Coda

It was a few weeks back now that Doben and I finally payed a visit to Coda to celebrate his birthday. Like always, a first visit to a new place is a mix of excitement and fear.. 

First we had a salmon gravlax with baby vegetables and goats cheese was our absolute favourite dish of the entire meal. The salmon was perfect, vegetables, cheese, the whole thing just worked so incredibly well. I would go back just to eat this but unfortunately it only comes as a starter size. I was so overwhelmed eating this I would go back to eat this but I might have to order 3 serves!

After my amazing salmon salad were crispy rice paper rolls with a very tasty mix of pork and black fungus. I have to say, I have eaten these in Tien An in Footsgray and the skin was very crunchy. Unfortunately these had a chewy texture, which was a bit disappointing when I was anticipating the same crunch we found in Footscray. It was a shame because my Doben and I absolutely adore Vietnamese hot mint with spring rolls. I have tried to make these fried rice paper rolls at home but I couldn't distinguish between the rice paper for the fresh rolls and the fried ones. Mine were most definitely the wrong rice paper and had very similar texture to these. 

Next were spanner crab betel "beetle" leaves. They were fresh and delicate. The flavours of the pomelo, lime and galangal all worked together with the crab very nicely. 

Quail lettuce delight - I loved the sauce used here and the combination of the shitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, lup cheong and quail was literally mouth-watering at each bite. 

Bone marrow spring rolls. Intense.

Lastly was our roasted yellow duck curry with taro chips. We were expecting to get a Thai or Malay inspired curry, but this curry was definitely Indian inspired. The spices were quite strong which I suppose suited the strong flavour of the duck. Maybe a personal preference of curry style, but we found the spices a bit too strong and it overwhelmed our palates a bit more than we wanted. We were quite full and still in 'bone marrow shock' so this may have influenced our palates at this stage.

And so we fled, quite ironically to Longrain for dessert and a drink.

Our flavour packed pork and prawn betel leaves alongside some very strong drinks to end of the night with a bit of kick..

Finally our dessert of taro and coconut pudding with roasted coconut ice cream which was amazing!

Longrain's desserts are insanely good. Really, they have dessert like no where else in Melbourne that I've tried. I have eaten a similar taro pudding to the one served in the Philippines, but in combination with the roasted coconut ice cream and the palm sugar syrup, it becomes something else. Last time we ate a custard apple and coconut trifle with coconut ice cream which just the same left us speechless. Can't wait to go back for more.