January 29, 2010

Sung's Kitchen

Sung's Kitchen
118 Frankling Street, Melbourne

Recently, I had the pleasure of dining with a few special guests, it was my first food bloggers dinner. Conor from Hold the Beef had come over from Perth to watch some Australia Open action and decided to get together with some Melbourne bloggers for some action of the non-sporting kind.....eating. There was April from My food Trail, Michele from Iron Chef Shellie, Penny from Addictive and Consuming and Agnes from Off the Spork. Penny had suggested Sungs Kitchen and what a great recommendation it was.

meals on offer


It was so pleasant to be in the company of fellow food bloggers. I suspected I wasn't the only one who took photographs of menus and was extremely glad to see that I wasn't the only one who suffers from short term memory loss. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the menu at Sung's and have no idea what each dish is except for what I suspect it is made from. I'll try to do my best to include as much detail of the dish as possible, but it might be an idea to keep an eye on some of the other blogs for more precise information.

crab


We started with the crab. Some big old mud crab with a nice eggy noodle below. Nothing better than meeting people for the first time and flicking them in the eye with some crab shell. Luckily, it managed to keep my crab shells to myself. The crab was good, a great sign is when there is very little talking going on, and once everyone dug into their dish there was silence.

crab with noodles


We had all ordered a dish each. There was a tea smoked duck. The duck was nice and moist and the sauce was pretty delicious too.

tea smoked duck


I'm not exactly sure what type of prawn hot pot/clay pot this was, but there was a fair bit of chilli in it, just the way I like it. It packed a neat punch, just enough to get your saliva going and keep you appetite ticking over.

chilli and prawn hot pot


The description of the Hunan Pork spare ribs was pretty interesting, and Daz and I just had to order it. "if you like salt and spicy, than this dish is a must try". The pork was crispy and crunchy, the veggies were a nice accompaniment. There was massive piece of chilli flaked through the entire dish. Poor Daz must have grab the only extremely hot piece and attempt to eat it. That didn't stop him though, he was back for more straight away.

Hunan spare pork ribs


There were also some chicken wings, and a nice plate of veggies. I have no other explanation other than they were pretty good.

chiicken wings


mushrooms and vegetables


After the main course everyone was neither hungry nor full, so we tempted the true expansion of our stomachs and ordered dessert. The dessert menu was a bit of a mystery. There were desserts that had pumpkin, egg white, banana fritters that came complete with corn flakes - when a dessert becomes a breakfast item, and even Peking soffle balls. No, I didn't spell that incorrectly. We all assumed that the soffle balls were a nice play on the traditional souffle. So we had to try it. When they arrived at the table we were all a little surprised. April even said that they shouldn't be called soffle balls, but instead soft balls!! They were truly big enough!

peking soffle bals


soffle balls


They were filled with red bean paste and banana. The skins were nice and crispy with the insides fluffy. They tasted a little eggy and doughy to me, I probably wouldn't order them again, but it was a great novelty.

inside of soffle balls


Here are a selection of other desserts that were tried.

banana fritters

almond somethings


red bean and ice cream


Sung's kitchen was a great place to finally meet some of my fellow bloggers, and now I can finally say I know what a soffle ball is!!

9 comments:

Conor @ HoldtheBeef said...

I was taking a nice big sip of tea when I read "nothing better than meeting people for the first time and flicking them in the eye with some crab shell" and I literally sprayed tea all over my desk. Disgusting yet nicely fitting.

Ahhh, soffle balls, you just can't find them in Perth, we're so backward over here!

SO GOOD to meet you :D Come visit! I'll flick a prawn shell in your hair!

Agnes said...

Hah, I didn't note down what we were ordering either, so there'll be no precise information coming from me!

The prawn hot pot was soooooooo good. Probably my fave dish, after the crab.

penny aka jeroxie said...

I believe that April have taken photos of the menu. I have to check my camera. Have yet to post something soonish... heh

Great to catch up with everyone. We need to do another round table soon. Or even a BBQ!

Sheryl said...

Ooh I ate at Sung's Kitchen about a month ago cos the bf wanted to eat this traditional HK egg white dish which is quite rare to get in Melb. It was only the two of us so we didn't get to order much on the menu to share but what we did order all tasted so good and flavourful! I wish I had enough room for dessert because I would've love to try those soffle balls. I am so going back!

Ohh have you been to Jim's Greek Tavern on Johnston St yet Maria? I'm heading there for my bday dinner this Friday and can't wait!

Arwen from Hoglet K said...

Looks like a good range of dishes, and the soffle balls are a laugh. The pumpkin dessert sounds interesting too.

f0nxer said...

Hi, I was just wondering, what was the dish in your very last picture? It looks like mochi? I love your pictures!

Iron Chef Shellie said...

Great photos!

It was great to finally meet you. You were just as delightful as I thought you'd be. =)

It's true, nothing better than bonding over messy crab!
x

Rilsta said...

It was awesome finally meeting you... like I said, "You were my first"! LOL! :P

I've got photos of the menu, will have to write down the dishes we had and then email them to you (and others). I will eventually get around to making my post!

Fiona said...

needs more colours!