It Just Has To Be Delicious

Posts tagged ‘Chinese’

Silks (Afternoon Tea), Crown, Burswood

Silks is a restaurant that I have been wanting to try for some time, and when I saw that they serve a unique Cantonese style afternoon tea on Saturdays, I couldn’t resist giving it a try.

There is a choice of cocktails and mocktails, and I chose a refreshing Lime and lemongrass cooler from the mocktail range.

The afternoon tea menu also includes Butterfly flower tea which changes colour from vivid blue to vivid purple with a touch of acid such as lemon.

The meal was served in a bamboo steaming basket which was quirky, colourful and very appealing. I couldn’t wait to tuck in, and the centrepiece – a bao bun with cumin lamb – was a triumph, a very well crafted bun, and I would happily have eaten two of them.

The wok fried king prawn with chilli sea salt was equally magnificent, and again a whole basket of these would have gone down a treat. How do they get those chilli strings so fine?

Next came a sesame ball with black sesame and beetroot, not really savoury but not really sweet either, but tasted nice. Quite typical of the non-sweet Asian desserts.

I then tried the green tea choux. Adorned with green tea chocolate and filled to the brim with sweetened green tea cream, it was surprisingly good and incredibly light.

The blueberry and lime sphere looked beautiful and tasted equally good with intense flavours of blueberry and the bright element of lime complementing it superbly.

The next basket was the raspberry, coconut and lemongrass roulade and wow it was incredible. The intense raspberry flavour was so good, I think this was my favourite sweet.

I finished up with the mandarin macaron, choc full of mandarin flavour and a really good macaron – macaron perfection.

This was certainly an unusual and surprising afternoon tea. It wasn’t particularly filling though, and I would have liked a ‘go large’ option, maybe three extra dishes with a few more savouries. I can’t fault any of the dishes, flavours were intense, the appearance of the meal was appealing, and the dining room is beautifully decorated with open tables and private booths. I would happily dine here again, maybe for dinner next time.

Last visit date – March 2022

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Fun thing to do, Restaurant review

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Kung Po

This is a nice recipe for mid-week dinner. You can pretty much make it up as you go along – it’s probably not the definitive authentic kung po recipe, but it works for me and is very tasty.

Kung Po Chicken:
kp 1

Kung Po Tofu:
kp 2

Serve it with rice. You can vary the veggies that you add to it depending on what you have in the cupboard, but traditional favourites are carrot, onion, baby sweetcorn, capsicum and tomatoes. You can also add peanuts and extra chilli if you like it hotter.
It contains dried chillies, which are quite hot, if you don’t want it to be quite so spicy, leave the dried chilli seeds out.
You can also use fresh chilli instead of dried – use whatever you prefer or have available – even a teaspoon of chilli paste would work.
This recipe is for chicken, but you can use tofu, prawns, or pork instead.

Recipe – serves 2 :
300g chicken sliced into thin bite sized strips (or other meat or firm pieces of tofu)
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/2 teaspoon crushed szechuan peppercorns
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 or 2 chopped dried red chillies with or without seeds
Mixed veg, sliced thinly for stir frying e.g.:
Carrot, baby sweetcorn, red onion, capsicum, tomatoes, mushroom, broccoli, beansprouts, snow peas.
Peanuts (optional)

1. Mix the cornflour with the crushed peppercorns, and coat the chicken with the flour mixture.
2. Mix together the sauce ingredients in a jug – hoisin, dark soy, rice wine vinegar and dried chilli.
3. Prepare your veggies of choice by washing and slicing them thinly – allow a handful of veggies per person.
4. Heat a wok with 2-3 tablespoons of vegetable or groundnut oil in it.
5. When hot, add the chicken and stir fry for approx 4 minutes.
6. Now add the veggies and peanuts and stir fry for a further 3-4 minutes.
7. Add the sauce (rinse the jug with a little water to get every last drop). Heat the sauce through and stir it to coat all of the veggies and chicken. When the chicken is cooked, it is ready – cut through a piece of chicken to be sure.
8. If you like it salty, you can add some salt at this stage, but I find that the dark soy adds plenty of salt flavour.
Serve with rice and enjoy.

