Samcheonggak (三清閣)

I think it's about time I update my blog :p Haven't been eating at many new/interesting places lately. So not much of new material to write about. There are still stuff that I haven't posted though, so here's 1 of those. Just been feeling very tired lately, everyday after work, go home, have dinner, shower and sleep. Don't even have the energy to turn on my computer, let alone to sit in front of it to process photos or write. 


Anyway, let's talk food. Went to Seoul earlier this year for holiday. Most of the stuff we had were street food, little things or supermarket food court stuff. I think I'll just make 1 post later to show all those in 1 post. For this post, I'll write about our meal at Samcheonggak. It's 14 course Korean fine dining :D It's the most expensive meal the whole trip. ₩110,000 per person (which roughly converts to AUD 110). 

Started off with some fresh vege sticks with dip. Some chinese cabbage, celery, carrot and I'm not sure the other 1 was potato or pumpkin or something else. Didn't touch the celery. Not sure what dip that was too. I think it was some sort of bean paste kind of thing. Very strong flavour. Only need a little bit. 

This was the pumpkin porridge. A bit like pumpkin soup, but with some oats and grains to bite on. Served together with the pumpkin porridge was the watery kimchi. 

A better picture of the watery kimchi. It's a bit like the radish/carrot pickles that sometimes get served at the side of certain dishes in Vietnamese restaurants. 

Here's the Seasoned King Prawn with Squeezed Pine Nut. The first thing that came to our mind was 'It's a bit small for King Prawn'. It was nice, but the prawn is not as big as expected. Just a normal size adult prawn we normally get in Sydney. 

We had a bit of problem following the dishes that were served looking at the menu. It felt as though they just served whatever that got prepared quicker. Hence, this dish which was supposed to be the appetizer came after the prawn. Anyway, I quite like these tiny wraps. The wraps were really soft, with some vegetables inside. It was something light which would be good to start the meal with. Pity it didn't come out in order. 

Again, another out of order dish - Platter of Dried Five Delicacies. This was supposed to be the very first dish according to the menu. It became the 4th to our table. I have no idea what they were, I'm guessing from left to right: dried pumpkin, then some sort of dried fruit, another dried something, candied walnut and dried strawberry. Strawberry looked a bit funny though. The top looked pale pink, the bottom look greenish. Almost like a mouldy strawberry :p Not a big fan of dried fruit. I guess these were alright since I did finish them all. 

This was probably the best course of the whole meal - Stir fried abalone. The abalone was fresh and soft. Not chewy at all. Stir fried with some sesame seeds and sesame oil which gave it the great smell. As soon as Robin had a slice of it, he told me he would try making this back in Sydney (nope, never happened :p). 

Something extra for us. Couldn't find this in the menu and have absolutely no idea what it was haha.. Can't really tell much from the photo other than there's a slice of cucumber sitting on top a pile of stuff. 

Jeju Sliced Boiled Pork Belly. Not sure what those green leaves were, they were very aromatic which went very well wrapping the pork and ate together. Using the 2 different leaves even with the same meat would give 2 very different taste to the dish.

This blob of red thing was the Korean Beef Steak Tartare. A blob of raw meat like that just didn't look very nice to me :p It wasn't too bad though. Just didn't think it was too special that's all. 

This was the Grilled Duck Breast & Angelica Salad. It was nice, but again, didn't think it was impressive though. It wasn't dry or anything, but it could be nicer if the skin was crispier. 

This was the Wrapped Kimchi. It taste like the normal red kimchi, except presented slightly differnetly. All the smaller bits and pieces were wrapped in the big chinese cabbage leaves and put in a bowl like a ball of vegetable. Then it was cut open with a pair of scissors in front of us at our table to expose the filling inside. 

This is another dish that was really good. Couldn't decide which was my favourite between this and the abalone. This was the Braised Short Beef Rips with Abalone. Beef was really soft, abalone was just as nice as the previous version the gravy was sweet and fragrant. Just couldn't get enough of it. 

This was the Seafood Sinseollo i.e. royal hotpot. This was the 'special' in the menu. The whole meal would've been cheaper if we didn't have this. Just thought since I went all the way there, might as well see what's the fuss about. Nothing spectacular. Just a seafood soup. What was interesting was the pot itself :D It was a mini hot pot that was meant for 1 person only. It was soooo cute! Tiny little hotpot. We tried to find it in supermarket and department stores in Korea, couldn't find them. I should've taken another picture that show the size in perspective. It was around 15cm tall, 10cm diameter. 

