Luyu & YumYum

Came here during their 50% off Dimmi offers since I was craving dim sum (or dumplings, but these technically aren't dumpling as some Chinese people like me will tell you). Got there at 6:07pm, for a reservation at 6pm, and they had already cancelled my reservation already, and I received a 'cancelled booking' email from Dimmi at 6:08pm. Dimmi booking terms allows you to be 15min late, and I'm pretty sure they wanted to take more walk ins than bookings. They still let us be seated, and reminded to give the table back in 1.5hrs, which was already a part of the booking on Dimmi. In hindsight, they did some very sneaky moves to the menu, which I'll explain later. This post is from April but just publishing it late because of a back log of food posts on my blog...

food spread

menu from the night

example of menu when it's not on special

(note price discrepancies)

Snow white dumpling: Prawn, Asparagus, Bamboo shoot & Luyu Home-made Creamy Soup in Chrysanthemum infused Potato Starch Dough-$20 for 4, paid $10 ($13.80 for 3 on website)

inside

These were really cute, but there wasn't much filling inside. It did have a bit of prawn, but not one whole prawn like in other yum cha places. The  dough could have been thinner as well, but I guess they made it thicker cause they needed to do the ears.

Green Lantern dumplings: zucchini, asparagus, celery, shiitake & king oyster mushroom, steamed in rice flour dough-$20, paid $10

This wasn't on the website menu. I like how the dough is green. Didn't eat the chilli, but a nice combo of veggies for the filling without being too salty. 

Manga dumpling hedgehog: King Oyster Mushroom, Chinese Mushroom, Fungi, Carrot, Coriander in Flour Dough Baked-$20 for 4, paid $10 ($12.80 for 3 on website)

inside

Another super cute dish. I did find the dough a bit too dry and thick, and could've had more sauce in the filling. I like how they had bits of pastry to make the spikes.

'Kiss Me' Dumpling': Chicken, Ginger, Shallot & Luyu Homemade Soup in Flour Dough-$20 for 4, paid $10 ($10.80 on website)

inside

Nice thin dough with flavour soup inside. The meat is a bit smaller, and again wished there was more soup. It was average but not amazing.

Mr Luyu fried rice: Duck, Egg, Asparagus, Shallot, Coriander, Baby Corn & Mustard Seeds Stir Fried-$17.80

I love how the fried rice is more 'fried' and has a drier texture in these 'modern Aus' restaurants as not many places can do a good fried rice. There were tiny bits of duck in it, and I think would've been better to have slightly larger pieces for some texture and more flavour.

You can see the price discrepancies, even though they served 4 instead of 3, there is a major price mark up, and even half price, it turns out to be similar price to the website price/previous menu before they had the Dimmi deal. I wonder if they revert back to their old menu/prices after this promotion. Like for some dishes, only saved 80c in total. So half price seems like I'm saving a lot, but just compared to the original price, yeah, it's not really.

The waiters were friendly, and inside sat at a good table with decent lighting, since they use spot lights, and some parts can be dim. Probably will just stick with the asian yum cha places next time.

Hubert

I’ve been wanting to come here ever since they opened, but to make a booking you need at least 6 people, and it’s too hard to walk in on a Saturday night. When the new aperitif menu came up, with pretty cheap price but good quality French snack food, I knew I had to come. Got there at around 5:30pm on a weekday, and waited around 10ish mins for a table. The aperitif menu is only available from 4-6pm, so it really depends if anyone decides to leave the bar area before 6pm. The bar area has decent amount of seating with a mix of bar seats, high stools, lounges and normal tables. Music is a bit louder, but the main restaurant also has music but with a different feel.

food spread

water in a wine glass by candlelight

Negroni-$10

I normally don’t go for drinks when I’m out because they ain’t cheap, but decided to go for a negroni, which I’m guessing is discounted from the normal price. There’s a good hit of alcohol, it’s just funny how  the ice cube in the middle is like half the volume of the glass. I am no alcohol expert, but it tasted decent.

Parfait-$5

The parfait was nice and smooth and well seasoned. Loved the toasted bread pieces, but wished there was a few more. 

Fleur de Courgette-$5

The zucchini flower were deep fried well and not oily. I wished there was some goats cheese or something stuff inside since it would’ve taken it to the next level.

Normandy Burger-$10

inside

Burger was cooked medium rare, and nice and juicy on the inside. Loved the melted cheese dripping on the side. Bread was soft but held the burger well.

 

Will be back to try the main menu on the restaurant side one day. It’s more expensive than a normal dinner, but not as pricey as fine dining, but still want to save it for a special occasion. May also need to find others to tag along with me so I can try more of the menu if there’s a larger group of people to go with you.

