[Travel Tasmania] Dinner at Canton Restaurant 廣州飯店 @ Launceston

We were in the mood for some old school Cantonese food, so I think we Googled and Canton came up in the search with rating of 4 and above, so off we went to try since we were nearby. Established in 1961, Canton Restaurant is a family-run business now in its third-generation.

It was a Saturday evening and we went at 530pm. Reason being, we weren't too sure about the weekend crowd.

restaurant entrance

The restaurant was fairly empty at that time since dinner service only began at 5pm. 

interior

menu

Similar to Lingnan, Canton's menu was also in a red leather cover with that old skool vibes. 

let's try some traditional flavours

As usual, we ordered up a feast for the 5 of us with each selecting their choice from the menu. Ivan and Tracy started with soup. Tasted a spoonful of Tracy's hot and sour soup, and it was nice. Not really spicy spicy but good balance of vinegary sourness.

Hot & Sour Soup 酸辣湯 @AUD11 (individual portion)

Egg Flower & Tofu Soup 豆腐蛋花汤 @AUD10 (individual portion)

Staff was nice and tried her best to answer to all our queries regarding the menu. And she made like 2 trips to the kitchen to clarify with the Chef on the availability of the fish for the day. Thanks!

Beef in Satay Sauce 沙爹牛肉 @AUD30.50

tender beef slices

I was always amused when Tracy tries to introduce the satay-sauce Cantonese dishes just to compare how it taste like as we varied it from one place to another. I think my Malaysian mind can't wrap around the Hong Kong styled-satay sauce.

The vegetables available on that day was rather limited in choice, so we ended up with crunchy long beans stir fried with garlic. Tasty!

Stir Fried Long Beans @AUD23

Then, there was a house special dish that's probably suited for the lone diner who would want to sample more things in smaller quantity. This special consist of cashew nuts chicken, fried rice and sweet and sour pork.

House Special 三合一 @AUD31.50

sweet and sour pork 咕嚕肉

The cashew chicken looked very pale in colour but actually tasted pretty good. But my favourite was the sweet and sour pork. Won't mind ordering the full portion of this! Fried rice was so-so.

Salted Fish Tofu @AUD29

The tofu with salted fish dish here was milder than expected. Flavourful and easy to eat, even without rice.

Steamed Snapper (~800gms) 清蒸整鱼 @AUD33.50

The healthier choice to go with steamed fish. The soy sauce flavour was on-point but unfortunately the fish was over-steamed.

The best well balanced meat dish for the night, was the steamed duck with mushrooms. Lovely herbal flavours and duck meat was tender. Skin was good. Hehe.

Steamed Duck (half) & Chinese Mushrooms 陳皮冬菇扒鴨 @AUD39

thank you lovely staff for helping to debone

For dessert, Hence ordered the 'fried ice-cream'. Have you ever tried one before? It was really popular in Chinese restaurants back in the 80s-90s, I believe.

Fried Ice Cream @AUD10

They also have Singapore Rice Noodles 星州炒米 but I can't bring myself to order a plate for that price... Haha, maybe some other day.

Overall, this place seemed to be popular amongst locals. I loved it when the restaurant welcomes even solo-diner and the left-over food can be prepared for take-aways as well.

Special thanks to the staff who took care of our table that night, lovely girl.

Canton Restaurant

Address: 203 Charles St, Launceston TAS 7250, Australia

Website: http://www.cantonrestaurant.com.au/

Contact: +61363319448

Business Hours:

Closed on Mon.

Tue - Thu: [refer to restaurant's website for updates]

Fri: 12–2 pm, 5–10 pm

Sat: Saturday, 5–10 pm

Sun: Saturday, 5–9 pm

[Travel Tasmania] Pre-Lunch at The Pondering Frog

This was our pit-stop for some hot food after a short wine tasting at Devil's Corner. Yes, seven early eight early at 10+am, me and Tracy sipped Tasmanian wine and now, we need to refuel our tummies.

quaint cafe

The whole place gives out a childhood vibes. Fun and unserious, possibly.

pondering about life, perhaps?

pretty extensive

The cafe was fairly busy as it was near lunch time, though still a tad early. Browsed the menu and looked like they had plenty of options and also Asian food like curry noodles (or was it laksa), and rice dishes similar to those one would find at zichar stalls (Asian stir-fry). 

Salt and Pepper Wings @AUD12

drumlets or winglets for you?

I thought salt & pepper would be 'dryer' version but eventually through out the trip, it seemed to be heavy on garlic and has sauce/glaze.

We were hungry, so ordered rice dishes to share.

Black Bean Beef @AUD20

Honey Chicken @AUD22

Rice was well cooked and the stir-fry tasty. Honey chicken had the crispiest shell and although it could be less sweet, overall very likeable. Black bean sauce was not too salty and lovely to have broccoli and all the vege in that dish.

so cute, Ivan's order

One thing that I wanted to get next at this place, was the ice-cream.

what is your pick?

Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Coated @AUD7.50

It was interesting to see that the ice-cream cone were all ready packed and staff would just need to take it out from the freezer. Oh, the regular cone was huge!

hurry hurry before it melts

It was a nice meal at a nice place. Come say hi to the owner or the staff. Friendly people.

