Passionflower

Location:2/168 Bourke St Melbourne
Phone:(03) 9663 0033
Time: Mid Afternoon
Cuisine Type:Desserts galore
Price: $6 bucks onwards
What got dished out:

My sister thought she'd be daring and order the dessert called "Golddigger" which comprised of ice shavings,lychee, mango,jelly syrup, oranges and mango sorbet.
The best thing about this was the mango sorbet, the most disappointing thing about this was the ice shavings..
Well calling it ice shavings would be misleading because what should have been ice shavings or finely crushed ice, wasn't exactly like that. The ice were small little ball size, not huge but not exactly small, and this dessert definately needed something that was finely crushed to compliment on what it had to offer, and thus it became a disappointment. I guess almost like in real life, golddiggers, only ever lead to disappointments,whether looking for real gold or dating someone who's after all of your money.

I wished the cookies and cream was as delightful as it looked but it wasn't to be, there wasn't anything interesting about it, it tasted just like any other ordinary cookies and cream ice-cream that could be purchased basically anywhere and everywhere. Actually my complaint was that it should have been a lot more creamier or milkier or something. But not as bland and basic as this. Oh how basic it was...

And then there was this, and for the life of me, I can't remember what this damn dish was called, but it had plethora of good things to offer or what looked liked good things to offer.
I was impressed that the strawberries were ripe and sweet, when they come out on any dish sour,i age as i make the face of a 90 year old enjoying their dinner eating sour strawberries.
But no fear, I wasn't disappointed, the lemon  icecream(the white icecream pictured) did that for me. Oh, Lordy was it sour or what! It was an odd mix of mango sorbet and green tea and this lemon ice-cream. You went from bland-ness (green tea) to sweet (mango) to absolutely sour (lemon). I guess they covered everything but frankly it's a weird combination of ice-creams to jam together, kinda like the person making this thinking to themselves "now, how do i really screw up customers tastebuds!!?!?! ooo I know, let's shove mango, green tea and lemon icecream together, that will sure get them!"
I liked the crepes, nice and think but the pancakes were a bit on the thick side. No amount of cream and jam could mask how terrible the pancakes were. I think they should leave the terrible pancakes to the pancake specialist (the guys that make them 24/7) and just stick to the crepes.

My thoughts:
There was a LOT of hype when this store first opened in Melbourne, considering there's not exactly a place anywhere in Melbourne that offers so many different types of desserts. I mean there are a few but they usually charge an arm and a leg (i.e pancake parlour.. btw can someone ask them to give back my leg.. im still missing it from my last visit), it's no wonder it's basically packed to the brim with people.

The biggest complaint that I would have about Passionflower is that it's slow and the service is beyond a joke. The staff aren't just slow, they're VERY slow to serve you, it's kinda like they're too dumbstruck and they don't know what exactly they're supposed  to do with themselves. It's quite simple really, you see people, you get them a table, and you take their order and when the order is ready, you quickly serve it as ice-cream melts. I know, I should make a career out of it or something, but alas waitering pays peanuts, so really i shouldn't complain about service or lack thereof.

But it's not just the waitering staff that are slow, the orders also come out slow. I'm not sure if it's because it's new and they don;t have the hang of it yet, or that the person who's making the order doesn't know his menu back to front that they're struggling but hey, as a customer, i really don't care, I'm ordering ice-cream, it's not something from Ezard where there's like 20 or so ingredients to use. having to wait 15minutes for 3 scoops of ice-cream is tad slopey. I hope this improves because if it doesn't, eventually customers get sick of waiting and end up leaving, no matter how great the ice-cream is.

All I can say is," I "hope" it improves" but judging with what goes on in Sydney, there's not much hope really because "slow" is really part of the business model at Passionflower. And considering Sydney people stereotypically are "on the go go" type people and are meant to be all on time constraints, it's a wonder how they have the time to sit down and enjoy their desserts. They're lucky that the ice-cream is nice, they've got someone who's controlling the menu who's creative and they happen to be in "asian-centric" locations. Asians for whatever reason have a crazy sweet tooth and love their sweets like you wouldn't believe. (i really wonder what the diabetes rate is amongst asians...) And for those who weren't aware, Passionflower really started up in Sydney and if they didn't get it right up there, they sure ain't ever going to get it right down in Melbourne... like i said.. "HOPE"

Is Passionflower really worth it? Not if you order anything particularly fancy like what I mentioned above, however if I stuck to the usual simple thing I always get- mango sorbet in a waffle basket, then i'd be utterly satisfied. These guys have the BEST mango sorbet going around in terms of whats available out there in the ice-cream scene, and believe me, I'd know, I love ice-cream, i'd eat it even if it's -3degrees outside.  I've taken friends and made them order that exact dessert and everybody's impressed, walking away with the belief that Passionflower is indeed the best dessert house going around town, unfortunately for those who have ordered anything else off the menu have walked away feeling disappointed.(tough luck, because they just don't listen).

