nice. One of the best tom yum soups I've had in Melbourne. 

Whenever I dine in a Thai restaurant, I must order a Pad Thai at least once. There's no exception here as well. I ordered a medium spiciness Pad Thai with crispy pork. I was told that a mild version will be served with additional chilli on the side so that I can control how spicy I want. The Pad Thai was really good. I especially love the crispy pork. It was tasty but not overly sweet and oily. However, the mild version wasn't spicy enough for me so I sprinkled the chilli flakes/powder generously on it. Mind you, the chilli flakes/powder was quite spicy! 

The mild version of stir fried Chinese broccoli with chicken was extremely spicy due to the chopped chilli. I'd certainly ask them to tone down the spiciness if I were to order it again. 

I ordered a non-spicy fried rice which was not in the menu for my little one. It was average but tasty.

The satay was surprisingly good. The meat was tender and juicy. Note that the dish actually came with 4 sticks of satay. As you can see, I was too eager to taste it before taking a photo!

Lastly, the medium spiciness seafood kuay teow tom yam. It's interesting that the tom yam was served with a half hard-boiled egg. The kuay teow tom yam was loaded with button mushrooms and seafood. Needless to say, it was superb!

The food in Nine Elephants was excellent with reasonable price. It's certainly the best Thai restaurant in Docklands, if not Melbourne.

Easy homemade kaya recipe

Kaya (coconut jam) toast is a popular food in Malaysia and is available in almost any coffee shop aka kopitiam. Seriously, I can’t recall when the last time I had Kaya toast. Well, kaya toast can be found in some Malaysian restaurants such as PappaRich and Old Town in Melbourne. One can also buy the kaya jars from Asian grocers. However, to me, those kaya aren’t the same as homemade kaya. In my opinion, homemade kaya tends to be richer in flavours, probably because of the quality of the ingredients.

My mum used to make kaya at home when I was young. I remembered it was a tedious process where constantly stirring for hours is inevitable. Hence, it never occurred to me to make my own kaya until I saw this 10-minute kaya recipe from Kitchen Tigress. It’s good to know that there are a few tweaks to shorten the cooking time such as using egg yolks only instead of whole eggs as well as substituting part of the sugar with palm sugar. I added an extra egg yolk and reduced the sugar from the existing recipe. Well, it took me about 20-25 minutes in total from preparation until the kaya is cooked to my preferred texture. 

Since then, I have ensured that there’s always a jar of homemade kaya available in my fridge! :)

Recipe: 

(to make a bowl, about 170g jar)

5 egg yolks

4 pandan leaves

200ml coconut milk

40g palm sugar

35g castor sugar

1. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Try to ensure that there isn’t any egg white. Otherwise, the texture of the kaya won’t be as smooth and might be a bit lumpy if it’s cooked over high heat. This is why those recipes with egg whites require cooking over a water bath.

2. Wash the pandan leaves and cut each leaf into 4 parts.

3. Put pandan leaves, coconut milk, palm sugar and castor sugar into a pot. Cook over medium heat until the palm sugar is melted and the mixture starts to simmer. Remove the pot from the heat.

4. Gently mix the egg yolks in a bowl and slowly mix in half of the coconut milk mixture from the pot.

5. Pour the mixture in the bowl back to the pot.

6. Return the pot to the stove. Constantly stirring the mixture over medium heat until it starts to thicken.

7. Reduce to low heat and keep stirring until the kaya is thickened or to your preferred thickness. I like it slightly thicker and it took me about 15mins to get to my preferred texture.

8. Cool the kaya. Transfer the cooled kaya into a jar and store in the fridge. Used within a week. 

Mahn Doo restaurant review

We're spoilt of choice when it comes to Korean food as there are so many Korean restaurants around the Melbourne CBD. On an occasion, I was offered choices for dinner and Mahn Doo was one of the options as it is around our neighbourhood. Upon checking out the restaurant reviews on the Internet, I said yes! Mahn Doo is located at a quieter side of the city especially during non-working hours. The design of the restaurant is quite enclose and thus, making it less inviting from my perspective (as I couldn't really see what's inside!). Therefore, it never occurred to me to give it a try before this although I literally pass by the restaurant almost every day. 

The ambience of the restaurant is really really nice. It's classy and cosy. Unlike the usual Korean restaurants, it's rather quiet. An ideal place for a date. :) I was surprised to find baby highchairs at such a classy restaurant/bar! The highchair looks nice and comfortable.

Well, there weren’t many varieties of food on the menu as compared with the other Korean restaurants but it was adequate. Dumplings seem to be one of their specialties and it’s astonishingly cheap (8pcs of steamed dumplings for only $5 and pan-fried dumplings for $6). We ordered some steamed and pan-fried dumplings, a seafood pancake, kimchi & pork silken tofu stew, as well as a beef & veggie stone bowl.

The dumplings were served pretty quickly. Both the steamed and pan-fried dumplings were very well made with thin skin and the taste was extraordinarily good! The size of the dumpling is just right for entree.  

The seafood pancake which was packed with generous amount of seafood was not bad. However, there isn’t much to brag about. 

Our mains came just at the right time when we were about to finish the entrée. The kimchi & pork silken tofu stew came with some nicely plated sides and a bowl of rice. It was one of the good kimchi silken tofu stews we have had so far. 

The beef & veggie stone bowl which was non-spicy was quite average. The portion was a bit on the small side. You might consider ordering some entrée to go with this main.  

We had a delightful dinner at Mahn Doo and I’m glad I found another hidden gem!