Perth Dae Jang Kum

So like, this meal was on the Sunday before our lovely exam study break started, which dates back to...uhh...6th of November.
Which means...I'M DAMN LAGGING ON POSTS!!!
Which also means...I'M DAMN LAGGING ON MONEY!!!
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to drown my sorrows with countless eating frenzies.

I'm a really good student and excel in procrastination and not giving a shit. Even my friends get jealous at how gifted I am in these areas to the point where they actually start worrying about my studies for me.

J: "Dude, your first exam is on the 15th..when are you going to start studying?"

"Uh...dunno...the 16th?"

S: "Would you start studying if like, I came and drove you to uni?"

Nawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

All that cramming came crashing down on me. My exams sucked. Boo hoo hoo :(

Onto happier topics, we decided to have The Last Meal in preparation for the lack of dinners to come, in preparation of getting killed by exams. Little did I know that this meal would kill me. Actually this meal killed all of us, but it killed me first, since I was first to stop eating.

Which sorta...

NEVER EVER EVER NEVER EVER NEVER EVER NEVEREVEREVER NEVER happens.

Just a few mouthfuls into dinner,

T: "Shit. Guys...we're in trouble."

LOL and then pretty much breathed out fire.

Kimchi Fried Rice - $14

Was hoping this could be a more subtle carbohydrate which we could eat with the other spicy dishes but this on its own was anything but subtle! Maybe because it came out last and our mouths were already burning.

I've never been a lover of kimchi on its own but kimchi fried rice would probably make me eat it more. A nice chilli kick but nothing to jump about. Nothing more than a serving of chilli fried rice under a blanket of fried omlette. My tastebuds were dying at this point. I probably had 2 grains of rice and half that omlette.

Dakgalbi - $36 for 2 people

It was unbelievable how much my friends rambled on about this dish after trying it ages ago. And it was even more entertaining since they had no idea what it was called and the best they could do is just constantly OMG, that chicken thing! Lets go to that shop with that chicken thing!
Me: Which shop?
Them: That shop with the chicken thing. You don't know that chicken thing? How can you not know that chicken thing? The chicken thing!
Me: What chicken thing?
Them: That chicken thing!

So turns out that chicken thing was this chicken thing. And this chicken thing, otherwise known as Dakgalbi looked fiercely spicy. It came on top of an electric gas burner which doubled up its hotness, which had us furiously panting and fanning our tongues to save our poor tastebuds from this heatwave. I couldn't taste anything for the next few hours.

Inside was marinated spicy chicken, rice cake and assorted vegetables with rice, and meant to be for 2 people. Well, the 6 of us couldn't finish it, partly because IT WAS SO FLIPPIN HOT! Actually nah, it's not that bad, I think we're just chilli wusses and each consecutive mouthful became hotter than the previous one. Apparently it doesn't taste AS nice now too, and spamming on the excessive vegetables with insufficient chicken is noticeable.

I guess now I won't hear them rant about it anymore.

Cheese Dakgalbi - $38 for 2 people

LOL. When I looked at this, I automatically just thought, that's just lazy. This just looks like a Cheese pizza before it goes into the oven. And really, that just looks like a massive dump of cheese and nothing more to get excited about.

Surprisingly when it got mixed in with all the other ingredients inside, you actually have no clue about the amount of cheese there was as you can't really taste it so much. This was actually also the affectionately known chicken thing but with udon noodles instead. I regret that we ordered 2 pots of fire that we couldn't eat but thankfully the excessive amount of cheese helped to neutralise the spiciness we couldn't handle.

See they realllllyyy wanted their Dakgalbi that they doubled up their order. Dakgalbi and Dakgalbi with cheese. Their greediness backfired and I think they've learnt their lesson now.
 

Complementary Side Dishes

I love how Korean cuisine comes with little side dishes that you can replenish at your will and greed. Isn't it just exciting when you get free stuff, and even more exciting when that free stuff can just keep coming? Or maybe that's just me... :$

There's the mediocre kimchi with such a spicy hit that I refused to consume, on top of our hot meal that literally left us panting all through and after it.
There's the marinated bean sprouts which I always love and demolish, every. single. time. without fail. Their simplicity is what makes them so delicious.
There's the weird jelly/tofu-like dish which I still have no idea what on earth it is. I dived into it expecting nothing. And I got nothing.
I have good expectations!

Side Dish

Here is a better view of that side dish. It tasted bland. Even with the soy sauce drizzles, it didn't add to the taste, if not made it taste even more odd. Not criticising, just not to my liking.

It reminds me of that black glossy grass jelly, an Asian dessert usually served with coconut milk and sago, more fondly known as that grass jelly drink in cans. This had the same texture, only difference was that this had a white, opaque appearance instead.

Overall? Meh.

Cheese Dakgalbi

Cheese being cheese, all that cheese from before easily disappeared as soon as we mixed it all through with the udon noodles atop a gas burner. I guess that's why cheese is so dangerous - you just can't tell it's there and can't see all the calories you're consuming. It's just an invisible killer ingredient that makes food delicious.

This was like one big Italian dish, like a cheesy chicken pasta fiesta. We resorted to this whenever we needed to take a breather and save ourselves from the other chicken dakgalbi.
Same same, but different. Cheese soothes and cools here.

Extra serving of rice

By the time we were nearing the end of our meal - not the end of our food, food was still PLENTIFUL but we couldn't take it anymore :( - we were actually full. Yet, we ordered an extra serving of rice, presumably to have a dish THAT WE COULD ACTUALLY EAT and was chilli-free. Plain rice never sounded so good.

But then being the bright kids that we are, we dumbly poured the whole plate into the dakgalbi pot and stirred together all the contents in that big hot fiery cauldron. Then realised we'd just made another version of kimchi fried rice. What was meant to tone down all that hotness, was now fully marinated in that very same hot sauce. DOH!

Looked pretty good though. When else does your rice look like that when you order a serving of it right?

Dae Jang Kum Menu

This always reminds me of that award winning Korean drama on our satellite TV a while ago.
But cbf finding out the significance of it, who it is, what it is, or what the hell it even means.
I'll just eat my Korean thanks.

...

I think the general rule of thumb we live by is if you're going to go for Korean, go for it hard and get crazy with all-you-can-possibly-stuff-down-your-throat buffet instead of A la carte style Korean meals. There's nothing quite like the sound of sizzling ox tongues on the hotplate that adds to the happiness in a glutton's way of thinking. You get your money's worth that way and cooking your own meals always adds a dimension of fun and frustration. But totally worth it.

Bill came to $20+ per person which I reckon would have been better used at like Sinabro Korean BBQ up the road with neverending meats and drinks. Our meal here was also neverending as we struggled to get through it, the end just seemed so far. Typically like assignments, deadlines and other crap you don't want to do or commit to.

Staff are friendly but service could be deemed a bit slow but still pleasant. Food was just too hot to handle for us, which makes sense in a winter wonderland like Korea but here in the stinking hot summer desert of Perth, it's something less inviting. Like most hot foods, it's not too bad to start with but then with each further mouthful it begins to build progressively hotter and soon enough you'll be consuming more water than food. Good thing that water here is free and kept chilled for your mouth's convenience.

To be honest we were still hungry but for me, chilli gives me a false sense of fullness that doesn't last long. We requested to takeaway our heap of leftovers but then nobody wanted the takeaway box. Guess none of us are hero enough to go through it again.
So by the time 3am came around and hunger came for a visit again, we opted for the chocolate croissant bag instead.

I could do with that!

Siena's: Morley

T: Man, too much exercise. Need fat stuff to balance it out again.
Seriously, he is lucky to have one hardworking metabolism slaving away for him to keep that forever model figure =p

Italian would be the first suitable choice that comes to mind, naturally.
Carbs, cheese and cream are the best culprits to resort to for weight loss. Naturally!

We were really really really x100 starving and felt pretty ambitious with our order. When you're deprived of food for a few hours (or in my case, like, an hour LOL) you feel like you can eat the world. So this is what followed:

Affogato - $5.50

So like there's this friend of mine who orders Affogato everywhere. And on the occasions I've been there, I've got to benefit from that without needing to get my own caffeine dose. And thus far, Siena's version is the best I've seen, presentation wise. It's all grand looking and separated so you can control your drink, and dictate how fast your ice cream melts. Always handy.

