The Food Culture in Melbourne

Unless you're a tourist here on a 2-week holiday and have $ to burn, do like the locals: eat at home as much as possible. Supermarts encourage this with bulk discounts and weekly specials (Coles has Fresh Friday. Safeway has Rollback deals. Wednesday is Market Day for Bi-Lo.)

Each time we eat out, we wonder how normal Ozzies can afford to do so.

Today, we were at a self-proclaimed Malaysian/Chinese eatery in Bundoora Square. We thought we'd try something familiar as we're getting tired of pizzas, fish n chips and burgers.

The most economical option was the Lunchbox: Beef/Chicken + Veg + Steamed Rice + Canned Drink for $6.50. A ricebowl-sized serving of Egg Soup (sliced egg omelette + sliced button mushroom + bok choy in soup) cost $3.80. The 3 of us spent $16.80.

Verdict

The food was not just low in authenticity (Satay Chicken sans peanut sauce?), but low in the taste-good and good-for-health scales also, being heavily dosed with salt.

As for the ala carte menu, a veg dish starts at $8.80. How can veg cost so much??

Most of the eat-in diners were Asian, while those who did takeaways were local residents.

My cousin was right when he commented that the standard of food in most so-called Chinese eateries is enough to motivate you to try cooking yourself!

Update 18 Sep
Probably a better place to find authentic Chinese food is a suburb with plenty of Asians, like Glen Waverley. We were there on Sat and were amazed not only by the predominance of Asian faces, but by the number of Asian food options in town. We tried Bob's Kitchen near the Village Cinema, and were pleasantly surprised. For $16, Beth had a huge bowl of fishball soup with lots of crunchy greens, and Cheng Ann and I each had a SUPER-sized bowl of noodle soup (eye-poppingly huge compared to the Vietnamese pho we'd sampled back home) which I could tackle only 50% of.

It was only AFTER we'd ordered that we noticed that most other diners ordered 1 bowl of noodles to share, and something else small, like dim sum or guotie. Ah well.