Tag Archives: Williams Landing

Chook frenzy

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Mun Korean Kitchen, G05, 102, Overton Road, Williams Landing. Phone: 0491 079 434

The men of Consider The Sauce are hungry.

There’ll be no mucking about tonight.

Specifically, there’ll be no trucking with the half measures of ordering half a chicken.

So we order a whole one ($34).

This a Korean first for us, ordering a whole one that is.

It’s ambitious, too, as we know that when Korean eateries say “whole chicken”, they invariably mean a whole lot of pieces that appear to amount to significantly more than a whole bird.

But just because we order the big deal, doesn’t mean we’re wanting – or are able – to eat it all.

We don’t.

So four pieces go home and will constitute, the next day, probably the best school lunch Bennie will ever have.

The cool thing about this chicken – we get half sweet chilli, half soy/garlic – is that despite being quite wet with the sauces, all the pieces retain wonderful crunch.

Did someone say Korean fried chicken is better than hipster joint fried chicken?

Yes.

We did.

 

 

Incredibly, despite the poultry excellence, our fried chicken is marginally upstaged in the flavour department by our other dinner selection.

From the chargrilled BBQ list we get spicy pork bulgogi ($22).

The thin-sliced meat is of heavenly taste.

It sits on crunchy cabbage and there’s enough miso-like flavour and chilli action going on to keep us very interested.

We eat it, in the style of san choi bao, encased in the accompanying cos lettuce leaves.

The caramelised kimchi and ssamjang sauce add diversity of flavour and texture, while the rice balls do the same in a plain way.

Mun Korean Kitchen is a lovely place in which to dine.

The service is impeccable, smiling and warm.

And the menu has your more regular offerings such as bibimbap and kimchi fried rice with spam.

Check out the Mun Korean Kitchen website – including menu – here.

 

After-school Chinese BBQ

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Williams Landing Wok Wok BBQ and Chinese Cuisine, Shop 24B, Williams Landing Shopping Centre, 100 Overton Road, Williams Landing. Phone: 9972 5692

After perusing the Wok Wok menu, both while ordering and later at home, it’s easy to suspect this story will be doing the place something of an injustice.

So packed is the menu with wonderful Chinese food – especially of the seafood variety – that we suspect it most likely offers one of the really spectacular options for Chinese food in the western suburbs.

But when we visit, that’s not the path we take.

It’s after school; we have a 6pm appointment in Point Cook; we have time to kill; we are hungry.

And Wok Wok is open.

 

 

So we resort to our cheap ‘n’ cheerful default setting in such settings – the roast meats.

But, hey, that works just fine, too.

Because what better way to assess a Chinese place than its house-made BBQ birds of various kinds?

And, golly, what a fine time we have.

 

 

I doubt Wok Wok is a real-deal serious yum cha place, but there is a nice list of dumplings and “others”.

So as we really are hungry, we are happy to start with one of Bennie’ faves – a pair of steamed BBQ pork buns ($7).

They are hot and fresh, with a good and sticky filling.

Though even this good they will always be more favoured by son rather than father.

 

 

We take different yet overlapping routes to our consumption of the roast meats.

Bennie takes the two BBQ combination soup noodle ($14.50) pathway.

 

 

With it come his selections – roast duck and BBQ pork.

 

 

His dad, too, goes the double combination – BBQ pork and soya chicken – but this time with rice ($14.50).

 

 

I get a side bowl of chicken broth on request.

Both our meals have much in common …

The chicken broth/soup broth is hot, tasty, a bit salty (we like it like that) and peppery.

There’s good bok choy on hand to make us feel we’re covering the veg department despite eating sinful food.

And – most importantly – the meats are excellent.

The BBQ pork is a tad tough and chewy, but not enough to be a problem.

Wok Wok is handily located and appears to be on the ball.

 

Bumpy landing

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Montezuma’s Mexican Restaurant & Bar Williams Landing, T23/102 Overton Road, Williams Landing

This year, CTS has indulged in a couple of meals at Melbourne Mexican restaurants with reputations for authenticity.

Such are the continuous, unstoppable, nifty ways humans operate that “authenticity”, when soberly analysed in just about any setting (food or otherwise), is seen to be something of the ultimate straw man.

Origins of pasta, anyone?

Still, we were surprised just how little “wow” we found in those meals.

Maybe true blue Mexican is simply not for us?

And, gosh, tacos that amount to little more than a couple of mouthfuls can, over the course of a hungry meal, add up to more dollars than expected.

 

 

We were forced to acknowledge, somewhat to our surprise, that we actually may prefer the hybrid food usually referred to as Tex-Mex and as served rather well – we think – by our local.

So we are quite happy to rock up to Montezuma’s at Williams Landing.

It’s part of a franchise deal that has close to 20 eateries around the country, though this is the first in Victoria.

It’s located around the corner from the Williams landing shopping centre itself, and right next door to an also-newish Chinese place we have yet to check out thoroughly.

Montezuma’s is decked out, inside, in a predictable fashion and looks inviting in a familiar way.

But it’s a nice sunny day so we choose, for once, to go alfresco.

 

 

Bennie’s full pulled pork nachos appear rather hum-drum and are up there in price at $19.90.

But they work well and he enjoys his meal.

And there’s a heap of very good pulled pork – better than served in many non-barbecue specialist places – under all the usual trimmings pictured.

 

 

A side serve of guacamole ($4.90) and corn chips ($3) are just OK, but we are surprised we have to request hot sauce for our table when we have become so used to having a range of saucy bottles already provided – at all sorts of eating places.

 

 

The Montezuma’s menu is extensive and there are many combinations to be had.

Mine, the #17 Speedy Gonzales, costs $19.90 and comes with a beef taco, chilli con carne, corn chips and salad.

It is dull.

All is perfectly edible, but there’s simply no zing.

The chilli con carne is particularly lame.

Maybe it’s from a fresh batch, but the beans, meat and gravy in no way coalesce.

Worse, that gravy tastes all tomato and no seasoning; no appreciable tang of salt, pepper, chilli, cumin, lemon or anything else.

My taco is of drab food court standard, while the salad is the best of my meal.

A couple of bottles of Jarritos soft drink have pushed our lunch-time bill out to the $60 mark.

And that seems quite a lot for a meal that will be hastily consigned to the most deeply buried files in the CTS memory bank.

Maybe we arrived with unrealistic expectations.

Check out the Montezuma’s website, including menu, here.