Chik's Crib

27 November 2015

Snow Pony

Western Food November 27, 2015 0

Snow Pony is one of Melbourne's popular brunch places, and a restaurant which I've been eyeing for a while. The waitress tells us that Snow Pony sources its ingredients locally as much as possible, and the restaurant has some nifty home gadgets to minimise their environment impact. I was pretty impressed with their restroom set-up. The tap is connected to the toilet cistern. You wash your hands and the used water flows into the cistern, where it collects to flush the toilet for the person next in line. It's ingenious, and an improvement over a system that uses clean drinkable water to flush human waste down the drain.

(Okay, so most food blogs don't start a restaurant post by with a discussion on toilets and human waste. But I'm finished now. It's out of my cistern.)

Ha. Pun intended.

Okay, it's all out now.

Persian Flavours

Review November 19, 2015 0

Ahh. Persian Flavours. You give my love for food a little more variety, you. There is a bit of a debate on Zomato about whether you lean more towards Persian or Afghanistan, but all that talk just makes you even more exotic. As long as you keep on firing up those charcoal grills of yours, anything goes.

I've been here before in the tail-end of 2014, but I've neglected to write about it. Well, I've came once again with a large group of friends this time, and we all left happy and deeply satisfied. It's kind of a surprise to me too - seeing some my friends have wildly contrasting opinions on what constitutes a good meal - but everybody left as happy as I did.

I had the mango dough ($4), a delightful yogurt-based drink with a tinge of spice. Highly recommended. The original dough is a lot more tangy, but according from a friend, tasted authentic.

Our hands-down favourite dish was the Charcoal Chicken (whole-$16.80). The charcoal grill imparted a smoky scent to the meat, and the marinade was superb. It was deeply flavourful and I scrambled for the last few pieces.

Meat in the Middle

Western Food November 17, 2015 0

If you happen to be a goat or a chicken, Meat in the Middle must be what hell looks like. And what are you doing on the internet, you. Go chew on some more grass.

If you're a human who love meat as much as I do though, it's pretty much heaven. I've been here twice, both times with a full-on meat craving, and I left completely stuffed and satisfied. You'll love it here. I promise. (Caveat: Unless you are a vegetarian; in which case, I'll refer you to the first paragraph.)

The dish with the most bang for your buck is the Battle of Troy ($30 - see above), an open platter of a mountain of chicken and lamb that had been roasted over a fire, served with delicious soft pita bread and a pile of hot, freshly salted fries. The lamb is not at all gamey like we feared, and wondrously marinated. They say that this is ideal for two, but the pile of meat is so huge that R, J and I split it three ways for an early dinner, and we were struggling to finish all the fries. Comfort food doesn't get much better than this.

Society

Review November 14, 2015 0

After spending every hour of the day over the last few weeks being glued to my seat in my room moving from deadline to deadline, I forgot there's so much more to life than the four walls of my room. Once in a while, it's nice to say to myself enough is enough. As a wise friend said, don't spend so much time trying to make a living that you forget to have a life. A break once in a while is well-deserved, and I pushed aside my inexhaustible pile of workload to enjoy a day off. (Or at least an afternoon, as I was still working my way through the pile up until the moment when we met for lunch.)

A while ago,I bookmarked Society as a restaurant to visit. After a recent traumatic experience at another restaurant though, which gave a bad name to all Italian restaurants in Melbourne, we weren't sure if we wanted to try another Italian restaurant so soon. We hemmed and hawed the better part of an evening before finally biting the bullet and making our reservation, and boy, I was glad we did.

When we placed our orders, the owner of the restaurant dropped by and apologized that the food may take a while to arrive, because, in his charming Italian accent-tinged voice, "the chef in the kitchen was ..." He trailed off with an expressive wave of his hand and a cheeky smile. Seems like the chef was inebriated with alcohol. Or maybe something less innocuous. (I'm pretty horrible at sign language.) But I like the restaurant already. With such a relaxing, it's-all-good-here attitude, there wasn't a better place for me to go to to unwind.

I had a lovely red chosen from their list of house wine ($7.50), which I liked, but which EJ disapproved of. He's a red wine snob. I, a different kind (one which also ends with _ _ob.)

Afghan Charcoal Kebabs

Review November 11, 2015 0

After a delicious meal at Persian Flavours, I couldn't get my cravings for grilled spiced chicken out of my head. I was busy with school for a few weeks, but luckily, the Dandenong area is a Middle Eastern area packed with restaurants. A quick Google search later, and I located Afghan Charcoal Kebabs just a few minutes drive away. My friend and I had a rare occasion where our schedules coincided one day, and we hopped on over to the restaurant to scout out some charcoal grilled meat.