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.
One of the first meals my partner and I shared together back in 2012 was at Market City’s food court, where we piled as much food as we could onto a plate of fixed surface area, and I watched in adoration as she finished all of the food when I could not.
I took her back to Market City when I proposed to her to try and relive this experience. Sadly the exact restaurant from 10 years ago was either unidentifiable or nowhere to be found, but MC Golden Tower (officially just “Golden Tower” post their renovation) seemed an appropriate substitute.
There was no self-serve on this visit, and it’s highly possible that this particular restaurant has never offered that at all. We had a number of choices (2 or 3 for a set price) served by the shop clerk with an experience somewhat marred by poor communication even though we do speak some Chinese between the two of us. Our choices of braised eggplant and soy chicken were honestly quite good for this hyper-cheap food court meal, though I wasn’t a huge fan of the fried rice which I felt was a bit wet and sticky compared to gold standard fried rice.
Golden Tower Market City Food Court, 9-13 Hay St, Haymarket NSW 2000 (02) 9212 1100
My first visit to Ho Jiak’s Haymarket restaurant last year didn’t leave me with a lot of great feelings, but my most recent visit to their Strathfield food court store did. Barring the involvement of serious live shellfish and other seafood, East and South East Asian food generally has an upper price point that most patrons would be willing to pay. I can only imagine that the higher overhead costs in the CBD are part of what makes Ho Jiak’s Strathfield Plaza branch a more attractive option.
Food is reasonably priced, and service is fast. There is no in-restaurant seating, with only a few tables and plastic chairs outside shared with the kebab shop across the corridor. While some may baulk at this lack of formality, I think it’s important to consider this is the kind of thing that keeps food as cheap and accessible as possible. I’ve certainly never thought that char kway teow needs a tablecoth, though if the presence of a few less savoury characters roaming the halls of Strathfield Plaza could be managed that would be more ideal.
The Bah Kut Teh Rice ($19) was good. From the garlic infused rice to the you tiao to the herbal soup and pork ribs, each bite was full of flavour. The rice was warm and moist, and the serving of pork belly was quite generous for the price. I didn’t quite feel that the bak kut teh was the standard flavour – it had more of a dark soy sauce component – but it was good nonetheless. The you tiao was a bit tepid in temperature, but somehow incredibly crispy, great dipped in the soup or on its own.
If the bah kuth teh rice was good, the Indomee Goreng Salted Duck Egg & Crab Meat ($22) was even better. Every single bite of this was good. The noodles were al dente and delicious, completely transcending the expectations set by its 40 cent per packet price. The rich soy, spicy, and umami flavours of the noodles were amplified by the mince, fish balls, and vegetables, and duck egg accompaniments. The crab meat, though probably the bigger money ingredient here, didn’t really add as much as I had hoped. This was just an amazing dish (if a little salty), though next time I’d save $4 and get it without the crab.
The Inchi Kabin (4 for $13) were Nonya-style deep fried chicken mid wings. Mid wings are, in my opinion, the optimal part of the chicken wing, and I much prefer them to drumsticks. These particular wings were quite good, with a nice crispy skin and moist interior. They reminded me of those at Nam2 in their construction.
The Teh Susu ($3.50) is a very cheap milk tea.
VERDICT I really enjoyed Ho Jiak’s Strathfield Plaza outlet. The food was great, and the prices quite reasonable. There are both pros and cons to its food court location. We were asked for spare change by the same guy twice during our quick meal.
Ho Jiak Strathfield Shop 33 Strathfield Plaza, 11 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW 2135 (02) 9008 8020
I love a good Shandong chicken, but a Shandong chicken is apparently not an actual Shandong regional dish. Here I will describe some dishes that apparently are.
Here is a collection of braised foodstuffs, including braised pork belly ($5), braised meatball ($5), braised soymilk film ($3), braised chilli ($3), and braised egg ($3), cross-sectional imaging to come. I had mixed feelings about this one, and only really liked the meatball out of all of them. The chilli I found was extraordinarily spicy for such a large pepper, whilst the tofu I thought was not very deeply flavoured at all. The pork belly was alright but not super tender, and the egg cooked all the way through and really nothing special.
If I could go back in time in a time machine, I would only get the braised meat ball, which was very soft and tasty, but probably needed a bit of rice to go with it.
