Hi Hi,
Ok, sincerest apologies for not posting for a while. Life and its hassles have gotten the better of me and have taken up all my precious time lately. But anyway, back to the old blog and back in a big way! Goodness me, it all started a couple of months ago when I started my new subscription to all the emails from Ourdeal.com.au, Cudo.com.au and Spreets.com.au. I was getting them on a daily basis by the hundreds and I came across a deal for a Steamboat dinner/lunch in Chinatown. This caught my eye instantly and a couple of dear friends that share my love for Asian cuisine came to mind too ;-)
So we purchased the deal for 4 people for a lovely $69 or something (the details escape me) with the full intention of only the three of us going along and not knowing what we would expect. The offer was a physical piece of paper that I gave to the girls to have a copy. They looked it over and the next conversation we had was their excitement that we were going on a boat a lovely Asian feast! Fantastically and hysterically misunderstood by us, Steamboat is actually a type of cuisine and had nothing to do with being on a boat, having our meal served in a boat shaped bowl or any boat theme whatsoever. This was a very funny realisation for us, because we then decided that we actually had no idea what to expect. This didn’t really bother us because we were keen to try it and knew that if it was terrible and weird, Chinatown in Melbourne has a lot of other options for us to redeem ourselves.
So off we went on Saturday 31st August into Melbourne to have a look around the city and head to Chinatown for the lunch we had been anticipating for a couple of months. 1st Choice Restaurant looked like a reputable place at 11.50am when we arrived at the street-front and decided to go in early. Excited and nervous for our fate we stepped inside to a lovely little authentic Asian diner that was unfortunately but understandably empty at that early lunch time. Bright colours of red and gold were the main themes of décor with what seemed to be purpose built tables for the Steamboat cuisine that we fast realised that they specialised in. The lovely ladies that served us were friendly and very helpful with our Cudo voucher and what it offered and what sections off the menu to choose. We were entitled to 1 x large Steamboat, 2 x cold dishes, 2 x pan-fried dishes, 2 x serves of dumplings and a drink of our choice each. So firstly, we were all stunned at the amount of food we seems to be eligible for with our voucher, so we set to worth through the menu to decide on our meals. We sifted through the Intestines, pork neck, chicken gizzards, beef brisket and tripe on the menu and came to a conclusion that the authentic regulars would have probably called boring. We chose a mixed seafood steamboat with original heat and XO sauce, for the pan-fried dishes we picked one pork belly and one chicken, for the dumplings we chose pork ones and prawn ones, and for the coil dishes we selected an interesting black fungus dish and a broccoli and cauliflower salad. The cold dishes were the hardest to pick from because there was a very small selection of the boring nature. So we went with a daring one that we were intrigued by (black fungus) and one that we decided that sounded the best (broccoli and cauliflower). What we received was actually a pleasing result. The pan-fried and cold dishes were much smaller than expected and were well received because we were worrying about the amount of feed that was going to be landed upon us.
The steam boat arrived and was placed on our table on the hot plate and the concept was explained to us. We were to devour the rest of our dishes while the pot cooked for 15 minutes and they would come back at specific intervals to stir and add the sauce. Some aspects of the meal were weird and strange to us, but we accepted them for what they were and enjoyed it non-the-less. We sat and talked about many things; the meal included, and had a great lunch in the dark little authentic restaurant. It was fantastic and a great experience as none of us had had a steamboat before. We were beginning to worry when we were the only ones in the restaurant until about 1pm, but some locals came in and the place was obviously famous for its steamboat lunches and casual and authentic atmosphere. There was a friendly vibe, we felt comfortable enough to talk amongst ourselves, and confident cooking, which is all you want in an authentic Chinatown restaurant right? To be honest, we were all surprised at the value of the Cudo voucher and meal quality. The side dishes and dumplings weren’t the best we had ever had, but their speciality Steamboat was very good and the experience alone was enough to satisfy. I think it is worthy of a good wrap because of the overall vide, atmosphere, food and location as a whole. Another great day out under the belt
xoxo
NJC
