Samwon Gardens

Samwon Gardens

I have not done a food blog in a few months, its not that i haven't gone to new places its just been hard to find time to upload them. The other night we went to a Korean restaurant and it was hidden in a strip of Greek restaurants . It had a mixture of Japanese and Korean dishes but we decided to eat there anyway.

We ordered the Korean dishes because on many occasions when you order dishes from other cultures it can be disappointing. When ordering we always have favourites to try and these are them.

Tteokbokki  is sweet chili dish using vegetables and soft rice cake. Is never is super hot but always juicy and tasty.

Jap Chae is made of sweet potato noodles with vegetalable and either beef or chicken but we always go beef. Its a fun dish to eat with all the noodles as they stick together and it makes it harder to pick up.

Bibbimbap  is a mixed rice dish and normally you get it a ceramic type bowl and the rice gets very crispy. You get a chili sauce to mix in. It  has sliced vegies and a cooked egg on top. You wait a while for the rice to crisp up then add the chili sauce and mix it altogether.

Spicy fried chicken we decided to order the sweet chili chicken and it was deep fried chicken with an amazing sweet chili sauce. The chicken was very tender and juicy. It was not overcooked but just amazing and we will come back for this dish.

For a random Korean restaurant we really enjoyed it and will be back.
Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart

Getting back to life.

Getting back to life.

As I get towards the last week of work this cloud has lifted and I feel like a new person, my attitude and sense of humor has come back and I feel that I can now return back to blogging. Next week we will be going away for a few days before I start at the new company.

We have been on the hunt for waffles recently and I came across this place in Oakleigh called Pagoto. Its mainly a gelato place but i saw pics on Instagram and it looked amazing. It opens at 12pm and closes late so we went in for lunch. It was fairly quiet when we arrived and the two girls serving behind the counter seemed fairly relaxed until we ordered 9 waffles and a bunch of crazyshakes. They did a great job at serving our food with having to serve gelato at the same time.

You could choose any gelato flavor and they had a awesome range. The waffles are large but the batter was light and sweet inside yet slight crispy on the outside. They had random flavors of the crazy shakes.

We had so much sugar I almost had an overdose. We loved it so much we went a week later and got gelato and coffee. The coffee is smooth and has great flavor which is not what I expected.

We will go back as we had a great time.
Kind E-gards
Dale

Commonfolk and Mornington Market

Commonfolk and Mornington Market

We have been to Commonfolk Coffee once before and the service was slow but i wanted to give it another go. Like the other Cafe's we like it is in an industrial area so it is a large place and they do all the roasting on site. It is light and airy and the staff are friendly.

It was a beautiful day so we all sat outside and watched the children run around and play. Its good to see a place that has space for children to run around.

They only use skim milk for all their coffees which i did not know. The coffee's are smooth and sweet but i still prefer full cream milk.

 I had the pikelets which had five of them with bacon and blueberry . The pikelets are light and fluffy, the bacon was not crispy so i was happy and they went well with the fresh blueberries.

Kim had the breakfast which had bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and a mushroom with some veggies. She really enjoyed it.

After Brunch we headed to the market and when we arrived it was still very quiet.

It had plenty of food stalls and bands playing in different corners. They do this market once a year so it was good to experience it.
Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart

Cultural Commons

Cultural Commons

Springvale is full of amazing restaurants  and has a large selection. You can get most type of Asian delicacies, from dumplings to crabs and lobsters, pho' and  noodles. They have cafe's as well. You can spend ages looking at all the different places. We wanted something different and normally if we want burgers we would go to Glen Waverley or Ringwood but we decided to go to Cultural Commons. It is a large restaurant that is still fairly new. Its menu selection is good and has a fair range of beers.

 I ordered a Budweiser and Kim got the Nutella Milkshake, the reviews i read said the milkshake did not have enough Nutella in it so i asked them to put lots in and it was amazing. So sweet, chocolaty and nutty. 

For dinner i ordered the Hot Chick Burger which was spicy buttermilk fried chicken, jalapeno and spicy mayo.

The batter was light and crispy, the chicken was moist and tender however the jalapenos are not really hot but i still enjoyed the meal.

Kim ordered the Shroominator burger which looked really good and she enjoyed it.

The chips are crispy and the Aioli was creamy. 

We enjoyed our meals will be back again .

Kind E-gards

Dale 

Nishikian

Nishikian

After coming back from Japan we really wanted Okonomiyaki so after some googling and research we decided to go here. It is a New Zealand franchise which was surprising to us and has only been open for about a year and it was busy. It was a petrol station once but since then converted to a restaurant. 

It is a large brightly lit restaurant and they made you feel welcomed when you entered. They had a wide variety of food to choose from.

We ordered a range of food and the first thing we ordered was skewers, we had beef tongue the other was Pork belly with onion and garlic salt. The tongue was a good texture and not tough. It had a different seasoning so I enjoyed it as i don't normally like tongue. The pork belly was juicy and soft and mixed well with onion and garlic.

We ordered the large sashimi platter which had Salmon, Snapper, Tuna and Kingfish and a few other fish. The fish was all really fresh and melted as you ate it. The wasabi tasted like it was home made and not the tube ones. I almost felt like i was back in Japan.

The Okonomiyaki was really good but not sensational like Japan, it was just missing something and i don't know what.

The Takoyaki was sweet and the octopus was tender, it tasted fresh not like some places that give you frozen ones that become very tough to eat.

The tempura vegetables included beans, eggplants and massive mushrooms. The batter was light and crispy, and the mushrooms are juicy. I was happy with how they tasted.

The Eel on rice was yum , it had no bones and the sauce was not much but enough for the Eel. We decided to order some dessert as we were still hungry.

There was Green Tea, Strawberry and Custard Daifuku with Ice cream. Mochi is a rice paste cake that is the outside, when you fill it with something like ice cream or red bean then it is Daifuku. It is very sweet and its hard to find good Daifuku as if it has been frozen thawed out then refrozen you get ice crystals in the middle and it looses its flavour and texture.

Nishikian is a lovely little place but servings are a bit small for my liking but the food is great and we will go back.

Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart