Kedai Satay Melbourne

Posted: July 3, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Indonesian Food, Melbourne | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One of the perks of living in a such multi culture city like Melbourne is you can find foods from almost everywhere in the world. The word “every” here also refers to my home country, Indonesia. Actually there are quite a lot of Indonesian in Australia in general and in Melbourne in particular therefore no wonder that we can find some Indonesian eateries especially in the city.

This time is about Kedai Satay, an Indonesian Restaurant that I visited with two of my cousin’s friends from Perth. It was a such a funny meeting since all of us have not met each other before but fortunately it turned out as a great dinner time. They asked me taking them to an Indonesian Restaurant and I offered Kedai Satay. It was a warm pre-winter night when we went there. Well, it was warm for me as a Melbournian but those Perth folks were feeling cold. :p  I arrived around 7 and both of them have been waiting for me there. As we were all starving, it didn’t take a long wait until we decided what to have.

Kedai Satay is a regular 2 storey restaurant in the city of Melbourne. Unlike most of the Indonesian Restaurants I have visited, we do not need to order and pay in advance. So customers can take a sit, have a look at their menus and order once they are ready. I always prefer this kind of restaurant rather than the order-pay first.

Grilled Beef Ribs

This seems to be one of their best and most favorite menu! My friend ordered this and it came to all of the expectations. It smells good and the taste was even better. The meat was tender and juicy with peanut-sweet soy sauce and fried shallot served with rice and also crackers. Everything went very well together!Kedai-Satay AU$ 14.50

Nasi Uduk

Nasi uduk is one of Indonesian style in cooking rice with coconut milk so the rice tastes savory and has sweet aroma. Nasi uduk served with fried chicken, fried noodle, egg, sambal (Indonesian relish), kering kentang (thinly sliced fried potato and peanut mixed together) and also fried shallot. Fried shallot is kind of necessary when it comes to Indonesian food even though not everyone likes or actually uses it.

Kedai-Satay-1

AU$ (+- 12.50)

Nasi Ayam Penyet

Ayam penyet is one of Indonesian’s most popular and favorite dish, which is sambal (relish) that crushed over fried chicken and usually served with rice. In  Kedai Satay, they use fried relish which tastes dominantly sweet, it was quite nice but not how I like ayam penyet’s relish would be. I know it may sound not very objective as I love savory and salty foods than the sweet ones. But I think it would be nicer if the relish has both combination of sweetness and savory rather than being too dominant in one flavor.

The chicken was fried nicely, pretty big and they gave me the crumbs too that I like very much. The only issue about my ayam penyet is the plating and vegetables’ cutting. I must say, it was not appetizing at all. Tell me what do you think of the photo below. 🙂

Kedai-Satay-2

AU$ – 10.50 (8,50 for Ayam Penyet and 2.00 for white rice)

Pempek

Pempek is a traditional dish from Palembang, South Sumatra in Indonesia. It is a savory fish cake that usually served with noodles and dark sauce (sweet-sour sauce because of the using of vinegar). The pempek (fish cake) in Kedai Satay was a little bit too salty but the dark sauce was nice. The same issue with ayam penyet, I think the plating also did not go well. It was served in a bowl and they mixed the fish cakes with the sauce directly.

Kedai-Satay-3

AU$ 8.00

I reckon all the foods are just pretty good in a very reasonable price too. It is not bad for someone who misses Indonesian food or just want to have a great grilled ribs (I think the grilled selections are actually their strength, so it is suggested to order those ones). Besides the location and food, everything else was just regularly done. Even so, I had a great time in Kedai Satay and I was glad that my friends really enjoyed the Indonesian dinner too.

6,8 / 10

Kedai Satay King Street on Urbanspoon

Kokoro Ramen

Posted: June 19, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Asian Food, Japanese, Korean Food, Melbourne | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s better than rolling under your blanket in cold winter night? Yea, having a huge bowl of hot ramen is the answer! This Japanese noodle soup is one of my “all the time craving list”, I want ramen anytime even in 36 degrees summer day. (Don’t  judge me! Haha!) Well, I know it’s bizzare craving for ramen during hot summer but since we are celebrating winter here in OZ, it would be a perfect comforting dinner! This time I re-visit Kokoro Ramen in Lonsdale street, in the Melbourne CBD. Kokoro is my 2nd top rank for yummy ramen in affordable price!

