A Thai café serving pies, toast and jaffles with fillings and toppings ranging from massaman curry chicken and Thai tea kaya to chilli paste and pork floss, Udom House catapulted to the top of my list after I spied someone in my Instagram stories having chicken liver and sticky rice (!!!) there.
Gray and Gray is a restaurant established in 2021 by three-Michelin-star pastry chef Boris Portnoy and winemaker Mitch Sokolin in a space that was formerly a solicitor’s office.
Each dish at Big Esso contains three to five native ingredients – they’re not an afterthought or an adjunct, they are the dish.
Warmly lit but bright enough that you can read your menu, filled with a pleasant din instead of the raucous cacophony of noisy diners, Bincho Boss strikes the perfect balance for a dinner out.
I loved my visit to Karlaylisi and would order a spicy noodle next time, watch out for any tomatoey repetitions – tomatoes are a central ingredient in many Uyghur sauces – and order the manti or gosh nan to sample Uyghurs’ unique take on dumplings and pastries.
Terry’s Kitchen is a no-frills Malaysian restaurant situated within a church complex in Wantirna South in a cafeteria-style setting. We’ve been twice, and each time has made it into my top 10 Malaysian food experiences in Melbourne.
I loved our time at Sleepy’s so much – the food menu was small but lovingly curated to showcase an interesting take on familiar east Asian ingredients, the drinks were bomb, our waiter was the best and the cosy interiors were perfect to spend a drizzly Wednesday night in.
Parcs is a zero-waste restaurant from the same team behind Aru and Sunda with a menu designed by Furrmien’s Dennis Yong.
Unlike Warung Agus and Makan which specialise in Balinese food, Kenangan serves up dishes from across Indonesia.
My parents and I have a newfound weekly routine where we visit a different Malaysian restaurant every week. For our first place, I suggested we visit CC Wok after reading Jess Ho’s glowing review. It opened in November 2021, shortly after the last of our many, many lockdowns drew to an end.
Whatever Floats Your Bloat 