noodleoodle

This place is like home. The specialty is dumplings, either Pork or beef, (they have started to do vego ones due to lobby group pressure, can’t be a good thing). My favorite is the dumplings in soup with chili oil. These little buggers are fat and plump with a wonderful hand rolled doughy encasement. The filling is soft and tender minced pork that is poached briefly in some furiously steaming contraption. The soup is subtle and soothing but abruptly injected with some fiery chili oil.

The order of things goes like this: Get directed to very worn laminex table, order dumplings, retrieve small bowl of soya sause with chopped chili (they never top the chili up enough), get plastic cup of tea, wait less than one minute, eat over a dozen magnificent dumplings, pay, leave, repeat.

Dumplings in soup with chili oil cost $5.80. Can you believe that? They do have numerous noodle dishes here but I’m so entrenched in my ways I haven’t had one.

Shanghai Dumpling Restaurant - (03) 9663 8555 - 23 Tattersalls Lane Melbourne 3000

Happy Birthday Cal!

Ramen takes the noodle soup to extremes. There are some people out there that are crazy about this stuff. I’d agree that it’s something you could get fanatical about. I’ve decided to include a bit of Ramen in noodleoodle. I visited Ajisen Ramen. This place looked a little swanky but also sported a fair degree of cheapness that made me feel at home. It has a decent selection of Ramen as well as heaps of other stuff. Not quite sure abot the “Aussie outback Ramen”, I think this is a hybrid we don’t need! It includes bacon, sausages that look like Frankforts and a pineapple slice, shudder…

I had Chasyu Ramen, and it came in a big hot solid bowl. The noodles were a thin round egg, kinda like little spaghetti. It was topped with heaps of dry fried spring onion and some seaweedy stuff. The pork was lovely, with a great combination of soft fat textures and roasted stringy meat rolled and sliced thinly. There were condiments available, ground chili, ground dried onion, white pepper, chili oil, and Japanese Soy. The first of many Ramens for noodleoodle, I hope.

My Ramen cost $9, they serve Asahi and Sapporo here.

Ajisen Ramen - (03) 9662 1100 - 130 Bourke St Melbourne 3000

I’m a bit puzzled as to why on earth they would want to have a bowl of noodles with a question mark rising from it, as their logo.

According to Wikipidea, beef noodle soup or cattle-meat-noodles, is common through out East Asia and Southeast Asia. Apparently the Vietnamese Bo kho, is a version of this Chinese dish. It was first made by the Ethic Chinese Muslim group, Hui. I had a bowl at Blue Sky this week.

I plan to eat many of these soups. It seems that it’s a very popular dish in many countries. Loved enough in Taipei to inspire the annual Taipei Beef Noodles Festival. The one I had at Blue Sky was not fantastic, I’m hoping to find better.

The soup consisted of a dense beef stock, that seemed to me considerably flavour enhanced. It was slightly thickened with rice flour or something similar. This didn’t help it’s over all look, making it seem a little congealed. The egg noodles were nothing to rave about. They were of the common commercial dried Singapore variety. The bowl was stacked with large chunks of cheapish stewed steak.

The most interesting part of the soup were a number of Star Anise pods in the stock. These were surprisingly pleasant.

The Beef Noddle Soup was $7.00 with a tall glass of tea. Good value.

Blue Sky Chinese Restaurant - (03) 9663 9888 - 7 Waratah Place Melbourne 3000

So, I got the name wrong. It’s Noodle Kingdom. They’ve been around for three weeks now. I visited with high expectations, given this regal title. They ushered me to a small table next to the alley kitchen. I assume there’s tables upstairs, cos you could only fit a half dozen people here. I ordered a noodle soup and was given a tall glass of warm tea.

The soup took longer than I expected, which is not that long. Seeing my apprehension, a waiter came and explained that about every ten bowls of noodles, the noodle maker whips up a new batch. Did she say, “noodle maker”? Then there was a large bang as dough was stretched out and slammed down on the bench. I watched him do this about a dozen times. Each time the dough was stretched and pulverised, it separated into longer and thinner strands. Finally transforming into long shinny noodles.

A small cluster of these was then submerged into a boiling vat, stirred with chopsticks and lifted into my bowl. They tasted wonderfully fresh and chewy. Not over cooked. I’ve got to say I was impressed with all this, and will be going back on the strength of these freshly made noodles. More soon…

Phong Son - CNR Swanston & Lonsdale Streets

It was good to drink some Chinese tea late in the afternoon. It was after the lunch rush, so I had some space to let my mind wonder… and then my pho arrived 15 seconds later.

It was ok. I felt it was a little watered down. I had to pad it out with Hosin sauce. Not really up to Mekong standards. There was lots of other stuff on the menu though, so I don’t suppose they were pretending it was their specialty. The chairs were really ugly, but the people were friendly.

Afterwards, I went for a scout around town looking for future lunch locations. I’m going to try to get to a couple of chinese noodle places up on Russell Street. One of them has the brazen title, Noodle King. We’ll see about that hey!

I returned to Pho Dzung in town this week. Mainly because of Millie’s reminder of how good the rare beef Phở is.

The cross section of people that go to these places is wonderful. Everyone is here, particularly in the city, office workers, students, and apparently a large contingent of blogging folk. There’s only one reason to come to Phở Dzung though. It’s not about decor. There is no pretensions to style or elegances. The staff are not there to wait. They are more like traffic wardens. It’s totally about the dish, or variations on it, Phở! They serve a great example of it here, and the large daily crowd slurps it up.

It’s great to watch the different people here, as you have a few cups of weak Chinese tea. Hard to linger though. Eating your soup is all you can do, before you sense it’s time to vacate. Every seat is in demand.

Jeez, I wish I could work out the key for the funny “o” in Phở.

Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House - (03) 9650 0172 - 251 Swanston street Melbourne 3000

I had soup with The Mug Punter today. We were going to go to Mekong. Instead, we decided to try a place a few doors up, calling its self plainly, Melbourne Vietnam noodle House Pho Bo Ga. The Menu here is far from plainly Vietnamese noodle soup. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I find it disturbing when restaurants broaden their menus to temp more customers. It’s much better when they stick to their specialties. These guys had all soughts of things on the menu. The Mug and I ignored most of it, and went straight for the Phở Bo. It wasn’t bad at all. The medium size was generous and the soup was reasonably rich and flavorsome. Only $7.50 a bowl. They only gave us one plate of salad stuff though, and I accidentally used all the basil, leaving The Mug a withered twig.

No mirrored walls here. They seem to be going for a slightly modern look, but it’s a thin veneer.

Melbourne Vietnam Noodle House - (03) 9650 0172 - 251 Swanston street Melbourne 3000