Shuji Sushi @ lunchtime

This franchise restaurant is slowy expanding across Melbourne CBD. The food servings are generous, although average, and the bento-boxes are a reasonable price (approx $11-13). The menu is printed on the paper mats and not a lot of choices - although there is a sushi bar at the front and some of the stores, you can see the chefs slicing the fresh salmon.

Empress of China @ Chinatown Melbourne

The food may be average, but surely the generous servings and low cost is a great way to satisfy your appetite and not spending too much on a lunch break.

Amongst 3 people, we ordered Sesame bun, spring onion cake, a main dish of fried pork dumplings and pork and vegetables won ton in soup (approx 12-15 in each).

Piled with a whole table of food, this was only equivalent to $7-8 dollars per person.

Famous crumbled pork cutlet (tonkatsu) @ World Square

This restaurant is famous for its crumbled pork cutlets (tonkatsu) with special sauce.

It can be ordered on its own, or combined with bento-box or rice in a meal.

Very very packed restaurant, you must book way in advance as its very popular and they don't open for long hours.

Fortunately, there is a shop side only for take-away orders, which their customer service policy guarantees - if you wait for more than 20-30min or so, you get a complimentary compensation.

The crumbled pork cutlets, are cut thicker than usual ones, and have more texture when biting into them - as they are covered with deep fried biscuit crumbs, which made it very crunchy on the outside and juicy tender pork on the inside. Drizzled with the special sauce which brings out the flavour, this is possbility the best pork cutlets I've tasted in Sydney so far.

Food stall Night Markets @ Sydney

I love Friday night markets! They serve some of the best food during that time! They have fish ball skewers, satay sticks, japanese pancakes, octopus ball skewers, red bean soup, black sticky rice with coconut, crepes, lamb, chicken, beef, pork, everything!!

Amongst those, there is a lamb skewers place near the end of the street which seemed to have the best skewers around! They are really popular and waiting for my order in the queue took me half an hour, which was worth the wait! Most people buy 10 sticks in a go, which isn't very much, but very flavoursome and the spices just exciting your senses make you craving for more...

On a side note, I went into a cake store for dessert and found this tasty little cup of joy! I forgot the name of it, but resembles like a trifle cake, with alternating biscuit crumb layers and cream, with a dark chocolate decoration and a biscuit on top. Best thing about it is that this combination makes it not too sweet, not too bloating for the tummy and just right for a small dessert.

Din Tai Fung (Sydney)

This taiwan speciality restaurant has many successful branches in Taiwan, and never fails to attract customers. Fortunately, a branch finally opened in Sydney, Australia. It is conveniently located upstairs in the busy World Square in the heart of CBD, close to other shops, offices and hotels. Without booking, there would approximately be a 15minute wait.

The most popular dish and their speciality is of course, their Shanghai pork dumplings (xiao long bao).

Highly recommend it! It is freshly made by chefs demonstrating their skills behind the kitchen window shown to customers.

As soon as I nibble off the chewy dumpling skin, the gush of succulent juicy soup initially wrapped inside bursted into my taste buds....then once the tasty soup is consumed, I held the dumpling and dip it into the vinegar with ginger pieces sauce, bringing out the tender pork flavour wrapped in thin chewy dumpling skin. These dumplings can be very addictive, I find myself being able to eat 2 main dish servings (16 dumplings) with no problems at all. This is a must try dish for dumpling lovers!

Other food tried were prawn dumplings (shui mai) which weren't any special from the Yum Cha dim sims, drunken chicken entree - which was a recommended dish but the wine was a bit strong for my liking as it covered the chicken taste....

and another recommended vegetable entree consisting of bean sprouts, seaweed, vermicelli, capsicum etc, which was a nice small appetiser dish.

Dessert was the enormous iced mango kachang (shaved ice) with vanilla ice-cream, generous servings of juicy mango pieces and evaporated milk sauce poured over.

This very refreshing combination is great for summer and hot days! But you must have a big appetite to be able to munch all this down yourself, because I shared this mountain dessert amongst 8 people to completely finish it!

YAR restaurant @ Southbank

Dinner at YAR with the buffet menu means lots of very nice food cooked to order and is unlimited for the night! Three storeys high, dim lighting, great service and atmosphere in the middle of Southbank, this is an awesome low-cost 'fine dining' experience you can afford to take your family and loved ones.

The menu was packed with Japanese and Korean cuisine dishes including: salmon salad, grilled salmon, soft shell crab sushi, prawn and vegetable tempura, teriyaki chicken, spicy chicken, bi bim bap, gyoza dumplings, seafood hot pot soup, kim chi hot pot soup and much much more. They also offer raw oysters when booking 24 hours in advance.

J's Surf and Turf

This place does not look flashy or stylish, with very simple tables and chairs style, however, if you haven't booked a table, don't expect any tables availability. This Japanese cuisine place is always crowded with people because of its generous servings of a la carte dishes and buffet.

The buffet included being able to order anything from their menu, however, as these buffets work, they have set times for how long you can stay/eat and sometimes in a group, when you order 3 plates of tempura, they would probably serve you one big plate according to the number of people present at the table.

My personal favourite would be the salmon sashimi, the beef salad mix and tempura prawns weren't bad either.

Other unlimited food includes: beef salad, sashimi, sushi, tempura prawn/vegetables, miso soup, unagi, chicken etc. If you book 24 hours in advance, they will throw in a dozen or two fresh raw oysters for the table.