Kimchi Stew - The perfect dish for winter

I love Kimchi stew but it is too expensive to eat out hence I went to youtube to search for a good recipe and found Maangchi. She is pretty popular on Youtube and her recipes are generally very good and easy to follow. So if you are too lazy to check youtube, I have summarized everything below. My cell mates love this so much when I cooked it for after cell dinner because it is so yummy. The sourness is just right!

I believe good kimchi plays a very important role for yummy kimchi soup. I always go for Well-being or Chongga Kimchi because the sourness is just right. Chongga is much pricier though... For some reason I feel that it is easier to buy specialty ingredients in Melbourne as compared to Singapore. At the moment I only managed to find Chongga Kimchi at Star Vista korean grocery store but things there are crazy expensive :(

** note: the recipe is slightly different from her website though, so tweak according to your desire but this is how I cook usually**

Ingredients:

1.  2 cups of chopped kimchi
2. 1/2 pound of pork
3. 2 tablespoon of hot pepper paste
4. 1 teaspoon of sugar
5. 5 cups of water
6. 2 stalks of green onions
7. 1 tube of egg tofu (sliced)

You may choose silken tofu if you want to but I prefer egg tofu.
As for pork try to choose pork belly or pork shoulder so that meat will be more tender as you will be boiling the stew for pretty long. You may opt for beef if you like.

Steps

Combine ingredients 1-6 and boil for 30 minutes.

Add egg tofu and boil for another 10 minute and it is ready to serve with rice.

For army stew you may add rice cakes, ramen, egg and cheese at the end.

Enjoy and fill your hungry bellies people :)

Mooja Mookata

MooJaa Mookata

25 Keong Saik Rd, 089132

Tel: 6536 4780

opens at 5pm.

** This is not an advertorial. The purpose is to share awesome stuff with people and for personal reference when I wish to revisit teehee. **

Chicken balls with cheese core oozing out.

 Crispy Fish Skin

Yummy soup with no MSG :B

 Basic Platter (Includes other seafood like abalone slices, scallops, fish tofu, pork balls)

 Kurobuta

Thai Milk Tea

 

Went back for a visit again with my good friend a few days after I return to Singapore because I am craving for a good Thai steamboat/ BBQ. Compared to the other mookata places this is my favourite. It is cleaner than those at Golden Mile and the broth is tastier - anything beats having dinner with scurrying roaches and lizards. 

The broth / soup base for steamboat is the soul of every steamboat and this is one of the better ones I ever had. From some of the reviews I read, they painstakingly brew the soup base and no MSG is added hence you don't get those unbearable thirsty feeling after eating and it gets yummier with more fresh ingredients added.

What I love about this place is there are more choices and I guess it is more value for money. At Golden Mile although the basic platter is cheaper, the portion is pretty small so I'll need to eat together with rice and order a few more portion of pork for 3 person. At the end of the day it costs more that what I paid at MooJa. 

Remember to make reservation cause somehow even on an average weekday it gets packed at night too.

Price : $32 / pax (buffet)

$5 free flow drinks

Third Wave Cafe

Third Wave Cafe

1/189 Rouse St, Port Melbourne VIC 3207, Australia

+61 3 9676 2399

Soft-shell crab burger

The chips goes amazingly well with the BBQ sauce.

I guess it is their special house blend with a tinge of spiciness to bring more flavour and layers to the chips. Yummy!

My boyfriend loves the ones from Hammer and Tong but I guess I prefer this more although I dissect the burger while eating hahas. Remember to eat it hot otherwise you will get sick of eating after a while, not too sure if it is because of the mayo though but I cleaned everything up.

A picture with Tea <3

Thank you for being such an angel taking care and bringing so much joy during my stay in Melbourne. I am so glad you asked me out for brunch cause I had asian cuisines for almost the entire week during my last week in Melbourne cause my aunt hates western food :(

Such a rare occasion that I can see my sharp jaws after eating so much good food during the entire semester :B

Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

647 Chapel St, South Yarra VIC 3141, Australia

+61 3 9827 7060

10 am - 6.30pm 

http://www.burchandpurchese.com

Tram 8/ 78/ 79 - I am not too sure, but I guess they are the nearest ones.

*This is not an advertorial*

Explosive raspberry milk chocolate - AUD 9

To be honest, I forgot the name of this fancy raspberry dessert because it is too long. 

Opps. Hahahas

What I love about this nut free dessert is that neither do you get sick or thirsty after eating because the sourness and crunchiness is well balanced. To be honest I chose this because I didn't like chocolate and I forgot to bring a bottle of water with me when I went out hehe. Pleasantly surprised.

