Kawaii Japanese curry

Kawaii is a small place in 480 Collins st and I have seen the bicycle with the ad on it a few times but never got a chance to go in until now. I have always been busy rushing here and there. The place is right outside a hotel hence there are a lot of tourists

This place is run by Japanese who love their curry and hot foods and sodas. You don't normally find traditional Japanese sodas a lot in Melbourne. It is very rare for a food corut restaurant to have this.The food court was busy at 1pm when I came but the food came quickly.

I bought a Groupon for this place which included vegetarian curry, takoyaki and a orange soda which tasted like mango.

THe man that served me was really helpful when I asked him about the yakisoba. I am trying to stay off meat for a while. He said that it was pork. But the takoyaki was lovely. Three  lovely balls with moving bonito flakes. Yum.

The Scoopon came with three toppings to my surprise. I thought that I would have to pay extra and I did not. Normally it is three toppings for $2 but with my Scoopon it was free. I enjoyed the pickles, seaweed and corn making it into a healthy meal.

I didn't mind that there were no cute animals with my curry because the curry was really good. I enjoyed the sauce which is what you would find at Daiso.

Rating:15/20-good cheap eat.  would come here again and try the croquette which looked good. Sadly they didn't have any sushi today

The Stables of Como and Paris to Provenece

Paris to Provence is a once a year event which brings everyone together. It is at Como house, which is about a one minute walk from the tram stop or for those who are adventurous and love walking a ten minute walk from Hawksburn station. Actually if you choose the latter you can bring the dog without the need to bring the car. In fact there was a huge line of cars going in on the way there and that was at 12pm.

Fairy floss

Sign

dips

Cheese  platter

Cheese tastings

Cheese menu

Cheese tastings

Wine tastings

The spirit of France

Garden

Wine

Wine

Donuts

Books

Fountain

Kelpie

A few people like myself paid online and it was $17.50. One guy thought that it was a waste of money, but to hire out this lovely place it would cost them a fortune. And if they were to let people in for free it would be too crowded and everything would be trampled on. To keep the numbers low they had to charge a fee.

Included in the fee was the wine and cheese tastings. And for the lucky ones a free tart at the cooking demos.

It was a lovely sunny day and I enjoyed sitting outside. I brought my own lunch but had afternoon tea at the Stables of Como which is inside the festival. There was a Yarra Valley Cheese place outside and there were a few stalls outside of the stable selling champagne and savoury delights. The Stable of Como had been blogged about by 35 other bloggers and all for good things.

The place was small hence it was busy. They do table service and service was very friendly. In fact it is run by French people and they had croquet monsieur which is a French dish. Seeing as this is a French festival, I thought it fitting. Croque Monsieur is the normal ham and cheese toastie except this version is much more eloquent. And it was a delight to eat. With that came my tea.

I enjoyed being here. Being here and trying croquet monsieur was fun and as International students in Melbourne you should try many different and new foods such as this. There were crepes as well at the festival but we get them everywhere in Melbourne. The monsieur you do not.

And the dogs you don't get to see either unless it is an outdoors café, event or a park. Do come next year and many thanks for having us, Paris to Provence.

Snippet: Caffe Sienna

Caffe Sienna is in Chapel st near South Yarra station. Here I had an Entertainment book discount that I wanted to utilise. I wanted Leandro to come.

It was slow service for a not so busy place.

I had the pumpkin ravioli which was not much ravioli and a whole lot of cheese sauce. If someone was allergic to cheese then don't eat this. Instead try the Chicken Parma which the boy enjoyed. That and the chips. Although it could have done with some tomato sauce for the boy.

But the ravioli was nice though. I loved the pumpkin in there.

Snippet: Metro Baguette

Metro Baguette is a baguette place in the heart of the city. Here they have $5 baguettes and I had been wanting to go here for some time.

They are only open during the daytime and not at night when I go to the gym. They also have yoghurts and museli and sweets. They also have salads for the salad freaks.

Baguettes on offer

I was served by the nicest lady there and she didn't mind waiting for me whilst I dashed to the bathroom.

The baguette was made lovingly and I enjoyed every mouthful. Here it was full of proteins and the pecorino worked just fine. it was small and subtle. The bread was really fresh.

Go get em kids.

Maxy's

Maxy's is a European place in Elsternwick.