I hope for it's sake that it's able to exist in Melbourne, I know it works in Sydney but Melbourne is a totally different kettle of fish altogether. It would be such a disappointment if it died, because really paying for flights to sydney to get decent mango sorbet would really bite..

Quanjude-Melbourne

Address: 299 Queen Street, Melbourne Vic (parking is a total bitch around this area... street parking is until 8.30pm M-F,of course that's not the restaurants fault. The paid parking right next door closes at 9pm sharp... so be careful)

Telephone: 03 9670 0091

Cuisine Type: Chinese.

Time: Dinner

What we ate:

The first dish that came out as part of the banquet was the seafood San Choi Bao. I have to admit, it was one of the most interesting San Choi Bao's I've had in a long time. Mainly because it had an addition of what looked like pine nuts (I'm not exactly sure what they were) but it made the dish all the more nicer to eat plus it didn't have that awful stench of seafood that some restaurants are unable to mask. The San Choi Bao was a decent size, actually it was abnormally large, larger than what most asian restaurants tend to dish up and that's always a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

It's no surprise when the next dish came out, I passed it off to the next person to eat the second  piece because frankly I'm not the biggest fan of dumplings (yes i do have an extremely long list of "not a big fan of" foods).

I can't say the Steamed Shanghai Crab Meat dumplings was bad, I just can't say that it's ALL that great either. (plus the person on my right loved dumplings way more than i did.. it's only fair to let someone else enjoy something that i find quite ordinary to eat).
To be honest, I really can't say that I could taste the "crab" inside the meat dumplings, but really I am only to blame, I only ate one, and i did so in one gulp (okay i chewed it slighly). The only way I knew they used REAL crabs and not something that was "fake" was when my friend had some crab shells in hers.

The reality was, I probably should have ate those dumplings because the next dish that came out, nearly made me sick. There's nothing wrong with it per se, it's more or less an acquired taste, okay more or less, if you had lost all sense of taste, it would have been the best dish ever made in the history of man kind. Actually, it's not just your sense of taste, your sense of smell would have to be eradicated completely as well as your tastebuds  for you to completely enjoy the "Stir Fried King Prawn with Goose Liver Pate". I'm not sure what exactly was stir fried because this dish looked like it was deep fried in Goose Liver Pate.

Don't get me wrong, I love Goose liver Pate because usually it's actually quite nice as a condiment  or as a dip but it was a strange combination with the prawn.

I'm also hesitant when seafood comes out and there's a strong smell of garlic, that's always an indication that there's something quite wrong with the seafood, i.e not being fresh. But you see, this dish DEFINATELY needs the strong garlic smell, and the reason for this is that it's strong to mask a more sinister smell, the smell of duck. It's not a nice cute smell (although how anything can have a cute smell is beyond me, but it's a nice adjective to use). Yes, the smell and taste of goose was just overbearing, it's kinda like shoving your nose into a dead duck and smelling it. What made it worse was that they gave us 3 in a serving, I ate one two many and happily donated the other 2, to someone else who's sense of smell and taste obviously didn't exist.

Yes, I have to admit, my photo taking skills are almost mediocre because looking at this next dish, even I'm like "wtf" is that.. because whatever it is, it's not exactly appetizing at all.. but the fact is, the steamed wild barramundi fillet with ginger and shallot really was that appetizing (well much more than what the photo depicts). Although it could have done with a little bit more sauce.

I'm not exactly sure what the difference is between wild barramundi and one that is farmed, I can't say that it taste much more juicier, or perhaps my palate isn't as twisted advanced to completely comprehend that this was a "mind blowing" dish, actually if i said that it was, I'd be lying. This dish was made to the same standard that could be found at 99% of chinese restaurants in Melbourne. 

