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.
Writing about the fourth restaurant in Burwood Chinatown in a row made this feel a bit too much like a job rather than a hobby again, so here are just some thoughts about the flagship It’s Corn ($9.50) product:
I can’t believe they made a restaurant purely out of a meme
The whipped cream was a mistake, but it wasn’t a mistake to get it on the side so that we could try it
I’ve never paid this much for a cob of corn, and I hope I never will again
I don’t even know what category of cuisine to put this under – with “premium” cheese, chilli, butter, mayo, whipped cream, parsley as the toppings it’s hard to say it’s definitely even Asian inspired, but other options on the menu do have gochujang and black sessame, so I guess it’ll just be vaguely “Asian fusion”, the first time the label has been applied to anything this unfancy.
I’m a microplane stan since 2024
It’s overall pretty missable given the glut of other options available.
My partner and I have had a lot of Thai food recently and A Mark Thai was probably one of the restaurants that started the trend. We visited late at night, near closing, after 8pm to an almost empty restaurant.
The tom yum fried rice with duck ($20.90). was incredible. It was fried rice in a way that I had never experienced before, with most Chinese fried rice dishes acting more as a staple carbohydrate dish than a dish in and of itself, which this one was. It had such a great and strong wok hei flavour to it that complemented well with the tanginess of the tom yum as well as the slight spice. I have absolutely no complaints or regrets about this dish, it was just delicious.
The crispy pork belly pad thai ($20.90) was okay, quite on the stickier spectrum of things, with an okay but sweeter flavour. I did not enjoy the pork belly meat as much, it being a bit dry and with a non crispy skin, even though it was meant to be crispy. Certainly some pieces of pork belly were just skin and fat with no muscle, which detracted from the experience.
The shrimp chips (4 for $9.90), aka prawn cakes, were also quite good, not too prawny for my partner which is an important factor for her enjoyment. They were nicely freshly fried and crispy on the outside but moist on the inside. I found the difference in pricing between the prawn chips and the fried rice was interesting as I didn’t feel that it was half as good as the very excellent fried rice, but I guess it makes sense given the cost of seafood inputs.
The banana roti was free on a promotion, however usually attracts a price ($9.90). It was very good, nice and warm, delicious and flaky towards the edges with a soggier inside filled with banana. It was sweet but not too sweet, most of the sweetness coming from the condensed milk rather than the pastry itself. The lady working there said it was a traditional street food snack in Bangkok.
It’s important to disclose that this was provided free as an inducement for a Google Maps review, though they did not look at the review at all or ask for a particular rating to be given. Whilst I am normally against inducements for reviews on a professional standpoint, I do feel like this is different as the offer is available to everyone and was only presented as an option for a free dessert at the end of the meal, in exchange for any mention or any rating at all on Google Maps. It’s also an offer available to everyone, regardless of if you’re one of those untrustworthy paid influencers on TikTok/Instagram or not. At the very least I think it is better and more honest than those restaurants that offer you a discount or free item for specifically a 5 star review, so I don’t feel like I’m going against my personal code of ethics by writing about it.
Let me know if I’m committed a cardinal sin here and I’ll tip them $9.90 the next time I go.
A-Roy Mark Thai Street Food 123 Georges River Rd, Croydon Park NSW 2133 (02) 9716 4111
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