This ramen shop is not too big but the furnitures arrangement makes it looking spacious. The only thing I’m not very keen about this place is the reddish dim lighting that makes everything looks a bit in a reddish shade. Aishhh I don’t like it (It gave me a hard time to take the picture too though! Haha).

Pork Gyoza (6pcs half serve of gyoza)                                                                                                                                                                        You can request to have it fried or steamed. I had it steamed in order to have a slightly healthier life style. Kidding. The gyoza was just so-so, I think the gyoza wrap was a little bit too thick. But anyway, this is such a good deal in terms of the price. Kokoro-Ramen-2 AU$ – 5.00 (steamed), 5.50 (fried)

AU$ – 8.00 (steamed), 8.50 (fried) for 12 pcs gyoza

Tokyo Ramen Super Cheap Basic                                                                                                                                                                                  As you can read, this is such a totally basic ramen served with chasu, naruto and spring onion. The noodle’s chewiness was so lovely. The soup base was tasty and but a little bit too bland. It would be perfect to have it a little bit saltier. The sliced charsu came in pretty thick slices but was very tender.

Kokoro-Ramen-1

All of their bowls have different fun-to-read “ramen quote”

AU$ 7.80 (See, it fits the name too! Super cheap basic is cheap)

Super Spicy Bakudan Ramen                                                                                                                                                                                       This is a special ramen that is not listed on the menu book. I saw this on the internet on my way to Kokoro when I was still in the tram. I think it is probably like a special menu of the month. I was in the mood of eating super spicy food and the Japanese waitress assured me this is the most spicy ramen they ever had so it will satisfy my need perfectly!

Finally my huge ramen bowl came. My ramen noodle was thinner than my bf’s but I like the thick one best. Actually the spiciness came from their special homemade chilli ball paste (Tan Tan) that you have to mix and dilute the ball with the soup first. The soup base was Tonkatsu Miso flavour and the Tan Tan chili paste made from Tan Tan oil mixed with veggies ingredients. Well, it was spicy but still acceptable for me. I even expected it would be more spicy than that. I was considering to ask for togarashi (Japanese chili powder) but decided not to hurt my tummy at night. Hahaha. Ramen was good, topping also nice especially the ajitama egg (Japanese half boiled egg, usually added for ramen topping) was so lovely! A perfect winter companion 🙂

Kokoro-Ramen

The floating ball is Tan Tan!

AU$ – 14.50

Daifuku                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Daifuku is Japanese dessert  which is a flavoured mochi rice cake with filling. We had tiramisu and green tea daifuku and got 2 cups of sencha as compliments. Among those two, I prefer the tiramisu one as it was creamier, smooth and lightly sweet. The green tea mochi was a little bit hard (kinda hard to be cut) and too chewy. Daifuku ended up our lovely dinner with sweetness overload, in a good way though!

Kokoro-Ramen-3

AU$ – 3.00 each

At Kokoro, you order and pay first at the till and the waiter/tress will deliver your order. Actually this is a self-service kind of ramen shop where you have to take your own cutlery, drinks and side dishes (such as kimchi). But another good thing about Kokoro is they open until 10.30 pm as many restaurants in CBD closed at that hour so this can be an option for late night craving.

7.9/ 10

Kokoro Ramen on Urbanspoon

Sunshine Awards, a Yeayy!

Posted: June 15, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Blogging, Melbourne | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It is, really a Yeayy! After two weeks hibernation from the blogging world because of the final examinations at uni, finally this afternoon I could manage to be back. I am so surprise when I checked my glipho andddd there it is, sunshine award blog from teddy! This is my first blog award ever and I’m so happy for this.  Ted, you’ve made my day! I feel rewarded after all the stressful exam weeks :p

Here are the rules of the award:

1. Post the Sunshine Award logo.
2. Nominate ten of your favourite blogs, the ones you can’t wait to read.
Announce the news on their blog and insert a link back to the Nominator’s Blog.
3. Then answer the 4 questions below in order to get to know each other.

