Yet another cloudy, winter day in Melbourne. Usually I would have loved to stay at home in the warmth all day with Iron Chef Rob watching DVDs but the Melbourne Design Market at Federation Square was on. I had never been before, so I was interested to see what I could find, hopefully some nice stuff for a reasonable price. But noooooooo! It was all massively over priced, fine if you are the arty type, but I was not a rich arty type to purchase such goods.
Anyway, after wondering around the city for bit, lunch time creped up on us, so we found ourselves back at Federation Square in search of food.
At a restaurant called "Chocolate Buddha" I would not have expected Japanese food, but this place was, and business was booming. The staff were all very polite and willing to help.
A good variety of meat and vegetarian dishes, from noodles to wagyu beef.
We ordered gyoza, my latest obbession in life and some noodles. We had no idea what to expect from the noodles as we aren't really professionals at ordering Japanese food.
My noodles came out first, shortly followed by Rob's noodles and the gyoza.
Gyu Ramen: chilli marinated organic beef slices, char-grilled & served with vegetable dumplings, swiss chard, bean sprouts, chilli sauce in ramen noodle soup.
Delicious, fresh noodles, nice broth, complete with all the trimmings.
Tori Soboro Somen: minced organic chicken, flavoured with miso & chilli, garnished with coriander, red onions, spring onions & crispy sweet potato served on somen noodles with a touch of ramen stock.
This looked like Japanese spaghetti bolognaise. I wish I had ordered this as it looked so good! The sweet potato was a nice touch too, nice for a cold Melbourne day.
Gyoza