The tall triangular glass holds a generously sized blob of creamy vanilla gelati ice cream, suffice to be a dessert on its own. Mmhmm. I started off my dinner with a few too many spoonfuls of dessert. Served with a shot of espresso on the side, some may consider $5.50 a little steep.

Affogato - Post mixing

Here's the somewhat DIY affogato, looking a bit ugly. Never underestimate.

So creamy, so smooth, so contrasting flavours and textures together in the one luscious drink.
You get hits of cold creamy ice cream mingling with the rich, heavy, bittery taste of espresso and really, it is quite the drink.

You have cold, you have hot, you have sweet, you have bitter, then you have addiction.
A winner of a bittersweet combination.

Works Pizza - $24.90 (SN: $17.90)

Pizza is usually topping many "favourite foods" lists despite it being what it is. Probably a hate-love relationship cause it probably does you more damage than it does good, despite the fact you'll probably consume SO much more vegies if they were dumped on a pizza. Like yes to capsicum on pizza but no to capsicum in any other form.

Personally I actually prefer the less authentic versions of pizza base and crusts cause they're so much better to chew and provide so much more crunch. Wood fired pizza crusts just don't satisfy me in the same way :( And really, I'd go for 3 Dominos pizzas over this anyday.

This was a no brainer to order. We wanted everything and this pizza was closest to having everything. The Works boasted tomato sauce, mozarella cheese, Italian sausage, chicken, capsicum, olives, artichokes, mushrooms and sundried tomato. Om nom nom.

Base wasn't too my liking so I dissected my pizza. Having ate the ingredients on top, my bare pizza base looked pretty naked. The last time I did this we threw pasta on top of the pizza base and ever since, it's become our somewhat standard approach to eat pizza =] Try it!

Ravioli - $20.90 (SN: $15.90)

This was a waste of an order and should not have been ordered. My fault. I wanted something different other than the usual cheesy, creamy, red or white sauced pastas but this different choice failed us. The description intrigued me but that's as far as the intriguing part got, and we were all pretty disappointed. Word usage is a powerful but powerfully deceptive skill!

I mean, it certainly looked alright. Pumpkin and ricotta filled pasta pillows in a white wine, garlic, cream Napoletana sauce topped with fresh rocket leaves and shaved parmesan. To say the least, lets see, it was bland and had no taste, the filling was stingy and practically you just can't tell that you're eating pumpkin or ricotta and some pillows weren't thoroughly cooked so even the extravagant sounding sauce didn't save the day. At least it looked decent.

I really hate giving negative or even anything-less-than-good comments but if I didn't then I'd be lying. Sorry Siena's. You still do alright. This was actually a struggle to finish on our table and the last lone pillows were unwanted. As per usual, this is where I come in and the leftovers get disposed, into my stomach, because I can't stand food wastage.
I hope my good deed gets me somewhere someday! :)

Fettuccini Siena - $24.90 (SN: $17.90)

The Fettuccini Siena was prooobably the best choice out of our choices. I mean a dish named after a restaurant should not be a let down by any means, right? I quite liked looking at the dish without having even eaten it yet, colour was pretty awesomely orange.

To those of you who have asked for my colour preferences, yup, orange is one of my favourite colours. I allow you to wrap my future presents in orange wrapping paper =p Ok thanks :)

This consisted of long stringy fettuccini pasta with plump prawns and broccoli in a vodka flavoured tomato and cream sauce, sprinkled with chilli flakes, giving it the slightest hint of spiciness. Not overwhelming, but noticable. And creamy sauce is always a winner with anything. It's one of those universal foods that can make anything better, even though I avoid it when it's on its own.

Not exactly sure what the sauce was meant to taste like but I couldn't help but notice the lack of any slight, hint, itty bitty teeny tiny bit of alcohol tasting element in the sauce. I know its not meant to be overpowering and I know it's meant to be subtle, but damn this was wayyy too subtle to the point of being non-existent.

Or maybe, I don't drink, I'm ignorant to what vodka is, and just didn't sense it being in the sauce.

Yes. Most likely. :)

Chilli Mussels being served

Interesting serving presentation, I say. Presumably this is meant to lock in the steam and keep those hot chilli mussels even hotter. Though a tad unnecessary...but kept me entertained for a little under 5 seconds. The novelty in this died after that. Ahh, short lived.

