Tao Tao House 陶陶居

Yuuhooo~~ It's saturday!! What else to start off a good weekend with a good brunch! We had Dim Sum this morning afternoon in Tao Tao House located at Glenferrie, it's one train stop away from our place so we took a 20 mins morning afternoon walk to there instead. Actually we had been craving for Dim Sum since last week but when we were there on a Sunday around 12.30pm, it was full house and we weren't able to get a table, we were told to go back at 2.30pm ==" What are we gonna do for 2 hours with a hungry stomach so we end up having english breakfast at a nearby place which was quite good. Will be blogging about that soon but today let us share with you our happy and satisfied Dim Sum brunch experience in Tao Tao House =D

Chili Chicken Dumpling

Pork and Prawn Siu Mai

Vegetarian Spring Rolls

Spare Ribs in Black Bean Sauce

Stuffed Bean Curd

Char Siu Pastry

Mini Custard Egg Tarts

The Mini Custard Egg Tarts were AWESOME!!! The best egg tarts that we've had in Melbourne so far! It was sooooo goooood that we ordered two plate and left us still wanting for more after consuming three each. It was fresh and HOT out of the oven, we both burnt our tongue just because it was too tempting and we cannot wait any longer to get a taste of it xD

Shanghai Pork Dumpling (soup filled dumplings)

All the dim sums were very good except for this Shanghai Pork Dumpling aka Xiao Long Bao, sad to say that it's the worst that i've(Ms) had. To make a good Xiao Long Bao, the skin, it's meat filling and soup filling are all equally important, i've heard that even the fold count at the top is also a part of what makes a very good Xiao Long Bao. Back to this particular Xiao Long Bao, no comment on it's meat and soup fillings BUT, the skin is...yucks. It should be tender, smoother and somewhat translucent but it is not, it felt like wet-supposingly-fluffy-white-buns which is thick and mushy. Also, from the picture you can see, one of the dumpling's skin has split so where's the soup filling? Gone =(

Nicely decorated interior

Pu Er Tea lovers

The place is not as spacious as you see from the pictures above, it's actually small and cramp. There are only two carts circling around the restaurant and the time frame that they serve out dim sums from the kitchen takes quite a long time so base on our experience in Gold Leaf, don't expect dim sum carts to keep coming to your table every few minute. This is slightly hard to accept at first cause we were used to getting whatever we want the moment we sat down in a dim sum restaurant and next minute our table will be full of dim sums so we can dig in to fill our tummy. So, we had to keep waiting for new dim sums to come out and that is a bit frustrating as we were both very hungry.

The bill came at the price of a total of $62+ for nine dishes (average of $6~6.50 for one dish) and a pot of tea. Honestly we weren't expecting this much as the average price for a dish in Gold Leaf was about $4, oh wells.. what you paid is what you get. At least eight out of nine dishes we had was pretty good so we don't mind paying more for better qualities dim sums (sigh..imagine how many dishes of dim sums we can have back in Malaysia with the amount that we're paying now, ($6 x 3) / 3 x 9 =54 dishes!) 

Oh! Do make reservations in advance. We can't even get a table for Sunday 1pm when we called to make reservation yesterday so remember to call and book before going to Tao Tao House! We learnt our lesson by getting turned out at the door with empty stomach and that does not feel good at all. 

Dimm summm!

The long wait has finally come to an end for you readers and followers (if there is even one...hahaa!). Sorry for taking so long to post something up. We've been busy lately which we cant think exactly why are we busy but anywaysss, Ms has started class already and for Mr is still having his holidays. Life is still the same for us, peaceful and all.

Remember our usual movie date? Well, we had our usual movie date again this week and we decide to go for Wolverine. It was GOOD! The show provides adequate action scenes, not too bad story line and love the robot-samurai idea. Hopefully they'll come out more x-men movies in the future! =D

So, one of the typical thing about us chinese-malaysians is that we love having dim sum. Whether its on a Sunday with the family or Saturday super early morning after a long party on friday night. Sadly for us malaysians in Melbourne, the dim sum stores here doesn't provide the same standards in KL in terms of the pricing and quality PLUS, it doesn't open at 6am in the morning....hahaha!

However, we still manage to find a good dim sum called Gold Leaf. And apparently, Gold Leaf serves one of the good dim sums in Melbourne. And that was the reason why we had to go and have a try...

