Saturday, July 16, 2011

A return to regular broadcasting...



So, before my mind collapsed into an anxiety ridden black hole, I was posting about a glorious week of adventures that Karl and I had been having. Unfortunately, I have not been feeling up to writing about those events as my mind recovers from the terrible abuse it subjected itself to. However, today I have felt calm and serene for long enough to recount day five of our Melbourne holiday.

We decided to spend the day in Melbourne China Town, exploring the Shanghai styled shopping malls and indulging in an assortment of Asian delicacies. We began at 206 Bourke Street, a large shopping mall filled with stores specialising in everything from Korean beauty products to different kinds of jerky. We ended up with an assortment of jerkies from cuttlefish to biltong to strawberry flavoured plum. I can't say they were all delicious but I will say that every one should make a trip to Jerky House and peruse the endless assortment jerky. It's like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory...only with meat.







We then tasted that oh so popular Taiwanese treat, the Bubble Cup. Bubble tea is the Taiwanese drink made from a tea base and milk or fruit juice as well as chewy balls of tapioca. I have always been frightened of the concept...but then I tasted a coffee toffee bubble cup. It was amazing! The little crunchy bits of toffee mixed with the chewy tapioca balls were delicious and the coffee milk was so sweet. I definitely couldn't drink a whole one though. So rich and so sweet. But I definitely could attempt a few more flavours.





After hours walking around China Town filling up on jerky and sweet tea, we made our way to Hallah - A Korean restaurant in North Melbourne. I didn't know what to expect, having never eaten Korean food before, but I was pleasantly surprised. The restaurant was warm and inviting, although the 90s music was a little loud for my liking, the staff were quick and helpful and the food, the food! We ordered steamed pork dumplings, dragon chicken, and stir fried pork with kim chi and we were thoroughly impressed with all three dishes.







Our two mains came with two, free, steaming bowls of rice and were absolutely delicious. The pork was thinly sliced and the sauce was sticky and sweet. The dragon chicken was definitely not the spiciest meal I'd ever eaten but they made a solid attempt at making it taste bud torture. It was delicious with the rice and there was ample sauce. I would definitely recommend Hallah to those of you wanting to dip your toes into the "something-other-than-sushi" Asian restaurant pool.

It was an awesome day. Probably the most enjoyable of the week for me because it was so different and I challenged myself to eat a tonne of things I would never, ever have tried before.

2 comments:

  1. oh my god those dumplings look amazing. hey, do you have two different coloured eyes? thats awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  2. They were amazing! The dipping sauce was too. My eyes aren't actually different colours, one just has a much larger pupil :) I get "You have Bowie eyes" all the time!

    ReplyDelete