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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Dessert House


Location:Mid-City Arcade 18/200 Bourke St, Melbourne
Phone:(03) 9663 1400
Time: Late Lunch
Cuisine Type: Chinese, Cafe food
Price: ranges from $8 to $15 (me thinks)


What got dished out:

I always play it safe when it comes to cafe type food. I don't like to order something outrageous because daring also means wasting my money on a dish I probably can't eat.
And don't let the name fool you, it's not a place that just serves desserts, they sell normal food too.

So when I come to places like this, I order something simple like egg noodle with seafood.
In the poor photo shown it looks more like green stuff with seafood. But I assure you the egg noodle is there.
I can't say it was the best dish I ever had in my entire life. It wasn't the worst dish either. It was passable. Like with anything, as you guys know, if you haven't cottoned on by now. I'm not a big fan of vegetables. And damnit, they bombarded my dish with wayyyyy to much green stuff. I can only call it green stuff because I don't even know what the weed is. I'm sure a reader could kindly leave a message to tell me what exactly that is.
If I was a rabbit, I'm sure I'd be able to know the name, but I'm not. And so, I spent some considerable amount of time pushing the green stuff away from my dish. Actually it wasn't pushing, it was piling them up on top of each other, creating a mountain of green stuff fort. Yeh that's right, I play with my food. Got a problem?

The only thing I love about going to Honky/Chinese cafe places is the ability to order my favourite drink which happens to be Lychee on ice with Sago. And for some dumb reason a lot of people don't know what Sago is. It's pearl balls. but damnit, SAGO is what it's supposed to be called because my Cantonese speaking friend told me so.
You can only get these types of drinks at cantonese run places, those mandarin run places, they got NOTHING.
Granted I could easily go to an Asian Grocery and buy Lychee in a can, add some ice and buy some SAGO for the same price. It's not the point.
It's kinda like telling me, instead of buying a 300ML can of coke, I could go to the supermarket and buy a 2L bottle for the same price.
Seriously, it's about the whole DINING out experience, I like being ripped off, do you have a problem with that also?

My thoughts:
If you go to places like this and expect service, you got to be kidding yourselves. These places are about piling in as many patrons as possible, then somehow managing to serve out the dishes quickly. This place isn't about service, it's about dishing out the same average quality of food FAST.
They want you to eat quickly, pay and leave quickly because they need your seat for someone else who's lining up outside.
I don't know what the attraction is with Dessert House but for some reason people come and don't mind lining up. And the most f*cked up thing is that there are a dozen OTHER places you could go to without having to line up. But no, people feel like they MUST line up and try to get a seat at this place.

The food isn't amazing, maybe it's me. I always go for the same safe dishes everywhere I go, maybe Dessert House has a signature dish that I just never have found in the last 10 years that I've gone. And I'm missing out, perhaps thats the reason why people like to line up to eat this signature dish. Okay who am I kidding? But if this is the case, can someone let me know?
I mean Dessert House is so popular they have a second one on Swanston Street across from QV. I don't get it.

and here's another thing I just don't get, it's called Dessert House and not once have i ever eaten dessert there. I'm not even sure their dessert is even nice, perhaps that's their secret? But then, every time I've been there even for dinner, I have yet to see ANYONE order anything from the dessert section.

This is perhaps the one eatery that will always puzzle me, to why it's so popular. always.



Pancake Dessert House Eatery on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

the green stuff is most likely bok choy and i love it is delicious! the more they pile on the better lol.

vespine said...

I don't know why I feel compelled to write here, this is just your opinion, but you sound confused why people line up to this place. I'm one of those people so wanted to share my thoughts with you.. Even though I know to come right on 12, so never actually line up. :)

I agree with some other reviews I've seen that this place isn't what it used to be, for one, they USED to put scallop in the seafood noodle dish, but no more, and their calamari is always my least favourite thing on the plate, it's always a bit tough and chewy. Having said that however, I eat Asian a LOT and I've NEVER had crispy noodles as good anywhere else. Dessert house KNOW how to cook the noodle and that's what makes the dish amazing for me. Everywhere else I've ever had it it's either undercooked, over cooked and MOST often, swimming in oil, which just grosses me out. The noodles at dessert house are never oily and almost always cooked just right, crispy around the edges.

My other favourites there are steak with black pepper, admittedly on occasion the steak has been a bit tough, but when it's good it's amazing. The spicy chicken is fantastic, it's what 1st hooked me on dessert house, I swear they used to put crack in it, but I can't eat a whole plate by myself anymore, I only order it if I can share it with someone, I just can't eat as much fried food as I used to. And the minced chicken with eggplant spicy sauce on rice is great too.

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