Some Oyster Kimchi as a side dish. By then we were so full already that we hardly touched it. Big oysters though. 

Our last savoury dish - Seasonal Hot Pot with Rice. Basically a vegetable soup with rice. Different sorts of mushrooms, some chilli, tofu, greens, etc. 

Rice that came with the vegetable hot pot was nice. It was purple in colour with lots of grains in it. Chewy and little bit sticky. I was so full that time but I still tried to eat as much of the rice as I could. 

This was the only dessert that we had. No idea what the name was, only cinnamon dessert was mentioned. It looked like a mochi, when I saw it I was expecting something sticky and chewy, but it wasn't like that at all. It was more a soft fudge sort of texture. Can't say that I liked it, but it was o.k. 

Cinnamon Tea was served at the end of the meal. Even though I didn't like the cinnamon dessert, but I thought the tea was nice. Maybe because the cinnamon taste is not as strong as the dessert. The cinnamon was a bit more 'humble' here. Tea was little bit sweet with the smell of cinnamon and some pine nuts floating on top. Good end to the 14 course meal. 


Overall, I think for the same price I could get something better in Sydney. However, I probably shouldn't compare it this way, since it's totally different sort of experience, different sort of cuisine. The only thing I didn't like was the way they served. Dishes came out in the wrong order (they knew that too because they actually said to us "we serve this first, that will come later"). Also, it felt like we were being rushed. Usually in a degustation menu, dishes come out 1 by 1. Here, even before we finished our first dish, they would served the second dish on the table with the 3rd dish waiting at the side. Maybe the mentality is not to have us waiting, but I still don't think they should serve the next dish before we finish eating. From my experience with degustation menus, a 10 course meal would probably take 3 hours if not more. Over here, we finished our 14 courses within 1.5 hours. It wasn't 'eat slowly and enjoy', it was more like 'quick! next dish is here already!'. 



Seoul-si Seongbuk-gu 
Seongbuk2-dong 330-115 
SamcheongGak


We were there for lunch, the restaurant had lots of windows around so it was nice and bright to take photo. Very spacious seatings as well. 

Shoya

Happy New Year people!! And today being the first day of Chinese New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai!! Here's the long overdue post about a very nice meal in Melbourne. Been meaning to write about this place for ages but kept on getting distracted. Been away for 3 weeks, before that was Christmas, and before that I was too busy playing zombie vs plant :p 


Anyway, back to this meal. Had this when I went to Melbourne few months back. I knew there was this nice restaurant there but I didn't want to go alone. So I asked Vivienne who had recently moved to Melbourne to join me. We ordered quite a few dishes, chatted non-stop through dinner, totally didn't feel we've just met for the first time :) I guess that's the good thing about meeting up with food bloggers. There will never be the awkward silence because there's a topic that we can never finish talking about - FOOD! 

Started with Sashimi Moriawase - Sashimi lover's feast – carefully selected and arranged by our chef to delight your eyes and mouth $42.80. I was a bit disappointed with the presentation of this sashimi. I wanted to show Vivienne the cool ice-bowl the sashimi that I had in my previous visit. I found out after that they only put the entree size sashimi in that beautiful ice-bowl, but not the main size sashimi. Even though the presentation was not as impressive as I thought it would be, the sashimi was very fresh and each and every piece was thick and sweet. 

Salmon Toro Aburi - Rare cooked salmon belly - $7.00 As mentioned a few times in my blog, salmon aburi has to be my favourite sushi. I just really really like the smell of the lightly torched salmon. So when I saw salmon TORO aburi, I just had to order it. It was definitely as good as expected to be. The fragrant, the juice, the sweetness, it'll stay as my favourite sushi for long long time to come. 

Served together with the salmon toro aburi was the Toro aburi - Lightly broiled tuna belly - $8.50. Almost as good as the salmon, but I'm biased towards salmon anyway :p 

Crab Tempura - Whole ‘Taraba’ crab leg deep-fried in tempura style. This is not a very good photo because it doesn't show how long that crab leg was! It was probably the length of my forearm if not longer. The crab meat was so fresh, the batter was very crispy and there was just so much meat in that leg. Shell was cracked so all we needed to do was just to pick it up, dip it in the salt (green tea salt??) and bite. Even though it was deep fried, the meat was still juicy and sweet inside. 

