The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally. All meals are independently paid for - the author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
I picked up a packet of these Mibazi Strawberry Black Tea Flavour Sablé Sandwich Cookies from our local Asian grocery store, I think for around $4. The photo, with its microscope level detail of the fruity looking filling, was promising a lot, so I entered into this agreement with perhaps over heightened expectations.
The sable sandwich cookie component was quite good. The biscuits were rich and buttery. The filling however was quite different to what was pictured. Instead of having fruit throughout the core, the majority of the filling was this sweet, caramelly, brown mixture, with a hard consistency, similar to a hard toffee. Whilst perhaps I could imagine a scent of tea, I couldn’t say that it definitely wasn’t due to being incepted by the word tea in the name of the product, and without prompting I probably wouldn’t have picked it.
I don’t think I’d get it again, but at least now I know the word sablé
米芭滋 沙不列夹心饼干 Mibazi Strawberry Black Tea Flavour Sablé Sandwich Cookies 6978362741876
Against the birthday recipient’s wishes, I got a different (read: not the taro cake from Savoy) cake for a family birthday. Though they were initially skeptical, I think the Mango CreamCake ($71 – 6 inches) proved itself to be one of, if not the best cake we’ve ever had – including the two that we had at our wedding.
Everything about this cake was perfect, from the ripe, in-season Kensington Pride mangoes, to the light, soft and airy chiffon sponge layers.
The level of sweetness, predominately fruit based, was absolutely perfect for an East-Asian palate, the precise definition of the term ‘not too sweet’.
The three layer construction meant that there was ample room for cream and mango filling, applied at an approximately 1:1 ratio with the sponge, ensuring a high degree of moistness in each bite. Though this made the structural integrity of the unusually high cake a bit challenging to cut and serve neatly, the superior taste and mouthfeel was absolutely worth it.
The Jasmine & Mandarin Mini Bento ($16 – 12cm x 12cm) was really only added to meet the free postage minimum. We would’ve been pretty happy with just the mango cake four the five of us (with a little bit left over), but adding the mini bento for $16 meant saving $10 on delivery. This little dessert was pretty good, but didn’t quite meet the bar required for superlatives. The tea flavour in the sponge was a bit more pronounced than the cake we had from La PaTEAsserie, but kind of uneven, and there were definitely bites where you couldn’t appreciate the tea at all.
This mini bento also didn’t benefit from the high cream and fruit to cake ratio of the full sized mango cake, and so whilst it wasn’t dry it didn’t hit that extreme level of perfect moistness.
Not bad for a snack, and definitely not bad for $6, but I’d probably not pay $16 to experience it again.
Overall Thoughts Have we found our new main bakery for family birthday’s? Maybe not. The family thinks it was too expensive.
ENZE MM11 – Ground Floor, Top Ryde City Shopping Centre 115 Blaxland Rd, Ryde NSW 2112
I had this burger from YG Burger House at around 2am, and despite my generally lower standards when it comes to food at this hour of night, I didn’t particularly enjoy it.
The Burger House Special ($13.50, $17.40 delivery app), which differentiates itself from their original burger through the addition of cheese and special burger sauce as opposed to a mixture of mayonnaise and ketchup, didn’t impress me for the price that was commanded. In particular, I felt that the smash patty was quite thin and loose, and lacked adequate structure or meatiness, feeling more like a loose collection of mince than an actual burger patty.
There are certainly, in my opinion, there are certainly superior options in the local for the 2AM crowd, a few of which are cheaper, and so YG Burger House would be low on my list behind local favourites such as Chubby Buns.
YG Burger House 46 Railway Parade, Granville NSW 2142
Firstly, I think it’s important to recognise that this restaurant, to a Western outsider like myself, is just known as Yummy Street Food. However, to the cultured few who are able to read Chinese, it’s Fuzhou City Yummy Street Food, meaning that this restaurant serves specifically Fuzhou regional cuisine, which is not immediately apparent to the average Aussie bloke and wasn’t even apparent to me until I was writing this review.
