Eat. @ Oppa Kitchen

271 Swanston Street, Melbourne CBD 3000 ph 0421 351 489

The kids spotted this new cute Korean place when we were in the city and made a snap decision for lunch there on one of our visits to the city.  I love that they are now at an age where they are keen to try out new places and new foods!  

Well since our first visit we've been there about 10 times because it's such a quick and cheery place to grab a quick meal before we head off on adventures in the CBD!  

To be honest, the food here is not your super traditional Korean fare, but the dishes are pretty cheap, fun and quick to the table, so it ticks all the boxes for my kids.  Now get ready for all our delicious pictures - we've tried just about everything on this menu!

I always get the Fried Rice Cake ($5) here, they are slightly crispy and covered with a good dose of sauce.  The serving is not huge but it's a great starter.

The Korean Fried Chicken comes in original fried, soy garlic and sweet chilli flavours ($6 Small, $11 large).  Not the best I have tasted but still quite pleasantly, and comes mixed with pieces of wedges and fried rice cake.  The kids actually quite like that!

You can also get the same deal but with chicken wings ($6 for 4 pieces, $11 for 8) and they are also quite tasty.

Their Bibimbap comes with a choice of beef, spicy pork, spicy chicken, tofu and mushroom or avocado. ($10 regular)

For the crispy rice version you can order the stone bowl Bibimbap ($12).  Call me a big kid but I am a massive fan of crispy rice!

For a bigger meal we often share a Dosirak ($10 -$12), which is a meal bucket, the equivalent of a bento box in Korea I guess!  Again you can choose a different "protein" topping like beef bulgogi, beef steak, spicy pork, pork belly and pork ribs.  The rice is topped also with a salad, fried potato hash, pickle and usually a piece of orange.  They're pretty good value for money and we quite like these, although I don't really like the pork belly one as I find that the pork is 95% fat so there's not that much meat to eat!

They also serve a Korean Curry (with Korean chicken schnitzel $11), which is quite mild and tastes much like a Japanese Curry.  Macaron Monster loves curry and we tried this once and we all quite liked it and it's not too spicy.

I went with my sister once and we tried out their Meat Platter ($26) which has a nice mix for the meat lovers with beef steak, pork belly, pork spare ribs, chicken breast and lamb ribs.  It's not bad value for money when you share! 

As a change I like their mandarin juice ($3) which you don't often see on menus.

As you can tell we quite like this place and hope that they keep up the prompt service and cheeriness!

Eat. @ Tarng

32 A'Beckett Street, Melbourne CBD 3000 ph (03) 9639 4456

We stumbled upon Tarng over a long weekend when we went in search of a Korean lunch but found the place we were heading to was actually closed.  It was a good thing as we found Tarng and had a fabulous lunch (and subsequent dinner) from the visit!

We started off with the Korean Fried Chicken.  Tarng's version is fried with a light coating of flour rather than the thicker batter, so it's slightly crispy but not as you would expect with the battered version.  It's a pretty big serving and was quite delicious with a sweet soy coating.

The beef bibimbap ($10.8) was quite delicious and not too expensive, and had quite a lot of beef compared to other places we've tried.

The Jap Chae interestingly came with rice, which I've not come across like this before.  The noodles were a bit more salty than we like, so the rice was a good off set I guess!

The Beef Ramen at ($7.5) was a steal at that price.  A large bowl of warming noodles, albeit again slightly salty for our taste.

And last but not lease the Spicy Pork ($10.8) which came with a bowl of rice and side dishes.  Quite a good standard of spiciness and no complaints from me!

We totally over ordered as the size of the dishes were bigger than we had anticipated, and ended up with 3 take-away boxes of food to take home.  A cheap and cheery place for a quick Korean fix in the CBD.

Eat. @ Miss Korea

845 Burke Rd, Camberwell 3124 ph (03) 9882 4999

I spotted Miss Korea one day when I was in Camberwell and was compelled to return as we are all still keen on the "Korean Food Wave".

