Melbourne - Laurent Patisserie

One of the buildings that first caught my eye, when I first walked along Lt Collins St, was this building. Looking from across the street, you could not help but wonder what is situated inside this building. Along the sidewalk, you could see a row of tables, filled with patrons, busy chatting with one another while sipping coffee or a glass of wine. You could also occasionally find a group of street performers, like in this picture, playing their old style of jazz.

One day while we were doing some shopping in the area, I told Sayang and family, if they wanted to try out a nice cafe that seems to serve some nice looking sandwiches. Everyone seemed happy with the idea, so we popped in. It looked like a nice cafe, well lit. The first impression was that this place is busy as you could see a long line of people queing to make an order for their food.
It did take me a while to make up my mind, but in the end I opted for a Ham Baguette. Its a half baguette filled with ham, cheese, cos lettuce and tomatoes. It must have been one of the better sandwiches I've had, I mean a sandwich is a sandwich, correct ? I tell what made the difference. The ingredients were so fresh, I might have mistaken their lettuce and tomatoes to be garden plucked. The bread was fresh, aromatic, had a crispy crust and soft on the inside. All this finished off with a sprinkle of freshly cracked peppers. Unlike most other sandwiches this was not toasted, or pressed. Served cold as is.

Sayang and parents went for the Tuna Focaccia bread. Her parents just love Aussie bread. Focaccia bread isn't exactly our main staple in Malaysia. Its simply just focaccia bread with tuna, butter lettuce, and tomatoes. Sounds simple enough ? But I took a bite of it and would say their bread was nicely baked.

To finish off we ordered a box of six macarons. Unfortunately for us, macarons is one of the hardest pastry to make at home. Theirs had a nice firm crust on the outside, and a bit chewy on the inside. The flavours were just exquisite.

The best thing about this restaurant is that, although it looked like a million dollars, the sandwiches were just about $14 each, the macarons were just about $15 for a box of six. Coffee and tea was nice and decent as well.

For more information about Laurent, please visit their website.

Laurent Boulangerie-Patisserie

306 Lt Collins St,

Melbourne 3000

Melways Ref: 43 H8

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Hi guys, haven't been blogging lately but promise to blog more often. While we have moved to Melbourne, we have also started to cook a little more than eating out, so I will post some recipes of the dishes we are trying out on Daily Rantings, and perhaps I could start posting my Cari Makan and Recipe posts on Bernsy @ Melbourne.

http://atemelbourne.blogspot.com

Curry Leaf Restaurant, Seremban

There is one part about preparing to leave which can be detrimental to my weight problems. Relatives are all so eager to say, come over and visit us la, we''ll do lunch or we'll do dinner. It's obviously a good gesture if you know what I mean, they just wanna sit down and have something to eat with you, chit chat, and catch up that sort of thing.

Come to think of it, no other activity would have been acceptable for the entire family. I was thinking perhaps the whole family could gather up at Cosmic Bowl and say, lets do a farewell Bowling ( its cool but not everyone bowls )...

Anyway this one is with our Seremban relatives. Father in Law's side to be precise. But the trip down there is not to be wasted as our cousin brought us to try our Curry Leaf Restaurant, Jalan Rasah, Seremban.


My cousin was vegetarian that day, and Sayang and Mom-In Law also opted for the more healthy meal, while FIL said, lets get some chicken ( aiya so nice of him, coz he doesn't want me to go vegetarian because everyone else is... so he ordered a chicken for me). Anyway, the first tray came and I saw deep fried bitter gourd, yummy !!!!, not salty and not bitter wan... just the way I liked it...

Some kinda mixed vegetable, which I did not really fancy.

This is the chicken peratal dish that I shared with Appa. Really a nice dish, I totally didn't regret sinking my teeth into this succulent and spicy chicken peratal dish. Again, I like it because the spices were totally infused into the chicken, every bite into it flushes out all the flavours the chicken has absorbed.

Mother in Law's garlic naan. She opted for bread instead of rice.

If you were going for just the basic Vegetarian Banana Leaf set, this is what you get. I mean the waiter came in once started putting vegetables onto the leaf ( 3 at first). He continues with everyone else, then he walks out for awhile. Then he came in and started putting more veges onto my leaf. Whoa.... 6 varieties, very rare to find this even in KL, then he walks out and came back with the rice.

The curries were all hot, and you are given a choice of vegetarian Dal, fish curry or chicken curry. Taste wise, this place is definitely above average. The curries were tasty, what to ask for some more ?

The bill didn't burn a hole in our pockets either. So I am definitely recommending anyone going past Seremban to try this place...

Curry Leaf Restaurant
NO 1274 & 1275, JALAN RASAH,
SEREMBAN
70300 Negeri Sembilan Malaysia

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Restoran New Paris @ SS2, PJ.

One major thing about Malaysian culture is that whenever someone is leaving, they always organise a farewell party in the form of a sit down dinner. If you are chinese like me, you are very likely to end up in many Chinese Restaurants. This is the first of many to come and just two weeks from the day we leave.

Pastor was first to ask us out for dinner. Although we have already had many sessions at our apartment (nye hehehe...), this dinner was with Pastor and family. We were looking for a place in PJ to eat and Pastor asked where do you want to go ? Immediately New Paris came up, and we ended up there.

