Eat Like Ushi

PappaRich is a Malaysia-cuisine based chain of restaurants. It posed a conundrum to me. My friend frequently went to one of the restaurants in Melbourne without hesitation. A family member of mine said it was not authentic and overpriced for what it was, but not terrible. Urbanspoon ratings for Melbourne and Sydney vary between 50-65%. Yet the recently opened Canberra one is rated 85% and has very frequent queues. I suppose you can explain the frequent queues being that there isn't anything like that around Civic (that I know of) and probably nothing that good. You could also say the higher rating is because locals here probably don't know any better, although I do find Dickson Noodle House to be good and better than some of the Chinatown standards (eg. China Bar). It won't reach the cheap prices of other cities' Asia restaurants, but it's certainly cheaper than those around Canberra.

PappaRich in Canberra is full of all sorts. Young, older, Asian, white, Indian... everybody comes and by 12pm on a Sunday there is a small mob outside waiting to get in. On a 40deg day, the place inside the Canberra Centre is remarkably well cooled. Not your typical Malaysia hot humid experience whilst eating chilli food.

The picture menu is very reminiscent of Chinese restaurants in Australia and some in Asia too, with big enticing pictures for the assumption that a lot of their clientele won't know what many of the dishes actually are or look like. They actually do have a nice range of drinks, mains and desserts and seem to cover all three bases quite well.

The ordering system requires you to write the menu item on a piece of paper and press a buzzer for a waiter to collect. The staff are friendly and happily answer questions about the dishes. Some people don't like the ordering system. Go somewhere else then.

- Matcha Rocks (green tea soya, red bean, green tea icecream) - lovely cold slush of lightly flavoured green tea milk and icecream. Kudos for not adding ridiculous amounts of sugar;
- Iced Red Bean - another simple drink presumably combining red bean icecream, red beans and milk;
- Roti Chanai with Tandoori Chicken - roti is a freshly cooked piece with a very mildly crisp outside and a thicker doughy inside. It's very good and I preferred it to the very thin flaky ones other places have. Tandoori was an odd combination (not my choice) but it was reasonable. The sambal sauce it came with was a little spicy. Next time curry beef will be the go for this;
- Pappa Special Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken & Sambal Prawns - it came out ridiculously fast, after about 3 mins. Like all nasi lemaks the ingredients are probably in trays ready to serve. I don't mind - it's how it is usually done. Coconut rice was good, chicken curry tender and tasty, sambal prawns a bit average and soft, sambal sauce good, salty ikan bilis great, roast peanuts topped it off. I'd prefer extra sauce and ikan bilis, but I won't complain. It was a good version.

There's a lot to pick from on the menu that I'd be willing to try to see how well they do. Assam laksa, curry laksa, har mee, wat dan hor, char kuey teow and of course ice kacang. I'll go back.

Dumplings - one of the simplest things to eat, one of the most satisfying, definitely one of the most social, and yet also quite annoying to make yourself (well any more than one variety at a time). Leave them to the experts - Asian usuallly, and I'd also recommend Russian pelmeni if you ever find yourself there.

A small chain I'd never heard of before with a name I'd probably usually stay away from. But in Flemington it seemed like a reasonable idea on a freakishly hot January day.

- Pan-Fried Vegetarian Dumplings - I wouldn't ordinarily go for vegetarian, but there was enough pork ordered also. These were slightly chewy/crispy skins (which is good) and simple vegetarian filling. Nothing special, nothing bad;
- Shao-Long Bao - quite tasy Shanghai dumplings although a couple were torn so lost the liquid inside, and the liquid wasn't searingly hot as it usually is. Vinegar made it all the better;
- Deep-Fried Lamb Spare Ribs with Homemade Sauce - my ribs craze continued here with a wonderful dish of succulent soft rack of lamb ribs topped with a medium spicy chilli sauce.

Next time I would order pan-fried pork dumplings (as I prefer pan-fried over pure steamed) or if you want steamed the ones with Sichuan chilli sauce sound interesting. Naturally a serve of Lamb Ribs also - need you wonder?

Tom Phat has been on the breakfast to-do list for a very long time. Maybe times and tastes have changed, but the roti omelette was one of the breakfast items of the year back in 2007 (although to be fair I didn't read about it until probably 2009). In any case, waiting 4+ years for something that really isn't that far away, and considering how many breakfasts I've had in between, meant that the occasion finally appeared when two people would meet halfway from respective homes which seemed to be Brunswick.

