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.
Nestled on a side street off Waterloo’s Gadigal Avenue is Mr Sun’s Fried Buns, a homely neighbourhood restaurant serving a variety of both bun and non-bun fare. A surprising amount of care has been put into the restaurant’s decor, which features bamboo steamers hung upside down in stacks from the ceilings as well as stuck onto the walls.
Mr Sun’s fried buns are not your regular shengjian bao. Though their fillings are authentic to the standard, the wrappers used by Mr Sun in his headline buns are much thinner, providing an optimal meat to juice to bread ratio that both delights the senses and allows the lucky patron to eat fit more buns into their digestive tract.
We had a combination of porkbuns (left) and prawn buns (right) (4 for $10). A deeper dive is not possible at this stage as I’ve just forgotten how they tasted, however I can promise you that they tasted good. I thought it was a shame that they only offer two different flavours of buns cooked in this style, and I think that they would even benefit from offering all of their dumpling fillings in buns cooked this way. They were just great. I could have easily filled up on these.
The Chinese Spinach and Pork Wonton in Soup ($14.50) was a warming and wholesome dish. The soup was a nice semi-clear broth with a good but not too strong flavour, probably packed more with MSG than NaCl. It was topped with some bean cured, shallot, and seaweed, the last two elements adding additional umami. The wontons were a good size and had a nice, large, meaty filling. This wonton soup is better than that at nearby Yummy Duck BBQ.
I have no complaints about these boiled Scallop and Prawn Dumplings (12 for $15.80), though again I wish they would make all of their different dumpling varieties into their fried buns. I think it would be a real winner.
The Steamed Rice in Claypot with Braised Pork ($18.50) really didn’t look like the image provided, nor was it really congruous with the name of the dish. While I can accept this kind of thing as a takeaway or delivery meal (no restaurant is going to give you an actual claypot to take home), I don’t really go to a restaurant so that I can eat in a foil tray. Indeed there was nothing about this dish to indicate that it had ever even met a claypot, let alone been in one. To its credit, the dish did taste good, with a some of the rice having been made crispy, and not only the right sauce and pork to rice ratio but also the right amount of cabbage to keep things fresh. Regardless, they shouldn’t have shown a picture of food in a claypot if they weren’t going to serve it in one.
DISCUSSION
The food, particularly Mr Sun’s signature fried buns, tasted quite good. Unfortunately cleanliness, particularly of the cups for drinking water, was an issue, and I think it’s a restaurant best approached in the style of the Middle Ages, where beer was safer to drink than water.
Tucked away on Trelawney St on the Chinese side of Eastwood is Hungry Paulie, purveyor or fine Taiwanese breakfast foods.
The Traditional Egg Pancake with Fried Bread Stick (P15 台式蛋饼包油条 – $9.50) is similar to but not quite the same as the jianbing guozi (煎饼馃子) that I had in my childhood. Thin pancakes with a layer of egg omlette are wrapped around freshly fried yóutiáo, with a bit of very light soy flavoured dressing on top. The yóutiáo at Hungry Paulie are seriously good and well worth a mention, each hand-prepared on site from scratch by artisans working behind a glass window. I can recommend this.
My partner was a big fan of the Black Pepper Pork Pastry with Shallots (Paulie Pie) (P1 胡椒饼 – $6.50), which was essentially a large spherical pie with a huge amount of peppery beef steak filling. There is little in common between this meat pie and the classic Australian meat pie. The shape is almost spherical, with a more dough-reinforced base at the bottom and minimal crust up top. The filing is steak-dominated, with big chunks of chewable meat in a black-pepper rich semi-solid gravy. It was pretty good, and at $6.50 good value and worth a try.
My partner, keen on a dessert dish, ordered the hot Roasted Peanut Rice Milk (D2 – 花生米浆 – $4) This wasn’t quite what she expected. Rather than being a dessert, it was more of a staple meal, with quite a significant size and warmth to it. It had a distinctive peanut flavour and it wasn’t too sweet, but neither of us was a big fan of it. Perhaps it just wasn’t what we were looking for this morning.
The Taiwanese Anchovy Congee (C16 – 台式吻仔鱼粥 – $12) is a loose, wet congee flavoured with little dried anchovies. It is much looser than the congees of my childhood, though not to its detriment. The toppings of youtiao and fried wonton skins added a nice amount of crunch, but unfortunately the anchovy added only a slight almost-imperceptible umami flavour. Though this was a nicely warming bowl overall, I don’t think I really got much out of the anchovy flavouring. I think that if I were to come back I would get a more standard congee, like the one with preserved egg and pork, which is a known favourite.
