Review: Chillipadi

Posted by ~RnR~ in $41-50, Gluttonized

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Chillipadi Review

Chillipadi, Melbourne Central has just started its nonya buffet about a week ago... Nonya cuisine is a combination between Chinese and Malay cuisines 

I came early, and therefore waited for a while before the buffet started. 

This is the buffet area, located at the second floor. Lets now move on the food =D

On the first plate was the... (clockwise direction)

Siamese laksa: Not like the usual laksa, but it was a great dish... 

Sambal udang petai: The prawns were fresh.... a very tasty dish! =D

Acar fish: Couldn't stop of having more and more... I really like the sweet and sour taste of the fish =D

Inchi kabin: This was basically a nonya version of fried chicken. This one was just alright...

Moving on to the next plate =D 

Steamed rice: Actually I was expecting Nasi Lemak, instead of just steamed rice :(

Curry chicken: A great curry chicken.... really like this one :)

Otak otak: otak otak is a spicy steamed fish mousse... Again this was a great dish. But actually I personally prefer to have grilled otak otak, rather than the steamed ones....

Ikan Asam Pedas: Very aromatic and addictive.... love this! 

Inchi Kabin: more of nonya fried chicken

Lets start from that veggie dish...

Nonya Chap Chai: Stir fry vegetables with fermented bean curd... I like the fermented bean curd... there's nothing special other than that....

On the right was the Ayam pong tay: Lacking in flavor if eaten without the gravy

Eggplant: I can't remember the exact name for this dish... since I'm not a big fan of eggplant, I found this dish just to be alright...

There were several sauces at the buffet and the best one was the one at the top of the plate - sambal belachan 

Next to the sambal belachan was kelabu boknee: It has a refreshing taste... but the shredded chicken was a bit too try....

Achar: Nothing special about this one...

Kueh pie ti: Shredded vegetables in crisp thin pastry cup. Rondoletto like this one a lot, but I found this dish having a strong dried-prawn smell....

There's not much dessert selections at Chillipadi nonya buffet. But that's not really a problem because their kueh were really good!!! 

Punget: Taro and sweet potato in sweet coconut soup. A lovely dessert and one bowl is definitely not enough =D

Overall: 

Price: 7/10

Food: 9/10

Service: 9/10

Ambience: 8/10

Estimated price per person: AUD 45

__________________________________________________________________

Shop Oe7 Menzies Aly Little Lonsdale St


Melbourne VIC 3000

Website: www.chillipadi.com.au

-Rondoletti-

Review: Ma Ma Sichuan

Posted by ~RnR~ in $10-$20, Gluttonized

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Ma Ma Sichuan Review


Looking for a cheap lunch buffet? Then maybe you could consider Ma Ma Sichuan...

( The exterior)

(The interior)

See that big red poster? yes! lunch buffet at only AUD 10...  

you might ask yourself what you could get from this restaurant... so lets begin!!!

Above are all the dishes they have for lunch buffet... Quite a lot of varieties for a $10 buffet...  =D

Lets begin with fried noodle and spring roll. The fried noodle was good, although it was a bit tasteless... For the spring roll... it's not really good...  put the blame on the weird filling they have...

Moving on to the next plate...

Fried noodle and Fried rice. The fried rice was tasteless :(  couldn't think of anything good about this fried rice... 

Honey chicken,  beef in indian-style sauce, sweet and sour pork... The honey chicken was not bad.. It's just too sweet!!! The beef was weird... I guess, it's because of the sauce having a weird taste and aroma.... The sweet and sour pork was the best!!! It was tasty =D

Stir-fry veggies, black pepper beef and chicken...  Nothing special about the stir-fry veggies , and the black pepper beef and chicken... both of them was alright...

Another mixed veggie stirfry, but this time with chicken (the one on the left).
Personally, I don't really like this one because it's quite sweet. But for people who like their veggie to be sweet, like Rondoletti, you will like it. :D

Well, now we have fried vermicelli with veggies.  I'm not really sure how to describe it. The vermicelli is a bit dry. There taste is somehow similar to the beef in indian-style sauce. There's a specific fragrant that makes it smell like indian food. 


Beside it we have chinese style braised pork ribs, which is a good choice for you to try. The ribs is not that fatty and the sauce is not bad too.

