Categories
Thai

Tay – Rosebery NSW Restaurant Review

Social media darling Tay has been tearing up the feeds for a couple of months now, and a recent wifeless weekday off provided the opportunity to put their gai yang Thai roast chicken ($20) to the ultimate test – my parents.

The chicken was pretty good, and importantly dissimilar to anything I’d had before. The marinade was sweet and slightly spicy, with a strong pepper flavour to it. Though roasted, the skin was not crispy, likely the result of the drenching of marinade. The meat was adequately juicy, though not extraordinarily so, and overall well received by both my parents as well as my wife (reheated in the microwave that night).

The small chips ($6) were freshly fried and crispy, seasoned with chicken salt. Only about half of these brave potato soldiers survived the drive to my parents’ place.

Notes – parking around the restaurant is not that plentiful, though the Botany Rd clearway is not in effect between the hours of 10AM-5:30PM and that might be your best bet. Limited numbers of chickens available per day however means that if you’re going to rock up after 10AM it would be best to pre-order via text message earlier in the day to avoid disappointment.

Tay
781A Botany Rd, Rosebery NSW 2018

Categories
Chinese Dessert

YOU YOU Bear – Ashfield NSW Restaurant Review

My wife and I are fans of bears, as animals that are vaguely friend-shaped, and so probably the fourth or fifth time we walked past YOU YOU Bear, we decided to go in.

We had a cup of thick-cut fried yogurt (though I don’t know how it’s fried, I think it’s more like a flash frozen sort of deal), for $14.80, consisting of an assortment of all the flavours that were available, ranging from oreo to succulent grape, and everything in between.

The whole thing wasn’t that great to be honest, most were a little bit sweet (true: not too sweet), and a little bit salty, but not something that really made either of us that happy, despite quite a long walk in the evening heat.

YOU YOU Bear
263 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131

Categories
Groceries Korean Snacks

Sanlip Custard Soboro Bread 카스타드 소보루 – Grocery Review

One of the important functions of this site is for me to remember what I don’t want to eat again, and this Samlip custard cream soboro bread bun was particularly bad and uninspiring.

It featured a semi-pineapple bun like exterior, however was damp and soft and not at all crispy or craggly.

The bread had a slightly bitter flavour and the custard filling was in reality much less substantial than what was pictured on the packaging.

I truly could not recommend this. Ever. Please avoid it.

Sanlip Custard Soboro Bread 카스타드 소보루
UPC 8801068405460

Categories
Café

Cafe Lewi – Lewisham NSW Restaurant Review

We had an uncharacteristically nice meal for a weekday morning in a narrow little Inner West cafe that doesn’t quite have an all day menu, but does have some relatively elaborate options for breakfast. This was actually our second attempt at eating here, our first visit foiled by an extreme Saturday morning wait for one of their few tables.

The cafe’s physical space was very narrow, however brightly lit with large windows and nice artwork, it reminded me of a inner-west house I could not afford to live in.


We had the very photogenic confit king salmon with salmon roe ($33), a pyramid of salmon, sorrel, and avocado puree on a deep fried potato bed. I enjoyed the taste of the herbs together with the salty and umami pops of salmon roe, the crunch and oiliness of the fried potato, and the soft and fatty semi-cooked salmon. It was really something reminiscent of when we used to eat small food on a large plate. My wife was less impressed by this whole thing, having been socialised (by me) over the last few years to appreciate larger foods on larger plates for fewer dollars.

My only complaint would be that I thought that the salmon would’ve been better served warm than how it was, which was cold.

The hot cross bun ($8) was one of the best HXB I’ve had in probably years ,and that includes looking forwards in time and considering the one I had today from Cherry Moon.

This hot cross bun had an unusually buttery and soft interior texture, as well as a filling of even more buttery sauce. The little raisins had the perfect dimensions of a little bit of sweetness with a touch of bitterness that made the hot cross bun feel extra premium.

I was less fond of this cheese scone ($8), which I thought was a lesson in dryness.

I think it’s a hard balance to strike, and this in house scone, despite its microplaned cheesiness, did not hit it. (The one I had today from Cherry Moon was better. You winsome, you lose some.)

Overall pretty nice! Everything baked is baked in-house, which is a plus, and the under-renovation photos of their space on their Instagram really shows what a bit of imagination and a couple of million dollars can get you a few suburbs west of the CBD. $1.2M in 2021 is unreal, but you really have to have that kind of vision.

Cafe Lewi
8A Victoria St, Lewisham NSW 2049



Categories
Bakery Café

Wang Bakehouse – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

We stopped by this small Chinese bakery/cafe in Burwood on an eat-pray-love of our local area, the second in three stops for a late lunch that day.

All we had was this uji matcha canelé ($6.50), quite expensive for such a small item, but quite tasty. It had a nice crunchy exterior, with a soft and gooey interior, amplified further by the inclusion of a matcha cream central filling. The canelé was overall not too sweet (as expected from a Chinese bakery), with a pleasant bitter dimension from the matcha.

Overall quite a satisfying little treat. They also sell a 6 inch cake for $88, which is kind of wild pricing, in my opinion.

Wang Bakehouse
34 George St, Burwood NSW 2134