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Recipe, Vegan/Vegetarian

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Heng’s, Edgewater

We visited Heng’s on a recommendation from a work colleague. It’s a no frills Chinese restaurant in Edgewater, nestled in amongst the shops on Edgewater Drive.

heng 1

It was quite empty when we arrived, but soon filled up with local diners, and the phone rang non-stop for takeaway orders. We were given some very tasty prawn crackers to start.

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Our starters were prawn toasts and chicken satay. Both very flavoursome, and the prawn crackers arrived with the traditional red gloopy sweet and sour sauce.

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The satays were nicely marinated with a good curry peanut sauce.

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For mains we chose prawns with ginger and spring onion:

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Chicken with black bean and capsicum:

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Special fried rice:

heng 7

The rice had that lovely charred wok flavour, portions were generous, and the other dishes were pleasant to eat – standard Chinese restaurant fare.
I wouldn’t say the food was amazing, but if you want good, cheap Chinese food, this a reasonable local option.

Last Visit Date – April 2019

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Restaurant review

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Hong Kong Cuisine, Myaree

 Hong Kong Cuisine Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

I was really looking forward to this outing. Our friends Susie and Simon had been telling us for a while about this fabulous Chinese restaurant close to their home. It had been dubbed ‘Chinese in the Cave’ and I was curious to experience this food in an unusual setting. The first thing that you notice as you walk in is that the decor is indeed very cave-like, but also the clientele is almost exclusively Chinese, and there are various notes on the window (probably special set menus) that are not in English. This was a good sign because if Chinese people are happy to eat here, it points towards it being very authentic.

hkc 1

The menu is quite extensive and contains photos for some of the dishes, so that you know what to expect. We were certainly spoiled for choice because many of the dishes had our tastebuds tingling in anticipation.
We chose prawn toasts to start, quite good, but also quite a thin layer of prawns, and I would have liked them a bit fatter. Served with a sweet dip and very good on the crunch factor.

hkc 2

We also chose the fungus with chilli. This was a dish of cloud ear mushrooms served in chilli oil, and the waitress double checked with us because she knew that it would be spicy. It was spicy, but very very tasty, the only difficulty being that as you got nearer the bottom of the dish it was impossible to take a spoonful without scooping up a large amount of the super hot chilli oil. If you have ever tasted chilli oil, you will know that you only need a little !

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Next to arrive was the young chow fried rice, a very tasty and slightly smoky ‘special’ rice containing shrimps, pork, onions, egg and many other little flavour bursts.

hkc 4

Next came the salt and spicy ribs. These were the star of the meal with an amazing depth of flavour and a definite umami kick. I could have eaten the whole plate of these and nothing else, and I would have been very happy (but we had to share).

hkc 5

We also ordered beef with ginger, another fabulous dish, full of flavour, with really good ‘melt in the mouth’ tender beef.

hkc 6

Next to arrive was the fish – a whole halibut with ginger and spring onion. I couldn’t fault this – very fresh and with delicate flavours that complemented the fish perfectly. Another star of the show.

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I chose a claypot chicken dish with soy and oyster sauce. This was a dish that was full of flavour but at the risk of sounding like a spoiled brat, I found it hard to eat. All of the chicken was on the bone and every mouthful was 50% bone and cartilage. Cooking meat on the bone definitely adds to the flavour, but there comes a point where the pleasure of eating it is slightly spoiled by the effort involved, so although I enjoyed the taste, I would probably not order this dish again.

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Rice can be ordered by the bowl, plate, or bucket. We ordered a bucket of boiled rice and found that the insulated bucket was very effective at keeping the rice warm.

hkc 9

At the end of the meal, the waitress brought fresh melon (which we didn’t need to order), jasmine tea was also included.

hkc 10

Well Hong Kong Cuisine was wonderful and I can’t wait to go back and have ‘Chinese in the Cave’ again ! I absolutely loved the fried rice, the ribs, the fish and the beef, and would probably order them again with a few different additional dishes. It was good value too, working out at less then $30 a head for such a huge amount of food. Yum.

Last Visit Date – December 2018

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Restaurant review

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