Surry Hills: Suzuya

210 Devonshire Street; Surry Hills
New South Wales, Australia 2010
+61 2 8933 1639

If you are after decent Japanese, a massive amount of food and value for money – I definitely recommend Suzuya. $18 gets you miso soup, a small tasting of glass noodles, agedashi tofu, entree, main and rice.

For tea we were charged $1 for the pot. Cant complain about that!

The miso soup, a small tasting of glass noodles and agedashi tofu:

All three are nice. The miso soup is what I would expect. The glass noodles with strands of carrot is tasty and well seasoned. The agedashi tofu is probably not as smooth or melt-in-the-mouth as I may have liked, they use the firm instead of silken tofu, and the outside skin is a bit rough, but overall not bad flavours.

For the entrees we choose:

Salmon and avocado sushi roll and sashimi plate. Geeze these are  big portion sizes! In the salmon and avocado sushi roll, they clearly use the scraps/off cuts of salmon, however they are very, very generous with the amount of salmon and the size of the sushi rolls. I dare say it is almost as big as a main portion. The sashimi was impressive, fresh, and a very good sized portion.

Next on to the mains. We ordered tempura and katsu chicken (which also comes in a pork option). The mains were also large. The tempura consisted of two prawns and a variety of vegetables. Very well cooked. The Katsu chicken was a very large portion, the chicken was succulent, crispy on the outside and came with some side salad.

Highly recommended!

Food: 8/10
Value for money: 9.5/10
Ambience: 7.5/10
Service: 7/10
Overall Score: 32/40
$

Surry Hills: Suzuya (2)

Sydney CBD: Waitan

1/405-411 Sussex St, Haymarket NSW 2000
(02) 8218 1000
waitan.net.au/

The decor is fairly traditional with slight modern twists. The tea cups are rather interesting, different to your average Chinese restaurant, but not dis-similar to a tea-house. The leaves are in each individual’s tea cup, the water is poured, you leave it in there for a while to brew, then take the tea leaves out. No common table pots of tea here.

All the food was of high quality and standard. We ordered:

• Shanghai Styled Smoked Fish
• Crispy fish skin coated with salted egg yolk
• Malaysian Chicken Curry
• Braised beancurd brew
• Eggplant and pork hotpot
• Deep fried prawns with salted egg yolk
• Dessert tasting plate

I really loved all the food, delicate and well cooked. My favourite dishes were the crispy fish skin coated with salted egg (Tung Lok Seafood Resturant still ranks as the no. 1 for this dish, but Waitan still does a superb job), the braised beancurd brew, and the deep fried prawns with salted egg yolk. (The prawns were just so fresh, plump and succulent. It was delicious.)

   

Food: 8.5/10
Value for money: 7.5/10
Ambience: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Overall Score: 32/40
$$

Sydney Fishmarkets: Fisherman’s Wharf Chinese Restaurant (5)

1 Bank St, Pyrmont NSW 2009
Phone:(02) 9660 9888

Fisherman’s Wharf Chinese Restaurant is a favourite of mine. This time we ordered:

• Cod fillets with butter sauce and cod roe on top – perfect dish. The cod is melt in your mouth,
• beancurd and salt fish hot pot. Not one of my favourites, but still very competently executed,
• Sweet and sour pork spare ribs- delicious,
• Salt and pepper squid, and
• Red bean soup, Chinese biscuits and fruits.

Sydney CBD: Fisherman’s Wharf Seafood Restaurant (1)
Sydney CBD: Fisherman’s Wharf Seafood Restaurant (Yum Cha) (2)
Sydney CBD: Fisherman’s Wharf Seafood Restaurant (3)
Sydney CBD: Fisherman’s Wharf Chinese Restaurant (4)

Food: 9/10
Value for money: 9/10
Ambience: 9/10
Service: 9/10
Overall Score: 36/40
$$

Chinatown Sydney CBD: Delima (Indonesian Restaurant)

69/1 Dixon St, Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9267 7045
http://www.delimarestaurant.com.au/

Delima is one of the best Indonesian restaurants I have come across in Sydney. Great flavours, and authentic use of Indonesian spices.

