Old School Kafey, Haymarket

Craving of something like cafe food and something fancy last weekend.  So, we landed at this quirky looking cafe owned by Thai.  This place used to serve sweet and dessert only but now they also have savoury dishes in the house.  We tried their toast and also spaghetti. 

Curry chicken toast $19

This toast looks amazing.  The bread was smeared with good amount of butter then toasted to golden brown yet inside was still soft.  Also, the toast came with katsu chicken pieces lying on the bed of creamy omelette and some curry sauce flows on top of them.  It is accompanied with baby spinach leaves and cherry tomatoes dressed with Japanese sesame salad dressing.  This dish tasted pretty good actually.

Beef with pepper sauce toast $28

We also tried their black pepper beef toast.  It was similar with the curry toast earlier, only the different was the meat and sauce.  I still prefer the chicken curry one for taste and flavour wise.  Somehow, chicken curry and toast blended much better together.

Aglio olio spaghetti with grilled sirloin $29

They cooked the spaghetti to al-dente.  This wasn't just a simple aglio alio dish.  It got a little bit Thai influenced.  They added some basil and chili into this spaghetti.  It was delicious and I also like the fact that they cooked the wagyu to medium-rare just what I like. 

Boscaiola fettuccine with salmon $27

I found that their fettuccine was a little too sweet.  Otherwise, it would be perfect. 

Iceberg bingsu (L) $24.90

This cute-looking ice-shaved was so refreshing.  Lychee flavoured ice with some fresh rock melon and watermelon.  It was sweet and fresh at the same time.  For the drinks, I think they were slightly too sweet, especially their butterfly pea coffee. 

Milo volcano $16.90

Croffle with nutella

Matcha orange $9.90 and strawberry velvet soda $9.90

Ice latte butterfly pea and mango yogurt $9.90 each

Old School Kafey

459 Pitt Street, Haymarket

Open: Monday - Thursday 1pm - 11pm and Friday - Sunday 1pm - 11:30pm

3 Days 2 Nights Eating Trip in Melbourne Part 3: Homm Dessert at Heart

Previously:

3 Days 2 Nights Eating Trip in Melbourne Part 2: Novotel South Wharf Hotel

Homm is a new hang-out hype for Melbournian.  It is a Thai dessert cafe, which has just been opened early this year.  This place is always busy and they always have a long queue lining up their front door.  It was 4 in the afternoon when we arrived and look at those people were standing and waiting. 

We got our seats upstairs and ordering food can be done through QR code.  The order came in a jiffy.  We ordered a few desserts and drinks.  We went with a couple of most favourite items on their menu.

Thai tea bingsu $26.80 with extra coconut ice cream $6

This bingsu is the most popular menu in the house.  The shaved ice is topped with cream, milk tea sauce and milk tea ice cream.  To even add more sweetness to this already sweet dish, it also comes with more milk tea sauce, condensed milk and herbal jelly.  But trust me, I needed those condiments.  It was a good shaved ice and I like those crumbled biscuits that come with this bingsu to balance up the texture and elevate the taste as well.  However, it is quite big in portion and definitely a dish to share around the table.  

Salted egg shokupan $22.80

For me, I prefer this salted egg shokupan over bingsu.  It has more flavour and the bread itself is nicely toasted.  

Pandan kaya pain perdu katsu $21.80

I was looking forward to this dish.  They called it katsu because they coated the bread with crumbs and pan-fry it.  They have pandan filling inside the bread.  It was served hot.  However, I found that the pandan filling was too light for my liking.  

Iced milo and nom yen (pink milk) $7.80 each

For the drinks, I was expecting something more as normally in Thai restaurants, they will serve a strong flavoured drink and well sweetened.  But I couldn't find it in these drinks.  They were quite bland.  They kinda play it on the safe zone and lower down the sweetness level.

Overall, it was a nice experience and so appreciate to have people came up with creative ideas bringing the modern twist in Thai desserts.  But in my opinion, they are slightly overpriced. 

Homm Dessert Melbourne

294 La Trobe Street, Melbourne

Open: Daily 13:00 - 23:00

Stay tuned to the next blog still in Melbourne:

3 Days 2 Nights Eating Trip in Melbourne Part 4: Niku Ou

Random Food In Sydney

After 2 years, I haven't been back to Sydney.  There are lots of things changed.  It is definitely more food, both traditional and fusion food.  What a great thing to be back, although only for a week.  Since I moved to Thailand, I had realized that I missed Sydney food so badly.  I used to take them for granted.  In this a week, most of my time was spent with family, therefore eating out was only countable.  I tried to squeezed in one week the food that I missed with the new food I want to try.  

