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.
This is not really a restaurant, and this is not really a review. It is more of a description of a vibe and a general sense of feeling that I get when I drink a small $9 flask of bubble tea.
I don’t think there’s really any argument about the quality of these drinks. They are tasty, they are inventive, and they actually have a number of elements not found elsewhere. The Grapefruit Green Tea Slush with Fruit Jelly ($8.50) is a good example of this, where these guys experimenting with new ideas, for example putting the jelly at the bottom of the cup and not throughout it, actually changes the experience. It tastes pretty good, but again I’m reminded that we just spent $8.50 on a bubble tea.
This Black Milk Tea with Panna Cotta ($9) was also actually very good. Again a daring move from the mochi mochi team putting panna cotta at the bottom of the drink. Very tasty, and I think better than the option from Xing Fu Tang which incorporates panna cotta as a separate element. The price element comes out again though, even more in this case. One of the other things about these teas is that you’re actually not getting a large 700-800mL cup like you would normally. These are quite compact, slim, hip-flask like situations, so I think ultimately you’re paying around 3x the price for what you would pay for a standard milk tea a couple of years ago.
Whilst bubble tea has always been a discretionary spend Machi Machi certainly takes the idea of it as a luxury good to the next level. I don’t think your average public selective school student or university student really has access to buying and drinking these all the time, but there’s always the international student market.
UPDATE JANUARY 2023
We found ourselves back at Machi Machi, this time in Hurstville, about 14 months on for a $9.50 Grapefruit Mango Cream Smoothie with Kanten Jelly. It actually did taste very good, but looked nothing like the picture, and again I’m left wondering to myself – who is the target market for this product? Because it sure isn’t us.
Pegfeeds adherents know that this blog originally started as an idea to catalogue all different types of Asian groceries and snacks so that I could remember what I liked and what I didn’t like. That never really took off, and to this day I still keep buying the same snacks having forgotten that I don’t actually like them.
That said, I have done one previous frozen dumpling review from the yet-unparalleled Big John. Are these frozen dumplings from Orange Supermarket from Wentworth Point NSW going to cut the mustard? Find out more literally in the next sentence.
I boiled these Pork and Chives Dumplings (15 for $12.50) in the usual way. While they were not bad, and definitely better than 90% of the other frozen dumplings on the market, they weren’t quite as good as Big John’s. There was a good quantity of chive, with a good filling to wrapper ratio, but at the end of the day I didn’t feel like the texture of the meat was as good. It kind of faded away into nothing, where I prefer a bit more of a coarser grind to the pork to give it a bit of bite.
Having said that, they’re not bad, right. The flavour was OK, and they certainly slide into the premium tier of frozen grocery store dumplings. They just don’t beat the reigning champ.
麒麟 手工韭菜猪肉水饺 – UPC 0793420734661
UPDATE. I had more of their frozen dumplings/wontons and didn’t feel like it really warranted a separate post, especially as this one’s already been published. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll have an entire meal at Chi Lin and this will become a restaurant review instead of a review of only frozen dumpers.
The Chi Lin Pork and Vegetable Wontons were actually quite good. They were better, in my opinion, than the Pork and Chives Dumplings.
I preferred the thinner wrappers of these wontons, as well as the filling, which had a more complex umami flavour. These wontons even came with soup flavouring for a bit of a hot and sour soup, which was tasty even if not elevated. At $11.50 for 12 from Orange Supermarket in Wentworth Point, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy these again.
Chi Lin Pork and Vegetable Wontons – 0793420734630
I watched Lucas Sin’s cha chaan teng video for VICE at least three times over the last few months of lockdown here in Sydney, and have had a hankering for some Hong Kong Cafe style food ever since. Luckily the Instagram algorithm saw it fit to serve me photos of Hong Kong Bing Sutt’s delicious looking beef noodle soup over the same period of time, and while I was unable to order takeaway via the app (as I am illiterate) I took myself and my Cantonese-speaking girlfriend over there the first chance I could.
