Spice Temple

Spice temple offers the best yum char we have had. We have had yum char in many countries and although Spice Temple isn't cheap, the quality and uniqueness on offer is something we will gladly pay for. Just a shame it is only served during lunch times on Thursday to Sunday. We had:

Salt and pepper squid, pickles and XO Slider - good to try as the squid is cooked perfectly and the slider is just a dainty morsel to get things started. 

White cut chicken gua bao - deliciously moist chicken, with accompaniments not unlike what you would find with a Hainanese chicken rice, except it is enveloped not in rice but a pillowy bao.

Jade scallop and crab - delicately sweet seafood flavours in this steamed dumpling and the dumpling skin is super thin.

Glutinous rice dumplings with chicken - lightly fried, the dumpling shell is made from the glutinous rice. Crispy and delicious.

Tea smoked duck breast with pickled cabbage and Chinese mustard - we order this every time we eat here. Beautifully light smokiness and perfectly pink duck breast. Goes extremely well with the pickled cabbage and mustard.

Egg custard with crab and XO sauce - just love the fried spanner crab meat with the pillowy soft egg custard and house-made XO sauce. Slight hint of spiciness but so tasty you could have it on some steamed rice.

Egg custard tart - are these the best egg tarts in the world? They could be. Extremely flaky pastry and the egg custard is just set and it is so wobbly you'd think it isn't ready yet. One never seems quite enough.

Service: :star :star :star :star :star
Quality of food: :star :star :star :star :star
Value for money: :star :star :star :star 

Type of venue: Chinese, Fusion, Yum Cha

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: Crown Towers, 8 Whiteman Street, Southbank VIC 3006

Nobu

Located in the Crown complex, this Japanese restaurant is world renowned and there are a few locations in Australia and worldwide. Serving wonderfully fresh seafood with some of its signature dishes and a couple that are unique to Australia, you will always have an excellent time here be it for lunch or dinner.

For lunch, the bento options are very popular as you get to try some of the dishes albeit much smaller versions of them for a set price. A la carte is available but probably more suited for dinner as most of the lunch crowd are there for something a little quicker and easier on the wallet.

A dinner review will follow at another time as will the review of their most expensive lunch set, the Nobu deluxe bento.

So, let's dig in:

White choc and passionfruit mocktail: this is quite a refreshing option, quite light actually and there is a cocktail version of that if one prefers.

Nobu Bento Box: The stand out is the signature black cod miso, but this bento also comes with a good selection of their signature sushi as well as some butter ponzu baby prawns. The black cod miso is something extremely popular to have even as an a la carte option for lunch or dinner. Black cod or some of you may know it as Patagonian toothfish certainly has a unique rich and buttery taste.

Service: :star :star :star :star
Quality of food: :star :star :star :star :star
Value for money: :star :star :star :star 

Type of venue: Japanese

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 8 Whiteman St, Crown Towers, Southbank VIC 3006