The Braised Combo Noodle Soup (N6 – 红烧手工牛肉三宝面 – $18.50) was ordered essentially because there was a portrait of it sitting in front of me at the bar seats. It was probably fine, but to be honest at this point in the meal we were a bit too full to enjoy anything properly. The noodles had a slight mala flavour, which I normally don’t mind (and even enjoy) but didn’t appeal to me today. It was packed with protein of multiple bovine sources – muscle, tendon, rumen, and probably some reticulum too. Whilst I enjoyed the muscle, I could only bring myself to nibble on the other beef parts – I think it really is a dish best ordered hungry. The noodles were otherwise good, and the baby bok choy was very tender and sweet. I feel like I disappointed this dish, not the other way around.
The Savoury Rice Pudding (T1 – 碗粿 – $7) was a creamy, almost radish-cakey lump of starch in a bowl of gravy and mince. It was tasty and good, though I’m still not really sure what was inside
SUBSEQUENT VISIT We re-visited Hungry Paulie around 7 months later, under a cloud of general malaise (short-lived, and well worth the extra protection) following the third dose of a COVID vaccine.
The Soy Bean Jelly with Sweet Soft Peanut (花生甜豆花 – $5.50) was like a wet, loose dou fu nao. There was less tofu than I would’ve liked, but I felt it was still adequately soft and silky, suspended in this soy milk soup. My partner, in a moment of surprisingly conviction, said that she thought that the tofu in this was still not as silky as what she gets at yum cha.
The Braised Soy Egg (滷蛋 – $2.50) was a soy egg, cut into quarters, and presented with a bit of garlic and chilli sauce. While there were no surprises with the egg itself, the addition of sauce was completely unexpected, as was the addition of shallots and lettuce. The sauce was ultimately quite tasty, and added to the experience. It’s interesting that there is a price differential between ordering this in the restaurant and via an online ordering app. It appears to be cheaper delivered, which is just strange.
The Fried Radish Cake in Garlic Sauce Dressing ($5.50) was unexpectedly enjoyable. I’m normally not a believer in the radish cakes, but this one had me surprised. The outer layers were crispily fried, whilst the gooey inner layer was only modestly thick and barely noticeable. These radish cakes were drenched in a similar sauce to the eggs, which was very valuable to adding flavour. I think that with optimal frying dimensions and garlic sauce dressing these radish cakes were able to be enjoyed even by the non radish cake lover.
The Traditional Shallots Pancake with Braised Beef (牛肉捲餅 – $11.50) was not as good as the egg pancake, and not as good as I hoped. The actual pancake itself was stellar – thin, hot, and crispy, and with good shallot flavour. What was unfortunate was the filling that the shallot was wrapped around – a huge mass of lettuce, with a small amount of dressing and some cold braised beef. I think some warmth on the beef would’ve gone a long way, and it was certainly not helped by the mass of cold, internally wet lettuce. They really need to rethink this one.
The Taiwanese Pork Thick Soup with Bamboo and added Rice (嘉義赤肉羹 – $17) was quite enjoyable. It had a quality similar to a hot and sour soup, with plenty of white pepper flavour as well as something similar to bonito flake on top. It was thickened, with a reasonable amount of meat, bamboo, and mushrooms for the price. We were almost going to riot for not getting our rice, until we realised it was actually hidden inside the soup. So it was essentially a kind of congee.
This Wintermelon Iced Tea ($3.50) was super fresh, a bit sweet but not too sweet, and quite importantly, cheap. It makes a joke out of Hong Kong Bing Sutt charging $7 for a (delicious) iced milk tea.
VERDICT I quite liked Hungry Paulie, and I’d like to take my parents to the Mascot branch once they feel safe enough from a COVID-19 to leave the house. There are plenty of things that I remember from my childhood on offer at Hungry Paulie that I think they would enjoy.
I recently had the pleasure of being among the first to receive my COVID-19 booster vaccine at the WSLHD Sydney Super Dome Quodos Bank Arena vaccination centre, and took myself out for a nearby breakfast to celebrate. The focus of my journey, Shiweiju, was not open, and I settled on nearby iBao (i包) instead.
Similar to Shiweju, iBao (i包) serves a variety of Tianjin or Northern Chinese breakfast classics, in a no-nonsense setting. I ordered in English (much to the disappointment of the man working there) a number of dishes from my childhood.
The Soy Milk ($3), is made in the Chinese style, with a light and watery mouthfeel. It was served warm in a coffee cup, with a small amount of sugar mixed in. I don’t know whether this soy milk is made in-store or merely purchased by the jug and heated, but the uneven distribution of sugar towards the bottom of the cup implies that it is made fresh.
