Box Hill is a suburb located 14KM away from Melbourne's CBD. It is a predominantly Chinese area, mostly from China and a scattering of other Asian nationalities such as Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Koreans, etc.
We don't eat out very often, as a meal for two can easily cost AUD$35 on average. We have tried a few eateries so far and we will keep on trying. We more or less have our two favourite restaurants, the ones you'd fall back on if you can't think of a fancy new place to try.
Disclaimer: Opinions and views expressed here are purely based only on the dishes we tried and does not in any way reflect the general menu of the eateries. :)
Tien Dat at 3, Carrington Road serves fine Vietnamese cuisine and is a popular favourite among the locals. There never fails to be a queue outside their door during peak hours.
It was 12 hours after I had landed in Melbourne. YB had been here before and he thought I could try it out too.
YB ordered the Crispy Chicken Maryland with Tomato Rice (AUD$10.80) and the first thing that came to my mind was, "Is that really tomato rice?"
I ordered the Traditional Beef Rice Noodle (AUD$10.00).
We must have not been very clever in choosing our dishes, or maybe our dishes did not fall under the category of 'fine cuisine'. We found that our food was a bit too salty and laden with MSG, and you could especially taste it on the chicken's crispy skin.
The Booth at 612 Station Street serves Taiwanese gourmet and is also popular with the locals.
You can never go wrong in choosing a place which is at least half packed. It means that the food is good, no? :)
We ordered the beef noodles (AUD$8.80) and a red and green milk tea each for the both of us. AUD$3.50 - $4.00 each, I think. I don't remember. The red one nice. The green one was a bit odd as I think milk probably doesn't go too well with green tea.
I can't remember the name of this dish but seeing sausages on the menu got me excited, thinking it would be the Taiwanese sausage. Alas, I was disappointed as it did not have that same sweet-ish taste.
David and Camy Noodle Restaurant at 605, Station Street (across from The Booth) serves Chinese food, and er, dumplings. :P It's packed during peak hours so we were there at 6pm for dinner. The place already had diners tucking in their dinner!
Shanghai noodles (less than AUD$10!) was served within 10 minutes of us placing our orders. It was a favourite dish which we saw many diners ordered as well.
We also ordered the spicy eggplant noodles (or something like that) for a change. The hint of vinegar was a bit strong, and with a sweet-ish taste to it. Chuck in some chilli oil and you're good.
Chicken and prawn dumplings (AUD$10.00 for 10 pieces).
Do you know that eating just dumplings alone can be considered a meal? You'll see plenty of locals doing that, and sharing a plate of noodles. I won't mind, really, as I'll take dumplings as my protein diet, haha!
You can opt for either steamed or fried dumplings. They won't be your usual deep fried dumplings, but more of a pan fried version. :)
Oh and plain pork or chicken dumplings are AUD$10.00 for 15 pieces, if I'm not wrong.
Roast Duck Inn at 29-31 Carrington Road serves Cantonese and Asian cuisine. It is a very very popular place which serves the best roast duck within the suburbs. The wait for a table during peak dinner hours can be as long as 30 minutes.
Roast pork and crispy pork rice (AUD$11.90?). Crispy pork is a favourite of mine, I would choose it instead of roast pork, any time - unless the roast pork looks more favourable than the crispy pork.
Soy chicken and sausage rice (AUD$11.90?) because I wanted sausages!
Chicken was not great, but there wasn't any more roast duck left at 8pm on a weekend night.
We ordered deep fried calamari (AUD$6.00 for 6 pieces) and it was nice. We may have overeaten.
We had to move to a smaller table so a bigger party could take our table for 4. As an apology, they served us a few extra pieces of sausages for free.
I wanted to take that home because I think I have found my Taiwanese sausage. It is awesome!! Some friends think so, too.
Diners are served a free bowl of soup while you wait for your food. That night, we were served a savoury barley soup which I will try to make ... one fine day.
Verdict: A place to dine if you're craving for Cantonese food. I'd bring my parents. :)
Wong's Lucky Bar at 921 Whitehorse Road serves all sorts of Chinese food. One of its popular dishes is the Hainanese Chicken Rice.
YB ordered Beef Brisket Noodles after our You Yang's 50KM run while I ordered their Signature Fried Chicken Rice.
The beef brisket is good with rice too.
Since I was introduced to its Signature Fried Chicken Rice during my visit to Melbourne last year, I have stuck to ordering this dish whenever we dine there. Which is like, twice so far.
The rice, however, is clunky and always look like yesterday's leftover rice. Very dry in your throat if it's not drowned with gravy.
Pizza Heart at 533 Middlesborough Road is a 5 minute drive away from Box Hill Centro. Reviews rated it good, a high 89% on Urbanspoon. Alternatively there's a Domino's at 1031 Whitehorse Road.
The Roast Lamb (AUD$16.50 for large size) is one of its popular pizzas. Sadly, the lamb on ours was overcooked so it was rather chewy. (It tasted like yesterday's leftovers.)
The Supreme (AUD$10.50 for small) which consisted of ham, salami, mushroom, prawns, capsicum, olives, pineapple, mozarrella and onion was not too bad.
Holy cow!
This food post makes it look like we eat out a lot, but it's mainly on the weekends. Honest. :)
Can you guess which ones are our favourite eats?
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