Next, we have fried chicken, fried dumpling, and  mapo tofu.
The fried chicken is crispy on the skin but the meat inside is a bit bland. Maybe it will be much better if they have chili sauce.
For the fried dumpling is quite good. I like the outer side of it since it's chewy. The fillings are made of minced beef, minced mushroom and veggies.
Lastly, mapo tofu. It's quite spicy but overall, again, it's tasteless. We can't expect too much for $10 buffet. :p

We have talked about most of the food at the top. This time I only want to talk about the Braised Pork Leg. For "pork-leg-lovers" maybe this will be a good choice to try. I did take the pork leg but I did not to try it. Sorry about it. It's far too fatty than what I expected.

Finally, to round up our meal we decided to try the soups. As you can see, there 2 types of soup, which are corn soup and chinese mushroom soup. Both are bland. It's not recommended for you. But you really want to try, I suggests you to put some salt and pepper provided there. It may help to fix the taste. :D 

Ma Ma Sichuan also have steamboat buffet, which we've yet to try...  

So in a nutshell....

Price: 8.5/10

Food: 6/10

Service: 6.5/10

Ambience: 5/10

Estimated price/person: $10 (Only available for Lunch)

_____________________________________________________________________

Ma Ma Sichuan Restaurant

483 Swanston St

Melbourne VIC 3000

Website: none

-Rondoletti- & ~Rondoletto~

Review: Kitchen Workshop (Part. 2)

Posted by ~RnR~ in $10-$20, Gluttonized

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Kitchen Workshop Review (Part. 2)


Continue from Part 1

Thanks -Rondoletti- for the part 1 of the review. From here I, ~Rondoletto~, will take over. :D

Okay... Let's start with the soup in Kitchen Workshop.

In Kitchen Workshop, they serve us two kind of soups which are, Vegetable soup and French Onion soup. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get to try the French Onion soup. It somehow doesn't look as interesting as the Vegetable soup. 

The Vegetable soup was quite nice but maybe a bit bland if you just eating it by itself. Therefore, they also provide you with other toppings for the soup such as croutons, mozarella cheese, and french bread to accompany your soup. Putting a few shake of white pepper is a good decision too.

Now, let's move on to my favourite part... Dessert!!! :p

Does that machine look familiar to you? Yes.... It's an ice cream machine... :)

This was my first dessert in Kitchen Workshop. I always like eating ice cream after a meal...

The Ice Cream had 2 flavours which are vanilla and chocolate.

"Wait!!! But there are three handles there!"

Oops... I got caught.... :p Sorry. The middle handle was actually for the mixture of vanilla and chocolate ice cream. It's for those people who doesn't know which flavours to choose, like me, :p

Before we continue I just wanna tell you that watch out for the ice cream as it melts easily. It only takes about 15 seconds for it to melt. Hence, you have to eat it quickly, unless you want to drink it... :p

"So we only can use the cone to take the ice cream? I want more!"

Don't worry. You can also use a bowl to take lot of it...  ><

Pretty isn't it? In fact, I really really like it...

But there is something that bother me, the smarties. The smarties was hard! It takes effort to break the smarties... I don't remember trying so hard to eat smarties when I was a little boy.

Besides that anything just perfect... They even give you a lot of toppings to play with...

Toppings : Chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, crushed nuts, marshmallow, whipped cream, smarties, hundreds and thousands

Let's get deeper into Dessert!!! XD

Here we have  Chocolate Mud cake,  lemon cake and mixed berry cheesecake.

The Chocolate mud cake was served warm. But it doesn't really hit the jackpot.

The lemon cake was just so so but it was quite refreshing.

For me the best dessert was the Mixed Berry Cheesecake!

It was the best dessert there for me. The cheesecake was not just soft but it was also fruity and sour. Even more sour than the lemon cake. It gives you very refreshing sensation which will help you to light up your palate after eating so much food. 

Sadly, it was gone in just a few minutes. Many people love it I guess. They replaced the mixed berry cake with a normal Cheesecake***.

Although it's also cheesecake, the sensation produced was completely different. The cheesecake  was definitely cheesy. However it doesn't has the refreshing effect. Instead it will make you feel full quicker.

At the left we have Raspberry and White Chocolate Mousse and beside it we have Chocolate Mousse.

Which one do you prefer?

For chocoholics (count me too:D), who like dark chocolate, I suggest you to try the Chocolate Mousse. I believe that the Chocolate Mousse is made of dark chocolate since it is quite bitter. For those who want to have a fruit and chocolaty combination, try the  Raspberry and White Chocolate Mousse.  The raspberry flavour dominate the white chocolate but it will surely refresh your palate. The raspberry stick there is nice too. Good choice for dessert.

