confessions of a little piggy: Balaclava

14 September, 2013

Unknown $ Cheap Eats , Asian , Balaclava , Bentleigh , Dessert , St Kilda , Thai

Little Thai Cafe

Little Thai Cafe is the first choice for many of my friends local to Bentleigh. This little spot has popped up in our conversations countless times, and I decided it was about time I see what all the fuss was about.

Mini Thai Spring Roll

For entrees, we went for the Mini Thai Spring Rolls. Served piping hot, these Little Thai homemade spring rolls were filled with minced chicken. We crunched and munched on these dipped in sweet chilli sauce as the other dishes rolled out.

Satay Chicken Skewers

Our next entree were the Satay Chicken Skewers - a generous serving of six hefty sized chargrilled chicken skewers marinated in coconut milk and satay flavours topped with a thick homemade peanut sauce. I found the chicken to be a little on the tough side, and rather stringy, whilst the peanut sauce was too sweet for my liking. Tough I was assured by S that the skewers that we had that night were not the delicious bites she was accustomed to on her regular visits to Little Thai. Unlucky for us - perhaps it was just one of their off days.

Pad Thai

Now, who goes to a Thai restaurant and does not order Pad Thai? Certainly not me. Wonderfully chewy noodles with good smokiness from the wok was tossed among tofu, lean chicken, bean shoots, spring onion and a nice spritz of lemon. Topped with crushed roasted peanuts, and you have yourself a satisfying plate of good old Pad Thai.

Penang Curry

S recommended the Penang Curry, which was her number one choice for curry here. A sweet and thick coconut based curry coating slices of capsicum, carrot, broccoli and chicken. I shovelled steam rice on my plate before dousing it all in this rich Penang Curry - yum !

Pad Khing Tofu

For something to cut the fried factor of our mini spring rolls and the richness of the curry we opted for a more simple dish of vegetables. The Pud Khing Tofu was an asorrtment of vegetables and bean curd stir fired with ginger and onion. Again, I found that the chefs had added a little more sugar than I would have preferred.

To me, Little Thai Cafe is just another one of your typical local Thai restaurants. You've got your spring rolls, curry puffs, Thai green curry and everything else you are familiar with. The prices are affordably prices and whilst I question what the uniform the staff are required to wear, they are friendly and efficient. However, the flavours I found were were too westernised, resulting in dishes being much to sweet for my liking. But having a look around, majority of diners were Caucasion, and so I guess they hit the nail on the head.

Little Thai Cafe

99 Centre Rd

Bentleigh East

And of course, we finished the night off with some refreshing froyo. Toppings of choice this time round were blueberry compote, fresh strawberries, pineapples, and strawberry popping pearls with good old original frozen yogurt.

Yo-Chi

292 Carlisle St
Balaclava

22 April, 2013

Unknown $ Cheap Eats , Balaclava , Dessert , Late Night , St Kilda , Yo-Chi

Yo-Chi

Having spent the night lazing around, and craving froyo, my friend and I headed down to Yo-Chi.

We could spot Yo-hi from a distance. The bright lights shone onto the dull street, illuminating the deliciousness that was awaiting us inside. Compared to all the other froyo joints I've been to, Yo-Chi was much larger than I had expected. I loved the design and layout, it was just such a chill place.

Yo-chi is a self serve, choose your own flavours and toppings, and pay by weight frozen yogurt kinda place. For 100 grams for $2.80 and with 8 frozen yogurt flavours, and over 30 toppings and sauces to choose from, things can get a little wild.

Our eyes bigger than our stomachs, we wanted everything. Luckily, the staff were happy to give us taste testers. Flavours ranged from Hazulnut, Green Apple to Honey Soybean. The Hazulnut was nice, however, I found it lacked that creaminess that I love in hazelnut ice cream. In the end, we went with the Original and Coconut flavours.

And finally, the end result !

For toppings, we went for fresh strawberries, mango popping pearls, stewed apples, crumble and boysenberry sauce. The original frozen yogurt was perfect- a little tart, a little sweet. Matching well, the coconut were spoonfuls of tropical paradise. Altogether with mango explosions and the likes of apple crumble, this was heaven. Weighing in at 303 grams, this champion came to $8.50.