Eating Out: Red Pepper

Red Pepper Malaysian and Chinese Restaurant
Shop 15, 167-169 Shaws Road, Werribee
Ph: 03 9974 2622

I've been rather disappointed in the eating-out options in and near Werribee. They have consistently failed to impress (to the point where I can't even be bothered blogging them, as it would depress me far to much to write something that negative!!), with the only real exception to date being Nara Thai in Laverton. May I say - there is another, and it will now become my "local".

I've driven past this group of shops so many times, even called in once or twice to the supermarket, and always thought to myself "yes, I MUST try this place at some point". That point came today on my way home, when I needed some good food to cheer me up.

I didn't feel particularly sociable, so ordered the food to take away (so the pics below are my plating up and presentation... ug...) but I think I will definitely be eating in, in the future.


For my entree I chose one of my favourites - satay beef skewers (which come in a serving of 2). While the beef was a little dry for my taste, it tasted lovely, and the satay sauce that accompanied it was incredibly full of flavour and packed a fantastic wallop of spice. I scarfed these two down in next to no time. Brilliant.


I love a good mongolian beef. This one didn't look much like any mongol beef I've ever had before, but the flavour was right on, the meat was tender, and again it served up a real punch on the chilli - it was brilliant. I really can't say any more than that - I was completely happy with my meal and, as I said before, this will now become my "local". I can't wait to go back and work my way through the fairly extensive menu.

If you're planning to have your meal take away, and you're eating with a friend, I'd recommend choosing one dish you want and sharing it - the amount of rice and beef I was given is more than enough to do me for a couple more meals! For $17.90 I don't think I could get much happier. Bloody tasty food, reasonable price, only 5 minutes from home... bliss :-)

Stay tuned for my adventures in their dining room.

Eating Out: PJs Pasta

727 Burke Road, Camberwell
Ph: 03 9882 1143

I decided before going to PJs on Saturday that I wasn't going to blog it. But after thinking about it, and chatting about it to a friend, I decided I'd write it up. But of course there are no pictures.

PJs is a favourite place of L and J when they're in town, so we met up, a party of five of us, at about 7pm on Saturday night. Water was provided for us all, then we were left to choose our drinks and food.

First up we ordered some bruschetta to share. A rather longish wait later an immaculately arranged plate arrived... with four tiny slices of bread topped with glistening tomato. Um... five people, four pieces... when we asked the waitress she said that that's the way it's presented, but she'd fix that. We said "yes, please". Another longish wait (but not quite so long as the first one) and another immaculately arranged plate arrived... again with only four pieces. We gave up. Aside from that, it was superb bruschetta - fresh tomato, crisp flavours - lovely. We cleaned it all up in no time.

Another long wait followed before our mains arrived, one or two at a time over the course of about 5 minutes. The menu offers a good selection of dishes, but I only saw a couple of vegetarian options. I ordered a chorizo and chicken with pappadelle in a creamy pesto sauce. The only thing stopping this dish being really good was the amount of chorizo - there was simply too much, and it overpowered the rest of the ingredients. I couldn't finish it all, but the boys cleaned it all up when they'd done with their meals.

DW ordered a linguini marina in what looked like a tomato-based sauce that was apparently quite nice, but she couldn't finish the meal. I was at the other end of the table so didn't see much of what it contained. Again, the boys cleaned up the leftovers.

J ordered Atlantic salmon on a bed of mashed potato and various other odds and ends from the specials board... I feel bad, I would have paid more attention to what everyone had, if I'd thought I was going to blog it! In any case, it looked great and apparently tasted the same.

D and L both ordered the veal shank. I wish I could remember what it was served with... I might ask D and update this later. Again, it looked great, and the meat literally fell off the bone. Both were most impressed with their meal.

After asking for the dessert menu twice we finally got a couple of copies, and would you believe, between the five of us we ended up ordering only two different desserts. D and I both ordered the apple, cinnamon and raisin pie. It came out with an artistic swirl of raspberry sauce (oh, sorry, I should say "coulis") on the plate, and a dollop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. I'd been eyeing it off in the dessert case since we'd first walked in. And it was goooooood.

DW, J and L all ordered the New York baked cheesecake with an apricot glaze. J is a self-confessed cheesecake-fanatic, and even she didn't enjoy it. Apparently it tasted and felt more like a ricotta cheesecake, which would have been fine, but there was just something that "wasn't nice". The two ladies left plenty on their plate: only L finished his serving.

A round of coffees had been ordered and came out at the same time as the desserts. The coffee drinkers seemed happy with their brews, however the two of us who ordered hot chocolate with marshmallows weren't quite so happy... firstly, the marshmallows weren't there - but when we pointed out the lack of marshies to our waitress she quickly provided us with a small bowl of them. And, in a rather small cup, about half of it was froth. The remaining drink was lukewarm at best.

Overall it was a night of hits and misses... the bruschetta, the veal and the apple pie were hits. The waitress was also lovely. The number of serves of bruschetta, the amount of chorizo and the cheesecake were misses, as were the long waits. Don't get me wrong - I like to take my time over a meal, but only to a certain point. If the place had been packed I could have understood waiting a little bit longer, but come on - it's Saturday night! Surely you'd have to plan for that to be a little busier.