We ate at Fuzhou Yummy Street Food one morning, in a packed restaurant where we had to sit next to a fridge behind a corner. We had a collection of small eats, which I will now describe one by one from what memory I can muster up.
The first thing we received from our order was this deep fried triangle that is really just known as a triangle cake 三角糕 ($3) in Chinese. It is a simple wedge of glutinous rice with a little bit of seasoning and unidentifiable vegetable inside, with a mild flavor a sense that it wasn’t fried in particularly fresh oil and an unenjoyable absence of a warm temperature.
This five-spice roll 五香卷 ($13.80), visually similar to a deep-fried lor bak, was not as good as what I’ve had at for example Malaysian restaurants of a similar nature. In my opinion the filling was quite loosely packed, poorly structured, with more vegetable than meat and with a less crispy bean curd wrapper than you would think from looking at it. It was, overall just not what I was expecting, which likely reflects more on my lack of understanding of Fuzhou regional cuisine than the quality of the food itself, but still this is my blog of my own personal views and I just didn’t enjoy it that much.
The Fuzhou pork wonton soup 肉燕 ($10.80) was interesting, and I’m glad I was able to try it, even though I didn’t enjoy it that much. Basically these little pork wontons are made with a wrapper made of pork skin rather than flour – quite a keto friendly dish and it’s just so deeply Chinese to make an entire dish out of pork. Contrary to the five spice savory roll these wontons were densely these wontons were densely packed with meat. I enjoyed the flavour of the soup, though ultimately I didn’t love the one thing about this dish that actually makes it special – the pork skin wonton wrapper. Despite the novelty that it provided, I guess I didn’t like the texture of it and how it felt like I really had to bite through the wrapper to get to the filling.
Another thing that we had and I didn’t love was the sweet and sour pork ribs with potato in garlic sauce 醉排骨（配土豆）($22.80) , which was not only uncharacteristically expensive for this restaurant but also majority potato as opposed to majority pork. The pork pieces were too highly battered, and the flavor too sweet rather than a balanced sweet and sour.
We also had a hot soy drink no sugar (无糖豆浆 热) ($3), which is what it is and I find it difficult to rate the same drink at a hundred different restaurants in Burwood.
Overall Neither of us particularly enjoyed our visit to Fuzhou City Yummy Street Food. While ordering we thought that there were many things we’d like to try on a subsequent visit however following our meal. I feel it is unlikely we’ll ever return. They really need to add “Fuzhou City” to the English signage.
Fuzhou City (福州城) Yummy Street Food 135 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134 0424 008 633
In what’s probably a vain attempt to undo 30 years of processedmeatmaxxing, I’ve been trying to minimize my intake of processed and red meats overall – an endeavor that’s probably ruined my experience at the Illawara’s famed panini hub – a place that really specializes in sandwiches filled with the worst and best kinds of processed meat.
Instead of some delicious abomination filled with salami and mortadella, I had a cotaletta ($13.50), featuring a chicken schnitzel, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, Swiss cheese, and Russian sauce between some housemade bread.
Not bad, good size comes to mind. The flavours are muted, and a little bit more dressing could have gone a long way, though the light taste of it all did allow the sweetness of the Swiss cheese to shine through. The schnitzel was pleasntly warm, though the bread, though made in-house, was nothing special.The deli is located within a bottle-o, and co-located with an Italian grocery store, so it’s less of a restaurant and more of a place that sells sandwiches, with a park bench outside – adequate seating for a couple of guys, but probably inadequate during a more busy period of time.
Service, in contrast to what some of the other online reviews have said, was instant near closing, with no wait at all – a completely different experience to Inner West darling Raineri’s. It’s probably not a huge amount more time driving down to the Gong and getting a sandwich from Paninoteca Hub, than waiting in line at Five Dock.
Perhaps a more cured meat forward sandwich, preceded by a psyllium husk bolus, is on the menu for next time.
Paninoteca Hub Shop 1a/20-22 Weringa Ave Lake Heights NSW 2502
