Eat. @ Shanghai 1930

959 Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill  ph : (03) 9899 8666

Situated on the busy corner of Whitehorse Rd and Station St in chinese restaurant competitive Box Hill, Shanghai 1930 occupies the building that previously housed the Post-Chiang Cafe.  Serving up Shanghai Cuisine to the locals, it is often necessary to book a table in this busy eatery.  We've been here a few times having dinner with family and friends, sharing a table full of the Shanghai Cuisine loved by its founder "Shao Meng".

The food is generally pretty good.  As we've only been here in a big group, dishes are ordered and placed on the lazy susan for sharing.  Most dishes are fairly authentic and of a good standard.  The standout for us is probably the Steamed Shanghai Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao).  Hubby actually prefers these to the ones at Hu Tong. 

My other favourite is the Double Flavour Prawns.  The prawns are crisp, and the eggplant soaks up the beautiful chilli vinegar, and the whole dish is very moreish and goes a long way with a bowl of rice.

Double Flavor Prawns
(Prawns sautéed in a Chilli Vinegar Sauce with Egg Plant )

The kids like the Crispy Noodles, and also the "Mock Crab" made from egg white and fish, which I think originated from chefs wanting to recreate crab meat on the menu when none is available.  It's served with a yolk and a splash of dark vinegar.  It's again quite good with some rice. 

Crispy Noodle with Beef

Mock Crab

I've included pictures of other dishes we've sampled here.  (Taken over a few visits - we didn't eat all this at once!)

Nanjing Salty Duck

Lamb Cutlet Country Style

Stewed Pork Knuckle

Stir Fried Scallops (with ginger and snow peas)

And some traditional Red Bean Fried Pancake for dessert to finish off.

Red Bean Fried Pancake

The service can be quite variable.  The first time we were there they were fantastic - fast service, friendly staff, accommodating with the pram and extra cutlery required for the kids.  Another time we had sloppy service with distracted waiters, and we were told they had run out of rice (a Chinese restaurant with no rice!!!) 

The Shanghai 1930 website states that they are "an ideal place for a romantic dinner for two, a business lunch, a special celebration or just a gathering of family and friends."   While most of that is true, a dinner for two would probably not be so romantic given the inherent high level of ambient noise that is normal for most chinese restaurants.  All the better for eating out with kids though!


Eat.Play.Shop. Recommends - the Xiao Long Bao and the Double Flavour Prawns
Give it a Miss - if you've got kids that like to roam after eating.  It's a fairly tight restaurant and there's no place or toys for entertainment, so they pretty much have to stay seated throughout. 

Toilets - Yes
Highchairs - Yes, Ikea type

Batch #12 - Cosmic Blue Macarons

(with Burch & Purchese Salted Caramel & Mixed Berry Buttercream)

These macaron shells are really, really blue.  Hubby and I are planning to *possibly* make a blue macaron tower next month, and since we've found being light-handed with the coloring can mean grey-toned shells, this time round we were going to make them as blue as we can tolerate.  As a result I have a batch of macarons fit for a village of smurfs!

The macronage was a nice sky blue.

Pretty intense after piping.

Resultant tray of blue macaron shells!  I love the evenly sized and shaped shells from this batch!

I filled half of them with the awesome Salted Caramel Spread I got from Burch and Purchese Sweet Studio last week.  (Lazy but smart I say!), and the other half I filled with a Mixed Berry Swirl Butter Cream.  I wanted a more zingy berry taste but didn't want to spend buckets on berries, so I ended up using some frozen berries from Costco (much more economical and still really good quality)!  I heated up the berries, whizzed it with the stick mixer, and swirled it through a vanilla butter cream I made.  Happy to say this is much more tangy, and in my opinion, nicer than the blueberry jam option. 

I'm taking some to share with friends at our play date tomorrow.  I hope they don't get scared off by the intense alien cosmic color!

Lessons Learned -

• Yes I think they are too blue.  Will be less heavy handed next time.
• I think the secret to neat feet on the shells is in the temperature control of the oven.  I'm happier with the feet on the bottom macaron (mixed berry) in the picture below.  But still finding it hard to consistently achieve.

Blue, Blue Macarons!

Eat. @ La Tropizienne

780 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn ph : (03)9818 9815

On the road again to look for another good source of macarons.  Found it in this gem of a little French Patisserie in Hawthorn!  A small, easy to miss little shop, full of baked goodness from bread and pies, to cakes and macarons.  Of course we were here to try out the macarons.

All the macarons on display were handmade but perfect looking.  *jealous*   We took home a tube of 6 for $12.50.  Not a bad price for some very nice looking macarons.

From left : Lemon, Raspberry, Hazelnut, Rosewater, Chocolate and
Salted Caramel.

All the macarons were very good, my favourite being the Lemon and the Salted Caramel.  (Macaron Monster liked the Raspberry best, but really liked ALL of them!)  A thin crust with definite bite and good flavour.  Not too heavy but with definite substance.  Very tough choice but I still like the ones from La Belle Miette a tiny bit more, but certainly the best this side of town!

Gorgeous looking even at a different angle.

Good looking feet and fine fillings!

Eat.Play.Shop. Recommends : Great macarons, a tick from the Macaron Monster!

Give it a Miss : No complaints about the macaron!  To be honest we only checked out the macarons.  Everything else in the shop looked delicious!

Eat. @ Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio

647 Chapel Street, South Yarra 3141 ph : (03) 9827 7060

Okay, strictly speaking the title of this post is misleading as you don't actually eat AT Burch and Purchese, since there is no area for sitting down and indulging in the sweet treats on offer here.  However, it is indeed a sweet studio, and all the desserts here are works of art.  Bubs in Pram was blissfully asleep when I visited, but I'm pretty sure if the Little One and the Macaron Monster had been there I'd have had a hard time stopping them from eating the beautifully presented sweets on display as art pieces around the studio.

