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.
I enjoyed most of the Asian inspired ice cream flavours that I tried at Ice Kirin Bar, and while I absolutely appreciate that the place exists with such a nice variety of options, I do still think that Mapo’s hojicha gelato is superior.
The other thing I think is that the fact that a flavour (in this situation, Strawberry Calpis) is offered as a filling for a pineapple bun ($10), does not neccessarily mean that it will be a good and complementary combination.
I certainly did not love these pipis cooked in XO sauce, on a bed of vermicelli. The pipis were not brought to me to review alive, kicking and screaming and for some inexplicable reason this reduced my appreciation of their taste. Live seafood just tastes more live when you see it live before it is no longer live. I don’t want to go so far as to say that it wasn’t live, firstly because I have no proof, and secondly because I’m sure that mathematically the pipis were alive at some point in their lives. At least the bed of vermicelli was good.
Congee is such a simple staple dish that my parents never put anything into when I was a child, barring rice and water. This particular congee with some lean meat was quite enjoyable, but I feel that it is only my lack of knowledge of what these crispy yellow things are that prevents me from making it at home.
It’s a three cup chicken, a chicken made with three cups of non-chicken ingredients. I personally never go for chicken that’s been chopped in a way where the bones are randomly arranged within the meat, my partner doesn’t mind. This was fine. The taste was good. A positive comment.
My honest conclusion is that there is nothing about my visit to New Keung Kee that would bring me back.
UPDATE, JUNE 2024.
We went back for a late night meal, out of necessity more than anything else. We were in the process of moving into our new home, and hadn’t unpacked the kitchen yet. The hour was late, and this was nearby and open. The meal we had was actually quite good.
The Yuxiang Eggplant was vey delicious, with a more tough Asian eggplant used than the deep purple ones found at the local grocery store. The sauce was a delicious combination of sweet, sour, and spicy, and perfect with some steamed white rice. This meal inspired me to try to make some yuxiang eggplant of my own at home, something I failed miserably at.
These combination fried noodles were also delicious, with a thick eggy gravy draping through the crispy fried noodles, softening them and providing a degree of textural variance in each bite.
We’ve been to Silver Territory an unusual number of times (4 within the last 6 months) with our friends WHJ XWO CJP and NT, but they have yet to disappoint, both in terms of a regular succulent Chinese sit-down meal, as well as for their yum cha offerings.
I will bore you only with some brief dot-pointed thoughts, after which you may feast your eyes on some photos:
Our first visit was meant to be for their evening yum-cha offering, but we found that this only happened on certain nights of the week, and we had to order from a usual formal Chinese menu instead. This was actually quite good, the kind of dinner my parents would have.
Of the sit down dishes, the king prawn omlette I thought was really good and creamy.
Of the yum cha dishes, their chives and prawn dumplings were good, their chicken feet were good, in fact most things were good.
Perhaps the goodest or most interesting was their radish cake, a yum cha item that will gain a spot as a featured item below, chopped up into bite sized portions and stir fried rather than served as large slabs. Much oil, much wok hei, much delicious.
Verdict
This restaurant is not better or worse than any other yum cha establishment in Burwood. Solid, in fact, and usually a shorter queue but more rapid and Chinese style service than Royal Treasure Seafood Restaurant in Emerald Square.
Whilst we’ve parked frequently outside Yang’s Dumpling on our way to other restaurants we’d not, until now, ventured inside. We ordered a surprising amount of food for two humans trying to save for a deposit for residential property in Sydney, and much to our detriment, it wasn’t all good.
We had a combination of pan-fried pork buns (3) and pan-fried pork & prawn buns (3) for $13.80, but sadly only received two pork and prawn buns and four usual pork buns, the sesame colour-scheme system clearly failing them and us. Whilst the pork and prawn ones were nice and fresh and tasty, the lack of a third bun meant that I didn’t get a good interior shot of them.
The pan-fried pork buns were sadly not as good as the pork and prawn buns because they simply weren’t hot and fresh. These buns are not quite sheng jiang bao as they were not filled with soup, though they did have (or were meant to have) a crispy base.
The pan-fried vegetable and pork buns (4 for $9.80) were pretty good though. It’s really heat dependent.
The xiao long bao (6 for $9.80) had a strange taste and we did not finish them.
The pan-fried vegetable and pork dumplings ($11.80) were also not warm!
Love a good tea/soy egg though.
GENERAL THOUGHTS It was a real shame that a lot of what we ordered just wasn’t fresh and warm. The things that were fresh were pretty good, but the enjoyment of pan fried dumplings is really dependent on their warmth and crispiness. I guess they must not be cooked to order, which I think is below the bar set by most establishments that sell food.
Canton Noodle House’s Burwood restaurant was a frequent haunt for my family in the early 2000s, and I recently had the chance to relive those memories with my partner, ordering a couple of dishes that I loved as a young teen, as well as one of her choice in an ultra-traditional sit down meal.
My partner and I rarely eat whole fish these days, but my parents were always big fans of Deep Fried Flounder with Salt & Pepper ($21.80), even if they did their best to avoid other deep fried foods in general. This fish was as good as I remembered it, with an extremely crispy exterior, the classic “salt & pepper” mix of mild chillis, garlic, and spring onions, and a thin layer of delicate flesh beneath the batter. It was great, and totally not a low-fat post cholecystectomy dish for me to have.
The diced fillet steak with wasabi sauce ($27.80) was another favourite from childhood, though in this case much saltier than I remembered. The beef was cut into inconsistently sized and shaped pieces, with the cubed pieces clearly more tender than the rectangular ones – a distinction that I also don’t remember making as a kid. The wasabi-cream sauce was still excellent even after all these years, with just a mild nose of wasabi, but with a creaminess that dampened down the saltiness of the beef. Just look at it all glisten in the light. Great with rice.
The sun-dried scallop with chicken and fried Japanese tofu ($21.80) is not a dish from my childhood, but I simply couldn’t subject my partner to Hokkien fried rice in addition to all the other stuff that I wanted. This is a classic gravied dish of fried Japanese egg-style tofu with some chicken mince, baby corn, mushrooms and carrot, not salty enough to need to be eaten with rice, but still great with some rice to soak up the sauce and its flavours. Pretty good, though I honestly think no better than what I’ve made at home?
Rice, probably a few dollars for a bowl. White. Steamed. Good with everything.
OVERALL Canton Noodle House’s rapid service, great food and generous serving sizes are reason enough for its place as one of the top staple Chinese restaurants in Chinese dominated areas of Sydney like Burwood and Hurstville. The Hurstville restaurant is more spacious than the one in Burwood, occupying an entire first floor above the kitchen, though they were still completely full during our weekday lunch visit, with a seemingly long list of regulars who order their bowl of noodles before even sitting down.
Can recommend. I still want to go back for the Hokkien Fried Rice of my childhood. I wish the menu had photos, but in the meantime, blog posts like this will have to do.
Canton Noodle House Hurstville 中發雲吞麵家 3/206 Forest Rd, Hurstville NSW 2220 (02) 9580 0588