Nama Shii Hotate - SHOYA's signature and must try fired dish. Mashed scallops softy surround the quail egg topped with a whole shiitake mushroom to make it perfect $16.50. This was definitely something I thought very creative and different. Didn't care to eat that chilli that came with the quail eggs though. If nobody told me quail eggs have much higher cholesterol than chicken eggs, I could be popping these little yummy packages 1 after another into my mouth all night long. 

Now this is the MUST ORDER dish. Beef Spinach Soufflé - Ox tongue simmered over two days with wine and sake then delicately rolled with spinach soufflé $32.00. By the way, the menu did not have photos of the dishes. So until we ordered and saw it on the table, we didn't know what to expect. At first I wasn't very sure about this. Beef Spinach Soufflé. Usually the soufflés that I know are desserts. Soft fluffy desserts that would rise very tall and then sink very fast too. Couldn't imagine a beef and spinach flavoured soufflé like that. As it turned out, it wasn't as I thought (phew!). It was actually REALLY REALLY GOOD!! The spinach around the ox tongue was so soft. I thought it would be like a lot of fibre and hard to chew, but no, it's like it was cooked till all fibre had dissolved and it would just melt in the mouth. The ox tongue was as written on menu, simmered over 2 days, it would literally just melt away together with the spinach. It was definitely 1 of those dishes that you take a bite and you would automatically close your eyes and go "MMMmmmmm............" and then you would wish that the plate would magically refill itself. 

For dessert, Vivienne picked the Chocolate cake with plum wine. I tried a piece, like commented by Viv, couldn't really taste the plum wine. It was a nice rich creamy chocolate cake nonetheless. Just that we were expecting something a bit more than just a chocolate cake when we saw the term "plum wine" on the menu. 

I ordered the Tofu Chocolate Mousse - Smooth light chocolate mousse smothered with tofu - $9.00. All I have to say is that it didn't feel like tofu :p It was a yummy creamy chocolate mousse as far as I know haha. The only thing kinda stood out was that red 'seeds' on the mousse. There were some gold flakes, a blueberry and the 2 red seeds. Not sure what they were, but they tasted like pepper seeds or something. Something herb-ish than fruity. 


It was a very enjoyable evening. The restaurant managed to maintain the quality of the food they served since 2 years ago when I last went there. Very very satisfied with the meal. It was also very nice to meet up with Viv!! I thought it would be a little awkward to meet someone the first time, but nope, it was like meeting an old friend :D 


Shoya
25 Market Lane, Melbourne, Victoria
Tel: (03) 9650 0848


Honestly, I can't remember how was the lighting condition already. So I thought if I don't remember it being particularly bad, that means it should be quite o.k :p Shouldn't be too difficult to take photos. Space wise was good. We were able to move the dish around and take photos from all sorts of different angles. 

Glass Brasserie

Welcome to the last post of Brunch, Lunch & Munch.... for 2010 :p No, I'm not planning to close my blog down just yet, even though at times I seemed to have abandoned it. It certainly doesn't feel like I've been writing this blog for more than 1 year already. 

Being 1 of the lucky people that was approached by the organiser of Sydney Festival, I jumped at the opportunity to sample the Fast Festival Feast special offer at Glass Brasserie, Hilton. It's $30 for a main course with a glass of wine. (For list of other participating restaurants, visit the Fast Festival Feasts website) 

This was the wine that I had. Stoneleigh Pinot Gris. I quite like this actually because it's got a bit of sweetness in it. Not so much like moscato which I really like, but this was also quite easy to drink. 

Started off with some freshly baked bread with olive oil. If you're thinking the presentation of the bread looked odd, there's a very simple answer - I forgot to take photo before I went for the bread. Was too busy chatting with Cindy from Marketing Department in Hilton who was having this lunch with me. I guess if I gave an impression it'd be "the blogger who forgot to take photo" :p 

Here's the main - Confit chicken leg, rocket salad with pickled orange zest, cauliflower puree and dates. I was surprised how well the sweet dates went with the tender chicken which was cooked for 2 hours in its own juice and goose fat. Rocket salad with the pickled orange was nice and refreshing too. 

We actually had six Petit four :) From right to left, started with chocolate orange logs and mango passionfruit jelly

Then there was nougat, the very pretty orange marshmallow and chocolate friand. The nougat was really good! Chewy and sticky with strong honey taste. The orange marshmallow was good too! Looked so pretty. 

