Happy Birthday, Edwin! (The Point)

Before I begin, I would like to apologise to Edwin for the long overdue post.

The Point.

Mmmmm... fresh meat.

The Point is one of the more famous fancy steakhouses in Melbourne. A standalone building situated in the tranquil Albert Park, the restaurant is not only renowned for excellent steak but also a picturesque view of the famous lake. It was also where we celebrated Edwin's birthday this year.

Mimi, Edwin, Keith and me.

Since it is a steakhouse, most of us ordered steaks except for Kaili who ordered lamb. As such, this review is going to be extremely short as compared to those where I review more than five dishes.

Avoiding the exorbitantly priced Wagyu in the menu, I quickly skipped to the grain fed section. This time, I ordered the 250g grain fed eye fillet.

Eye fillet.

My first impression of the steak was better than that of most other steaks. The crust was nicely lined with char marks, not completely burnt and dried, the bone with the marrow was placed neatly on a pile of what seemed to be coleslaw, and the surface of the plate was immaculate. It looked highly professional.

However, looks are more often than not deceiving.

Definitely not medium rare.

Cutting the steak open with the knife took more effort than usual. The resistance that the meat put up was not typical of medium rare steaks. As I pried open the cut, I was rather appalled. The meat was almost completely browned. It was more cooked than a medium well steak.

I called the waiter to the table and told him I ordered a medium rare. He looked at it and said, "that is definitely not medium rare," and left with the plate.

For the next ten minutes, I had to watch everyone else enjoy their meal while I had an empty spot in front of me on the table. Fortunately Kaili fed me some of her lamb.

Murraylands grain fed spring lamb, charred baby leeks and vincotto dressing.

The lamb dish was absolutely beautiful. 

The lamb cutlets were served pink and the other cuts were cooked to perfection. It is rather rare (pun intended) that lamb is served this pink but that was the reason why Kaili and I loved the cutlets so much. The meat was succulent and moist from being drenched in a generous serve of the dressing. Upon an effortless bite, the meat is easily compressed and the dressing and juices flow from within onto the tongue. The pairing of pink spring lamb with the thick, intense sauce was just perfect.

The thin cut of meat and fat was a new experience for me and Kaili. We have never seen that cut of lamb before. The meat, being so close to the fat, was soft and supple. It goes without saying that the fat itself is capable of melt-in-your-mouth action. The hair-thin layer of skin had a jelly-like texture and completely absorbed the flavours of the dressing. The savoury dressing accompanies this cut well, rendering the fat less nauseating than it would have been without the sauce.

Another part of the lamb served was the lamb shank. Slow-cooked to perfection, the meat just disintegrates in the mouth. Fully infused with the vincotto dressing, the meat was packed with strong flavours. My only problem with the lamb shank is that there was not enough of it.

The part that is kept hidden from view in the photo was what seemed to me like lamb kidneys. To me it was perfectly cooked, and there is not much more to it as kidneys just taste like kidneys. Kaili, on the other hand, is not a fan of entrails, and left almost all of them to me.

Eye fillet take two.

After ten minutes, the waitress who took my order came back with a plate of steak. She apologised for the blunder with the first steak and told me the chef gave complimentary cuts of their best meat, the Blackmore Wagyu.

Something like medium rare.

This time, the chef got the steak almost to the right rarity. Still, it was a bit dry from the crust to about half an inch into the steak.

There was really nothing spectacular about the steak. It was just a typical eye fillet one can get from any of the more famous steakhouses in Melbourne. The steak was tender and juicy in the middle and was adequately seasoned. It was good enough to eat on its own as the beef was naturally flavourful.

All the beef dishes are accompanied by peppered fig chutney, black garlic butter and house mustard. My favourite among those would be the peppered fig chutney. Sweet and spicy with a texture similar to sundried tomatoes soaked in oil, it embellished the savoury beef well by giving it a sweet and tangy flavour. The black garlic butter tasted like regular garlic bread butter and was nothing to shout about. The house mustard, on the other hand, was something to shout about, not in a good way. It tasted exactly like wasabi and totally robbed the beef of its natural flavours.

I have also sampled a few of the sauces. The red wine sauce which I ordered was rather subtle as to not mask the beef's flavour. It had a toned down sweetness which made it pale in comparison to the peppered fig chutney. The bearnaise sauce was too dilute for me, which made me question the point of having the beef with the sauce since it hardly did anything to the flavour. The piece de resistance would have to be the mushroom sauce. Thick and dark with an ostentatious display of complex flavours from different mushrooms, most prominent of which shitake, the sauce is probably one of the best mushroom sauces that has graced my tongue.

The bone marrow was nothing special. I suppose it is eaten more for texture than taste. It was quite rare and was still pink. It was akin to eating jelly, just a lot bloodier.