This time we had:

• Meehun Goreng – Stir-fry vermicelli noodle with seafood (17.95). This was delicious, recommend this or the Mee Goreng (thick yellow noodles).
• Tempe Tahu Kuning – Indonesian style seasoned deep fried tofu and deep fried fermented yellow bean blocks. Served with dried shrimp chili paste (14.95). To be honest, not a massive fan of this, I don’t particularly like the dry texture of it, however in fairness it is done well.
• Ayam Kari – Old times favorite Sumatran curry chicken (19.95). This is a thumbs up, great full flavoured dish with rich gravy and tender chicken pieces which go so well with the coconut rice.
• Ikan Sambal Balado – Deep fried fish fillet topped with Indonesian style garlic and chili based sauce (24.95). This is a great dish, fish is cooked perfectly and the sauce is flavour-full. Though not for the faint-chilli-hearted. This dish really packs a punch chill-wise. Even I have a tongue burning sensation after a couple of bits of this.
• Coconut rice & sambal chilli. The coconut rice is well worth ordering. It is moreish to eat even by itself.

Food: 9/10
Value for money: 7.5/10
Ambience: 7.5/10
Service: 7.5/10
Overall Score: 31.5/40
$$

Sydney CBD: Chefs Gallery (2)

Chef’s Gallery
Shop 12 Ground Floor Regent Place Shopping Centre
501 George St
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone:(02) 9267 8877
http://www.chefsgallery.com/‎

Chef’s Gallery is a great dumpling and hand-made noodle place in the heart of the Sydney CBD. Consistently good quality food, consistently crowded, and in my experience the food always looks like the picture in the menu.

The beef noodle soup, is pretty impressive. Flavourful and full-bodied soup stock, lots of tender beef strips and handmade spinach noodles. It is a very large satisfying bowl. 15.9

Next we ordered:

• Shredded peking duck with cucumber and hoisin sauce rolled inside a fluffy Chinese roti (6pcs) 16.8. Very well put together, great flavour.

 

 

• Crispy fried savoury daikon radish cakes with diced Chinese sausage and minced dried prawns (4pcs) 9.9. Tasty little morsels. I liked the fine golden brown crumbs on the outside.

 

 

 

• lighly pan fried prawn pot stickers using jumbo prawns wrapped in a pastry (6pcs) (13.9). This never fails to be a pleaser. The prawns are always so plump and succulent and the pastry has a great bite and crunch to it.

 

 

 

• Squid ink handmade noodles wok fried with mussels and calamari tubes braised with Chinese rice wine on a buttery garlic sauce (20.9). ( I have to say these are nice, but I still prefer the spinach noodles wok fried with seafood, with dried prawn roe (19.9)

 

• Last, but not least, we ordered the ‘chef’s own handmade egg and spinach tofu, lightly fried, topped with preserved vegetables’ (14.9). Beautifully executed, and one of my favourite dishes.

Food: 8.5/10
Value for money: 7.5/10
Ambience: 7.5/10
Service: 7.5/10
Overall Score: 31/40
$$

Sydney CBD: Chefs Gallery

Ashfield: New Shanghai

New Shanghai
273 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield NSW 2131
Phone:(02) 9797 7284
http://www.newshanghai.com.au

This is one of my number one dumpling ‘go-to’ places. This fits into the same category as Shanghai Night, which has two outlets, one on either side of New Shanghai. (The quote ‘ours is not to reason why’ comes to mind). The only difference is, that New Shanghai’s food I think is a little more consistent, and they also recently renovated which has seemed to draws in more crowds and patrons.

