Melb CBD

Melbourne's become our new "malaysia" - a place for great food and shopping! and meeting old friends.

Above, the bulgogi at By Korea on La Trobe street. It was excellent of course. We paid something like $15.90 per serving [the minimum order is 2 servings though] Ambiance was nice for conversation as it was relatively quiet, and the waitress was sweet although I wasn't used to the non-eyecontact thing having lived in Tassie for awhile now. I'd forgotten what it was like being served by Asians -where making eye-contact is not a requisite to portraying polite-ness. But yeah, it felt a bit weird because we couldn't even smile or say thank you and ackowledging them whenever we were served something because they just wouldn't make eye contact! it's not meant to be rude though. it's just cultural I guess. It's the same with cashier chit-chat - it's just not done in asian cultures!

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Le Triskel in Hardware Lane is a nice cozy little cafe. We were there in the morning and there weren't too many people so it was nice and relaxing. Below, a mushroom and cheese galette, very nice. 

 and, a ham and egg one - also delicious. They were both yummy and filling -perfect for a lazy breakfast.

 Couldn't resist ordering dessert as well - below, the salted caramel crepe which was lovely as well.

On recommendation by a friend, we also went to Oriental Spoon on La Trobe st, which we noticed were always chockers full of customers no matter what time we went by!
We weren't disappointed. the wait staff were very efficient and we never had to wait for long. The lunch specials were surprisingly quite good value!
below, the Galbi Tang [pork rib soup] turned out to be the best pork soup we've ever had, was only $11! It came with a side of kimchi and chilli paste, and rice of course. I was a bit disappointed that there was only 1 side dish, but well, for $11 i guess we can't complain!

 We returned later that night for dinner and had the gamja tang [pork bone and potato soup] below, which came with 3 side dishes of kimchi, spicy eggplant and lightly cooked beansprouts.
 Actually I was hoping for the usual 9 side dishes we used to have in malaysia... ! is that just not done here?

It was nice but not as nice as the afternoon's galbi tang. One thing I wish they could do is make the portions smaller and cheaper - that way we could try more menu items. One serving of the spicy fried chicken is like...a whole chicken's worth! and $33! That just doesn't work when you only have 2 people dining together. It's the same with the bulgogi with the requisite minimum 2 serving rule - even if there're 2 of us, would've been nicer to have been able to just order 1 serving to share, and try other things. Anyway, we'd definitely return to try the other items if we ever had the chance to in future.

have i mentioned that i love korean food? here at dae jung gum in bandar puteri puchong [opposite Pizza Uno, one of those shoplots on the same side as giant] everything is great, the service, the food, the ambiance.

seruiosly i dont konw wat to gush about first. the nice, eager to please, accomodating waiters? they're just waiting, and i mean WAITING to do something for you. the moment you appear to be half needing a bit of help, they'll rush to your side. the bottomless refreshing iced korean tea with a slight sugarcane aftertaste kept getting refilled after 2-3 sips, which gavin loved.

we ordered bibimbap, and some spicy seafood soup with rice and some barbecued pork ribs but we didnt realize we had ordered too much because an army of side dishes appeared and we ended up not being able to finish everything.


my favourite sides are of course the kimchi, and spinach namul, odeng [fishcake] and those salty boiled cockles in kimchi-ish sauce.

and we were given a steaming hot scrambled egg dish on the house. boy had we known we wouldnt have ordered so much!!

gavin's spicy soup and rice dish.

sizzling pork ribs with chilli paste sauce, sliced raw garlic/chilli, and the army of side dishes

kimchi, salty cockles and tempura-ed something. dont remember what it was but i liked it.

look at all the meat!!!
i highly highly recommend this place because the servings are so generous and pricing is quite reasonable. plus you cant beat the great service!