Garlic Bread

The concept of garlic bread has evolved over the times to become many things, many of those being not very garlic bready at all. Well maybe just not garlicy but still very bready. Too bready.
This was pretty much just buttered toast with fancier bread sorta thing. And 2 little mere pieces just doesn't seem fitting with that big plate of chilli mussels.

It is somewhat sad, or not, depending on how you look at it, to say the most memorable and best garlic bread I've come across so far is one out of a plastic packaging out of an IGA supermarket. It's amazing that such good garlic bread can be replicated, or my standards are just low.. Either way, that was crazy good. I will never forget that day.

Chilli Mussels - $24.50

And when the plate was lifted off, I was greeted with the sight and smells of this chilli mussel extravagance. Depending on how you feel towards mussels and how much you like eating mussels, the sight may either get you excited or flip your stomach. I actually quite like mussels but observing the picture more and more makes it look rather putrid.

Maybe it's the blackness, the abundance of hard shiny shell exteriors and the fact that everything there except the red parts are inedible that's sorta putting me off. Alot of the mussels had parted ways with their homes and some homes were still locked up but overall it was pretty good with the tomato chilli sauce.

Cheese side dish. Lol...

This extra bowl of pure cheese was served with one of the pasta dishes, but my memory fails me and I can't remember which one. Most likely the ravioli one. This went untouched. Maybe we were meant to touch it, then maybe the ravioli wouldn't have been so bland. Ahhh...

I haven't seen cheese being served on the side like this. By the end of the night I just wanted to do something with it. Had to. Being me, I ended up just eating half a spoonful of it, on its own. I have no idea why I did. They all had a go at me for "contaminating the chese", so now the cheese has to be thrown away...

No, stupid friends. Pretty sure it's going straight in the bin regardless...?

Lol

Lol. So this is our water-jug-turned-fish-tank, which in turn looked like an attempt to vivify the chilli mussel. I must stress that this was a pure accident, we are definitely not immature little brats playing with our food, no no, none of that.

Sharing food meant a lot of transferral of food across the table and in the middle of the journey, we all heard a distinct *PLOP!*, and found that Y had clumsily dropped a mussel straight into the water jug, which had a small opening the SAME size as the mussel itself. My disapproving applause immediately became one of sheer admiral.

Well freaking done.

...

Siena's had always been the first restaurant that came to mind whenever Italian is mentioned. It's always been delicious, generously sized, good value and a laid back atmosphere to it that makes you feel at home. Having all this in mind, the first thing I noticed was the change of menu (ok, cool...) but also with the change of prices (NOO!).

I mean, the prices are still standard and pretty fair, but you know, in comparison to having seen what the former prices are, it's pretty sad. The servings have also changed and based purely on what we ordered, the tastes have also fared worse off than before, but that is all a selfish subjective opinion of course.

Kitchen also closes unbelievably early on a Thursday night, as we got there a little bit past 8pm and were asked to make our orders ASAP as the kitchen was closing. As I hurriedly scanned through the menu, all the pizza/pasta dishes had a more attractive, more affordable price next to the standard price with the initals SN next to them. We could have saved $20!

So, point taken: come on Special Nights! (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays btw :))
-It's not being cheap, it's being cost efficient =p There is a difference! Like...I'm dumb, but I'm not stupid LOL

So after we settled the bill, we headed straight to McDonalds for the next 3 hours to fill up the still-empty spaces in our stomachs with fries, soft serves, cokes and fake oreos - Rodeos.

No really. Just Google imaged rodeo biscuit. A whopping ONE picture made it through. Shockinggg! But fake=good, still. Sometimes. Most times, not.

You know when people are like "I ate 3 packs of oreos"? And it's like meh because it doesn't sound like much? Well, T said this. There's 18 in a pack we were eating, and after some slow calculations:

WTF, YOU ATE 54 OREOS?!?!?!
Sounds so boss, huh? It really changes how you perceive a mere "3 packs of oreos" and how you look at them now: with praise and so much more respect...
And this is the same T that feels too healthy after exercise.
It's a miracle.