Last but not least, the Blackmore Wagyu slices. They were so precious that I was only given four pieces by the chef, one of which I gave Edwin as a birthday present, another I fed Kaili with. I would have to say that the Wagyu slices made me a little exasperated and consolidated my disappointment in the restaurant. They were by far over-seasoned. It made me wonder whether the meat was aged by salting. It was a blatant insult to Blackmore Wagyu. Texture-wise the beef was perfect. Thoroughly marbled, tender, succulent, but just too damned salty. That, to me was the deal breaker.

Perhaps it would not be fair to judge after eating once at a restaurant, but more often than not, a restaurant has only one chance to impress. Being a renowned steakhouse, The Point has managed to kill off whatever expectation I had for it prior to dining there by serving salted Wagyu. Will I return to The Point? Probably not when I have places like Bob's.

Aquatic Dr,

Albert Park Lake,

Melbourne 3206,

VIC.

0396825566

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Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Jeremy is another sad person whose birthday fell on an exam day this year. Fortunately, some of his friends have already finished their exams and some of them, like me, do not really care about the remaining papers. As such, he still had people willing to celebrate with him.

At first we wanted to have his dinner at Ishiya Stonegrill, but upon arrival we found that it was closed for renovation. Bad luck.

Full house.

Then the venue was changed to Pizzeria 39. However, we did not make reservations so we had to wait more than half an hour while we were all well into starvation. Bad luck again.

We walked around the nearby Hardware Lane and a waiter of a seafood grill restaurant offered us complimentary drinks and entree and being the cheapskates we are, we took the bait hook, line and sinker (pun intended).

Leather covered menu.

The waiter offered us bruschetta and garlic bread for entree and everyone of us ordered alcohol. These were all on the house.

Bruschetta and garlic bread with sour cream and olive spread.

The garlic bread is really awesome, like really, really awesome. It is not your conventional garlic bread, it resembles a naan bread, or pizza, just a lot crispier on the crust. 

The bruschetta was decent. Nothing much to say about that.

Cheers.

We were enjoying the drinks because they were complimentary.

The birthday boy, I mean man.

Keith falling asleep.

The food took longer than what you would expect in a steakhouse. Some of us were already falling asleep.

400g aged rib-eye with port wine jus. 

Medium rare.

This is nothing like medium rare.

Serious food review time. The steak was horrible. There is no other way to describe it. I would not even call it decent.

 I ordered a medium rare steak and I had trouble slicing through the steak although the knife was pretty sharp. I doubted it was medium rare even before I saw the colour. When the knife went all the way through, it proved that my guess was correct. Getting your steak rarity wrong is not acceptable when you charge such prices.

The taste was even more appalling than its looks. The crust was so salty I could not even taste the flavour of the beef, if the beef had any flavour to begin with. The texture of the meat gave me the impression that the beef is not really fresh. A decent rib-eye does not taste, look and feel like this.

The port wine jus is as big a disappointment as the steak. The wine is not reduced enough, resulting in a thin sauce which did not taste good at all.

Jojo face-palming due to the quality of the food.

Not exactly cheap, not at all value for money.

After dinner, we walked around the area in search of a place for desserts. Jojo and Jinny suggested Giraffe cafe, and there we went.

The cafe provides card games, board games and other junk to kill time with. We were playing Jenga and the pressure was on. Whoever toppled the tower would have to pay for Jeremy's dessert.

Studying the structural integrity.

Looking from a distance.

Jinny's turn.

Moments before falling.

Jinny's fault.

We were busy playing while the desserts were being served one by one. None of us dared to touch our food before the tower toppled. Luckily, Jinny was quick to put us out of our misery.

Crème brûlée.

The crème brûlée is bad. It was not thoroughly cooked and about halfway down the cup it was liquid. That being said, expectations were not high in the first place as the shop is run by Chinese people and crème brûlée is not quite a Chinese thing.

Still enjoying ourselves despite the horrible dessert.

Jeremy wanking at the table, and looking happy.

Although luck was not even remotely on our side that day, we still had fun and a lot to talk about. Sometimes, good company really does beat good food.

Before I end, I would like to wish Jeremy "happy birthday" again. 

It's My Birthday! (Bob's Steak and Chop)

It is the time of the year again. The day that marks the passing of another year in life. However, the notion of birthdays is starting to make me feel a bit blasé. After twenty of those good days, the significance seems to wane with every passing year. I woke up feeling the same as I did yesterday or the day before.

At least the attention is makes it more special than the rest.

Birthdays are never really celebrated until dinner time. This time round, I opted for a good old piece of steak to satisfy the carnivore in me. Unfortunately, most of the famous steakhouses were fully booked by the time Cherry called for reservations, after she ignored my instructions two days earlier to call then. That blunder aside, she was so sweet as to not have me call the steakhouses myself.