 And then the Peking duck came out, and this is the stuff that apparently makes QuanJude, Quanjude. They even claim that they are the Peking duck specialist, considering they have a very successful restaurant in China (where lots of people apparently rave on how awesome the place is) I was expecting big things when it came to the peking duck... and that's all they have: a claim, unfortunately with nothing to back themselves up with because frankly what they dished up on the day wasn't anything better than what I had eaten anywhere else. In fact what I had that day, I found the duck to be quite dry and was completely disappointed. Seriously, I was hoping for something that screamed awesomeness, i expected awesome because scrawled on their front window stated that i should be blown away, (okay it didn't say that literally) maybe I was wrong, maybe these guys were specialist at making ordinary duck, just like what you could get anywhere else. It's either the standard in Melbourne is exceptionally good  or that  it's average, i'm not exactly sure which one it is. I guess I need to make that trip to China afterall to have my socks blown away and come back here and tell you guys exactly what to expect from Peking Duck, but with what's available here in Melbourne, Quanjude is really in a sea of averages.

The "Special Fried Rice" and the "Wok Fried Eye Fillet with Kung Po Sauce" came out together. I have to say, I was quite impressed with the Eye Fillet dish, it wasn' the beef that was exciting, it was the sauce. They should rename the dish to "eye fillet with Kung POW" because the POW just gets you in the mouth, yes, the sauce is just that good, unfortunately let down by an overcooked piece of tired steak. Had it been cooked medium to medium rare with perhaps the freshest piece of steak, this would have probably been THE best dish ever.

I'm not sure what the addition of the cashew nuts were supposed to do but I like cashew nuts nonetheless and happily ate mine and stole anyone elses when they weren't looking.

The special fried rice wasn't anything exciting but it wasn't bad. I usually facepalm when I get dished up very ordinary fried rice because if you can't get this dish right, there's not much hope with anything else. The fried rice got a passing mark.

The last thing to come out to us was the Fried Ice Cream with Strawberry Sauce. I'm not exactly sure how a place like this could plate this up to make it look more prettier and make it somehow a little bit more desireable to eat.
I wish I could say that this was absolutely fabolous because it wasn't. There was nothing wrong with the ice-cream or the batter (in fact I have to give them 2 props to making it nice) but my poor tastebuds were having an awful time dealing with the strawberry sauce. I half suspected that they either got the strawberry sauce on special hence why it was part of the menu, but to give you an idea to exactly what it tasted like, imagine someone shoving a spoonful of XXL strawberry jam in your mouth (you know the stuff you get from the supermarket). It was overkill.

My Thoughts: 

I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed with this restaurant. Perhaps I had such a high expectation of this place because my friend kept referring to this place as "poor mans Flowerdrum" and in all seriousness, a comparison such as that isn't exactly fair. Flowerdrum had a $99 banquet and this place was $68, it wasn't exactly on the cheap side either. The usual poor man still wouldn't be able to afford to come to QuanJude and frankly had he gone, he would be on the same boat as myself.. sitting in utter disappointment.

Sure there were some great dishes, the San Choi Bao was pretty decent but really, not many people go to restaurants eating San Choi Bao, actually for whatever reason there is some kind of stigma on ordering this dish when you are asian, apparently this is what westerners order... I HATE this stigma because i actually enjoy eating san choi bao's and i don't care it's because im asian, i'm going to eat it anyway and no ones going to stop me.

However for the price that we coughed up, considering there was 7 of us, and at $68 each for a banquet, I couldn't say it was value for money because it wasn't. I couldn't say that it was awesome like a hatted restaurant because it wasn't. For a total of $476 we could have gotten a lot more dishes elsewhere that were average or have paid half the price for the same type of food elsewhere.

Maybe the hefty price we paid was to cover the costs of the furnishing because the decor of the place was decked out as if I was sitting in the imperial kingdom all the way in China, at some point you'd expect the emporer or the emporess to step out and tell you to like their dish or have your heads chopped off.

I might as well have sat in China because it seemed if you didn't speak the required Mandarin, communication with the waitering staff was almost a joke.I have nothing against people who's English is not their first language however it becomes problematic when these same people have to try to service the English speaking community and with their heavy accents, it's anyone's guess to what exactly was being said.

I don't think I'd be going back to Quanjude in such a hurry, not unless I have at least 10 of my friends who go and come back raving about the place because frankly it's going to be on my list of "not really going back unless i really have to" and I know I won't have to.. so i can breathe easy.