The Pondering Frog

Address: 16494 Tasman Hwy, Bicheno TAS 7215, Australia

Website: http://ponderingfrog.com.au/

Business Hours:

Daily: 8 am–7 pm

[Travel Melbourne] 茶记 HK Cafe Melbourne - HK Cha Chaan Teng

It was that time of the year again! Travel buddies gathered, planned and off we went to Melbourne in Sep 2024. Always grateful to have Hence, Tracy, Ivan and this year, Shermaine!

My first meal in Melbourne for this trip, was at the HK Cafe nearby our accommodation, Mantra on Russell Melbourne. Was super apologetic to Hence, Tracy and Ivan (and also Salina!) who waited for Shermaine and myself to arrive and by the time we were done with check-in, it was already 220pm. Thank you for waiting!

It was just a few minutes walk to the cafe after hotel check-in, so we didn't know it then but eventually we revisited the cafe once more as the menu had other things that we wanted to try.

Loved that their menu is on display outside of the shop, so one could decide what they want to eat even before stepping into the shop. For dining in, one could inform the staff the number of pax and they will look for a table for you. Might need to share table, but thus far, our party of 5 or 6 pax were big enough to warrant a table for ourselves.

There's a QR code on each table and once could view the online menu and place order. Payment is made online as well. Once submitted, the staff will bring out the beverages first and followed promptly with the food orders. At peak hours, some of the dishes may encounter a longer time to be ready. From our experience, all our food were served within 10-15 minutes of ordering.

Fried Spam and Three Eggs Rice @$15.80

Egg Sauce with Shallots and Shrimps Rice @$16.80

Super loved the 3 eggs with spam rice. Just simple soy on top of the eggs with runny yolk, and deliciously oily spam pieces. Yums!

Curry Fishballs (12 pcs) @$14.80

are you a fan?

HK Style French Toast with Maple Syrup @$8.80

there's peanut butter inside the french toast!

Sprite with Sour Plum @$6.80

Red Bean with Ice Cream @$8.80

First time trying the Red Bean with Ice Cream drink and it was better than expected. A dessert-drink and pretty filling!

On second visit, we ordered new things to try.

Spam with Double Eggs with Nissin Noodles Soup @$12.80

Ivan had the Nissin noodles and it took the longest to arrive. We had already finished half of ours when it arrived.

Baked Curry Beef Brisket Rice @$18.80

Satay Beef Rice @$15.80

Baked Pork Chop Rice @$18.80

The baked rice here was a good choice, especially the classic baked pork chop rice with the stringy melted cheese and as attested by Shermaine who was on her way in taking a bite before I stopped her for a photo. Oops!

nice and hot

The curry and satay sauce were of different flavours than what I am used to in Malaysia/Singapore. It is milder for the HK version and satay sauce was just in general, quite different.

But the beef here was nice and tender.

Chu Hou Paste Beef Brisket Noodles Soup @$14.80

my favourite noodles

I was very happy with my bowl of comforting beef brisket noodles soup. Chunks of tender beef with some tendons/fats, springy noodles and warm broth. Satisfied.

The ice-lemon tea can be requested to be sweetened or unsweetened. I prefer sweetened and it was just nice.

ice-lemon tea

All in all, the staff are generally friendly and efficient. We conversed in either Cantonese, English or Mandarin.

If you need additional customization to your dishes, do order and inform the staff at the counter.

茶记 HK Cafe Melbourne

Address: 171 Russell St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

Website: http://hkcafe.com.au/

Contact: +61452391282

Business Hours:

Daily 11:30 am–9 pm

[Travel] What I ate at Petaling Street (Chinatown) during Lunar New Year Part 3 - Restoran Nasi Ayam Kam Kee

Final installment of what we ate at Petaling Street 2024. Read more about Part 1 and Part 2.

Lunch

Restoran Nasi Ayam Kam Kee

We were supposed to check out by 1230pm, so went over to this chicken rice shop that's just nearby to the famous Michelin Bib one, which we also tried before some years back.

My sis says Kam Kee is not bad, so here we are to have a quick lunch before we head back to our hometown.

shop front

menu

The shop seems to be specializing in kampong chicken, but we didn't order that because my parents (and myself too!) are getting on with age, and we prefer not to work our jaws that much.

The lady boss is friendly with a sense of humor while the younger chap wears a more serious face and seldom interact with the customers except to accept payment when the meal is done.

We ordered roasted and steamed chicken drumsticks, one portion of charsiew and one portion of roasted pork. For vegetables, we chose the beansprouts. They have other things like curry mutton, beef soup (!) which are uncommon for a chicken rice shop, no?

Food was served a few minutes after we ordered.

food is here

chicken rice

The rice here is flavourful and not oily.

steamed chicken drumstick

roasted chicken drumstick

roasted pork

blanched beansprouts

char siew

We were pretty surprised by the texture of the chicken. We looked at one another and wondered why their normal chicken has similar chewy-ness as kampong chicken? Haha, not too tough but it wasn't exactly the 'normal' chicken that we were expecting. 

The best sauce award goes to the char siew. But health-wise, you might want to stay away from all the charred bits (which came up to quite a bit). But I liked these charred  bits...

The taugeh (beansprouts) looked nondescript but it was tasty! And juicy!

And, our meal was the most cost effective through-out our stay at Petaling Street as it came up to RM66 for all the food that we had and fed 5 adults comfortably.

Address: 42, Jalan Sultan, City Centre, 50000 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Contact: +60176294188

Business Hours:

Closed on Wed.

Thu - Tue: 10 am to 3 pm