Hong Kong Bing Sutt’s milk tea ($5.30) is extremely rich and dark, likely owing to the traditional method of brewing Hong Kong milk tea which undergoes multiple prolonged steeps through a silk stocking filter to ensure deep extraction. While this is only imagined (the brewing of the tea was not witnessed by me), the rich and smooth flavour of the tea was directly confirmed. While the hot version served at the restaurant comes unsweetened with some sugar on the side, HKBS also sells bottled versions of its chilled pre-sweetened milk tea for $7 a bottle, which are also pretty good, if pricey.
The Mixed Beef Noodle ($15.80) was what drew me in initially, and was actually pretty great in reality. It comes default with thin egg noodles, stewed beef brisket, beef tripe, beef tendon, and beef tendon balls, though many of these elements can be customised to taste. The beef brisket was represented by both fatty and less fatty pieces, all of which were rich tasting and cooked to an extreme degree of tenderness. There was no skimping on any of the other components, including the deep soy marinated tendon and tripe, and even shared between the two of us we felt like we each had enough. The soup was flavoured with chu hou paste, which is a traditional sauce for Cantonese style beef brisket, and nice and warming. The noodles were not extraordinary, rather acting as a mere vehicle for the rest of the very good bowl.
I wasn’t such a huge fan of the BBQ Pork and Over Easy Eggs with Rice ($16.80), but my partner loved it. I felt that the big slabs of char siu were actually not as flavoured as I am used to, which was fine, but didn’t help to carry the bulk of the rice underneath as well as I would have liked. The over easy egg was very well done, extremely soft and runny in the centre. It was only at the bottom of the rice that we found some soy sauce. I think ultimately this was a dish that would have been more suited to being served in a claypot with a bit of thick soy sauce on top, and the bowl format just didn’t work as well.
This rice noodle roll was fine, but too vegetarian for me. The rice noodles themselves were soft and not too oily, coated in a sauce of sesame seeds, hoisin, and probably peanut butter. The sauce wasn’t overpowering, but I just like my chang fen with a bit of prawn or meat in it.
The scrambled eggs and beef satay sandwich was pretty yum. This, the rice noodle roll, and the hot signature milk tea came to a combo total of $13.80, which is pretty decent. The satay beef was good, as was the very light and soft scrambled eggs. The bread was mostly de-crusted, although some edges still had a bit of unfortunate crust.
SECOND VISIT
These are the chicken wings in house made Swiss sauce ($8.80). I’ve recently been trying to lower my carb intake, so sadly many of the items on the menu at HKBS were mildly off limits to me on my second visit. The Swiss sauce in this dish is similar to the Swiss made stamp on my Chinese-made “Rolex” “Submariner”. More of an abstract vibe than a statement of origin, Swiss sauces are a purely Chinese based invention, a mixture of sugar, dark soy sauce, and shaoxing cooking wine. Classically boiled and shocked in an ice bath, these wings exhibited a good tender texture with a firm skin, however I must admit that after a couple of wings the strong shaoxing cooking wine flavour put me off having any more.
The beef brisket with special curry sauce and rice ($14.80) was a really good value, large meal of a classic Hong Kong style curry, big chunks of beef brisket, and potato served alongside a ball of rice. I appreciated that the curry and rice were served separately, minimising mess and also the desire to eat all of the rice. The beef brisket was tasty, though in my opinion could have been cooked to a higher degree of tenderness. The flavour of the curry was good overall, with the sauce highly compatible with the supplied rice.
The crispy pork belly with red beancurd sauce ($13.80) was really quite nice. The exterior batter is extremely crispy and made with fermented red bean curd (jiang dou fu 酱豆腐), which imparts a slightly salty, slightly sweet, and quite funky taste to the pork, almost similar to marmite pork ribs. The meat encased in the super crispy batter was moist, tender and fatty pork which tasted great on first eating, especially with the red sauce that neither my partner nor I could pinpoint as sweet-and-sour or sweet-chilli. Unfortunately as with many deep fried dishes this dish was a victim of entropy, and as our meal progressed on the loss of heat to the environment dulled its shine.