Foodcraft Espresso & Bakery, Erskineville

I left Sydney before the hits of this tella-thingy things.  By now, probably everyone already know and try one of this.  This is basically milkshake drink topped with doughnut balls (nutella, salted caramel, vanilla or strawberry).  Having just one full glass of this, my sugar level was rising up and I became a little hyper after that.  But taste wise was yummm.  They have a nice steak sandwich as well, made fresh in the shop.

World famous tella balls shakes: Nutella and salted caramel $10

Beef sandwich

Variety of fancy doughnuts from doughnuttime

Giant Jajangmyeon from Arisun served for 4-6 people

KOI Dessert bar: Moss $15 (left), Carmelised white choc cremoux, pistachio mousse, caramel jelly, matcha soil, apple jelly, pistachio micro sponge and dill
and Mango yuzu $10.50, Mango mousse with yuzu curd.

For me the desserts in KOI Dessert Bar just a little over rated.  It was a good dessert but it wasn't reach to the point where it is great.  Nice names and creative colorful looking cakes.   Price-wise, I won't complain about that, although lots of people said that it is over-priced.  But for me, more like paying for creativity and quality ingredients.  But the taste didn't reach my expectation.  Especially with that famous moss cake, so many things were going on in this tiny jar but they didn't compliment each other so well.

Foodcraft Espresso & Bakery

33 Bridge Street

Erskineville

Ph: +61 (02) 8384 6657

Doughnuttime

A few branches all over Australia: Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne

Arisun Korean Restaurant, Chinatown branch

35/1 Dixon Street, Haymarket

Ph: +61 2 9264 1588

KOI Dessert Bar

46 Kensington Street, Chippendale

Ph: +61 2 9212 1230

Meet Fresh

In the hot steamy day like this, it would be great if I could stay in the fridge...  C' mon not that bad !!!  Just an ice cream or cold dessert will do me...  Newly open Meet Fresh Taiwanese dessert branch in Eastwood which is what I'm looking for and its closer to my home as well, plus it opens until late midnight on the weekend.  While you enjoying this refreshing dessert, you know in the back of your head that it's healthy and won't put any extra exessive calorie.  So, importantly you don't feel sort of guilty.  However, I found that their dessert is way less sweet for my liking, probably that's why this become a healthy and light dessert, isn't it????  We went there last weekend around 9pm, the queue was still pretty long and we had to wait more than half an hour.

Wait 'til thing is vibrated means that your dessert is ready to be picked up from the counter....

Supreme Mango Crushed Ice $8

Shaved ice with mango lava flowing dessert.  This one is so refreshing and comes in a gigantic portion, good for those who like to share cos if you could finish this dish on your own then obviously you likely to get brain freezz !!!  Firstly I gotta admit that I was kinda trapped by its displayed photo from their menu when I was waiting in the queue.  The picture of fully loaded fresh mango (in fact, not) convincing me so badly to order one of this oozy tropical mango to cool me down from the balmy night.  Well .. pretty successful strategy I guess :)  However, don't get me wrong guys .. this icy mango was a limelight on that night.  Very very recommended !!!


Taro Balls No. 2 $6

The taro balls & sweet potato balls were nicely chewy and famed for the clean taste of all the elements on the bowl.  But, I will say this dish is being way too dull and not enough of those delicious sweet potato.   Appearently it is one of the chef-recommended and top 10 of most popular dishes.

Winter Melon Tea with Cream $4.60

You may get bored already by me saying the dessert is too bland and less sweet, it's probably because me is a sweet tooth person... so badly.  I ordered this drink only because those temptingly cute glass from the menu is like a clear jam jar with a handle but end up we got this, crappy take away cup..  The tea itself was refreshing and quite tasty but those whipped cream was the terribly let down, it was tasteless and seems contains zero sugar, I guess!!  I completely don't know what to do with that cream so I mixed it through with the tea as it suppose to be, rite..  BIG BIG mistake...  the whole drink turned out to be awful and flavourless.

So, Octie Appetie guys...

The Buy One Get One Free opening promotion applies to Taro Balls No. 4 Dessert and MeetFresh Signature Herbal Dessert only. Offer ends this Sunday, 13 November 2011

Meet Fresh Eastwood

175 Rowe St

Eastwood NSW 2122