Now to the food! I particularly like the fried juicy pork buns and find it hard not to order it, every time I visit. This is similar to xiao long bao, which has a bit of soup hidden inside the dumpling, along with the succulent pork mince. So try to avoid burning your tongue on the hot soup and steam trapped inside the bun! I also love their pot-sticker dumplings and variety of fried and steamed dumplings.

This time we chose:

• beef brisket hot pot
• rice
• fried juicy pork buns

Food: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Ambience: 7/10
Service: 6.5/10
Overall Score: 29.5/40
$

Marrickville: Bay Tinh Vietnamese Restaurant

316-318 Victoria Road
Marrickville
Tel: 9560 8673
http://www.baytinhrestaurant.com.au/pages/bay-tinh-marrickville.html
Open daily from 5:30pm

This was a very enjoyable experience. A bit more restaurant-like, classy and expensive than your average Vietnamese suburban restaurant joint, but Bay Tinh does have some great food.

We ordered:

• Crispy Pancake – Banh Xeo Authentic specialty pancake filled with prawns, pork, bean sprouts and served with salad, pickles and fish sauce. 14.5
• Stuffed Tofu – Dau Hu Don Thit. House’s specialty – Golden fried tofu stuffed with premium minced pork, black fungus and vermicelli, served house made tomato sauce. 18.5
• Pork in Caramelised sauce. 24.5
• Bay Tinh’s Famous Ballotine of Chicken – Ga Rut Xuong. This dish is the house specialty. The recipe and method for creating Ga Rut Xuong remains a secret known only to Bay Tinh’s owner who prepares the dish himself. The chicken is deboned in a very precise way, stuffed with a delicious mixture including minced pork and fragrant spices. The chicken is then slow cooked to develop the delicious flavour and tender texture before baking. Served with a rich plum sauce and sesame. Quarter 18.5 Half 28.5

The crispy pancake was pretty impressive, the pancake is indeed thin and crispy. It comes in a meat (pork and prawn) (which is in the entree section) and vegetarian option. Both are $14.5. The meat was succulent and well cooked, beansprouts added texture and bursts of freshness, and the sweet/sour sauce goes beautifully. The ingredient which wasn’t listed on the menu which I think tied the whole dish together was the mung beans layer on the bottom half of the pancake. It gives the dish some depth, soaks up the sweet/sour sauce and binds the ingredients together. I would definitely order this again and again.

Next the stuff tofu. Again enjoyable. Could be a bit sweet for some, but I really liked it, particularly the black fungus which gave added texture.

On to the pork in carmalised sauce – YUM. This dish looks very simple as it comes to the table. But the sauce although it is a fairly watery consistency, has a lot of flavour packed in it. The pork was succulent, juicy and melt in your mouth. Great dish.

Last but definitely not least was the boneless stuffed chicken. Now when it arrived a the table, it looked nice, but the stuffing looks quite a similar colour to the chicken… so I was wondering if this ‘stuffed’ part was going to live up to it’s hyped description on the menu… but it does. wow, really unexpectedly I think Bay Tinh packs so much flavour into the stuffed section of this boneless chicken dish. In the ‘fragrant spices’ it is definitely fragrant, and there is one spice in particularly that I can’t put my finger on, which is just beautiful. The sweet plum and sesame sauce complements the dish so well. Well worth trying.

The only downside is the amount charged for tea and rice. $2.50 for Chinese tea and $2.50 for rice, so you cop an extra $5 per person additional charge. I am probably more accustomed for middle of the range local restaurants charging about $1.5-2 for tea and $2 for rice, so I do think they charge a bit more than the norm for this considering the restaurant bracket they are in, with paper table cloths.

All in all a nice experience.

