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Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls – Prawn & Pork

Rice paper rolls for dinner. It’s always best to make your own rice paper roll rather than pre-making rice paper rolls.

It gives the family or company time to bond and of course you can make your roll as big or small as you want.

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Now how easy is it to prepare and put together? This easy!

So, what are the main ingredients and I’ve added a few tips to putting it together.

I’m going to list this in the order I put my rice paper roll together.

Rice Paper Rolls – best to get them from an Asian grocer rather than your local supermarket like Coles or Woolworths. Have a bowl of hot water to put the rice paper roll in to soften it up ready for rolling.

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Lettuce – usually it’s prepared in big pieces but you can also chop em up into smaller pieces.

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Mint Leaves & Greens – I like it with mint leaves but there’s other types of leaves you can use to mix it up.

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Rice Virmicelli – thin rice noodles you can get from any supermarket or Asian grocer. I don’t like to put alot but some people like to pile this onto their roll.

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Cucumber – not necessary but gives the crunch in the roll

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Prawns – just boil and peel them. If you’re using larger prawns I like to cut them in half

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Pork – boil some pork belly and then cut them into slices

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Hoisin Sauce – get this from your local Asian grocer. Start with a bit of oil in a pot on medium heat, add some chopped up garlic, then add the hoisin sauce mixture, add a pinch of salt, a spoonful of peanut butter (yup peanut butter) and then add some boiling water. Make sure to stir constantly.

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That’s it. Not hard at all and the best thing about it is that it’s quite healthy minus the sauce.

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Wayside Inn – Did you say Steak?

I love steak and who doesn’t, well… I guess vegetarians don’t. Anyways, I’m always looking for a good place to have some steak but not just any steak, some good steak!

Jenny’s work mates sent myself and Jenny to Wayside Inn for Jenny’s birthday treat. So sweet of them!!! Thank you so much guys!! We loved it and the food was great.

I was so excited to use my new Canon 7D to take photos and I pull out the camera to take a picture of the front before it got dark and I thought to myself it’s a bit lighter than usual. Silly me I forgot to put the battery in. Doh! But didn’t panic because the trusty iPhone4 is always near. And you guessed it, these photos are from the iPhone4 and some of them have been filtered through Instagram (if you guys are an iPhone owner and haven’t joined instagram yet, jump on board coz its awesome! well i think so. While you’re at it checkout my instagram posts)

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We thought the water jugs were great. They came in blue and green and made a gurgling sound when completing the pour. Made me laugh each time.

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For entree we had the Plateau De La Mer which had scallops, oysters, mussels, bugs, clams, prawns, smoked salmon, crab and calamari. Alot ey? Most of the seafood came in threes so it was more of a sharing plate for 3 but that meant more for me and Jen. The oysters were a bit small. The sauces complimented the seafood well, overall it was good but probably not needed as I struggled to finish my steak.

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I love it when restaurants serve bread but the bread needs to be fresh and soft but with a crunchy/soft crust and have good butter to work with it. I found the bread a bit hard and could of done with some time in the oven before they serve it. Sorry that’s how I like my bread.

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Now for the steaks! I got greedy and picked the 500g Rib Eye. All the BBQ steaks are served with a garnish of salad and beranaise sauce. I got mine done medium rare but it came out more medium but I still like it that way. I found the bearnaise sauce too much but then its up to you how much you want with each bite. The steak was cooked well and I enjoyed it but 500g was a bit much after the seafood sharing plate and we also got a side of crispy twice cooked chips. There was quite a bit of fat in the rib-eye so if you don’t like fat, probably stay away from that.

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Jenny ordered the 300g Scotch Fillet which was probably a more sensible size to get with all the extra food we ordered. Because it’s served the same for all the steaks, it’s all up to your preference on cuts. The steaks are good but I found Station Hotel steak in Footscray a little better.

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It’s not cheap to eat at Wayside Inn but the food is not too bad. I can compare this place to Station Hotel in Footscray as the setup, food offerings and setup is quite similar. Being the new kid on the block, they’ve done quite well to establish themselves. The service is great as our waitress knew the menu quite well and they filled our water when running low.

Jenny and I enjoyed ourselves, service was great and the steaks were good so I’m giving Wayside Inn a thumbs up for steak lovers plus its new so it’s good to change the scene.

Location: 446 City Road, South Melbourne VIC 3205
(03) 9682 9119
View Google Map

Opening Hours:
7 Days a week, 11am til late.