 Chocolate, Mandarin, Salted Caramel - AUD9

To die for dessert. Chocolatey-goodness all pack in this yummilicious cake. The chocolate mousse blended really well with a tinge of citrus excitement, craving one bite after another. I wished I bought two instead of one home. As mentioned before I don't like chocolate, hence to make me crave for one like this one, it is crazy good.

Passion fruit pillows and chocolate cake for take-away. Hehe!

Gem in Chapel Street, so going to visit this place again with my family soon :B

All thanks to Tea's great recommendation. I am so glad I visited this place even though our bellies were so full from brunch. Chapel street is a good place to pig out really teehee. It feels good to visit in the day since the last time I visited was during national day at some night club hahas.

Jinda Thai

Jinda Thai

1-7 Ferguson St Abbotsford, VIC 3067

+61 -3- 9419 5899   

Tram 109, alight at Hoodle street and walk straight, turn left 

(from city) 

Fried barramundi fillet with sweet chilli

Most might feel that deep fried fish will be really dry but this one is juicy and crispy. I can probably have a few mouthful of rice to go with each bite. So much yumz!

Deep fried crispy chicken.

Crispy and flavourful. It goes super well with rice. Thinking about it make me really hungry now.

 Tom yam soup

Some how I feel that tom yam soup in Melbourne is less spicy to suit the taste buds of the locals but I love it. It is so appetizing and does less damage to my gastric I guess or in my opinion. I can't really take spicy for so this is just nice for me.

Milk Tea crepe with coconut ice cream

You don't have to wait to get all the way to Thailand for this dessert, just take a direct tram to Richmond hehe. I am sooo glad I ditched my pot of assam fish for this dinner.

Girls are so special because it seems like we have two stomach, one for proper meals and another for dessert. Don't you ladies out there agree?

Remember to check out with the waitress/waiter for dessert of the day.

You may want to call and check in case you get disappointed like the did the last time I visited before I return to Singapore :(

Mook Ji Bar

Mook Ji Bar

406 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

+61 3 9600 2661

Remember to make reservation before going, at least for dinner because it is that popular.

 seafood stew - There are a lot of ingredients in it as you can see but I think the soup is kinda blend though. Opps.

chapjae

Kimchi pancake and a really hugeeeee one

 Fried chicken! The fried chicken is really good and you can add cheese with it. Benita told me that her friend made a comment " it is a life-changing experience eating chicken with cheese". So much LOLs! It is really good though. Sorry Gami but I like this one more.

ddeokbukki. So good. I didn't really know how to appreciate ddeokbukki till I went to Melbourne. I craved and learnt how to make good ddeokbukki and this is up to standard. Chewy and it goes well with the fishcake. I always cook with dodo sotong balls because yummy fishballs are hard to find in Melbourne and this is amazing hehe. Cleaned every bit of it.

Special thanks to my cell mates that I get to eat a Mook Ji Bar as part of my birthday celebration because I absolutely did not make reservation. They have a sign out there that they only accept people who made reservations and I did not :( Fortunately they made a reservation as part of my surprise dinner hehe.

ChangGo Korean BBQ

ChangGo Korean BBQ

70 Little La Trobe St Melbourne, VIC 3000   

0433 379 100

Opens at 5pm and be prepared to wait for at least an hour if you did not make a reservation.

 

**The have another outlet a Chinatown - little Bourke street if I am not wrong**  

Set for 2 - spent about AUD60 nett for all.

Includes : 8 flavours of pork belly together with seafood stew and side dishes.

Flavours are: Wine/ Original/ Ginseng/ Garlic / Herb/ Miso/ Curry / Hot

I guess it is midsem break and time to pamper ourselves with authentic and good korean food in town. I have heard a lot of raves about Chang Go from my friends and I finally get to visit this place with Vanessa. Time to destress with good food. If you are a first timer they will sort of help you out with bbq-ing of the first few slabs of pork belly.

I guess we were too hungry then so we finished everything in quite a short period of time. How can you not finish these juicy meat. Most of my friends find it unbelievable that I can eat so much sometimes hahahs. There's always stomach space for good food right?

The soup has really lots of great seafood like alaskan crab, prawns, sotong.

Love this so much and the portion is just nice for two. Remember to go from left to right when you barbeque otherwise you cannot fully appreciate those meats that are lightly marinated or should I say marination not to taxing on one's taste bud.

It is one sinful meal, pretty fattening so I prefer to let the fats sizzle a while longer so it gets crunchy and more flavourful. Oh I miss this so much!

P.S. Will be back for more soon!