Eating My Way Through Melbourne

I had so many restaurants and foods on my list of places to eat that I had to make some very difficult decisions when it came to finding places to eat in Melbourne.  I have already written some dedicated posts to some of my most memorable eating experiences from Melbourne, but this post encompasses some of the other experiences that I have yet to talk about.

I had just visited a museum in Chinatown, so it was natural to have lunch at Hutong, a dumpling restaurant located in the area.  I had seen some pictures of this place prior to arriving in Melbourne and it looked like they had tried to design it to really look like an old Beijing Hutong.

The dark interior made for a really cool atmosphere.  I was seated close to the entrance, and had a great view of the open kitchen.  Since this place is known for their dumplings, I ordered two of my favourite types, along with a vegetable dish.

The food was good, but not as great as I had hoped.  Having had Din Tai Fung a few nights ago, I think I preferred that over this place.

That same afternoon, I had one of my absolutely favourite snacks.  It took me forever to find the Hokkaido Baked Cheese Tart store that was hidden inside a mall.  It was the middle of the afternoon when I finally found it, so the selection was limited.  I settled on their regular cheese tart and I have to say it absolutely blew my mind.  I think it was even better than Uncle Tetsu’s version.

For dinner one night, I kept it simple and grabbed a Vietnamese style sub from Hawker Boy.  The restaurant has a really neat concept, with a mural lined wall on the right, and the simplest open kitchen on the left.

There is a small seating area in the back, with 10 small tables at most.  I found it interesting, because they could probably have fit another 4-5 tables in the area around the kitchen, but chose to leave that whole area empty.

Hawker Boys advertise their sandwiches as “twisted banh mi” with the crispy chicken banh mi as a favourite.  I was actually really lucky and there was one sandwich left for the day.  The crispy chicken banh mi was a tad bit too spicy for my liking, but the texture and the ingredients were amazing.

One last thing I wanted to mention about Australia, was that I noticed most bubble tea places used plastic lids and stoppers, instead of the plastic seal that I was used to seeing everywhere else I’ve traveled to.  I’m not sure which is worst for the environment, but I was surprised to see this at bubble tea places, as I’d only ever seen these lids and stoppers at coffee shops previously.

I had such a great time eating my way through Melbourne in the short time that I was there.  I loved the variety and the quality of the food that I was able to find there.