Ms with her egg tart~ *happykid*

Mr with the dim sum kakis AKA 'the bunch'

The final verdict for this so called 'good' dim sum restaurant for us is....its GOOD! Hahahaaa! It was a Sunday that we went if we're not mistaken, the resturant was so busy but the quality of the food they serve was still fresh and nice. We really enjoyed our dim sum experience there that day. Love the ambience, the interior, the food and mostly, the company. If we or even you, have any craving for dim sum and you're in Melbourne, this is a good place for you, good quality and its not pricey. 

Having said that, we just found another dim sum place called Tao Tao house and based on the reviews we found online, apparently it is even better than Gold Leaf. So, we are gonna try that place soon to verify that comment so....stay tuneeee! 

Ms: Breakkie Date at JellyStone

Class started! No more sleep-till-noon-wake-up-nothing-to-do days for me, no more random brunch hunting and outing till semester break =( Oh at least I'm class free for friday so yayy to longer weekend =D Met up with one of my besties for breakkie one day, she brought me to Brunswick for JellyStone as we wanna try something not so mainstream.

Her lovey dovey Latte and my lovey dovey Hot Chocolate

Always loved outdoor seating

View from our table

 Le bestie

Emptied my cup before my food arrives

Omelette - with buttered leek, kale, gruyere, thyme & chili salt

French Toast - cinnamon soaked brioche, berry compote, vanilla bean labne, amoretti crumbs & maple 

Forks up! Dig in!

Lil baby came to us, cuteeeeeeee

Outdoor seating common table

JellyStone

"Today's special" board

Indoor seating

Le counter

Apple Crumble Muesli & Custard~ nom nom nom! Saw this at the counter and it's tempting

Le exterior of the breakkie place, feels like a storybook house

We love our breakkie! We shared our food so that I can taste both dishes as I had a dilemma choosing which dish to eat, like I always have. Did you ever had the experience when you look at a menu and there's so many dishes that you wanted to try but you've only got one stomach? It happens to me all the time! I can feel Mr's frustration whenever I asked him what should I eat =P

Back to JellyStone, both the savoury Omelette and the sweet French Toast was gooood~ Wouldn't hesitate to go back for second but it's quite a tram ride away from CBD and we need to take a few train stop to reach the CBD as well so going to JellyStone won't be a regular thing. It was a good day, we sat there chatting and gossiping non-stop as we haven't met for so long and there's so much catching up to do. Instead of always going to those mainstream and top of the list brunch place, I like to try out non-mainstream brunch place with nice atmosphere too but it's hard to find places like these by my limited sources. Any recommendations where's to next?

Our Usual Movie Date

Have you watched Pacific Rim? If you do, you'll understand how 'satisified' and happy I am after watching this movie. But if you dont, PLEASEEE go and watch it tomorrow or something. Dont be a cheapo and wait for the pirated dvd or download it online. A movie like this MUST be watched in the cinema and trust me, it is worth it. I am not gonna be a spoiler here and tell you about the movie but there's one thing I would like to ask those people who have already watched it, does this movie reminds you of Ultraman? HAHA!

So...relating to our post title, Monday is usually our movie date and as you know, we've decided on Pacific Rim. We've heard so many good reviews about it so choosing to watch this movie was inevitable. 

 Pacific Rim

After the movie, we wanted to have Nandos for dinner because we've been craving for it for a couple of weeks but in the end, we changed our minds. Typical us, so fickle minded. Hahaa. And we went back to Shophouse Kitchen for another go.

Mr's Fried Pork Chop Rice Set

Ms's XO Sauce Noodles with Prawns

Those above was our choice of dinner. And our conclusion after this second chance was not to go back anymore. To be fair, the food wasn't terrible or something, it was just really average. With the same amount that we are paying, Mr would rather go to Paparich or Hanaichi which serves yummier food with the same price. Plus, the food we ordered during our first attempt in this restaurant was average as well so we thought maybe we ordered the wrong menu or something, thats why we wanted to have a second go. But in the end...oh wellsss, time to look for a new place to try!

The last thing for tonight is.....

*drumrollinggggg*

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TADAHHHHH!!! My minion collections =D 

Well technically our 'Project Minion' is still not complete, we are trying to collect as many as possible but this 3 is what I have so far. Heheee. Good night!