After eliminating about half a dozen steakhouses in her list, Cherry found one that had tables available. Bob's Steak and Chop.

Nine of us met up at the Swanston/Bourke tram stops and took a tram to Southern Cross station, but not before getting some photos.

The women in my life.

A miracle shot of Chris. My set up rarely gets such sharp photos.

Upon arrival at Southern Cross, we had to make our way halfway across the bridge to Etihad stadium and took a long flight of stairs down to the streets below.

Crossing the Southern Cross.

We were a bit lost but after walking a block, we found it, Bob's Steak and Chop.

We walked in and Edwin was already seated at our table, awaiting the glorious arrival of the birthday boy and his entourage.

Good bread.

Before we ordered, the waiters and waitresses served up a generous portion of bread. Having starved myself the whole day, the bread they served tasted so good. The looks of the bread itself is enough to win me over as I am a sucker for sizeable, spherical and soft things. The butter that accompanies the bread is even better, so much so that everyone at the table exalted its smoothness and the richness.

Then, after enjoying the bread, we ordered and started chatting one another up in anticipation for the steaks, as well as getting more photos.

Mimi, Cherry and Henry.

Mimi and Anthony. Somehow Mimi looks great in this photo.

This one takes it all back.

Then came the steaks.

Rib-eye steak (Scotch fillet).

That is not mine.

Filet mignon (Eye fillet).

This is mine. A bold chunk of 110 day grain fed Black Angus that weighs in at 350g. Filet mignons do not come by everyday for me and I enjoyed every last bit of it.

Blood is beautiful.

A wonderful medium rare steak.

Sinking the steak knife into the beautiful chunk of beef felt a bit like ruining a perfect marble sculpture; but when the knife goes all the way through and the blood flows onto the plate, and the reddish pink flesh is revealed, I imagine that is what discovering a diamond in a lump of coal feels like.

However, there is a better feeling - putting that piece of meat on your tongue. I may not be a connoisseur of steaks but as far as I can tell, this is a bloody good steak, literally. The salt and black pepper does not penetrate more than the crust of the meat, thus the meat still retains its juices and that I mean blood. The meat is just tender and does not fight back and turn a dinner into a wrestling match like cheap steaks do. The seasoning is also very mild. Instead of being bombarded by the overwhelming taste of salt and pepper, one can really savour the beefy goodness in this filet mignon. If those features still do not warrant the filet mignon being called an excellent dish, the shallot and red wine sauce definitely makes up in justifying its quality. I shall not elaborate on that, giving it a try is the best way to find out.

The baked potato on the side I was not too happy about. Although the sour cream, chives and bacon filling was good, the potato itself was too damn big. Unless you are a person who runs on that much carbohydrates you would probably find this boring after the first few mouthfuls.

The smashed, not mashed, potatoes is very smooth and buttery. I would pick that over the huge baked potato any time.

The steak fries, to me at least, were great. The crust of the fries is just so crispy while the insides were still soft, just how I like them to be.

But the best of all the sides would be the skillet potatoes, topped with sauteed onions and peppercorn gravy. Probably the most seasoned out of all the potato dishes, it feels more robust in flavour due to the gravy and the sweetness of the onions.

The restaurant definitely gets a thumbs up from me, any day. Nonetheless, the night was still young and we had to cleanse our palettes are kill whatever bacteria from the steak with alcohol. Hence, we made our way back to Melbourne Central station, but again, not before getting some photos.

Suited up.

Can't think of appropriate caption under the influence of alcohol.

We went to this Asian bar called Cho-Gao. It is Asian because of the decor mostly, but more than anything else, it serves cheap booze. The next few hours of the night were just spent drinking and making merry. Some people got high and tipsy, you know who you are, or maybe you were already drunk; while others looked on, puzzled at how some people have such low alcohol tolerance levels. There was also another photography session.

I believe this is camwhoring at it's best.

Display of affection under influence of alcohol makes good black and white photos.

Chris, Keith, Kaili and Jinny.

Beer drinkers.

Sleepy heads.

Before I end this post and hit the sack. I would like to thank everyone who made this day so special. Thank you, Cherry, for calling for reservations and the lovely card you made me. Thank you, Jinny, for the present you never fail to give me every year, despite me not reciprocating. I promise to make it up to you next year. Thank you, Edwin, for being there early for the table and waiting for us. Thank all of you, Keith, Henry, Mimi, Anthony, Chris, Kaili for attending the dinner and paying my share.

I shall leave my thoughts about my second decade in this world for another day.

Bob's Steak and Chop

737 Bourke Street, 

Docklands, VIC 3008, 

Australia.

+61 3 9642 3350

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