Koko: Oishii desu!

Koko

Level 3, Crown Towers

8 Whiteman Street

Southbank, VIC

www.kokoatcrown.com.au

Though Miss P's birthday has passed and we had celebrated it with Burch & Purchese's cakes , we still have a proper meal to do (of course, birthday celebration cannot be satisfied with just birthday cake!).

Since it is for Miss P's birthday, I let her choose the restaurant that we should go.  We picked Koko as we haven't had Japanese food for a while. 

Koko is a fine dining Japanese restaurant, which serve both a la carte and teppanyaki at Crown Towers.  It is a hidden gem since it is situated on the third floor not the ground floor like other renowned restaurants.  Once we walked through the door, it was as if we stepped into a different world since the decor gave out a warm & welcoming feeling.  We were navigated through to our table which was right next to the "zen" pond.  The interior were decorated with wood, including many large wooden beams.  Quite interesting to look at since we don't really see it in any other restaurants.

We were lost in the moment for a while until our waiter came to us with a wine & sake list.  We decided to go with sake since we want to enjoy the Japanese experience to the utmost.  Our waiter recommended Asabiraki Daiginjo sake, with medium bodied, fragrance with a dry crisp finish, served either chilled or warm (we went with warm since it was cold outside).  It was a small bottle (300 ml) with a price tag of $65.00.  I had to say the sake was so good!  The aroma was sweet and smooth with a little bit of vinegar smell.  The taste - it was fantastic - smooth and easy to drink but still give you the crisp after taste and our mouths were filled with the aroma.  


For our lunch, we decided to go with the three-courses set ($57.00 per person) - but in the end, it was two-courses set ($46.50 per person), due to the kitchen close.  Not long after we ordered our lunch, the appetiser came - it was a small portion of seaweed salad.  The entrees followed not long after. 

Get Sugar high at Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

647 Chapel Street

South Yarra, VIC  

www.burchandpurchese.com

I have been wanting to pay a visit to Burch & Purchese for quite a while now, I always drive pass the store without knowing that it is a cake shop! Always had it mind that I will drop by next time and it had never happened until today.  

Today is Miss P's birthday and I decided to take her to pick her choice of cakes from Burch & Purchese.  

We made a trip to Burch & Purchese in the late hour of the afternoon.  The decor in the store is simple but elegant.  They have plenty of products on display and I felt like taking each of them home.  Too bad that Miss P was with me, so I was only allowed to pick few things that I wanted most for now so we could make another trip here again next time.  

As I was lost in the moment with the sweet stuff, Miss P made a decision on the cakes that she wanted.  We ended up with 4 individual cakes to take home - Raspberry, champagne, lychee, white chocolate; Banana, caramel, rum; Rhubarb, apple, crumble,cheesecake; Vanilla, pistachio, lemon, green tea.

The first cake we tried was the Vanilla, Pistachio, Lemon, Green tea.  Loved the amount of pistachio they put in, very generous and made this cake base very tasty (and we both are big fan of pistachio).  Though it had lemon cream as one of the component, but the sweetness of white chocolate was quite sharp (we found it was a bit too sweet). The little green tea macaroon on the top was lovely, had matcha taste and was a perfect complement to the cake. 

  

The next piece was the Rhubarb, Apple, Crumble, Cheesecake.  Very sexy looking little cake showcased in a clear plastic tube.  It had 4 layers, caramelised apple at the bottom, next was the custard cheese cake, then malted walnut crumble and lastly, the rhubarb compote jelly with a crown lookalike white chocolate and walnut as a jewel.  It was like a love at first bite with the rhubarb jelly, it had a right tart and refreshing flavour of the rhubarb and the jelly was smooth and soft.  The custard cheese cake was creamy and velvety and caramelised apple tasted more or less like apple sauce with a balance of tartness and sweetness.  Very well balanced in taste for this sexy looking cake, all of the flavour went well together and made us crave for more.  

It settled with cheap Asian lunch after all @ Petaling Street

Petaling Street

704 Glenferrie Road

Hawthorn VIC

My friend once said "Once you had a bad start, it will affect the rest of your day".  Initially I didn't agree with this statement but now I think it is quite correct!

My food plan for today was to go for Yum-Cha at Golden Dragon Palace at Lower Templestowe, but the plan turned sour as I did not realise that I need to make a booking for Yum-Cha! It was a bit of culture chock for me since in Sydney, you can just walk in and queue up for Yum-Cha.  I also carved for fish and chips, so my friend and I decided that we could try out Belvga (Beluga) Fish and Chippery at South Yarra.  Again, we got turned down, not because it was full but because it wasn't open yet (though it was lunch time). Our journey for fish and chips continued to Hunky Dory at South Yarra, but we could not find a single parking spot, so we gave up on the fish and chips.  Quite a series of unfortunate event on my food journey today.

Since our tummies did not have a single bit of proper food to satisfy since morning, apart from small cups of vaalia yoghurt, we decided that we can just go to Glenferrie road and push our luck.  Since my craving for fish still lingered, my friend suggested that we could try the fried fish at Petaling Street.  One of our friends mentioned that they do the whole fish dish at Glen Waverly and CBD, and we assumed that at Glenferrie the menu should be quite similar so we decided to give it a try.

The waitress was nice and attentive, she advised us that they had a new menu and we could give them a try.  After reading through what tempt us most, we came to know that they did not have a whole fish dish.  Lucky us that they have the fish dish on their new menu.  So we ended up ordering two of the fish dish for our lunch.  We ordered Lobak ($6) for entree, Sambal Fish Fillet as a main ($15.80), Nyonya Fish Fillet with rice ($10.90) and Chicken Nasi Lemak ($9.90). 

Inside the restaurant

We didn't wait that long for the food to arrive.  Three parcels of Lobak came first accompanied with sweet chilli sauce.  They were quite tasty and taste better than the one we had at The Grand Tofu.

Lobak

Another shot of Lobak

Not long after the entree, the main arrived.  First came the Sambal Fish Fillet.  The aroma of the dish was great and seem like they used shrimp paste as one of the ingredient.  The dish wasn't that spicy as we expected but had great flavour to it.  One thing to note, there were plenty of garlic in the sauce, but it wasn't an issue.  The dish also had small pieces of green capsicum and small pieces of chilli and the fish was served on the bed of lettuce.  The coating of the fish fillet was quite right, not too highly coated with flour that would turn soggy after being expose to the sauce.  It was cooked perfectly but we found if there was more sauce it would be even better.

Sambal Fish Fillet