South-East Asian flavour fusion is still (I think) quite new to breakfast. In Asia I'm used to congee, pho, cheong fun etc, but I can only remember one other Asian-inspired breakfast, being the roti (surprise surprise) at De Clieu.

On a near empty Monday morning, I read the menu to see if anything else would appeal to me more. Uncle Ho's Brekky sounds like Vietnamese broken rice. Black Sticky Rice sounds like a standard dessert in Asia (and now courtesy of Dessert Story). Yunnan-Baked Eggs actually sounds delicious and may be what I come for next time. But for a first visit, your hand is forced by the signature memory of 2007.

- Roti-Omelette (wok-tossed free range eggs & roti, bacon, chives, roasted tomato salsa) - it was a nice combination and certainly different from the usual bacon/eggs/sourdough. I think it gets more merit from being creative and fusion than ground-breaking taste. I still think curry can't be matched when it comes to pairing with roti;
- Sweet Corn Fritters (with poached egg, smoked salmon, avocado-salsa, baby spinach & harissa mayo) - nicely assembled stack with fried shallots and a generous pile of coriander and mild spicy sauce. Tasted as it sounds - good.

They also have a lunch/dinner menu that sounds like a combo of South-East Asia (Viet, Thai, Malay). 

I'd still recommend coming to try breakfast - it's at least a change from the other Melbourne cafes all of which have roughly the same menu.

Burgers - all the rage. Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide seem to have picked it up the last few years. Although I don't think any have yet been able to recreate the same sense of fulfilment as London's MEATliquor and Tommi's, I'll keep trying to see if I find one.

Burgastronomy is one of Adelaide's contenders for their burger crown. It's in North Adelaide which makes it potentially a little further away from the hustle? Nonetheless I'm sure it's popular at peak drinking times.

One of the nice interior touches is the grungy cartoon/graffiti on the walls. It adds colour and I'm sure in the evenings creates a different atmosphere or focus while you line up to order. I was a bit hungry and maybe ordered more than I should. Oh well, I don't think I'll be returning to (North) Adelaide for a while...

- The Hot One (Hot) - beef, lettuce, cheese, chipotle BBQ & mayonnaise. The meat is decent quality but probably cooked a little more than I'd like. It's nice and the burger doesn't fall apart. The Hot rating is about right for me. A little chilli burn but nothing painful or that slows me down in eating;
- Sweet Potato Chips - everyone seems to comment on how inventive these are. Granted they are good, but it also made me think some of these people probably haven't been around much. Nonetheless these ones were very nice, sweet and served piping hot with a salty outside. It had some crisp to it too which is great;
- Southern Fried Chicken - succulent chicken, crispy outside, not overly salty. I liked it.

When I ordered I asked "how hot is hot?" They answered 8.5-9/10. Useless information. How does it compare to Nando's Hot? Don't know. Well that isn't useful either. Sitting down eating and realising that my hot burger was probably about the same as Nando's hot gave me the idea of an app that allows you to rate the heat of dishes around the world so you know what to order for yourself if you ever go. I still think it's a good idea (although not really money making), but I'd use it.

Next time I would order a Southern Fried Chicken burger (probably Hot Bacon Bird). The chicken was great, and the table near me where everyone had that (and the cook was a family member, so I assume he knows what's best) made me wish I had too. Otherwise the free standing chicken is good too.

After a few short evenings of work in North Adelaide, it seemed appropriate to find a reasonable breakfast before flying out. I'm not sure what the standards of things were around here (probably similar to an Australian country town I'm thinking), but regardless if people are giving a 96% (85 votes) rating on Urbanspoon, it can't be all that bad.

After a 15minute walk east, I came just in time for the 10am opening. As the first and only customer thusfar, I got first pick of tables and food. The room has some lovely cute homewares, although the only thing I picked up was a delightful birthday card that reminded me of someone in London.

- Cherry tomatoes, fresh basil + feta bruschetta - tomatoes were good, feta was good, bruschetta was good and balsamic salad nice contrast. But the basil was surprising - they used Thai basil! I've never had that before. It was such a different flavour and so unexpected. Such a simple dish, but worthy of adding to my list of things to recreate at home when I'm out of ideas.

The soy chai latte was ok. There wasn't much gingerness detected, but it was nice and the cinnamon was carefully added and not caked on like many places outside Melbourne seem to do.

There's some granola, fruits, breads, bagels and salads to pick from. The menu isn't extensive nor sound unusual, but there was a twist in my dish so you never know...