The total bill for 2 entrees, 5 mains, 5 desserts, 2 soft drinks, 2 bottles of red, 1 glass of white, 3 coffees and 2 hot chocolates came in a fraction under $240, which is pretty good value - more so if it had been a more positive experience. Would I go there again? Hm, probably not. Should you give it a go? Sure - there are plenty of things to try on the menu, and I did hear other diners saying good things about their food.

Solstice Cake 2008 - heads up

Hi All,

I heard about this on the Confessions of a Food Nazi blog.

I'm going to make my mum's christmas cake: it's a mammoth lead-weight of mixed dried fruit steeped overnight in rum, densely packed and held together by a bit of flour (and other stuff! can't give away the family secret... yet... hehe).

I made it for the first time about 18 months ago. This time, due to the size of the original recipe, I'm only going to make a half-size cake for the solstice. And I don't know if I'll get time to ice it before I head to Canberra for a few weeks... but I'll keep you posted!

Disasters and Politics

As is my habit, I was cruising various news websites, when a couple of articles on news.com.au about recent disasters in China and Burma caught my eye (as well as others in The Age).

I started looking through the pictures from the Chinese earthquake, and I'm not hugely embarrassed to admit that I got a little teary, and couldn't go further than the first three or four - that was hard enough.

I have to wonder, what possible, sane reason could these governments have for refusing aid from other countries? China is apparently FINALLY allowing aid in from certain countries, while Burma has apparently decided to close its gates to any foreign assistance. I can only hope that, somehow, this has been mis-reported, because I would hate to imagine a country doing this purely "in a bid to stop the outside world seeing the plight of its cyclone victims".

At least I have the option of saying "enough sad stuff for today, let's read some Dilbert". Kinda makes my worries seem a little trivial, eh?

ROADTRIP!!! The Grampians

I've been meaning to see something of the Grampians for nearly three years now, so on some much-deserved time off last month I spent a couple of days in Halls Gap, doing some light bushwalking and ooh-ing and aah-ing at the mountains and other pretty sights in the area. Below are some of my favourite pictures to share with you.


First stop was the Boroka Lookout, just off Mt Victory Road west of Halls Gap, with some stunning views down to the town and out across park bushland. Thankfully I wasn't driving so I could take in the full majesty of the sights on the way there. It's such a shame that the road out is narrow and winding, with no place to safely pull over and grab a few snaps, as it truly was awesome.



From there we continued out to MacKenzie Falls. There are many, many beautiful pictures of the falls to be found online (see Mike Leonard's and Roz McQuillan's as examples), and I'm not sure my meagre offerings can compete, but I think they look nice. So if someone with my mediocre photography skills can capture even a small amount of the beauty in these pictures, imagine what the reality is like. Of course we were there during the dryer season, hence the lack of gushing water. I've already decided to head back in the spring to see it in full flood. You need good knees to get to the bottom, but more so to get back up to the top! The way down is via steep, narrow flights of stairs seemingly carved out of the rock face, and paved with more rock. I'm certainly glad I wasn't the one who had to do THAT little job. An interesting piece of information about the Falls - they are slowly moving further upstream. Yep, that's right. An information plaque states "With every thunderous plunge of water, the soft layer below (the hard rock) is worn away. Eventually the face of the waterfall becomes destabilised and crashes down. This repeated action is slowly moving MacKenzie Falls upstream."


On the way back to the carpark is a path to the Split Falls lookout. Visually less spectacular, I think they were still worth the minimal effort required to see them.


Last stop for the day was The Balconies lookouts. We didn't spend much time there, as it was getting late in the day, but the lookouts located at the carpark still afforded some lovely views.

The end of a somewhat busy Day 1 saw us settling into our accommodation for the weekend. Wotif offers great deals for Heatherlie Cottages, which is a good thing as I would never have paid the full asking price, nice though the place was. I think that, when I go back, I'll stay at the YHA Eco Hostel - it looks good, has received some great reviews, and is a much nicer price as well! You can also hire push bikes in Halls Gap to help you get around town, which I'll certainly look at next time too.


A quick trip to Stawell for morning tea and Horsham for a late lunch filled the earlier part of Day 2, with the Fig Tree Deli Caffe (59 Firebrand St, Horsham, P: 03 5381 1823) providing some great lasagne, and an amazing pumpkin with spinach and fetta filo pastry slice. Then, lured by the picture on a wall in the cottage, the Beehive Falls beckoned.

By far the longest walk of the weekend, but still quite pleasant with an easy gradient and fairly well maintained path, at least as far as the falls - from there I believe it gets a bit harder, but we didn't explore that far. Again, there isn't much water dribbling down the rocks at this time of year, so this is another place I'm hoping to see again in spring. But I hope you agree it still looks very pretty. I was amazed at how clear the water at the bottom was.

Heading home on Day 3, a quick stop at the Ararat Visitor Information Centre prompted a visit to J Ward, the one-time home for the criminally insane, then a ward for Ararat Lunatic Asylum. I recommend the guided tour - especially if you've been to the Information Centre beforehand and received a coupon for discounted entry. Guided tours are given regularly. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the history of the place, with quite a few stories about past inhabitants.

When I go back to the Grampians I'll definitely take a further look at the Balconies, as well as the Beehive and MacKenzie Falls. I've been told to check out Mt Stapylton as well. There's still plenty more to see, so plenty more trips to plan.