Hallah Korean Food

This was our 6th night in Melbourne & we have not stopped eating. Looking at my tummy, I was already beginning to understand how a six month's pregnancy felt like.

Roger brought us to this wonderful Korean restaurant with a wierd sounding name. I thought it was Halal the first time I saw it.

But wait a minute. Then I thought it was Wallah.

But when I took a good look at it, I realised that it was actually Hallah.

And all that confusion made me really hungry. I was ready to order but the shelf display distracted me.Now, it's normal to see Korean restaurants having Korean displays that are somehow cultural but as much as I was cracking my head, I couldn't guess what these Korean dudes were so happy about.

Oh, by the way, to pick a good Korean restaurant, you'd have to choose one that is a winner...

... even though it's in volleyball.

The place had a very contemporary feel to it. It didn't really look like the typical Korean restaurant but the next table was full of Korean dudes, so that created the right atmosphere.

If a Korean restaurant is full of white Australians, you'd have doubts. But if a Korean restaurant is full of Koreans, then you'd know it's really good.

NEE: Here's what we ordered:

Clear beef soup~ really simple but really tasty.

Pickled Daikon as side dish

One of our side dish ~ We seriously don't know what this is even after asking the really pretty waitress who speaks Korean English, or was it English Korean?

Any one of you know what this is? It's almost like daikon noodles because it is crispy crunchy with a nice juicy flavour.

Then we ordered a whole series of meat dishes, of which we forgot what they were.

Some kind of grilled pork.

Some kind of grilled duck.

Some kind of side dish.

Korean Fried Chicken ~ originally not in our plan but we ordered it when we saw it at the next table. Order what the Koreans order & you won't go wrong.

We ordered half a chicken and we really wondered how we could have packed this in after all the meat dishes and Koko Black was still somewhere in our guts. But Greg's 6-month tummy seemed to have enough room.

GREG: I was going to say that Nee was probably doing a kimchi impression but that joke is not so fresh anymore. NEE: Yeah prob still a little high on Koko Black. So please ignore this disturbing photo.

GREG: I just had to take a picture of this. This is not something that you'd come across everyday.

We've all heard of The Best/Top Employee of the Month but LUCKY Employee??!!

Chocolate High at Koko Black

One of the things that we didn't try out on our trip to Melbourne 2 years ago was Koko Black, a specialty chocolate shop/cafe. So, this time around, we made sure that it was on our hit list.

Koko Black turned out, as we found out, to be one of Melbourne's very own local brand, which originates from Melbourne. So that got us even more excited cos this meant that it was hardly available outside of Australia. And anyway, who in the world can resist chocolate? But a word of advice, don't go near dinner time or else there will be no room for anything after that.

Being Melbourne Chocolatiers, KB has lived up to its reputation of fine chocolating. This shop at Lygon is tastefully decorated with tables inside and outside. When we walked in, our five senses were totally bombarded with Chocolates, more Chocolates and more-than-more Chocolates everywhere in the shop. I mean just by being in there could make you diabetic.

Greg's unnecessary caption: A chocolate Christmas "
bear suffocating in plastic wrap, probably diabetic as well.

The shop front has hand made chocolate at AUD 1.65/piece (about RM4) or AUD12/100gm (RM28) for about 7-8 pieces. You can choose to buy in boxes of 6 or other combinations. The varieties available are just irresistible. They've got dark choc, milk with nuts, pralines, ganaches, fruits, liquors, & truffles of the third kind.

The shop has an interesting window display of what happens in the kitchen where you can see the chef in action.

Greg's unnecessary caption: This would be useful in Malaysian restaurants.
You can actually see whether the waiters spit into your drinks or not.

We went for the Belgian Spoil which comes with two hot chocolate drinks, which we changed to iced chocolates for AUD75 cents more each. This was what it looked like.

At that point, we were assessing our trip so far & were asking ourselves what was the thing that we had that made us go mmmm. Well, this iced chocolate drink was it.

The choc ice cream was also excellent.

So was the cup of silky choc mousse.

And so was the little choc muffin.

And also the shortbread and two handmade chocolate of the day.

This is Greg still looking ok, just after gulping down the chocolates, before the zits started popping up like volcanoes.

He just got back from work at Hawthorn/Prahran & he was ready for some action, & he got it. There were lots of seismic volcanic action on his face the next day.

Mission accomplished. The hit list hitted. The next hit target for our next trip in April will be the Max Briner choc shop NYAHAHAHAHAHA.

LV, Sofitel Toilet and Martini Bar

I don't know what it is with women & handbags. Wherever Nee goes, she'd always be on the lookout for an LV store. Then she'd get me to take pictures of her in front of the store. It's sort of like one of those 'Been there, done that' kinda thing.

Nee & LV in Hong Kong

LV at Champs Elysees, Paris (We haven't blogged about this yet!)

And now, LV in Melbourne.

I hope this handbag-frenzy thing will not turn into something more dangerous like stamp collecting for nerds. Ok, maybe forget what I just said. This blog post is beginning to sound wierd.

Wait a minute. It's going to get even wierder, cos the next place that we dropped by (after Longrain) was the 10 or 20-star Sofitel hotel.

NEE: Unfortunately, we were too early and their restaurant which had an excellent view of Melbourne was still doing dinner so they refused to serve drinks only. (HINT TO GREG): Maybe we'll do dinner there next time and wait for sunset & night fall. I would think it would be quite romantic.

GREG: Drinks aside, we were actually looking for something else which would not be the usual hotel's main attraction, but I guess in this particular case, it can be. This is the ultimate dream toilet for all flashers.

When you're in a male toilet like this, you'd better keep your mouth shut & don't say things like 'I like the view here!'


NEE: We ended in the Martini Bar at Eastin Hotel along Swanston St, at the Corner of Little Collin St.

It has a nice fire place and a long stretch of library. So you can have a drink of Martini, grab a book and have a quite evening with a partner or just sit around for a chit chat.

The ambience was really relaxing and soothing after a heavy meal.

As Roger's sister, we have not been living together under the same roof since 2000 after my graduation. We see each other on average once a year for one month or so when he comes home or when we visited.

So it was good to see that he knows how to enjoy himself. Talking about enjoying, the fellow knows where to go. And it was good cos we could just hang out over good food and good company.