[Media] Lovely Pies @TheFoodPan3

Was blessed with a box of pies recently from TheFoodPan3. Thank you Winnie and Kris for the pies! It was well packaged and the sturdy box protected the pies during the trip from town back to my home.

box of pies

When you think about pies, what comes to mind? For me, it's the chicken pie. I had a childhood phase where I'd grown to dislike chicken pies, so I tend to avoid those whenever I could. The more recent delicious pie that I had, was in Melbourne and those were the beef pies. Read more about Melbourne experience here.

The box came with handy stickers to identify the pies, ingredients used and not forgetting, the reheating instructions! Wow, all inclusive so that everyone can enjoy the optimal taste of the pies as intended by the chefs. That is, if we chose to follow the instructions... hehe!

box of four

I understood from TheFoodPan3 team that the pies are baked on the day of delivery, so these can be eaten fresh once you received it. Of course, it's always good to check with the friendly team at TheFoodPan3 if you have any further queries. 

Classic Chicken Pie

Classic Chicken Pie @$7

potato, carrots, chicken, egg, onions, peas, seasoning

Am surprised that I liked the Classic Chicken Pie. It tasted a bit of a light peppery stew kind of sauce in there and the root vegetables were adequately soft. Nice.

Red Wine Chunky Beef Pie

Red Wine Chunky Beef Pie @9

Usually, I'd halved the pies to share with my brother and by chance, mine so happened to contain largely beef tendons while his contained meat. Hmm. Nevertheless, the mushroom in this pie carried the dish well and the sauce was mild with savoury sweetness.

And if you're wondering whether there are pies with local flavours, then the answer is Yes! There's Ayam Kari Kapitan and Beef Rendang for now.

Ayam Kari Kapitan Pie

Ayam Kari Kapitan Pie @$8

spicy shiok

The Ayam Kari Kapitan pie has a spicy kick to it. I enjoyed the hardboiled egg in this pie as egg and spicy kari, pairs well.

Chunky Beef Rendang Pie

Chunky Beef Rendang @$9

chunky beef indeed

One gets to enjoy the aromatics (prominently of kaffir, lemongrass, galangal) in the beef rendang before it mellowed down into a mildly sweet flavour. The chunky beef was fork tender and lovely to eat.

Overall, I liked all the flavours that I've tried. The pies were of a good size and one pie would be adequate for a meal. The pie pastry holds well and I think it'll still be good even if the pies had a bit more sauce in them.

Thank you once again to TheFoodPan3 team. Looking forward to more local inspired flavours in the future!

Interested parties, please send direct message to TheFoodPan3 team via Instagram, or Whatsapp.

TheFoodPan3

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefoodpan3

Whatsapp: 97965460

Email: thefoodpan3@gmail.com

[Melbourne 2022] South Melbourne Market @ Coventry Street

We visited South Melbourne Market at least twice during our stay in Melbourne. Best of all, it has a food hall where there's table and chairs for diners to enjoy their food and drinks bought from the various food shops. We also did our grocery shopping for meats like lamb cutlets and beef steak.

fresh seafood

We became quite fond of Aptus Seafood. Kept going back for their lobsters and sashimi. Here's a look of what we ate from Aptus.

The scallops were kind of a gamble though. We bought two and one was sweet and the other was just bland. I had forgotten which type of oysters we had gotten but it was of a mid-range price. Plump and briny, and tasted best with a squeeze of lemon. The sea urchin was huge! Hahaa, it wasn't as funky as I'd thought it would be. Pretty nice but watch out for the some of those spiny stuffs that might break off.

scallops

yummy oysters

sea urchin

sashimi grade tuna, salmon and king fish

The sashimi of 3 types of fish was at about AUD60+. Averaging at about AUD2.50 per piece. Loved the sashimi. Fresh and naturally tasty even without soy sauce and wasabi.

I was shocked when we had lobsters on our first visit to this market. Lobsters for brunch? OK! I think it was about AUD47 per piece.

