The Nobbies - Phillip Island
As mentioned in an earlier post, my mum and dad were over for a visit recently. Mum did manage to find the three surfaces that I had neglected to clean, but since she cleaned up as she complained, that was a-okay! Along with cleaning my poor neglected house, mum and dad also did our laundry... and the vacuuming... and took us out for meals... so I was sad when they left!
The Nobbies - Phillip Island
They entertained themselves most of the time, but we did a couple of touristy things with them. One of those things was driving down to Phillip Island to see the Penguin Parade. We got there quite early, and sat on the cold, hard, wet steps for an hour in the intermittent drizzle. Fortunately it didn't rain too heavily, and because the sky was quite overcast the penguins came clambering out of the water on schedule. They were gorgeous little things, and it was very amusing watching them waddling up the beach.
And, of course, we ate. One evening we all headed down to Chinatown and ended up having a very uninspiring Chinese meal. The food was boring and cliché (think sweet and sour pork, and lemon chicken), prices were expensive for what was received, and service was disjointed and forgetful. Fortunately, mum and dad picked the restaurant, so we didn't have to bear the complaints about how terrible it was. We only ate there because mum was fixated on eating lobster. After entering the restaurant, we realised that the lobster in the tank was too small, and decided not to have it after all! Goodness!
A different evening found us stopping in Footscray for dinner. Pat and I choose the Hong Kong BBQ & Seafood Chinese Restaurant merely because we have driven past many times and admired the roast ducks hanging in the window.
The bustling, brightly lit room painted with large murals won't win any interior design awards, and there was a touch of griminess about the place. But there was a Chinese version of the menu, and the wait staff spoke Chinese, so Pat and I hoped that we had made a good choice. The fact that the restaurant was completely full was also a good sign.
Mum noticed a large lobster in the tank as we walked in. She hadn't satisfied her lobster fixation yet, so we had to have it. The 3 pound lobster was cooked in XO sauce and noodles were $3 extra ($101.40 all up). My mum's a smartie – before we ordered we had agreed that Alastair and I would pay for the meal!
We also had to try the roast pork ($19) and roast duck ($11.80). I didn't eat any of the duck, but the roast pork was good! The skin was very crispy and the meat was flavoursome and porky.
Another dish was the deep fried flounder with spicy salt and chilli ($13.80). Oh boy, this was good. The entire fish was battered, deep fried and then covered in chilli laden salt and coriander.
We had a plate of stir fried water spinach (around $12 I think). Pretty simple, but tasty.
And our last dish was a plate of pickled duck's feet and jellyfish ($14.80). The duck's feet (at the bottom of the plate in the photo above) were deboned and pickled and I must admit that they were kind of strange. The feet were firm and chewy, and pretty tasteless. I found the webbing between the toes odd too - perhaps because most of my bird feet eating experience is with chicken's feet, which obviously doesn't have webbing. Still, the jellyfish and the pickled vegetables were good!
Even with the lobster, the total cost of the meal was still less than the dull one we had in Chinatown. There was a touch too much msg for my liking though, as I had the worst msg thirst that evening - it was like all the moisture had been sucked out of my mouth. Gak.
Hong Kong BBQ & Seafood Chinese Restaurant
118 Hopkins Street
Footscray VIC
(03) 9687 8488
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