First dish we got was Stir Fried Vegetables. Very green, and nice. Also a very decent sized serving.
The yam basket was also nice. It has the usual deep fried beehoon base, a small yam basket, but the chicken that came with it was diced in bigger than usual cubes.
This steam fish was cooked just nice.
One of their specialty dishes over at Paris is this one. Watermelon chicken. Sweetish, and sourish, easily mistaken for pork and all. Its a nice dish and is a hit with most visitors at New Paris.
A late addition to whatever he ordered earlier was this Deep Fried Brinjal wedges. That would be how I desribe them. Really very nicely done and not too salty. A recommendation.

You know what really surprises me is how fast the food is served after ordering them. The food usually comes in less than 10 minutes (usually la ! ).

Address
62,64,66 Jalan SS2/72,
47300 Petaling Jaya
Selangor, Malaysia

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OUG Pan Mee Stall

Sometimes the really nice stuff is hard to find, because they are not always as visible, or appealing for the general public to just walk in and say try their food. This place in OUG, is actually situated at one of those food stalls behind, OUG Parkson ( formerlly known as Yaohan). The stall just looked like just any stall, but as Ben led us through the back alleys of OUG Parkson coming through the main road, that revealed this hawker center in OUG, it didn't look very appealing. But since Ben brought us here, it couldn't be that bad right.
Anyways, the wait would have been quite long if it had not been for Ben sharing with us his interesting experiences, and Sayang catching up with him and all. Both Ben and I went for the dry pan mee, which was recommend. Make no mistake, it is just remotely similar to the dry chilli pan mee, from Kin Kin. But I have to say it was quite nice.
Sayang wanted to be different and went for the standard pan mee soup. I tasted abit of her soup and found the soup very tasty and rich in flavor. That kind of taste you find in real soup which has been boiled for hours.

When the biill came, I think it was just about RM4 per bowl. The price made it even better, and one of those very rare occasions I'd say its Pang Leng Cheng ( Cheap !, Nice ! and Good!)

Restoran Chicken Hot Pot @ Taman Usahawan, Kepong

Ever since we moved to Kepong, I have been excited about looking for new food to try in Kepong. With Mimi who has already reviewed so many places in Kepong, I definitely can't say, that there is not enough eateries to try, infact the Metro Perdana area has so many eateries mushrooming, we did not know where to start.
So one night we were driving around the area, when we spoted this place. It looked really interesting so we parked our car (parking is usually not a problem), and walked in. This chicken hot pot concept originated from somewhere in China, and it serves chicken, pork ribs and dinosaur ribs, on a hot pot. We also have the choice of eating with a spicy or extra spicy gravy, and served in a claypot with fire underneath it.

We tried the chicken and dinosaur ribs that night.


To sum up it was just very much like a pork rib stew in spicy gravy or a dinosaur rib stewed in spicy gravy. We were both very disappointed, and was looking for something really special, but it wasn't. If you were to take it as a fast food, I guess its not that bad, and if you like the spiciness of the hot pot, you will love it.

Restoran Chicken Hot Pot (Kepong)
11, Jln Metro Perdana Berat 2,
Tmn Usahawan Kepong,
Kepong Utara, 51200 KL

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Restoran Hee Lai Ton @ Shaw Parade

Our family had many catching up sessions, and this was one of them. At Restoran Hee Lai Ton. I have not heard of this restaurant, but formerly this location was occupied by Six Happiness. Apparently they are famous in Serdang ( formerly known as Sheraton or something like that ), and they also have an outlet in Puchong.

This soup is just crabsmeat chicken soup. I really do not like soups with starch, or sharksfin in it. The soup was just ok, not exactly the kind of start I was looking for, but I never really look forward to the soups anyways.

When the appetizer I was like wow, so big meh the plate. This one had a platter of four different appetizers, and depending on the menu you order, some come in a 5 variety appetizer platter. The food is alright so far, although nothing special came out from this restaurant yet.


The Peking Duck dish came out and we saw the waiter cutting the skin out. We had a room and we constantly had like 2 servers in our room, changing plates, serving our dishes, etc.

Pretty nice thin and crispy pieces of the duck was the result of careful slicing.


I think this dish is called Tiger Prawns in some special sauce... yumms... nice big prawns.

I think it is normal for restaurants to serve up two fish instead of one, if they can not get one big one. This is a Tau Tai Chong - a premium type promfet fish.
Their vegetables are always greener than those we cook at home. I really wonder how they make them this green...

Remember the duck skin we had earlier. The remaining duck meat is stir fried and served with lettuce, and a sprinkle of sun flower seeds. Did not like it a single bit, too salty for my liking.


To finish off the night, this fried rice was full of stuff in it. But it all came in small pieces of shrimp, char siu, vegetables , etc....

Quality of service is not exactly their plus point, but their food is definitely above average. Chinese restaurants like this usually charge about RM488 per set like this, although I have seen more expensive sets that weren't as nice.

3rd Floor, Shaw Parade,
Jalan Changkat Thambi Dollah,
Off Jalan Pudu,
55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

For map and other details click here

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