Here it was no so busy and the service was quick. The place looked really modern but it was exy. The place is about a five minute walk from Elsternwick Train station. Around that area there are many restaurants, some of which are Italian, Russian and Japanese.

Here I had their special of prawns with spaghetti and garlic, chilli and virgin olive oil. When it arrived it was really small and for the price of $23 I expected some bread to go with it. Other places have bread with their pasta at that price.

The prawns were alright but the pasta was store bought. For an exy place I expected homemade pasta. For exy places I would love there to be Paypal.

Their tea was alright but at $4 I expected a pot and not a cup. Although I did get some more water though.

Rating: 12/20- very expensive and no bread :(

Grill'd Southbank

Lately I have been having a hankering for their chips. Hence after Fitclub I decided to stop by Grill'd in Southgate. I have seen no reviews on Zomato lately so I thought that this was a must try after seeing the outside of it.

They are actually in the food court of Southgate hence not much seating.

They weren't busy and the wait for the chips was long. But at least they apologized for it. The line for the pickup was long.

The regular chips there were bad. They were lukewarm and not much seasoning. But the zucchini chips were good though. The herbed mayo for an extra $0.70 was just alright.

At the bottom of the zucchini one there was a puddle of oil.

Rating: 9/20- disappointing. I can't justify the wait. Grill'd used to be really good. I guess I just got them on a bad day.

I still prefer the ones at Southern Cross and Windsor though. Windsor was the bomb

Transport Public bar

Transport Public bar is in the same building as Taxi Kitchen but they are a lot less exy than Taxi. The bar has many happy hour specials. I had wanted to try this for some time.

Here they support the Entertaiment Book and are offering 25% discount for all members.

The place is huge and lively. They offer the latest sports shows and news. Service is very quick. Most people start off with a beer but I was fine with water. Beer adds to calories.

The burger was ok for $19.90. It was a vegetarian burger. You order and pay and they give you buzzer thing which goes off when your food is ready. Here the burgers comes with chips and it is a fairly large serving.

But the food itself was ordinary. In the burger I would have loved to have more cheese and less onion as that relish was sickly sweet after a while. The crumbed mushrooms though were good and they didn't take long to cook

But the chips were another story. They were bland so I added some chilli sauce to it.

Rating: 12/20- an ok pub meal. Could have been better but thank goodness I did not pay full price for this.

The Potsticker

The Potsticker is in Caulfield North and many trams service this place. I have seen the Potsticker before on my way to Hillulium restaurant and had always wanted to try. The Escort and the Thief didn't like it so much. But then again they didn't go for yum cha and I did. It got a mixed review from me.

A while ago I got the Groupon which was for 10 tiny courses of yum cha. Of course if I were to pay full price for them I would not be happy especially the cha siu bao which was small and priced at $2.80 each. At South Melbourne Market's Linx I can get bigger and better.

The place was packed on a Friday lunchtime and I did not know that I needed to book even if it was just for one. Stupid Groupon said that you only needed to book on weekends. Luckily I didn't mind sitting at their water feature which was cool.

There were many Caucasians and not many Asians there. The male waiter did not smile one bit and looked tired. The waitress was friendlier.

The first course was the tom yum dumpling which was in loads of sauce which overpowered the dumpling. I did not like this dish one bit. All I got was the tom yum flavour and no other flavours

The seafood rolls fared better but they used the wrong type of sauce which is fruit sauce and its meant to used with Japanese cuisine. At least the seafood is fresh

The chicken dumpling didn't have a lot of teriyaki flavour and one of the pieces was quite rubbery. But the poached red chilli seafood dumpling was good though.

The beef siu mai was overcooked and was in the same plate as the BBQ pork bun. The siu mai stuck to the pork bun.

The poached prawn dumpling with nonya sauce was really good though. I'd get this again if I may.

The bok choy with oyster sauce was good though. But then again who can stuff this up.

Whilst the noodles were good, the duck meat was tough but not so tough that you couldn't eat it. The sauce wasn't too overpowering.

The almond jelly was a bit watery and a bit too sweet for my liking. I would have liked custard bun to be on the menu instead.

Rating: 11/20-it will pass. At least I didn't go there for dinner but lunch. Just don't get the pork buns or the tom yum dumpling.