My dad is a sucker for Scoopon vouchers for meals. Ever since I donated him one I couldn't use for a breakfast near Bridge Road, he sets out to research each offer to determine if it's a good deal or not. After about 2 months of constant reminders, we settled on a breakfast day in Northcote. 2 breakfasts + drinks for $29. It's not a bad deal considering you'll pay $40-45 in Melbourne generally for somewhere nice.

Over The Road is a cafe which also doubles as a store for antiques, homewares and general crap. Don't get me wrong, some of the items, particularly the wall clocks, are quite nice. Over the road from the cafe is a nursery, for which you can get a discount on plants if you eat at the cafe. It's not a bad setup and gives you somewhere to relax, eat and be interested in your surroundings.

Luckily the food isn't bad either. I wouldn't say the breakfast was anything incredible, but I'd be happy to go back. Preferably with a Scoopon.

- Fried eggs, hash brown, mushrooms, sausages, bacon, spinach
- Halloumi, poached egg, chorizo, sourdough and rocket

Closing in at #20 on the Canberra Times top 20 for 2013 came Red Chilli Sichuan. I haven't had a lot of Sichuan food in the past, the closest probably being Mao's in Fitzroy, which has delicious food. The top 20 list also featured Malamay which was skipped due to a higher price than preferred on this evening (and I recently found out that Malamay isn't particularly Sichuanese at all...).

There's a lot of red about the restaurant - the red sign, the red lanterns, the red seat cushions, and of course the red chilli.

- Mapo Tofu - tofu, pork mince, hot Sichuan sauce. Delicious fragrant and excellent;
- Lamb Ribs with Cumin - rich cumin flavours encrusting tender meat;
- Salt and Pepper Fried Fish - quite salty fish which was nice, but surprisingly the addition of fried corn kernels was a wonder.

Multiple topups of rice are necessary for completeness and to handle some of the numbing heat. I'll certainly be going back. There's a lot of good looking dishes on the menu here. They have live lobster, abalone and fish in tanks as a start. But when it comes to Chinese chilli cooking, I think I'm going to be a lamb rib/cumin and mapo tofu kinda-person for a while. Thanks to Beijing for starting that off for me.

09-2015

On a return trip (honestly there have been a couple in between) I ended up with the reliable mapo tofu and cumin lamb ribs again. I also added some new things to the taste explosion:

- King prawns with salted egg yolk and corn - an incredibly delicious umami-packed dish of textured prawns, crispy coating and corn and salted yolk;
- Fried soft shell crab - a large dish of juicy crab, chillis and salty fried crisp chunks.

This restaurant still remains near the top of flavoursome Chinese cuisine in Canberra. It isn't fine or fancy but it sure is satisfying.

After the Korean food overload in Melbourne over the past month (Gami, Bistro K, Chimac) it seemed natural to have some more albeit more traditional/standard. I'd even watched my first ever Korean cooking TV show on SBS in December (Sinae Choi's Korean Food Cult - interesting but I wouldn't overly recommend it). It's difficult justifying Canberra prices for some food items that we are used to seeing cheaply around, but unless you're going to make everything yourself there's nothing to do except suck it up.

Canberra's Chinatown/Asiatown suburb Dickson is lucky enough to have Cantonese, Vietnamese, Malaysia/Singapore, Korea and I'm sure others covered. Apparently they had an Ethiopian place that closed a few months ago (unfortunately) which is actually the main reason for going on this occasion. Nonetheless Korean it was.

As per the custom I discovered in Seoul in December 2008, Korean restaurants like to give a lot of free sides with the meal. Here we were presented with kimchi, beanshoots, grated potato and some sliced sausage & onions.

- Ddeokkochi (deep fried rice cake stick with spicy sweet chilli sauce) - my favourite dish of the lot. Sticks of rice cakes with crisp thin outsides and chewy gummy insides coated by chilli sauce. Fixed a rice cake craving;
- Dolsot-Bibimbap with Beef - stone pot with the usual array of vegetables. It was quite expensive (extra $3 for meat), the rice wasn't crispy on the bottom, I prefer raw egg and the gochujang sauce was very very mild. It was ok, but nothing I'd say was great;
- Haemul-Pajeon (seafood pancake) - a pancake/pizza/doughy concoction with some small squid and shrimp embedded. Again it was ok, but nothing all too great.