VERDICT Overall I enjoyed, though I think charging $7 for a small bottle of milk tea is a bit absurd.
Our bank accounts are very modest, and when my girlfriend suggested we go to the Dolar Shop for hotpot I very skillfully redirected us to YX Mini Hot Pot, a competent and reasonable alternative situated across the road.
One of the things I really like about YX Mini Hotpot are the semi-private booths that they offer. The interior is quite dark, and the spacious booths mean that you can enjoy your meal in private away from prying eyes.
YX preserved vegetable fish and chili baseYX tomato and mushroom base
We enjoyed YX Mini Hot Pot’s various hotpot bases. I chose the dual-base with preserved vegetable and fish (酸菜) and chili. I liked both bases but I wish that the fish and chilli base could be paired with a more neutral base like the mushroom base or the bone broth base. Unfortunately the combinations available for the dual broths were limited and I had to settle for two tasty broths.
My partner picked the mushroom base and the tomato base. The mushroom base was light and shroomy, and the tomato base was quite sweet. Both were quite good.
We enjoyed the assorted mushrooms and the bok choy. My partner particularly liked the way the oyster mushrooms were cut, which were flat and thin. One thing I would mention is that the bok choy was cut in a way where the stem and root end were completely removed, leaving only the leaf. I don’t know why they would have done this, as I quite like the stem part. As I was typing this my partner informed me that bok choy is her favourite vegetable to wash “as they have nice broad stems, and there’s not much room to hide dirt, and the leaves are easy to peel and detach.”
I can recommend both the fried tofu skin and the fresh tofu. Both were great at absorbing the taste of the soup.
As we are budget eaters, we ordered the normal sliced beef and sliced lamb. There were differing cuts and grades of wagyu on offer, however, for the discerning and wide walleted diner. The beef was very good and fresh. The lamb we found to be a bit lamby, however acceptable when cooked in the chilli soup base.
The assorted balls (meat and seafood) I thought was a bit missable. It was nice that they offered fresh stuff as opposed to supermarket freezer stuff, but they didn’t really wow me. If I had my time again I would not get these and get more meat or other seafood.
In conclusion: We really enjoyed YX Mini Hot Pot. We paid around $120 to satisfy two humans, which I think is a reasonable amount to pay for fresh ingredients. The ingredients were much fresher than Legend Hotpot Buffet in Emerald Square Burwood, however more expensive. We paid a similar amount at Chong Qing Ji Gong Bao in Kingsford, which is also a good option a bit further out from the city. I can recommend, however I can’t say anything about YX’s more premium offerings.
Contrary to what would be suggested by its name, Master Hot Pot is actually not a hotpot restaurant – it’s as malatang restaurant, and one of the only restaurants vaguely in the local area that opens late enough to go to after finishing work at 9:30PM.
The selection of meats, vegetables, tofu, seafood, and seafood based products at Master Hot Pot is broad. Patrons have the option of boiled or stir fried, with different bases to choose from as well. Seasoning is left up to the individual, with a station of condiments and sprinkles to be hand applied. There is therefore no blaming the restaurant if your bowl doesn’t taste exactly as you like.
There is a reasonable array of both non-alcoholic (think ITOEN ice green tea) and alcoholic (soju and beer) drinks to suit the local Asian populace.
Perhaps the most special thing about Master Hot Pot is that they are open until 2AM in the morning. They’re one of the only stores in the area to do so, and so when we visited at 11PM they were jam packed with local Asians of all descriptions having their late night dinner. Despite this, the restaurateurs manage to keep the facility clean and well kempt, as well as keep up with the mass of orders at a reasonable pace.