1. My favourite weather – I love spring the most as the weather is warm and flowers blooms prettily everywhere. I love to take a walk just to enjoy the beautiful warm weather and views. Even so, I still prefer the weather in my country, Indonesia. We only have 2 seasons, rain and dry where the temperature between those two are nearly the same. I can wear any kind of clothes for the whole year haha.

2. My favourite Social Network – I am not sure if glipho is considered as a social network but I just love this blogging platform! Other choice, it might be Instagram and you know what? the first time I met glipho team also through Instagram 🙂

3. My favourite number – 8. It’s not only because my birthday is on 8th but it’s an even number. I like even numbers.

4. What I have achieved – Maintain my blogging activity for more than 1 year now. I know this sounds so simple but blogging really takes consistency and perseverance, right? I am glad to see where I am now.

10 blog nominees :

teddy – Don’t take it wrong. It’s not because you nominated me, but I do enjoy reading your posts, haha!

yummyinmytummy

Roger Planes

recipesharingco

spinsterhooddiaries

ShoesandGloss

Laura Locket

BlueKitchenBakes 

emilychoo

Rachel Monte

You guys are my favorites over so many great gliphoers. Hope you all have a great week end! ❤

 

*For all of you who are not in glipho or haven’t heard about it, I will introduce you to this cool blogging platform. Glipho is a new way of blogging, easy and friendly to use where you can meet many bloggers across the globe with diverse specialty topics. Let’s join us on Glipho, guys!

Mlesna Jasmine Green Tea

Posted: May 14, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Asian Food, Melbourne, Tea | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jasmine green tea from Mlesna, it does sound inviting for me based on my personal liking towards Jasmine scent. My first reunion with Ci Celi after more than 3 years never met each other because she has moved to Melbourne was in August 2012. On our first “long time no see” meeting, she gave me a box of Jasmine Green Tea, that’s by her slightly knowing my fondness for tea. She is so sweet, isn’t she? 🙂 Honestly I keep forgetting to make a review for this tea, even I have had cups and cups and cups since after I got it from Celi.

The tea nicely packed in a wooden sliding box and kept in a foil packaging inside the box. Quite unique, interesting and inviting packaging. Even though at first I was not sure whether it’s western or eastern tea product. The top side of the box gives me western-like feeling but on the other sides there are “Japanese people who are drinking tea” drawings. Hahaha. Well it doesn’t matter anyway.

This tea is originally Ceylon tea which is packed in Colombo so practically this is Sri Lankan’s product but we can find this brand at Tea Leaves in Sassafras Mount Dandenong. I know this when I went to this tea shop wit Ci Celi later. I also wrote a blog post about my visit to Tea Leaves in November. Check it out! 🙂

The dry tea is crinkle and twisted green tea with lightly dark green color. I always fall over and over again with the hint of Jasmine fragrant aroma from this tea every time I have a sip of this tea. It’s just so soft and has an awesome calming effect. I love to drink this at night in order to relax my body and mind before bed.

Usually I brew 1 tsp tea with 250 ml water for 3-4 minutes and sometimes I do re-steeping it. Two times steeping is still acceptable but more than that, clearly the taste is weakened. They provide the brewing information on the bottom side of the box too so no one should have done it wrong.

The after taste of this tea is a quite strong astringency, dry and puckering mouth-feel that remains in your mouth. I found a difficulty to describe this “astringency” after taste feeling until I got the explanation here. I reckon that the after taste might not fit to everyone’s taste bud but as long as you don’t overdose the brewing measurement, it should be acceptable. Thanks to Ci Celi for introducing me to this brand and even took me to the tea shop! If you go to Tea Leaves, you may find range of selection from this Sri Lankan’s tea brand.