I'm glad I made a booking on that Friday night as I saw quite a few groups get turned away.  We started off with a trio of organic fizzies ($4) and Charlie's honest squeezed juices ($5).

The Korean seafood spring onion pancake ($16) was choc full of greens and was very pretty.  A bit too much spring onion for me but the seafood was visible and delicious.

Mini Me loves Jap Chae ($15) so it's a must order for us.   This one was topped with lots of greens and a good helping of chicken (you can also choose beef or pork).  I would've loved more noodles with it but as a stand alone dish this would make a good dinner.

I loved their spicy pork bulgogi ($16) which came with a good serve of rice and the comforting sweet spiciness that I have come to love about bulbulgi.

The Stone bowl Bimbimbap ($16) is also pretty good, with a good dose of crispy rice on the bottom and plenty of beef.

And last but not least the Soy Garlic Korean Fried Chicken Tenderloins ($15).  These ones are crispy battered with a delicious soy garlic coating.  We loved this, with soft tender meat covered in the crispy batter and the more-ish sauce.  A must-order dish each time we visit!

Overall it was a great Friday night out.  The meal was delicious, the staff were accommodating for the children.  There were quite a few Korean diners there which is always a good sign.  We will definitely be back.

Toilets - yes
Highchairs - yes

Eat. @ Kong BBQ

599 Church St Richmond 3121 ph (03) 9427 1307

We went and tried out Kong with our "Carnivore" friends Matt and Jo.  Matt works near there and is a veteran but this was our first outing to the "Korean Chin Chin", which has been on our radar but we've not had the chance to visit as yet.  Similar to Chin Chin, Kong has a no reservation policy, and we had a one hour wait from leaving our names at the door to being seated, which was spent pleasantly down the road at the pub.  A coffee martini later we stuck to the exotic but non alcoholic drinks once we got back to Kong. 

Once we've ordered, the food came at a quick but not rushed pace.  We started off with the famous Buns, firstly filled with soft shell crab ($6 each), with a salted duck egg relish and coriander.  The flavours were amazing, and I am most impressed with buns which were fluffy and soft, yet not soggy and not dense, a difficult task apparently as it's more often than not done badly.  These buns were perfect!

Likewise the Spicy Pork Belly with pickleed cucumber and Kong crazy horse chilli ($6 each) were to die for.  The crackling was super crunchy and had us asking for more!

Next we had the Hot wings with Gochujang and Chipotle ($12 for 6 pieces), crispy wings with really a spicy sauce.  I still prefer my standard KFC, but this was a great spicy version.

  

No Korean meal is complete without some Bulgolgi of course, so we ordered the Bossam Bulgolgi Black Angus ($28).  The BBQ meats here is so beautifully done.  

Did I mention this was a meat-fest?  So of course there were ribs.  BBQ Baby Back ribs ($36 full rack) with that crazy horse chilli again.  Very more-ish, and yes my mouth was on fiiiiire!

We did have a non meat dish, a trio of kimchi ($7) showcasing the different types of pickled cabbages and mushrooms Kong has for offer.

I regretted not having dessert at Chin Chin so even though we were quite full we did not leave without this time!  I did choose the Black sesame ice-cream ($11) thinking it's a refreshing dessert which it is, however there were 4 big scoops (I'm not complaining seriously) so it's a good dessert to share!

Jo and I also both wanted to try the Coconut Sago with passionfruit pineapple triffle ($12), which was a lovely combination and a great asian twist to the traditional triffle.

And last but not least Matt, who is American, had the Apple and Walnut tart ($12) with miso butterscotch and Japanese whiskey ice-cream, amongst jokes of Americans and their apple pies.

Another lovely night out to another great addition to Melbourne's food spots.  Friday nights are hip and noisy and probabaly not very kid friendly, but like Chin Chin, I would be game to bring the kids for early dinner especially since my bunch is really into Korean food right now.  Can't wait to come back and try other things on the menu, and of course for more of those buns!