St Ali (South Melbourne, Melbourne)

Recently I took a last minute business trip to Melbourne but was not expecting much, if any, opportunity to check foodie places out. Well, little did I know it would turn out to be meals in 3 places I would be blogging about.

The first one is St Ali. I have heard about their coffee (of course!) but didn't realise they had a cafe in South Melbourne. This is where my rather new Melbourne office is located. When we arrived at the office, it was lunch time and DD had a flash of inspiration to check out St Ali. Out came google maps and before you know it a group of us were ensconced in this very hip warehouse like cafe.

After poring over the menu and realising the prices were not your average cafe prices, we decided on the following.

Porky Pig's Christmas Lunch - Prosciutto and Brie toastie with cranberry sauce.

The Daddy - Breakfast bun with Cumberland sausage, bacon, scrambled egg and tomato chutney.

Gia Hoi (Eastwood, Sydney)

Many moons ago I lived in the suburb of Eastwood. I knew every single restaurant, cafe and grocery shop around Eastwood. At that time I would frequent my favourites and knew of the new venues opening up.

That was then. Now I don't go to Eastwood much and this is mainly due to horrendous parking and burgeoning crowds that converge at Eastwood on the weekends. It can be quite off-putting and I tend to stay away unless I have to be there.

Which is the reason I didn't even realise that Gia Hoi had opened a branch in Eastwood. And according to the web, it has been opened for about 2 years. Sigh! Now this is what I would term 'slow as'!

So my checking out begins over 3 visits.

Bun Chao Tom - Grilled minced prawns with rice vermicelli. The minced prawn cake were thinly sliced and served over a bed of rice vermicelli with a side of fresh bean sprouts, pickled carrots and shredded lettuce. The dish was served with nuoc cham. Yum! I have a weakness for this dish. Loved how fresh the vegetables were and the prawn cake was full of flavour.

Bun Bo Hue Dac Biet - Special Pork and Beef with Rice a Vermicelli Soup which is hot and spiced based. I honestly cannot recall if I have ever tried this dish before but I have fallen in love with Bun Bo Hue.

My First Time at Chur Burger (Surry Hills, Sydney)

Okay! I have finally joined the rest of the Sydney food blogging crowd who have visited Chur Burger! And funnily enough it was not even a planned visit but it's the spontaneous decisions that make it so much more fun, don't you think so?

This place is famous for its crowds and queues, let alone its burgers. So I was lucky to have one of my friends AJ arrive there ahead of us. By the time I got there, I only had to hang around for a minute and there were seats ready for us.

As expected, the place was full, with loud music in the background and the team busy as! We were seated near the kitchen area but I didn't realise until later on that there was a neon sign right next to me which would distort every one of my food photo. The sign was lit in red! Aargh!

Please excuse the quality of the photos, they had to be photo shopped. :(

We had the following:

Grilled beef burger with cheese, tomato jam, mustard mayo and pickle - I decided to try the classic beef burger to mentally compare against others from a rating perspective. It was a good burger, no question about it but in my humble opinion the jury is out if it is the best burger in Sydney.

Pulled pork with Chur BBQ sauce, red slaw and fennel mayo. AJ ordered this as he loved it the last time he had it and couldn't resist it again. Thumbs up from him!

Cabramatta Crawl April 2014

I am sure all of you have occasional cravings for certain types of food (and you don't have to be pregnant to experience this!). This can beset you at any point in time. Well, lately I have been craving all things Vietnamese and I don't even know why! My good friend CW and I have been planning to do a Cabramatta Crawl since February of this year. Yes! You read right, February! :-)

We finally managed to make it work. No heat wave, no prearranged social engagement and most importantly no track work planned that weekend. Yay! I was looking forward to satisfying my cravings!

The plan was to eat through our hit list but share the meals so we didn't fill up too quickly. We started by having breakfast and pho was our choice.

Pho Tau Bay has reputedly the best pho in town. I don't recall having been here before and it was quite a tiny little restaurant. We got there before 10 am and was lucky enough not to have to wait for a table. As we sat down, a man came up to take our order but we were not given any menus. It was quite funny because I didn't know what to call the dish outside of the word 'pho'. CW was fast thinking enough and said 'the special' please. We ordered a large bowl so we could share. I asked CW whether she knew what the special meant and it was an assumption it meant all parts of the beef like tendon, tripe, beef balls and thin slices of beef. To be absolutely sure, I went searching for the menu. There was a board near the front counter and to my relief the special was exactly what we thought. Phew!

Well, what can I say about the pho? The broth was packed with flavour, yet not unctuous. I didn't feel I was drinking heaps of fat. As a matter of fact I felt I was drinking spoonfuls of goodness! A beautiful bowl of noodles, beef, tendons and a great broth which was lifted by the spikes of spicy chilli slices we consumed. So good!

We then decided to give our tummy a little break and walked around the shops. Along the way, I had a feeling of being back in Malaysia. Seeing familiar ingredients such as fresh tamarind, packets of instant coffee, shelves of biscuits and confectionery. And even a coconut grater!

And the abundance of street food, seafood and fresh vegetables and herbs make us consumers so spoilt for choice!

Our second stop was at Tan Viet Noodle House. There were queues to dine here. We came at the right time, only 2 were ahead of us in the queue. But later on I saw about 10 people deep waiting to get a table.