The staff were informative, friendly and helpful, and let me take plenty of photos.  As in an art gallery, the pieces should be viewed instead of just talked about, so get ready for a whole lot of pictures of their enticing, delicious and very clever creations.

Individual cake portions at $9.  A bit more expensive but we
felt our selections were worth it!  A lovely destination for a treat!

Divine meringue clouds, soft and chewy inside, slight bite on the outside,
and zingy fruit flavours throughout. $4 - not unreasonable, considering
my local bakery charges $2.50 for a hard lump of meringue.

Bespoke Cake Creation, Ladybird entiredly made out of chocolate. 
I so want to be a kid nowadays!

Lots of goodies to take home, from jars of spreads, to packets of crumble and
bars of chocolate.

Bespoke cake creation with chocolate flowers (which can be bought individually
for $3) and a oh-so-cute caterpillar.

Yet another gorgeous bespoke cake.

Cute chocolate dice, who's for a game?

Bags of luscious honeycomb.

Awesome edible wall art.  Enough to make you lick the walls!

To quote their website,  "Ian Burch & Darren Purchese fuse science with sweetness to create a truly unique retail dessert experience".  Here are the masters at work - still friendly enough to give me a smile and a wave!

Of course I didn't leave empty handed.  My favourite has to be the Coconut, Passionfruit, Ginger, Mint (coconut mousse | passionfruit curd | coconut caviar | passionfruit jelly | salted oat & ginger crumble | white chocolate mint wafer | ginger macaroon | brilliant white chocolate spray)  The flavours of the different layers are interesting, clever, and compliment each other perfectly.  I'm a sucker for a good crumble and this is one of the best! 

The Strawberry, Rose, Yogurt, Pink Peppercorn (strawberry mousse / strawberry rose jelly / yoghurt cream / butters shortbread with pink peppercorns / strawberry rose jam / yoghurt crunchies) is an interesting combination that works surprisingly well.  The geek in me just love the cute little test-tube filled with youghurt crunchies that you sprinkle on top of the cake just prior to consumption.  The peppercorn in the butter shortbread is a fun sensory surprise.  A cool and adventurous dessert!

The Chocolate, Mandarin, Salted Caramel (Kendari 60% chocolate mousse | Murray River salted caramel | burnt mandarin cream | St Clements marmalade | aerated chocolate shortbread | chocolate mirror glaze) is a rich and luscious dessert.  Very chocolatey with the perfect hint of mandarin and caramel.  Fantastic with a cup of tea.

A jar of Chocolate, Caramel & Hazelnut spread - a rather grown up, indulgent version of Nutella!  Yum!

I used half a jar of the Salted Caramel Spread as filling for my latest batch of macarons. (Lazy but clever, don't you think?)  A lovely thick caramel that can be used in lots of different sweet treats.

And last but not least a packet of Triple Choco Bikkies with freeze dried fruit.  Disappeared in a jiffy.  Very fudgey with a pleasant zing of fruit.

Burche & Purchese offer private consultations on a Thursday evening for bespoke cake creations if you'd like to discuss and plan a special treat for an upcoming celebration.

Eat.Play.Shop. Recommends - the Awesome Coconut, Passionfruit, Ginger, Mint - Hubby, I want this for my next birthday cake ..... please ;)

Give it a Miss - if you want to dine in - take your goodies home and spoil yourself with a good pot of tea.

Eat. @ Porgie + Mr Jones

291 Auburn Rd, Hawthorn 3122 ph : (03) 9882 2955

Firstly let me apologise for the strange tinge to the photos.  I didn't realise that the Macaron Monster is quite capable of changing the lens option on Hipstamatic until after we left!

Porgie + Mr Jones is the (big) sister eatery started by the same wonderful crew of Friends of Mine and Snow Pony.  We found a similar high quality of coffee and food at this lovely little shop, giving those in the Hawthorn area a fantastic little shop as their "local".

A variety of jams and drinks for sale, with their own range of relishes and chutneys.

Macaron Monster and I were seated at a communal table near the wall, with Bubs in Pram parked adjacent/behind me. The shop is fairly crowded and a pram can be difficult to manoeuvre, but this was made up by the friendly staff and their enthusiasm to keep us comfortable.  Certainly very tolerant of me + 2, although not extremely kid-friendly due to limited floor space.  A door at the back of the store, as in Snow Pony, opens into a warren of small dining "rooms" but we did not venture that far into the store.

The menu is very similar to that of the other 2 eateries.  The McPorgie is identical to the McPony @ Snow Pony.   I decided to go for the Smashed Avocado with Thyme Buttered Mushrooms, Marinated Feta and Tomato Basil on Wholegrain Toast.  An unusual choice for me as I'm no fan of the fungus, but Smashed Avocado is so the new black of breakfast dishes nowadays, so how could I not give it a go.  The avocado, mushrooms and feta went smashingly well together *cheeky grin*.  A lovely mix of soothing avocado and earthy, buttery mushrooms, countered by the salty bite of the feta.  A hit with the Macaron Monster, who usually doesn't like anything but poached eggs and ham!

The Mocha cannot be faulted, comparable to the high standards I've experienced at Mr Jones' other Eateries.

The freshly squeezed orange juice was lovely and sweet, served in a good sized quaint brown bottle, adored by the Macaron Monster, and at $4.50, much better value than the one at Cornelius.

Eat.Play.Shop. Recommends : the Smashed Avocado.  A new favourite ;)

Give it a Miss : again, if you want to pay by credit.  This is cash only.

Highchair - No

Toilets - Yes