  The last was a new French dessert that I learnt from this meal. It's a canelé. Made with rum and vanilla. By looking at it I thought it was similar to a custard tart or with some filling inside. There's actually no filling. The outside was caramelized giving it a crust, while the inside was soft. The texture was a bit like a cake, but not soft and fluffy it's little bit more doughy and a bit more chewy. Quite interesting. 

Lastly, a hot chocolate with a cookie to finish off the satisfying meal :) 

Even though it was just a main and a glass of wine, but having the bread before main, then half a dozen of petit four AND a cup of hot chocolate, I was really full. 

glass brasserie

Level 2, Hilton Sydney

488 George St, Sydney

Tel: 02 9265 6068

My table was very close to the big window looking straight at QVB. It would've been a really good view if QVB wasn't under renovation. I really should start taking photos at lunch time rather than dinner. It was so much easier :) 


*YW dined as guest of Sydney Festival at glass brasserie

The Brasserie

Went Melbourne for work a while ago. It was quite a good trip! Work wise, learnt a lot, came back feeling much better about my new role than before. Food wise, my boss actually said "go and have some good food, don't just get red rooster and stay in hotel" :D Then, I actually got to meet up with a blogger friend and had a great dinner (talk more about that next post). Anyway, so 1 evening me and my colleague finished work, so we just walked around Southbank looking for dinner. We actually walked into Nobu thinking should have a table at 830pm, but NOPE. So we had to pick another restaurant. Ended up at the Brasserie. 

Since our boss actually said 'go and have some nice dinner, get a glass a wine or something', so being a good employee of course I follow my 'orders' :p Ordered a The Nesspresso Martini - A smooth blend of Grey Goose Vodka, Kahlua, Frangelico and a shot of Nesspresso. Coffee kept me awake, alcohol made me sleepy, so they should cancel each other out when combined :p It was actually quite nice. 

Then some bread was served with olive oil and some salt with cracked pepper and something else (can't remember what those were). 

After a while, entrees were served. I had The brasserie chicken liver and foie grae terrine with toasted onion jam tartine, mesclun salad - $22.50. I really liked the onion jam. Terrine was really nice, but the only problem I had was I didn't have enough toast and onion jam to go with it. 

I tried a bit of my colleague's Steak Tartare - hand-diced raw wagyu beef with condiments - $22.50. It was really good!! I liked his entree better than my own actually :p I should've got that too. I would've been very happy with my terrine if I didn't try this :p 

Colleague ordered the Dorper lamb rack - herb crusted with eggplant caviar - $38.50. Didn't try this, but it looked really good. He was very happy with it. 

I was thinking of ordering something different, something that I normally wouldn't order. So I got the Cep mushroom gnocchi - with truffle oil and new season asparagus - $35. Saw a lot of gnocchi making on masterchef, but I actually can't remember when was the last time I ate them. I was surprised how fluffy and airy each 1 of them were. Basically a plate of yummy mini soft edible pillows. Loved those crispy cheese that were on top too! 


We were very full after entree and main. Colleague asked if I wanted dessert. I decided not to have dessert here because while walking from hotel to restaurant, I saw a gelato stall. So I decided to go back to that stall for gelato instead. 

Guess what flavour was this? Licorice!! When I first looked at it I thought "hmm.. licorice ice-cream..I'm not a licorice person.. maybe I'll get the hazelnut" but I was very curious because it was my first time seeing that flavour. So I asked if I could try a bit of it. It was definitely love at first bite!! It was so sooo good! My favourite flavour now. Unfortunately I still don't know where I can get licorice ice-cream in Sydney. I got 1 scoop and this was how my 1 scoop looks like. More ice-cream outside of the cup than inside (by the way, colleague was the hand model here). He ordered a scoop too, but he only got his cup filled and only a little bump in the middle that's taller than the cup's rim haha.. Not sure why that guy gave me so much more, but I'm definitely not complaining :D 


The Brasserie

Crown Entertainment Complex
8 Whiteman St 
Southbank VIC 3006
Tel: (03) 9292 7808 



Lighting wasn't too bad at our table. Little bit dark, but still not too bad. I just felt a bit awkward taking photo of food with colleague because he was quite new and I didn't know him well. Not many people at work knows about my blog. He was cool with me taking photos of his food though. Ended up telling him about my blog and got him 'cooperated'. He would turn his plate for me and even volunteered to be my hand model haha.. Needless to say, we got along quite well :)