Dining out in Darwin

Been out to Dragon Court for dinner last night with a colleague and his misses and their 4 year old daughter who wanted to play with fire the other day. How crazy is that coming from a 4 year old. The spoilt brat who cries to get her way with everything, so irritating, just have to fight fire with fire, nah...nah...naaaah... Anyway the food in the restaurant was exceptionally good for a chinese restaurant, although lacking in much of the classic dishes, it did have a small but satisfying selection to choose from. If you're expecting for variety, then you're be sadly disappointed. Which brings the concept of going there as a local, you'd soon run of of dishes to choose from if you were to go there every week, and even if you went there every other week and tried something different. The price wasn't exactly cheap for what you get, but to compare it to a burger and chips meal for a similar price, then it most definitely beats the Hogs-Breath Cafe by miles and miles. It's reasonably good to go with a few friends and order a few dishes to share between you, as it is the chinese way. Non of these, I'll have the dish to myself attitude. And for the girls, you'll have to share me too (i.e. aka dish I wish). It is however situated within the casino complex which is a bit of a walk out of town, say 15 minutes at 35 degrees celsius. Another chinese restaurant in town is 'The Noodle House' more down market and a little bit cheaper. I recommend for those of you who decide to go dining on your own as I have done, do go and order a chow mein, ho fun, or special friend rice. The portions are rich and plentiful. Very good value for money. If you don't like chinese you've always got, the buffe restaurant in the casino, all you can eat for $24 bucks. Pretty good deal, they've still got chinese food, indian, and selection of dry crusty carvery that's dried up all day. Don't let the description put you off, you can scrape off the dried skin of gravy and scoop the still saucy stuff underneath, hmm tasty. The plus side is the abundance of pudding and variety of help yourself icecream available. Absolutely fantastic, they even have Black Forrest Gateaux, yummy. One very convenient feature they have is the option of cutting your own large piece of cake from the vertical glass fridge, or the mouth size ready cut easy to apply pieces. Isn't that great or what. The only problem with the whole place was the decor was much the same of a typical British motorway roadside service station. You've also got 'Hog's Breath Cafe'. But this place is only worth it if you check out the 2 for 1 deal on the back of receipts from Woolworths. Because the food is not particularly that great and it is also pricey for what you get if you don't have a voucher. I recommend the burger with the works. That is a beef burger, with pineapple and bacon and salad and fries. Never had the steak there so I wouldn't know. The other meals there are well dodgy, so choose carefully. You've always got the cheap and nasty fast food take aways at the Casuarina food court at the shopping centre. There's so much MSG in the food, you can feel it oozing out your ears once you've eaten it. But what's the alternative, KFC, McD, Subway etc. There is also the 'Cornucopia' down by Fannie Bay (vag bay), only had the best Fillet Steak there ever, medium rare, about 2 inches thick and half a pound in weight, extremely juicy and tasty, I recommend it. If you are looking for alternativel cheap and nasty fast food, then you have McD's pretty much on every street corner. Dominoes pizza's are in every suburb and if you go at lunch time, they might even have a half price $6.95 lunch time special, limited time offer only??? The new Godfather with a bit of everything on it is the one I recommend. If you want a proper pizza, you should goto 'Seadogs' down in the Cullen Bay harbour. Which is a mediteranean restaurant, and serves up your typical pastas dishes etc. But Cullen Bay has a huge variety of restaurants there. It is much more off the beaten track and the prices are somewhat a little bit more, so you won't find many back packers heading down that way, mostly middle class locals. The only other restaurant I've been to in Cullen Bay is the 'Bahn Thai'. Very pricey for the minute portions you get, but it was exceptionally tasty, so it's well worth a visit. Speaking of eating, I am a fussy bastard when it comes to food. A part of working in my parents restaurant growing up as a child, which I was most fortunate to have the lessons in chinese cooking over all those years of pot scrubbing and rice cooking at minimum wage of just over $3.5 per hour. Recently I've been cooking like as bastard, like I've never cooked before. And it was all because I said to Shiffy (Solicitor from Melbourne staying at Frogg's) one day I've only cooked 3-4 times since I've been up here. And I fell ill the next few days after I said that. And after a week and a half on a semi liquid diet, I was invited to Peter Lowe's for dinner (funny close resemblance to Peter Lau and with the same initials as PWJL except for the W). He had left over 'Lemon Chicken' for dinner, and I boasted that I shall show him how it was done properly. So I ended up cooking everyday since the day I mutted those words. It was not all bad. I had surprised even myself on some of the dishes which I have conjured up, some of which I had not even tried to cook before. So typically it was 2 to 3 dishes per night and every other night there was a soup as well. I must get some of the recipes from my mother when I get home...no photos as yet, but there might be some later...