Old Kingdom

Old Kingdom

197 Smith St, Fitzroy

(Ph) 9417 2438

I had been to Old Kingdom since ~5 years ago, P loves Peking duck and found this place after much research online, and since then, have been coming here a couple of times.

Pretty much everyone who comes here comes for their Peking duck. $55 for a duck, served 3 ways - Peking duck, stir fry duck meat with bean sprouts, and duck and tofu soup.

Came here with some college friends - 6 of us, 3 girls and 3 guys - we couldn't decide whether to order 2 or 3 ducks, but decided to be more lavish and order 3 ducks (partly 'cause another guy was going to come but decided not to eat). You have to order how many ducks you want prior so they can prepare the numbers for the night - though we've never tried to just rock up at the restaurant. They do 2 sittings here - 6pm or 8pm. We booked for 6pm but knew we had to be kicked out by 8pm lol

P and I came late, we sat down and told them they could serve the food. The manager? (or a guy who was behind the counter and took our bill etc) came out with a Peking duck after only 5 minutes - we were hungry so we were happy =D He cut the duck in front of us, seemed like such a pro but I guess you would be after doing it so many times every day =P He asked us if we knew how to eat Peking duck, we said yes so he didn't bother explaining to us how, though it's pretty self-explanatory =P

Tada! A beautiful plate of Peking duck skin with bits of meat stuck on it =) He cut us the duck leg and wings as well - lots of meat on the leg! =D

A plate of very thin pancakes - the thinner the better but not easily ripped =P

A pancake, a piece of cucumber (normally with a spring onion as well - but I'm not a fan so I didn't put one in), some Peking duck sauce (kinda like a mix between plum sauce and hoisin sauce) all wrapped in the thin pancake - deliciousness! We finished one plate of duck, then they brought out another plate, all cut up already (finished performing in front of us so not necessary anymore =P) and another one. I probably had about 10 pancakes all together? I actually lost count but I was quite full from the Peking duck already. Plus one duck leg with it's delicious meat =)

Next came the second course of duck - stir fry duck meat with bean sprouts. The waiter separated it into 6 equal bowls of stir fry - should have given more to the boys but P said he was too full to have any of mine anyway =P

Our vegetables for the night lol - lots of tasty duck meat =) The boys said it was a bit too salty to eat by itself without rice, but we were so full definitely could not fit any rice in! I of course don't mind, I never eat rice anyway so I didn't find it salty but was full of flavour =)

Seriously could not fit anymore in, but the third course, the duck soup came last.

Duck broth with tofu and vegetables - a tad too much pepper but I quite like that. Cleanse the palate after all the duck oiliness - ended the meal very nicely =)

After we finished one large bowl of soup, the manager came and said we can ask for more soup if we want, so we did =P Except the duck bones piled up so there was only 80% of the liquid from the first bowl =P We finished the second bowl and asked the same waiter for another serving =P By the end of the third serving, the bowl was 50% filled with duck bones lol =P

Food~
Peking duck - 10/10 - definitely thumbs up! That's what we come here for =)
Stir fry duck with bean sprouts - 7/10 - a tad too salty to eat by itself but I didn't mind it
Duck broth - 8/10 - very nice way to end the meal, cleanse the palate =P

Atmosphere~
2/5 - very typical Chinese restaurant feel, and very squishy between the tables - lucky we weren't upstairs or it's even more of a squish there! I guess it's a very authentic Chinese feel =P

Service~
3/5 - the waiters were very prompt with serving up the food and clearing our plates =P Probably 'cause they wanted to kick us out by 8pm =P

We were all clutching our stomachs afterwards - definitely worth it and definitely will be coming back!

C.
xo

Golden House

Golden House

760 Toorak Rd, Hawthorn East

(Ph) 9822 3100

We wanted to catch up with everyone from college but didn't want to always pay for the boys (sorry for those who are reading this :P) so we decided to go to a buffet place. A few of them didn't come to Golden House the last time we came, which was a couple of years ago, and since we always said such awesome comments about this place, they wanted to try it this time. 

It was quite disappointing this time, so I wasn't even going to blog about it, but then thought I might as well say why I thought it's gone downhill.

P and I got there at 7pm and a few of the others had seated already. We waited at the counter for someone to take our money (seriously - TAKE OUR MONEY! :P) but it was over 5mins of patiently waiting before P decided to just go sit down and deal with the payment later. Seriously, we could have just snuck =________=

This place is $25 for unlimited hot pot and Peking Duck. So the first thing P did was line up for the Peking Duck, he said he wasn't going to eat anything except duck the whole night lol. He lined up for well over 10mins I thought he disappeared. Turns out the dude cutting the duck is super DUPER slow... like he purposely makes you wait longer for the duck. Omg seriously is that necessary. And he was like that the whole night - normally P would go repeatedly to get more duck but he just couldn't be bothered and told everyone to take turns to do it haha :P

Peking Duck

The Peking Duck here has more meat than skin - which I don't mind 'cause I actually like the meat part more than the skin (so I'm really that crazy a fan of Peking Duck lol). It comes with cucumber and spring onion with the Peking Duck sauce and pancakes which I didn't take a photo of 'cause I wasn't planning on blogging about it before.

The steaming lady was just as bad. Every time I asked her when the dumplings would be ready she'd say "still not ready" even though she said it'd be only 7-8mins to steam them. So I had to keep going up to ask her for the dumplings - very frustrating! And then when I try to open the steam baskets to see if it was ready she would scold at me, even though she would be in the kitchen for ages and I'd have to wait ages for her to come out just for her to say the dumplings aren't ready. *sigh* Though the Xiao Long Baos were VERY nice! I can never get enough of XLB =) But I was watching her and they seem to be the ones you buy at Asian grocery shops, the ones that come in a box of 12 for about $4.50 - I've tried steaming them myself and they are DELICIOUS! <3 I don't remember them having XLB here before so that was a lovely addition =)

The meat buns weren't as nice as they used to be - the bun was slightly soggy and yeah, not worth my tummy space at a buffet. And they don't have red bean and custard buns like they used to :( Though they do still have the chinese pancakes, but now the lady cuts it up and puts it in the cooked food section instead of giving you the whole pancake which I guess is fair enough given how much food gets wasted here.

The hot pot food was normal - the best part are the taro balls <3 oozing out with taro (I forgot to take a photo of them :( ) They have cooked prawns now which I don't remember being there before. The boys thought they would get sick from eating cold cooked prawns but then thought it was okay to eat the intestines! They were too lazy to pick it out omg =______________=

They used to have unlimited drinks here but then they've changed it only 2 bottles per person, and $2 each for extra drinks - though I only drank one drink there and took one home :P I don't know how but I used to be able to drink 2-3 bottles here so I guess no complains from me. But I remember they used to tell us off for taking drinks home when it was unlimited, whereas now they've specified 2 drinks each I took my 2nd drink out infront of them haha :P

They used to also have these mini fried chinese doughnuts with custard inside that P and I really liked but they don't have them anymore :( Though I guess the addition of XLB made up for it :P

An hour after we had started eating, the counter lady finally got to us and asked how many of us had paid already so we went up to pay, but seriously! They're so unorganised we could have had the whole meal free without them realising :S

Anyway, I think this place has slightly gone downhill - but, it's still good for those who are just hungry and want to be fed with with lots of mediocre food! Slightly far away for a spur of the moment dinner though - took us 20mins on the train and then another 10mins walk from the train station.

6.5/10

C.
xo