Hot cross buns in Seddon

In Seddon now, we are spoilt for choice with our bakery situation.  We have old school Waldies    in Victoria St, with their chocolate eclairs, vanilla slices and Boston buns.  A few doors down, we have Sourdough Kitchen with their sourdough rye, casalinga and pizza slices.

Both the bakeries have hot cross buns.  So, how do they compare?

Waldies, left, $1.00, Sourdough Kitchen, right $2.50

Waldies left, Sourdough Kitchen right

Waldies bun was soft, fruity and a good amount of spice, which I like.  Sourdough had a crusty, chewy shell with a soft centre.  It had similar amount of fruit, and citrus peel.  The spice was a little more subtle.  

Six Waldies hot cross buns will set you back $5.00 or they are $1.00 each.  Sourdough Kitchen buns are $2.50 take-away and $3.00 eat in.

I could happily eat both.  I'm just happy to have the option of eating bread baked fresh in Seddon.

MissChu, Exhibition Street, Melbourne

MissChu is a newish Vietnamese style cafe in Melbourne.  The first MissChu is in Darlinghurst in  Sydney.  Lunch hours can get a bit hectic.  No table service here, you order your food at the counter (the outside counter).  If you do try and order from the inside counter, most times you will be directed outside, depends who is on front desk duty.


The menu is a 'tuckshop' order form.  The food is mainly Vietnamese, with a twist, but there is also steamed dumplings, char sui bao and Peking duck pancake.  


My first visit, I figured if I got there right on 12 midday, I'd beat the crowd.  No, I was just part of the crowd.  I stood at the bench to order my food, trying to look for somewhere to sit.  You have to have a table before you order your food, that's if you are eating in, first lesson learnt.  


I boldly went for Wagyu Beef Pho.  The broth was okay.  There seemed to be cooked sliced beef and uncooked beef added.  There were a few bean sprouts and some Italian basil leaves.  I'm a bit spoilt living near Footscray, where there is plenty of great pho options.  It was interesting to see MissChu's take on the pho.  I was interested to try it, but I wouldn't order it again.

Wagyu beef pho $13

To go with the soup, I ordered some deep-fried pork Hanoi spring rolls, mini versions of cha gio that I have eaten in Footscray and they were really tasty! Crunchy crispy morsels filled with pork and some cubed vegetable of some sort.  The perfect thing to have with beers after work I would think.  

Deep-fried Hanoi spring rolls (cha gio) $5

On my second visit, I opted for their twist on the Vietnamese vermicelli salad or bun.  MissChu has beef and vermicelli, chili prawn and vermicelli as well as chicken and some other options.  I toyed with the idea of getting something similar to a true Vietnamese bun, but followed my heart and ordered the vermicelli salad with shitake, enoki and shimeji mushrooms (which is a vegan dish, according to the menu).  The bowl arrived filled with vermicelli noodles, fried mushrooms, some cubes of fried tofu, some flecks of fresh chili and morsels of crunchy fried shallots.  I was a little disappointed to begin with as there were no herbs to be seen.  The beauty of this dish is it is kind of like an upside-down bun.  The bean sprouts, mint, coriander and perilla leaves are under the noodles, so as you eat you get bursts of flavour from the herbs.  At the bottom of the bowl as you finish, is the soy sauce mix that the mushrooms have been cooked in.  The chili leaves my mouth quite warm.  I would order this dish again, and again.  This was a really successful twist on the Vietnamese vermicelli salad.  

Vermicelli salad (bun) with mushrooms $12

I like the idea of this place, the fitout is simple and industrial looking.  At the bench seat, you are up close and personal as the chefs work away at the woks.  There are signs announcing that no MSG or garlic is used.  I'm not sure why the no garlic is a good thing, but there you go.  


MissChu looks like it would be a great place to meet after work for drinks and some very interesting snacks.   Of my two visits to MissChu, two of the three dishes I ordered were really, really good.  It is a great addition to Melbourne's CBD for interesting and tasty food and for meeting friends for drinks.  

MissChu
297 Exhibition Street (between Little Lonsdale and Latrobe Sts)
Melbourne 
Ph 9077 1097
Open 11am to 10pm, Monday to Saturday

Mooncakes and hungry ghosts

Today, I learnt how to make mooncakes, dzung (zongzi) and offerings to the ghosts, as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.  The event "Mooncakes and hungry ghosts" is on at the Chinese Museum in Little Collins Street.  


The session began with a small Chinese musical ensemble.

Elizabeth Chong hosted the event.

We were served Chinese tea as the session began.

Anita Lau taught us how to make mooncakes.  

Mooncake pastry rolled out

Salted eggs, uncooked on the left, cooked on the right

Lotus bean paste, the olive coloured ball, is wrapped around a cooked salted  egg.
The pastry is rolled out and wrapped around the lotus paste and salted egg.

Mooncake ready to cook

A platter with cooked mooncakes was passed round, I got so caught up in the mooncake moment, I forgot to take a photo!  Mooncakes are served when the moon is at it's fullest, the 15th day of the 8th lunar month.

This is what the inside of the salted egg mooncake looks like, this is a photo of one I bought last year, just to give you an idea.  It is cut up into slices and you have a small piece with some Chinese tea.  I however, like big pieces, because they are so delicious!

If you want to buy some mooncake molds, I bought one last year from Chefland, 272 Victoria St, Richmond, near the corner of Church St.  They sell wooden and plastic molds.

The next dish we learnt about was Dzung.  I couldn't find anything on the internet by that name,  but they do seem to be called Zongzi.   It is served as part of the Dragon Boat Festival which is on the 5th day of the 5th month of the lunar calendar.  Magie Wu taught us about this dumpling.  It is a sticky rice dumpling filled with, in today's case, pork, shiitake mushrooms and fresh chestnuts (which are traditional apparently) they are then wrapped in bamboo leaves, wrapped in string and steamed for two hours.  

Magie preparing the rice to go into the bamboo leaves.

She ties the string to a clothes rack and then sits down to wrap the bamboo leaf parcels in string.  This looked reasonably easy.  However, I had a go and I can assure you, it is a tricky procedure!

Dzung or zongzi with steamed and string removed

Dzung or zongzi, ready to eat.  Delicious!!

At the front of the Chinese Museum, a group of people were making glutinous rice flour dumplings, with pink and green coloured dough.  

At our session, the dumplings were explained to us.  The green ones are filled with a salty fish filling, which was quite nice.  The red ones were filled with sweet red bean paste.

Elizabeth Chong prepared the third dish, a stir fried pumpkin and lup yook which she called Chinese bacon.  It is cut into strips and fried off with the vegetables.  

Stir fried pumpkin with lup yook

The stir fried pumpkin is one dish used as an offering for the Hungry Ghosts Festival.    This festival is observed on the 15th night of the 7th lunar month.  I have not heard of this festival before.  It involves serving food offerings as a sign of respect to family ancestors.


I'm not quite sure about the red and green glutinous rice flour cakes/buns.  I had a bit of information overload.  They could have been food for the Hungry Ghosts Festival or they may have been part of a festival on a Hong Kong island called Cheung Chau Bun  Festival  (the white buns with the red writing on them are a feature of this festival).  This festival is on the 8th day of the 4th lunar month.  There was a tower of plastic buns at the front of the Chinese museum today.  On the island of Cheung Chau, young men race to the top of a tower of buns (real I think)  and grab one, the first person to reach the top, has a year of good fortune.  


Elizabeth Chong explained that there are so many festivals and food associated with them in Chinese culture.  She said Chinese people celebrate from 'the womb to the tomb with food.'