Food: 8/10
Value for money: 7/10
Ambience: 7.5/10
Service: 7.5/10
Overall Score: 30/40
$$

Sydney Fishmarket: Fisherman’s Wharf Chinese Restaurant (3)

Level 1 Bank Street
Pyrmont NSW 2009
Australia
t. (02) 9660 9888
f. (02) 9660 8886
e. info@fishermanswharf.com.au
http://www.fishermanswharf.com.au/

I love this place. The food is always consistent, of very high quality, beautifully cooked and good value. I can’t say I am ever disappointed after leaving this establishment and I have been many, many… did I say many times.

The seafood is always of the highest quality – fresh and juicy and succulent. The chefs definitely know what they are doing. I also love that you get ‘lai tong’ which is house soup, free-of-charge at the start of the meal. This is always lovely clear soup with a variety of stock bones, vegetables and herbs. Then after your meal you also get on-the-house a range of  Chinese delicate, crumbly biscuits, fruit (watermelon and orange), and a dessert – this time is was red bean soup, but I have had tong yuan (sweet dumpling with sesame paste inside) in a sweet ginger soup, sweet potato soup, green been soup, just to name a few. Lovely, light, sweet end to a meal.

Tonight we ordered:

• salt and pepper eggplant (you can ask to mix eggplant and tofu – great combination) (16.80)
• pork spare ribs (peaking style) (20.80)
• king prawns with vermicelli and ox sauce hot pot (30.80)
• delicious mixed seafood hotpot (28.80)

One of my other all time favourite dishes is the cod fillet in garlic and butter sauce (30.80). The flesh of the cod is always smooth, delicate and melt-in-your-mouth. The sauce is silky and buttery, topped with red cod roe which provides salty little bursts in your mouth as you tuck into this dish.

 

Highly recommended!

Food: 9/10
Value for money: 8/10
Ambience: 8/10
Service: 8/10
Overall Score: 33/40
$$-$$$

Rhodes: Phoenix Rhodes (Yum Cha) (2)

Phoenix Rhodes
1 Rider Blvd, Rhodes NSW 2138
(02) 9739 6628
www.phoenixrestaurants.com.au/‎

Highly recommend the Phoenix group, particularly for yum cha. I wrote a previous post – Rhodes: Phoenix Rhodes (Yum Cha).

This post is just to confirm, that everything is still the same, great food. Go early is always my recommendation with this place! By 11am on Saturdays and 10am on Sundays.

My two favourite yum cha restaurants are Phoenix Rhodes and Fisherman’s Wharf Chinese Restaurant. (I use to go to Zilvers in the Sydney CBD a few years ago, but got sick of truly terrible service, so I have not been back for quite some time). Another yum cha restaurant in the area is Tingha in the Flemington Markets precinct, an unsuspecting place to find yum cha. It is not ‘wow’, but it is decent if you are in the area/shopping for fresh fruit and vege and want to satisfy a yum cha craving. Pay with cash and you get 10% off your bill.

Some pictures from Phoenix Rhodes:

Food: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Ambience: 7.5/10
Service: 7.5/10
Overall Score: 31/40
$$

Ashfield: Shanghai Night

Shanghai Night
275 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield NSW 2131
Phone:(02) 9798 8437

I went next door to Shanghai Night, because New Shanghai was packed.

The two distinct difference between the two restaurants is that New Shanghai (next door) use to have a similar semi-run-down decor, but got renovated about a year ago to more modern, ritzy decor by comparison. So patrons seem to be attracted to the shiny-new re-fit.

The other difference is consistency. Shanghai Night I feel at times taste better than New Shanghai and at times a shade under New Shanghai. Still good every time I go. I just think New Shanghai is a little more consistent with their golden-brown bottoms on the juicy pork buns, which are my number one favourite pick at these dumpling establishments. Just writing about it makes my mouth water.

So this time around, the pork buns were lovely and juicy with the soup oozing out and crispy and golden-brown on the base. The pan fried dumplings were also juicy and crispy on the bottom.

Dumpling craving satisfied.

Food: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Ambience: 7/10
Service: 7/10
Overall Score: 30/40
$