Mornay Bay Rock Lobster

cheesy

have a bite!

We tried the grilled lobster with cheese and another time, we had one which was more like a lobster salad. If you're very fond of cheese, then the grilled cheese lobster had plenty. If you're a fan of potato salad, then the lobster salad would be the right choice. Both have plenty of meat but you could taste more of the lobster flavour in the salad version. The potato salad was very good too! Both ways, we enjoyed every bite.

Lobster salad

food hall

let's walk walk

I loved walking at the outer market area to see the vegetables and fruits.

peppers and root vegetables

i yam what i yam

potatoes galore!

The coffee from Padre was pretty much to my liking. We got our magic from there. Thanks Hence for queuing for it!

magic

But what is this mysterious magic coffee that exists in Melbourne? Magic coffee is made when steamed milk is added to a double ristretto, made from espresso. Normally served in a 5oz cup (160ml). In comparison, piccolo is 3 to 4oz (85 to 114ml).

At the moment, I don't think there's any cafe/coffee shops that serves magic in Singapore. If you know of any, do let me know. Thanks in advance!

Definitely felt more alive after having coffee.

Oh, there's a nice Pie Shop here to satisfy our pie cravings. 

Pie Shop

Guinness Beef Pie

yummy beef pie

Chicken Pie

inner view of chicken pie

K is for...

Hence asked me to guess what does the 'K' imprinted on the pie stands for. I didn't go with them to buy so could only taste some to guess.

hmmm

Wow, this tasted even funkier than the sea urchin! Hahahaa. K stands for Kidney pie. Wookay, I wouldn't want to eat this again. Give me Guinness Beef Pie, anytime! The chicken pie was nice too but not my preference. The pie is about AUD10 for a one pax portion. There's family sized pies too.

Ivan said we must get the cannoli from Cannoleria. It was unforgettable for him.

Cannoleria

one of each please

pretty box of cannoli

Sicilian

Chocolate

One thing to note is not to leave out the cannoli for too long. Enjoyed the crisp shell and the various fillings. Loved that it wasn't too sweet.

We were intrigued by a shop that sells dim sim. So, we had to get some to try to verify if all fried dim sim taste the same.

let's queue for some dim sim

looks good

sesame prawn toast @AUD4.20

tasty prawn toast

The prawn toast was kind of pricey but it was surely tasty. Happy to report that the fried dim sim here was so much better than the other one that I had tried. Keke. Steamed one I didn't enjoy that much probably because it was already cold when I ate it.

pork dim sim (steamed)

pork dim sim (fried)

There are recycle bins around the market for us to dispose the empty containers etc. There's even special ones to dispose of coffee cups. 

recycle bin

South Melbourne Market

Address: 322-326 Coventry St, South Melbourne VIC 3205, Australia

Website: https://www.southmelbournemarket.com.au/

Business Hours:

Closed on Mon, Tues, Thurs.

Sat, Sun, Wed: 8am–4pm

Fri:  8am–5pm

Aptus Seafood

Website: https://www.aptusseafoods.com.au/

Pie Shop

Website: https://emeraldhillprovedore.com.au/pages/small-town-pie-co

Padre Coffee

Website: https://www.padrecoffee.com.au/pages/south-melbourne

Cannoleria

Website: https://www.cannoleriabythatsamore.com.au/

Bakes n Bites @ 51 Old Airport Road

This stall is located at the Old Airport Road Hawker Centre. Nearest MRT would be either Dakota or Mountbatten. From Dakota MRT, take Exit B, turn left and walk straight and you will be able to see the Old Airport Road hawker centre across the road. Stop at the traffic light and cross over and you will be standing near to the alfresco seats shaded by big umbrellas. Head on straight into the hawker centre, turn right and look for stall #01-164.

