Trip of the day : Ducgo Live Seafood @Box Hill

We do our groceries on weekly basis, if we are at Box Hill, we always drop by Ducgo, sometimes we get some baby abalone or scallop or oyster or fish for steaming, There is plenty of choice to pick that for sure can set back your pocket ha ha

If you are Box Hill, pay them a visit, fresh seafood do taste different.

Ducgo Live Seafood
4-6 Cambridge Street, Box Hill
Phone 9899 9668

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Catch of the week – Coral Perch

I received email from my angler, he bought coral perch, oyster and white stem bok choy for dinner. I thought to myself “great, I don’t need to think what to cook tonight yipee, I’m sure he already had in mind how he want to cook the fish at least.”

My angler’s philosophy in cooking is if everything can be cook in one pot, that would be super duper!!!

Hence how our meal end up tonight
- Coral perch stew with homegrown potato and tomato (i know it doesnt look appealing, trust me the potato has absorb all the sweetness)
- White steam bok choy in homemade fish consomme
- Steam oyster with XO Sauce

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Feast of the month – Maguro Japanese Restaurant

Our dear fren Sam is the head chef @Maguro, it had since been our favourite Jap rest. “Quality Fresh Ingredients” is the keyword here.  There is so much to choose but we often go with the chef specials or recommended dishes.
This time we started our feast with fresh mussel cook in butter n sake sauce then follow with grilled ox tounge, fresh scampi sushi and grilled xxl prawn and finished with yummy pork bone soup char siew ramen. I’ll let the photos below tell its own story.
My next visit, I’m definitely going to try “Jumbo Eel” & Wagyu Beef Sushi…. ohhh I can’t wait. Drrrroool

Maguro Japanese Restaurant
723 Warrigal Rd, Chadstone
WWW.MAGURO.COM.AU
(03) 9807 8388

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Catch of the week – Zebra fish

Okie, i was told this is “zebra” fish, i’m not sure if it is true or my angler playing joke on me. Anyhow the fish is simply deliciousss, it’s salt water fish so no muddy taste at all. If you can get it at your local fishmonger, give it a go!

Vegetable of the week – Taiwan Baby Pak Choy

We planted the seeds on mid august, finally after days of caring (well my angler actually did the watering everyday haha not me)

Dinner is also prepared by him coupled with grilled monkfish n salsa verde yummmmm

Catch of the week – Brown Trout

Another attempt of smoking trout – this time we use genmaicha, tiny bit of coffee, rice and brown sugar.
Oh yeah we also manirate the trout first with brown sugar and rum
How good is my angler skill in butterflying the brown trout, impressive rite?

Feast of the month – Post CNY Catch up – Hanabishi

 We had post Chinese New Year catch up with our cousin, since he live in city vicinity, I thought I would booked Hanabishi, It has long been in my list of Japanese restaurant to try.

We were not disappointed at all. I would I enjoy the Starters, Entree and Dessert a lot. Grilled Pantagonia Fish is yum! the main course – grilled duck breast is just so so. The dessert platter is worth waiting for, make sure you are not too full to enjoy the dessert.

 

Hanabishi Japanese Restaurant

187 King Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9670 1167

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Feast of the month – CNY Eve – Tempura Hajime

This year, for our chinese new year dinner celebration, we opted for Japanese, one major reason is normally chinese restaurant will be super busy and packed with people where each table will get similar banquet dinner, I felt that the food is normally not that good.

I have heard  that it is hard to get booking for Tempura Hajime, so I called the day before expecting fully booked confirmation, surprisingly, the lady on the phone say, “yes, 3 people is fine” I was like “yattaaa, Hajme here I come he he”

My angler was quite skeptical that having tempura the whole night, surprisingly we really enjoy the night, each tempura is crisp, you dont feel oily at the back of your tounge, the sweetness of each serving pops leaving you with yearning for more. I quite like the introduction of several options of dipping sauce, because it really make a different to the tempura.

Tempura Hajime set a higher bar for us in terms of judging tempura in other jap restaurant. I am sure we would hear ourselves saying “hmm Not as nice as Hajime or hmm just as nice or in par with Hajime”

Overall good food good service good companies  = great Chinese New Year Eve

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Feast of the Month – Wedding Anniversary 2011 @Vue De Monde

We celebrated our 3rd year wedding anniversary in January, how time just flies, I can still remember the hectic of getting married

Since its our third year, I thought I would booked somewhere special, my angler love french food, I thought degustation meal should be even better, the final decision comes down to Vue De Monde.

So does Vue De Monde lived up to its fame reputation, we don’t think so. I won’t say we are disappointed, I guess it is just not sparkle enough, we are expecting fireworks, top class food and service but we are only halfway there (it is almost like “wow but not orgasmic” if you know what I mean).

We went home and wondering if the problem lies with the food or service and we come to conclusion that it is service. Walking into Vue De Monde feel like going into different world, First we were greeted by the front manager, and I saw hordes of waiting staffs around, We have the Head waiting staff introducing himself, asked if we have any special diet, anything that we don’t eat, he told us that whenever each dish presented to us, the waiting staff will give us a brief explaination. Then throughout the night, we have so many different waiting staffs serving us we can’t actually keep track of who is who, Some of them are super nice but we have one particular waiting staff that literally place the food on our table and proceed staring on the plate and name whatever he can see  on the plate (so its like “ok we have beetroot, broccoli…” and then said “ that’s pretty much it” and walk away. We were gobsmacked, then he came back another time to serve Vue de Monde special Pavlova and he said “what can i say its a pavlova” and shoot off again.

I just don’t get it, why do we have 10 waiting staff serving us????? One(1) attentive one is soooooo much better than TEN(10). actuallly it reminded me of attending wedding reception (oh wait hold one, even in wedding reception, each waiting staff is dedicated to a few table isnt it?)

Anyway enough about my ranting, its our wedding anniversary night, so we have to be positive and say we have a good night but will not go back to Vue de Monde again tho.

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Catch of the week – Flounder

No, my angler did not catch flounder, we bought it from the market ha ha. Weather hasn’t been good here so he hasn’t been fishing.

I asked him, how to cook the fish? He said “Normal way” I said “There is no normal way, I have never cooked it before”. A few flounder dish I can think of is deep fried with salt and pepper, broiled in lemon butter sauce, pan fried with ginger sauce.

At the end, I did none of the above, I steamed the flounder with slice ginger, mushroom and chinese pickled cabbage and top it with soy sauce.

After dinner, i search through my Japanese cookbook and found a few recipe that i can try next time. Yipeee!!