20130510_195924_resized

Poached Eggs and Friends

Posted: May 12, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Breakfast and Brunch, European Food | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Hi guys! How are you? Hope everyone is doing good this week 🙂 I’ve been fully occupied by so many stuffs this week, which is good and bad in the same time. It’s getting cold here in Melbourne as in less than a month winter is coming. Winter is such a dilemma, if you know what I mean. 🙂 You love the comforting fluffy blanket with a cup of tea or hot chocolate but it makes you tempted to stay under blanket all day long and getting lazy to move your body.

Surprisingly this week has been a little bit warmer and yesterday I took the chance to go out and enjoy the lovely weather. Then I fed my tummy a nice brunch too at home! I’m a breakfast foods lover, even nothing fancy, just toasts, poached eggs, lettuce, bacon, ah you know right, typical breakfast baby!

One thing that made me quite happy was when I sent the photos of my food and my bf thought I was eating out. Then I asked him, “Oh so you think my food looks like something you are going to eat in a restaurant? Well..what a cheap simple happiness for me.” Hahaha 🙂

I have made a post about poached egg before and the only difference is this time I whisked the water to make a twisted current before beating the eggs in. It went very well and really helpful to keep the eggs back in shape. Have to practice this more often!

20130511_161114_resized

This was totally a fat brunch with double wholegrain toasts, double poached eggs, triplet middle bacons and bit of veggies

I made Hollandaise sauce to complete my poached eggs, has been through a “trial and error” processes in the past before finally reaching this result.

Ingredients :

  1. 2 egg yolks
  2. 2 tbs of lemon juice
  3. salt and pepper
  4. 3 knob of unsalted butter
  5. 2 tbs cold water

Step by Step :

  1. Put water in a medium size pan and turn on the stove in medium heat
  2. Place the egg yolks and water  in a clean bowl and put the bowl over a medium-size pan, assure that the bottom of the bowl not touch the water. It’s best to use big bowl to ease you while whisking the mixture and taking off the bowl from the pan
  3. Whisk the mixture consistently and slowly the bubbles will be smaller and lesser, the egg yolks color will also become pale
  4. When it becomes thickened and smooth, remove the bowl from the pan (the water seems to be boiling as well at this stage and you have to watch it would not touch the bowl)
  5. Slowly add the butter one by one while keep whisking to reach a good consistency and smoothness
  6. Add lemon, salt and pepper then serve the sauce with eggs

PS : Using a stainless steel bowl is the best but as lemon usually gets bitter easily when exposed with metal, I placed the mixture into another ceramic bowl and add the lemon and seasonings. It’s tricky to get a nice Hollandaise sauce but it’s worth to try, trust me! Since I still have some sauce left, surely I am going to poach more eggs next week.

Have a great and blessed week ahead, folks!

Broccoli and Cheese Bacon Cups!

Posted: May 3, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Breakfast and Brunch, Melbourne, Western Food | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

It’s a T.G.I.F! I am quite amazed of myself this morning to wake up so early and prepared many things including breakfast and lunch box before heading to university. To be honest I’m totally not a morning person and having a tendency to skip breakfast unless I have plenty of time that day. I had a plan in mind to prepare and get myself a nice breakfast to survive the whole Friday at uni though. So this morning I had an experience with bacon cup. This breakfast menu is so popular with many different names nowadays and you can find it everywhere like on Pinterest that I have seen lots of bacon cup creations. But this one is mine!

Normally people use muffin mold but I don’t have it so I used a ramekin instead.

Ingredients (for 2 portion) :

  1. 8 slices of bacon
  2. 2 slices of wholemeal bread
  3. small cuts of broccoli
  4. grated tasty cheese
  5. 2 eggs
  6. gourmet lettuce
  7. butter

Step by Step :

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius
  2. Lightly grease the ramekin with butter
  3. Cut wholemeal bread in rounded form to be placed as the cup basis
  4. Arrange the bacon to form the a “cup”, normally it takes 3-4 slices
  5. Place grated cheese and small cuts broccoli into the cup
  6. Break an egg into each ramekin
  7. Sprinkle slightly with cheese and pepper
  8. Bake for 10 minutes or until eggs is cooked
  9. Remove the bacon cup and arrange on plate with the lettuce

Broccoli-Cheese-and-Egg-Bacon-Cups

I always find broccoli goes very well with cheese and the smell of baked broccoli is so good. Lettuce brings freshness and neutralize the overall taste so it’s not too overwhelming by the savory ingredients.

