My marketing advice to the Chinese Noodle Restaurant is that when you’ve got a relatively Unique Selling Point (USP, kill me now, I know) you should flaunt it. Why hide under such a generic name like Chinese Noodle Restaurant when you are serving up interesting dishes from Xinjiang, and Northern Chinese snacks and dumplings. If I had enough stomachs, I would have tried all those dishes…
But instead, trying to find somewhere for a quick meal after the very strange show time of 6:30pm to 9:30pm (but the show, Muriel’s Wedding, seen on a Tuesday night, was great: a wonderful new Australian musical), we really only had the appetite for a quick meal, and even then ordered too much. Husband thought he’d go for a classic sweet and sour pork, so we weren’t expecting this shredded pork dish served with Chinese pancakes as a wrap. I actually love Chinese pancakes, but there was way too much of a mainly salty, a little sweet sauce. Not terrible but I didn’t love it. You can see this is a humble place, but there’s a buzz about it, even at 10pm or so, with people who I think are coming for a simple, humble place like this, inexpensive and authentic.
On the other hand, the cumin lamb dish was delicious. There’s something about that Xinjiang dish, the spices and the way it’s fried up so it’s fairly dry, that I find delectable. Two dishes plus rice and some sadly cold tea (though I should have asked for the pot to be replaced but couldn’t be bothered): $40 with a small tip, and I’m coming back for dumplings (and maybe hand-pulled noodles…).
And why not have coffee in the front section of a shop in Surry Hills that sells cycle gear?
What I didn’t know at the time was that Sven-San isn’t really trying to do a fusion of Japanese and Nordic cuisines; there just happens to be both cuisines on the menu. And why not?
What a contrast to the original Black Star Pastry in Newtown (0pened in 2008 by Haberfield’s own Christopher Thé)! Rather than a tiny serving space, and probably a line up to try to find somewhere to sit down and have one of their famous pastries, sausage rolls or meat pies, this location in the Entertainment Quarters, once a Lovesac store I believe, is huge, two floors, a very high ceiling, and ample seating and display. Also fun is that next door you can see them at work, in a large working space, with glass windows open for passersby, heading, perhaps like us, to the movies.
We split a cake and god it was good, pistachio lemon zen cake, ‘layers of pistachio ganache, white chocolate mousse, lemon curd and crunchy pistachio dacquoise’. So many layers, it felt really decadent, and complex with so many ingredients.
Since the Sonoma bakeries have such a great reputation for supplying bread to many places in Sydney, the bread and pastries at one of their cafés were great. I got to introduce my non-Australian family to a perfect Lamington. The cinnamon bun was tasty as was the almond croissant. One of us had toast with a bit of Pepe Saya butter.
Bill & Toni’s has been around since the early 1970s and eventually, it was long-time customers that took over both ownership and management. It serves up Italian-Australian food in huge portions, home style, with a friendly vibe.
My sister-in-law’s pork chop (first photo above), however, though humungous, was tender and delicious with a nice tasty layer of fat at the edges (which we like).
Around the corner of Haven and a few blocks away from Meet Mica, Devon is the original purveyor of Asian-Western fusion brunches and lunches. I last reviewed the Devon in 2015, three years ago, and it’s good to report (bringing my North American family here for brunch) that it’s still going strong.
We ordered a similar amount of food and a selection as I did at Christie’s, one fried selection and one grilled. Because there were two white people and one Asian person who ordered, they decided that we should get fries; I would have liked to try their Asian noodles. My verdict was that the seafood was just a little bit nicer than at Christie’s (which was excellent) and the portions were a little smaller and that it was a little more expensive. Too many tiny squid for the table’s liking (which was the same as the platters at Christie’s). But basically, thumbs up. Very tasty, and a great food and tourist experience.
So, advice first of all if you’re at Star City and you’re with a group and some people are sitting outside and you want to try Gojima: you can bring the food out of the Gojima but not their alcohol (even if people are drinking alcohol outside at the tables).
This was annoying to have ordered delicious cold Japanese beer and then having to have them refunded and taken away in order for us to join the rest of our group, before seeing the wonderful musical ‘Beautiful’, based on the life of Carole King, at the Lyric Theatre.
But, having gotten that quibble out of the way, I really love the concept of these burgers: patties out of sushi rice, delicious fish in between, a layer of seaweed to hold it all together. Yum. We also split some fried chicken which was as fried chicken should be: crisp and juicy and delicious.