Bakes n Bites has a variety of sweet bakes including cakes, muffins, puffs, swiss rolls, cheesecakes while its savoury selection is currently limited to shepherd's pies.

cakes and shepherd's pies

The stall owners; Christopher and Christina are both jovial and friendly. They started the business not too long ago, and it was actually borned through sheer determination and hardwork. Christopher had learnt baking after he was retrenched from work when he was in his fifties. His wife, Christina, supports him in his endeavour as she helps him tirelessly in ingredients prepping, attending to orders and various other activities.

Had the chance to converse with them and it was evident that they take pride in the things that they do. Christina had shared that they tend to use natural ingredients and no preservatives. They are open to requests from customers and not adverse to having to tweak their bakes in order to cater to most customers.

For instance, their "asian shepherd's pie" doesn't use any cheese nor tomato paste. This was so that customers whom are not tolerant to cheese could still enjoy the pie. However, should there be customers whom prefers cheese in their shepherd's pie, just let Christina know in advance and she might just be able to cater to your request.

guess the meat-fillings of this pie~

(front) beef  @$3.70 and (back) chicken @$3.00

The shepherd's pie uses on russet potatoes and are handmade daily. Most of their goods are baked on-site at the stall. The potatoes tasted fluffy, light and moist.

There are quite a bit more variety for the muffins. The usuals include blueberry, blueberry chocolate chips, orange, double chocolate and banana muffins. The unusual would be the chinese herb flavoured muffin. The price ranges from $2.10 to $2.30 for muffins.

(top clockwise) banana chocolate chip, orange, double chocolate muffin and vanilla

(front clockwise) herbal (litsea cubeba), blueberry chocolate, blueberry muffins

The muffins could be eaten either chilled or warm. For blueberry and herbal muffins, these are recommended to be eaten warmed as its fragrance and flavour would have been enhanced.

The warm muffins were indeed soft and bouncy.

segments of double chocolate muffin

Christina had shared that the litsea cubeba was boiled for 12 hours before it was chilled and consumed as a drink. On its own, it tasted bitter with licorice-like finish (苦甘味). This herb is said to be good in dispelling flu and cold, plus able to relieve fatigue. However, not many would be acceptable to this bitter taste, so Christopher made use of it in a muffin form so that the benefits of this herb could be enjoyed by most.

Next, we sampled quite a bit of its no frills cakes. First, we had the mixed fruit cake, butter cake and the banana cake.

(top clockwise) fruit cake, butter cake and banana cake

The butter cake was made with Golden Churn butter and it was indeed very rich, creamy and buttery. The banana cake was slightly drier and it contained about 80% banana. Am not a fruit cake person, so no comments for that.

butter cake

banana cake

Was more interested in the swiss rolls. Tried three flavours that night; latte coffee, vanilla and pandan. All were good. The swiss rolls here were purposedly made to be slightly more dense and compact. Its texture was more chewy-bouncy kueh-like rather than fluffy cake type. Interestingly, meringue is used instead of the usual cream for the swiss rolls. Meringue is lighter yet tasted similar to cream. The coffee and pandan fragrances were really strong and enticing. Lovely.

(front anti-clockwise) pandan, vanilla and latte coffee

The chewy brownie here was quite good as well. Preferred it over the choc fudge cake.

(bottom) chewy brownie and (top) choc fudge

And for the finale, we had the Five Layer Cake. This was created in-lieue of rainbow cake. Each layer has its own flavour; chocolate, coffee, orange, vanilla and one more that I cannot remember. Very likeable especially if you like kek-lapis.

Bakes n Bites also do baby full-month packages and custom-made birthday cakes, so do email/call Christina, to find out more.

Five Layer Cake

This was an invited tasting. Thank you Christopher and Christina for hosting us and the HWG team for the invite.

Bakes n Bites

Location: #01-164, 51 Old Airport Road, Singapore 390051
Contact:  +65 90083463
Website: http://www.bakesnbites.sg/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bakesnbites/
Business Hours:

Tue - Sat: 11:00 - 21:00
Sun: 09:30 - 21:00