I’ve been searching my entire life (or at least ever since Taste Gallery in Parramatta closed – a real loss for Western Sydney) for some good zhenjiang pork ribs. Sadly these marinated pork ribs with sweet black vinegar ($12.80) weren’t it. I thought that these ribs were unusually meaty, but not very tender. Their taste was not what I had pictured in my nostalgia-addled brain (nostalgia for a restaurant that I ate at two years ago – does that still count?) with a rich plum taste with too much sweetness and not enough sourness, as well as an unpleasant oiliness. Oh well, the search goes on.
I was quite keen on some dumplings (a guy on an adjacent table had some incredibly pungent chive ones that he was ripping through by himself), but my partner chose for us to have the shandong soup buns ($12.80) instead. I honestly don’t know why we’re trying to pretend that these weren’t just xiao long bao, and in my opinion inferior to those from the freezer at your local Asian grocer.
OVERALL THOUGHTS I didn’t love what we had to eat, though for some reason my partner still wants to go back in the future. It might have to be by herself.
While I guess some of the grocery posts on this blog have worldwide appeal, much of what I eat from the local Asian grocery store is made here in Sydney, and only available at a few places. This makes me writing this essentially useless, as the likelihood of even a single person reading this and then deciding to buy or not buy these wontons is exceedingly low.
Despite this, I thought the Prestons Foods Pork & Garlic Chive Wontons to be quite solid. The filling was generous and had a good meaty texture and good chivey flavour. I’d eat them again.
We went to local restaurant Yummy King on an online recommendation for some suckling pork. Unfortunately they were sold out of suckling pork for the day (we were told that they usually run out around 2PM, earlier during festive seasons), so this is what we had instead.
We started, after a couple who had only just finished their meal were hurried out of their table so that we could be seated, with this classic complimentary soup with some pork bone, carrot and potato. It had a light and wholesome flavour, perfect to drink during the extremely short wait for our food to arrive. My partner always enjoys this, no matter where we go.
We had the double varieties BBQ with rice ($13) with BBQ pork and roast duck. The quantity was quite ample for the price, especially considering you can get this with the huge mountain of rice, a good amount of protein, and a free soup for just $13. The roast duck (燒鴨) was pretty good, with good flavour, skin and texture with a good combination of meatiness and fattiness, with not much bone.
The BBQ pork was less good in our opinion – cooked a bit sweeter than we like, with also a different cut of pork than we are used to (or is it just cut in a different direction?) I honestly think that the char siu (叉烧) that my partner makes at home with the recipe from The Woks of Life is better.
We also ordered an entire serving of roast pork ($15.80) by itself. Contrary to the disappointing char siu, Yummy King’s roast pork was actually some of the best I’ve ever had. The flavours were perfect, with just a little bit of salt and other seasoning coming through, but not to an overpowering or oversalted extent. The skin was incredibly crispy and tasty throughout the course of our meal, and the meat was tender and juicy, with not much fat. This was really some very top tier siu yuk (燒肉), and I would not hesitate to recommend it.
The ginger and shallot sauce, along with all other sauces like duck sauce were self-serve from a little sauce stall at the back of the restaurant. As it was end of day, the ginger and shallot sauce had gotten a little sedimenty.
Because we are cosplaying as responsible adults this year, we ordered a serve of steamed Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce ($10). Truth be told, we could’ve had better value getting a set menu for two, but my partner specifically wanted gai lan over choy sum (a little bit of which came with th BBQ meats anyway). These were super green and probably quite healthy, though we are told by my partner’s mother that greenness comes from the addition of oil in the cooking process.
SUBSEQUENT VISIT (APRIL 2023)
The soy chicken, had for takeout, was pretty good. Exactly what it is, no more and no less.
The suckling pork ($78/kg) was really delicious. So juicy and fatty, and yet crispy at the same time, with just the perfect fat to meat to skin ratio. At the asking price, not something we can have all the time, but I’m so glad we were able to come back and get this.
OTHER THOUGHTS I went out onto the street to find the nearest ATM because my partner thought that they told her there was a 4% card surcharge, something she’s since backed down on since she now claims she doesn’t understand the language perfectly (never mind the fact that she grew up with Cantonese at home). A 4% card surcharge would be highly suspicious but without clear evidence of this there’s not much more to say.
The roast pork is delicious. Don’t expect to be allowed to stay much longer than your eating time. They’re super busy and popular, with a line out the door when we arrived.