I wish you guys could have a great great week end ahead! 🙂

Grilled Crispy Salmon with Garlic

Posted: April 21, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Asian Food, Japanese, Melbourne | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Hi, I am typing this post in a late night on no-longer-Sunday going to Monday. 🙂 Alright, so I had salmon for my Sunday dinner which was so yummy and I enjoyed it with steamed rice. I can’t live without rice, so Asian right? Quick salmon recipe for dinner after a hectic yet stressful week for me was kind of a self treat. Hahaha. The grilled garlic salmon for dinner has made my day, hope it will have the same effect to cheer to cheer your mood up!

Before started cooking, dry the salmon skin using the same method in my previous salmon recipe here.

Ingredients :

  1. 200 gram Tasmanian salmon fillet (for 1 – 2 serving)
  2. 1,5 tbs olive oil
  3. salt and cracked black pepper
  4. 2 cloves of garlic, mince
  5. 2 stalks of scallion, mince
  6. Spinach

Step by Step :

  1. Mixed olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic and spring onion in a bowl, stir well
  2. Marinade salmon with no. 1
  3. Turn on and heat the oven for 10 minutes at 170 degree Celcius while waiting the salmon marinated
  4. Wrap salmon with alumunium foil and grill for 30-35 minutes (it depends on personal preference, I don’t like salmon to be cooked well done so it was around 30 minutes)
  5. Arrange spinach leaf on the plate
  6. Put salmon above the spinach leaves and pour the juice from the grilling process over
20130421_180303

In this picture, I cut half the salmon into 2 pieces that’s why it looks small for 200 gr weight

Preparation time : 15 minutes, Cooking time : 35 minutes, Total time : 55 minutes

Well it seems too late to say happy week end, maybe saying have a great week ahead would be better.

Tofu Gratin

Posted: April 13, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Asian Food, Japanese, Melbourne, Western Food | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

When it comes to my own homemade cooking, I am a big fan of everything fast and easy to cook. As this is such a busy week, I wanted to reward myself a self-cooked dinner on Friday night. Kind of a chilling me-time, with good food and nice book.

I know tofu gratin sounds a little bit confusing as this is combining Asian food with western style. Well this is an amazing fusion food for me. I had tofu gratin twice about two years ago. The first time I had it in a Japanese fusion Restaurant in Jakarta and the second one was my trial replicating what I ate in that restaurant.

I have bought a tube of silken tofu since the beginning of last week but had no idea what to cook. Until yesterday I was so craving for tofu and the only stuffs I have in the fridge quite supportive to be cooked as gratin. So here we go!

Tofu-gratin-1

Ingredients :

  1. 1 tube of plain silken tofu or any silken tofu
  2. 50 ml of lite milk
  3. 2 slices of tasty cheddar cheese
  4. minced carrot
  5. 1 tsp of butter
  6. salt and pepper
  7. one beaten egg
  8. parmesan cheese
  9. mayonnaise

Method :

  1. Heat up the oven to 180 degree Celcius while you preparing all the ingredients (approximately 10 minutes)
  2. Cut the tofu into thin pieces (approx 1,5cm each), arrange and pile them nicely in a bowl
  3. Heat up milk, butter and 1 slice of cheese, stir quickly until cheese melted and pour immediately into the bowl, try to spread the top side of the tofu evenly
  4. Mixed egg with carrot, salt and pepper then pour into the bowl
  5. Cut cheese slice into 4 parts and arrange above the tofu
  6. Oven for 25-30 minutes
  7. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and spread with mayonnaise

Tofu-gratin

Well it was such a fatty dinner though, but no problem as I don’t eat this everyday, right? No sin..no guilty feeling..it was a guilty pleasure 😀

← Older Entries