Who loves Profiterole? Because I always like this dessert... Compared to the profiterole that I ate in ChinaBarSignature, I believe that this one tastes much better....

The cream inside it is really tasty and it is also complemented with chocolate syrup... Yum~~~

Next to it is Mixed Berry Mousse. I like it too as it is quite sour. Okay... I admit that I love sour stuff. One reason I like it because after eating so much food, sour stuff will always be able to refresh your palate and increase your appetite... :D

The last one at the right is something like  Vanilla pudding. I can't remember all the name of the desserts. It's not really recommended as it doesn't taste as  beautiful as it looks. For those who like milky pudding, this maybe one choice.

Chocolate Cake (L): It's delicious and of course chocolaty. But I prefer it to be sweeter. :D

Cheesecake with passion fruit syrup (R): This cheesecake was prettily done. The taste is just good. Nothing to boast about.

Cream Brulee (L): It's very sweet... The caramelized surface on top is very sweet. 

Cheesecake(L): Refer to ***  above

Fruit cake(M): I don't really like it. It's just sweet.

Vanilla Mousse(R): Nothing special about this one. Just a normal mousse.

More Dessert:

Coffee pudding: This one can be recommended. I like the coffee flavour... :D It's not bitter though...

Yeah! For those who want their dinner to be accompanied with liquors, Kitchen Workshop has a small bar in which you can buy the liquor at your expense. :)

What's my overall impression?

Price: 9.25/10

Food: 6.75/10

Ambience: 9/10

Service: 9/10

Overall: 7/10 

Estimated Price/Person : AUD$17.5 for Weekdays Lunch

_____________________________________________________________________

For more information about Kitchen Workshop please contact:

Ground Floor, Clarendon Street

8 Whiteman Street

Crown Entertainment Complex

Melbourne 3006

Website: http://www.crowncasino.com.au/kitchen-workshop

~Rondoletto~ 

Review: Kitchen Workshop (Part. 1)

Posted by ~RnR~ in $10-$20, Gluttonized

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Kitchen Workshop Review (Part. 1)


Welcome to Merveilles de la Nourriture =D

If you're looking for a buffet restaurant at a reasonable price, then you might consider to visit Kitchen Workshop at Crown. 

(Entrance)

(The restaurant)

(The main dishes)

(Teppanyaki counter)

Lets now look at what this restaurant has to offer....

Starting from chicken sausages (clockwise-direction): The chicken sausage was not bad. It's good for starters =D

Breaded fish fillet: Rondoletto likes this the most. This was one of the main dishes you should try. The fish was well-breaded and deep-fried until it was golden-brown and crispy. The taste was great, and it's even better when you eat it with tartare sauce....

Baked potato: It was good. But, I think it was not baked very well. The potato skin was not crispy. Other than that it was alright, the taste was great actually! 

Steamed fish: I forgot what was the sauce they used for this one (my bad =P). Anyway, this one was tasteless, The sauce did not go well with the steamed fish.

Beef burgundy: Personally, I like this the most. It was full of flavor. But it was rather disappointing, though. The beef was not tender at all, making it hard to chew :(  The carrot (not in the picture) was way undercooked :(

Let's move on to the next plate, shall we? =D

Another serving of baked potato =D

Chicken drumstick in peri-peri sauce: This was great!!! It was well-seasoned, The chicken drumstick was well-marinated with the peri-peri sauce... Really tasty! =D

On the right there's roasted leg of ham with apple sauce: This was great too! I prefer to eat it without the apple sauce, though. For me, the apple sauce tasted weird, and didn't go well with the roasted leg of ham... 

On the top there's roasted beef with dijon mustard: I suggest don't take the dijon mustard too much. The mustard has somewhat common taste with wasabi, and I don't like both of them...  Well, there's nothing special for the roasted beef... it was just okay =D

This was from the teppanyaki counter. You can choose the veggies you would like to have, and the chef will cook it for you. You can choose to add beef (sadly there's no prawn, scallop etc) if you like. I found this dish was too oily!!! The taste was just standard, not an extraordinary teppanyaki...

From the salad bar....

Wide choices of veggies etc to make your own favorite salad =D

~and now you can look forward to the 2nd part of this post by ~Rondoletto~

Continue to Part 2

-Rondoletti-