Next time I would order rice cakes and more rice cakes (or somehow learn to make them myself). I'd probably stick to a stew for a main as I tend to like Korean kimchi stews and they have a non-kimchi one with rice cakes!

It was a reasonably easy decision in the end. The fridge has nothing except vegetables, which would have made for an adequate dinner. But suddenly the realisation it was Chinese New Year dawned and it seemed a much better idea to go out to somewhere Asian (inspired at least). The choices for a short walk on a 35C evening came down to Wild Duck, Malamay and a local called Madam Woo. In the end Malamay won out due to the recent enamour with Sichuan food (just found out the Szechuan spelling is now obselete) and craving for mapo tofu.

I wasn't expecting any dragon dances or fireworks or the usual fanfare that is found in Chinatowns all over the world (or normal town in Asia) and given it was Canberra I wasn't expecting any Asian diners either. The latter could also be due to that Asians don't often go for higher end or fusion Chinese cuisine.

In any case the Burbury (not Burberry) Hotel hosts the restaurant. The entrance is sleek, books and wine bottles line shelves, the decor is mood lit and quiet and the air-conditioning is welcome. The degustation menu of signature dishes was recommened, but it seemed a little too much food that day.

- Crabmeat Croquette with Smoked Portobello - thin-crusted croquette with mild crab and manchego flavoured interior sitting on an even milder squid ink sauce. Slivers of portobello and cracks of Sichuan peppercorn completed the dish;
- Slow-Cooked Eggplant with Kombu & Chilli Oil - a really excellent exultation of soft eggplant flesh firmly supported by the skin, topped with thick konbu (Japanese spelling) sauce a sesame seeds and sitting in a pool of umami;
- Lamb Shoulder with Cumin & Salted Chilli - shredded lamb pieces in an interesting combination of cumin and black vinegar (I think?). There were pieces of chilli which had almost no detectable heat;
- White Fish with Mapo Tofu - nicely cooked and seasoned barramundi with medium tofu. It was difficult to see where the mapo part came in as it looked as far from it as you could get, with nothing visibly red or chilli. The sauce did have a little hidden kick to it, assumably ground Sichuan pepper or cooked with chilli then removed;
- Chocolate & Chilli Charcoal - strange frozen chocolate (again no detected chilli) mousse, refreshing lemon yoghurt roll, and salted pistachio & mandarin powder bits for crunchy texture. Not too bad overall.

The food flavours were good and more modern than any close resemblance to Sichuan food. There was a distinct lack of chilli impact, but I suppose it wouldn't be best for the business meetings, older Australians and fancy date nights that they probably market towards. The waiter did say that the best dishes for chilli were the Xian roast duck and Sichuan style chicken. I'd still go back again, although not before trying other places that may provide better value for money. Service is good, although we had 3 different waiters which is a bit strange.

Next time I would order the degustation to impress (but it doesn't have the Eggplant) or a la carte otherwise. The BBQ Lamb Ribs, Sichuan Chicken, Braised Oxtail and Xian Roast Duck all appeal to me.

Dainty Sichuan Food Box Hill - The Age Good Food Guide best new under $30. That accolade is enough to make someone want to go. After a recent unexpectedly good Sichuan experience in Canberra filled with numbing chilli, it seemed a good idea to try for a casual quiet lunchtime.

The food ordering process is 3 steps: 1) Select two broths in a ying-yang shaped pot. 2) Select the meat/fish/vegetables you want to self cook in your hotpot. 3) Select from the large variety of condiments/sauces to complement your meal.

Mine turned out to be oxtail and super spicy soup. Wagyu beef, mushrooms, lamb ribs skewers, (frozen) baby squid, mixed balls (squid, fish, meat). Condiments included coriander, spring onion, raw garlic, chilli sauce, sesame oil, sesame dipping sauce, and for some fun value, good old MSG.

What can I say - the super spicy soup is cough-inducing spicy. Oxtail soup tastes quite generic. They also top all soups up with the same murky yellow (MSG-laden I thought) stock. The ribs were good, the squid balls were smooth, all the rest was pretty ordinary. The sauces and condiments add to the flavour but none are really required. (Note adding MSG doesn't change the flavour a whole lot - perhaps that's an indication of how much is in there to begin with?)

It isn't all that cheap, it isn't all that fantastic. It is fun though, and a good way to spend time with people. Go for the right reason. I can't understand why else people would come here for the food itself.

(PS. It's quite possible their non-hotpot food is better. My preferred Sichuan meals have all been dishes, so maybe that's the difference.)