Old town Kopitiam Mamak QV

Name: Old Town Kopitiam Mamak QV
Location: 210 Lonsdale St, Melbourne CBD
Prices: Entrees $5-10, Mains $15 ish, Drinks $3.90-5
Cost rating: 4/5
Taste rating: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

Oldtown Lemak Laksa ($10.50)
Taste: 6.5/10
Would I order it again? No.

Photography derp/ Focussing on the wrong thing/ Check out cutlery

Hello fish curry/ Damn, it's that sort of noodle/Shoot, foiled again.

Oldtown Lemak Laksa has a caption with its menu entry: “Thick white rice noodles in spicy coconut soup with fish”.

The noodles go pasty quickly, I advise you to eat them quickly. I don’t like these thick white rice noodles (the kind that are oily and dry as a wad of noodles), because they’re either uncooked/hard or pasty. I’d much prefer the thick white rice noodle that comes refrigerated, with the texture of Hokkien noodles.
The soup is thick, coconuty and is a sour and salty curry. I like the soup, it’s interesting from the first mouthful til the last. There is plenty of fish in this curry, which surprises me in a good way. The fish itself is an oily fish, which is great. Oily fish needs to be servred more often at eateries. But more care is needed with the preparation of the fish. There are a few bones and scales left, which make the noodles less easy to eat, and the soup gritty. There’s also another ingredient that makes the soup gritty, but I’m not sure what those are. I don’t think they are fried onions, because those become mushy when they’re in soup for an extended period of time. Maybe they’re fried bits of spices that got stuck at the bottom of the pot. Who knows? Whatever it is, grittiness makes a negative impact on the otherwise delicious soup.

There’s mint, cucumber and shredded lettuce to balance out the sour-salty coconutty soup and oily fish. There needs to be more cucumber and lettuce to balance it out for me. The soup is quite heavy from the thickness of it, so I feel as if I need more cucumber and lettuce to undo the heaviness. There’s also a little dish of sauce, but I didn’t add that to my lemak laksa. It tasted terrible by itself, and I doubt it’d taste much better in the laksa.

Mee Rebus ($10.50)
Taste: 8/10
Would I order it again? Yes.

Hokkien noodles/ Limes make pictures look better/ This is food envy

Paste of crustaceans/ Spoonful of umami hit/ Please use sparingly

Mee rebus is a sweeter curry than lemak laksa. The soup is sweetened with a gravy made from sweet potatoes. It’s a subtle sort of sweetness, but it is nonetheless tasty. There are yellow Hokkien noodles here, which induced food envy. There are prawns, a boiled egg, dried shrimp paste, fishcakes, fried shallots, spring onions and a wedge of lime in this bowl of curry-like noodles.

Little green wormies/ Stir with spoon and watch them squirm/ Suck through straw om nom

Cendol in a Glass ($5)
Taste: 9/10
Would I order it again? Yes.

Cendol is a green jelly dessert. Sometimes the green colour and the flavouring is derived from pandan, but more often than not it’s from food colouring. The green riceflour dessert is then shaped into little worms and slurped up through a straw. The jelly worms are not brittle like ordinary jelly (think Aeroplane jelly), but more like a chewy noodle.

Bandung ($3.90)
Taste: 9/10
Would I order it again? Yes.

 

Pretty-in-pink drink/ Reminds me of cough syrup/ Childhood trauma

Bandung is a rose flavoured drink. It’s a tasty sort of rose flavour, so I didn’t mind it so much. I don’t like rose-flavoured, rose-scented, rose-anything. But in the rare event that I want to drink something rose-flavoured, this one is the drink to go for.

Kenzan

Name: Kenzan
Location: 350 Bourke St, Melbourne CBD, GPO eating strip
Price range: Mains $10-15
Price score: 4/5
Taste: 9/10
Would I go there again? Yes.

If you’re into california rolls in Melbourne, then you’ve most likely heard about Kenzan. If not, go to Kenzan and order a sushi roll. The rice and seaweed are separated with a thin sheet of plastic, and when you pull the tabs, by some form of engineering ingenuity, the seaweed wraps around the rice and you are left with a sushi roll with crisp seaweed. Magic.

But we’re not here today for their sushi rolls or rice balls, we’re here for a more substantial hot meal.

*TERIYAKI CHICKEN WITH VEGETABLES (with rice)
The icecream scoop of mashed potato is a nice touch. Very cute. The vegetables are blanched. The teriyaki chicken portion is generous, and has a tasty sweet teriyaki sauce. You can’t go wrong. (Unless you were severely allergic to sesame seeds. That would be terrible.)

Teriyaki sauce/ Wherein does the appeal lie?/ It is delicious

*TENZOBA

Tenzoba is soba (buckwheat noodles) with tenpura. The broth is clear, but can be overly salty. The soba has been thoroughly washed beforehand so it isn’t starchy. It is so good. The tenpura was crispy, up until they placed it into your bowl of noodles.

I was so impressed by their soba, that I had food envy. Despite being a fan of udon.

Hot buckwheat noodles/ Simplicity aesthetic/ Just eat it with tea

VEGETABLE FRITTER UDON
Cost: $10
Taste: 7/10
Word of advice, eat your fritters as soon as you can. They will soak up broth and become soggy and fall apart. Udon is great. Broth can be very salty. Seaweed is a welcome addition.

Udon noodle soup/ What can make it heartier?/ Vegetables fritters

Gotta come back and have their soba, and their sushi and riceballs.  Might as well try everything else too.