Baking pt 2

Time has literally flew by. My 3 weeks off and then only 2 days of offsite placements this week and I've felt like I've done no study. Red Eye Clinic is so soon, and I know I'm gonna get smashed, and I should study, but I have procrastinated a bit too much....like watching 4 seasons of Suits in one day, 

Other procrastination includes baking. 

Zumbo's Pash Me Banana Bread

I must admit, packet mix is cheating, but this banana bread for a packet mix is really good. It gives it the height that I can't make from scratch (even though my baking powder isn't expired), but I think the flour he uses is also a better quality. You literally just chuck stuff in and mix it. Only measure out butter and milk. It's also not really sweet, only sweet from the bananas, and has chopped up nuts for texture. Chopping up nuts into small pieces yourself is hard. It's also a lot oilier/buttery and healthier compared to the banana breads you buy at shops. It also includes passionfruit pulp you can mix into butter to make passionfruit butter, but who even needs extra butter on banana bread? It's nice on it's own, and less fattening.

In the oven. Proof that at one stage it had a nice high rise and smooth even brown top

after cooling it shrinks

the edge collapses on itself, shrinking away from the paper

Jap style cheesecake

inside

Ended up using the extra block of cream cheese for this. Next time I'm gonna try no lining the sides to see if the cake will cling to the side and have a nice rise and not shrink as much after cooling. This cheesecake could've been a bit lighter, but I accidentally added the sugar to early when whipping the egg whites, so didn't quite get soft peaks, but was close. It browned more evenly this time since I put it towards the left side of the oven as I remembered from last time the right side darkened too much. This cheesecake isn't really sweet either, but obviously nowhere near as light as the one's you buy outside. No more baking for the rest of the year. Finally used up 4 blocks of cream cheese and a packet of 2mth old expired packet mix. My almond meal has also expired for a few months, but no time.

 

more insect ice cream

Walked past this at Chatswood, and now I've tried all 4 insect flavours from the Economists. They all just tasted sweet like ice cream, and crunchy from the insects.

Thanks BW for getting me my fav almond milk. I first tried this at the food expo last yr in September, and didn't even realised it's out in shops now, and in a bigger size.

yay for free burgers, thanks again BW

Got a wagyu-$15.90 and a hemp burger-$13.50

I couldn't really taste the hemp in it, found it really subtle. Maybe cause the patty bottom was too burnt for me, and I'm more sensitive to burnt things. I've been 'trained' by mum to always peel off burnt stuff in food, but in a patty inside a burger, it's a bit harder to do that...

I should really get my reports done, because now I'm going to New Zealand before going to Melb and Hobart. Yay for more travel and experience. Too bad the lens I bought probs the invoice can't be back dated so that I can get the gst back from it. I'm grateful for an all expenses paid trip to NZ plus clinical experience. I didn't put that much effort into the application, but did dawdle on it for a couple of hours. Now to tell my manager that I need another week off...The irony is that the company is my work's charity organisation. Next week gonna start getting super busy. I feel like I say this all the time haha. Sometimes I am pretty grateful that I only had research last year and not this year so I have time to do other stuff like go volunteer in NZ.

8bit

There's a new place in town-Steam Mill Lane as part of Darliing Square (which I think was a car park  before al the renovations started happening). There's heaps of restaurants opening up in this cute laneway. It reminds me of Barangaroo, although that one is more 'romantic' and 'mature' where as this lane is more 'fun' and 'family friendly' with the coloured lights and cheaper food on average. Now I don't have to go Melbourne to try these burgers.

Didn't occur to be that 8bit=1 byte until BW pointed to it, which I'm guessing is like one bite of their burger...It's got a nice sort of modern retro feel to the restaurant.

burgers

it's cute how it's served in burgers

8bit with cheese: beef, tomato, lettuce, red onion, pickles, mustard, cheese, ketchup, 8bit sauce-$11.50

I always try to get a plain-ish burger without too much stuff added in just so it's easier to compare to other places. I didn't find this beef burger that amazing tbh. It tasted like a fancy Big Mac, but not as tangy. The 8bit sauce wasn't super prominent in flavour, since I think with the mustard and ketchup mixed you couldn't really taste the original flavour in their sauce. The beef is juicy without being too oily. The bread held well together and was soft (unlike Maccas where it was soft and felt apart just from your fingertips).

Golden Axe: crispy fried chicken, cheese, sriracha mayo, slaw-$12

We both liked the chicken one better since the beef was nice but there wasn't anything that stood out to make it different. There was a nice thin batter on this chicken, which make it extra crispy, and felt like less oil was soaked into the chicken. The chicken was also moist, and went well with the slaw to help freshen it up. The sauce had a nice kick to it without being too spicy.

cute arcade games

I think you could actually play for a while in these since the game I played was pretty say and hard to die in.

openish kitchen

 

I feel like there's more outdoor than indoor seating. Didn't have the fries or the shakes since this was a pre dinner for an actual dinner for me, so maybe next time.