I Eated It: Gold Leaf Chinese Restaurant.

Cast your peepers over the below photos, all taken within the Sunshine branch of Gold Leaf Chinese Restaurant. 

I am not as well versed on the smaller and more hidden yum cha venues on the West of Melbourne (if you happen to read this and know of any, tell me in the comments!), but this is by far some of the best yum cha I've actually had in Melbourne. I've been a few times, each time it was a Sunday, at around 11.30am. Always go early and book in advance, as when it hits the lunch time peak, it really fills up and you'll have to sit in a crowded waiting area for a table. It's a large venue, owned and operated by a group of yum cha chefs from Hong Kong. There are plenty of varieties of dim sum and assorted cooked items to choose from the loaded carts that are regularly pushed around the  dining room floor. Stand outs for me were the fresh Siu Mai, and the brilliant Tofu Fa dessert. Overall it's a tasty and not too expensive experience. If you live on the west side of Melbourne, and desire weekend yum cha, you'll be hard pressed to find better than this.

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I Eated It: Little Nyonya.

Located on the very lower end of Bourke Street, technically in the Docklands district of Melbourne, and facing the waterfront, is the quaint Little Nyonya. Serving up some traditional and not so traditional Malaysian fare in well designed surrounds, I wasn't even aware that this place existed until the lovely wife directed me here after I picked her up from work one afternoon and when I told her that I'd cook dinner her face took a turn for the shocked, and thusly, this is where we ended up. 

First off, we both partook in a large glass of Cham. Cham is technically half coffee and half tea, and the combination here was quite even, and not too sweet. It must have had a kick of caffeine, as it took me a while to get to sleep that night!

Here we have a generous portion of Tok Tok Mee, a curry based soup noodle with pork and prawns. Not too strong, but with a heavier hint of coconut. Don't get this confused with a Laksa, it's quite a different base flavour. Still, the wife enjoyed it, although she said the saltiness was a bit much, she became incredibly thirsty at night.

What I decided to eat, was your stock standard Hokkien Mee. What made this dish stand out was the fact the chef was quite generous with the small pork crackling bits that seem to be very common in Malaysia, but  hardly make an appearance at all here in Melbourne. All up, it was a good dish, but still, as the problem is with every Malaysian restaurant here in Melbourne, they just can't seem to get the flavours correct. It's not that authentic. In the end, it's all about what ingredients are available here, and they aren't the same as what is commonly used at Malaysian hawker stops. 

'Little Nyonya' is honestly quite a nice Malaysian eatery. It's interior design is especially catching, bringing back some of that Melaka style. Supposedly the lunch time menu differs from dinner, so I'd have to give that a gander next time we're in the area. I'll have to give it a couple more goes to really give a definitive answer to whether this is a stand out Malaysian restaurant or not.

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