I was a big fan of the pancake rolled with crisp fritter ($6.80). The thin and pliable jianbing, cooked with egg, had a fresh and light taste. The tian mian jiang (sweet bean sauce) was evenly applied and not overpowering, and while the jianbing was filled with a strange fried fritter rather than the classic youtiao, it still added the same crispiness.
The pork bun ($2.50) is a classic Tianjin bun, typified by the goubuli baozi that dogs don’t care about. The exterior is soft and almost dangerously thick, but when matched bite-for-bite with the moist and pork filling the meat to carb ratio was perfectly adequate. These are quite cheap and filling, and appear to be well loved by local community, who bought them in larger quantities to take home and eat with their families.
COMMENTS There aren’t that many restaurants in Sydney focused on Tianjin or Northern Chinese cuisine, and I’m very grateful for the ones that do exist. My one gripe would be the staff member who went out for a cigarette just outside the restaurant’s front door, with the wind blowing some of the smoke inside. Maybe it added to the authenticity though.
There aren’t that many restaurants that take new customers at 1AM, but Yummy Seafood Chinese Restaurant in Beverly Hills is one of them. To the annoyance of the restaurant’s staff, we ordered only one dish between the two of us. Looking around us however we saw multiple groups of young Chinese in their early 20s eating lobster in the dead of night.
500g Pipis in XO Sauce with vermicelli ($44.80)
I’ve been wanting to go to XOPP or Golden Century to try their XO Pipis for some time, but a whole constellation of reasons have meant that I have yet to go. I took the opportunity of eating without my seafood-averse girlfriend to order the the Pipis in XO Sauce ($59.60/kg – market price) with vermicelli ($15 add-on).
The meal was really just OK. The vermicelli was nicely fried, and the XO sauce which coated the pipis and noodles added a good slightly spicy flavour to it. The pipis were fresh from the tank but honestly didn’t taste that fresh or flavourful.
We were served watermelon and orange after our single dish meal and hurried out with some looks just as their closing time of 2AM hit. (There were some high rollers still eating.)
3.5/5 late night special
Yummy Seafood Chinese Restaurant 477 King Georges Rd, Beverly Hills NSW 2209 (02) 9580 0788
My first experience with Mr Stonebowl was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when I ordered some dinner from their Hurstville restaurant that took around two hours to deliver and ended up being quite disappointing. My second experience, on the first day of reopening in October 2021, was much better, though not without its faults.
Our ordering was largely guided by my esteemed colleague JZHW, a Burwood local and Mr Stonebowl evangelist.
The garlic prawn with stir fried rice in squid ink ($19.80), a “must-order” per both JZHW and the staff at Mr Stonebowl, was a pretty reasonable dish. It was a large pot of dark-coloured rice covered in a creamy sauce and topped with some battered and deep fried garlic prawns. This configuration of white sauce atop rice was fusion in a sense reminiscent of Hong Kong cafe style cuisine, though no cultural inspirations have been explicity mentioned by the restaurant. Overall a large, economical, and good (if heavy) dish.
The chicken feet and bean silk in homemade sauce ($8.60) wasn’t really very good. This dish was the first indication that steamed yum cha style dishes aren’t really this restaurant’s specialty. While feng zhua (鳯爪) is typically steamed to the point where the meat and skin is falling off the bone and easily eaten off, these little chicken feet still had all of the connective tissues clinging to the bone. Unfortunately this made for a difficult to eat and less flavourful dish. A few extra minutes in the steamer would’ve made a lot of difference, and honestly this is an amateur mistake to make. I wouldn’t order this again.
The stew beef tendon with crispy quail eggs ($17.80) was alright. I wasn’t a huge fan of the flavour, but I do like myself a bit of beef tendon in pho, in instant noodles, and just in general. The decision to slightly fry the quail eggs to make them crispy and dry on the outside was a strange one.
The special soup with fish fillet, prawn, razor clam, and quail eggs ($18.20) was surprisingly spicy, but had quite a good flavour. The nature of the fish fillets wasn’t clear but our JZHW’s Vietnamese partner thinks it was basa.
The pork ribs in Beijing style sweet and sour sauce ($17.80) were not, as I thought they would have been, Zhenjiang pork ribs. Instead they were your pretty standard sweet and sour sauce pork ribs with cubed pineapple in tow. They were pretty good to be honest, but not really traditional Chinese food. This would all be much easier if I could read Chinese.
The pork and chive dumplings ($8.80) were a standout. Very good, very authentic, and very cheap. I could recommend these to anyone.
The shumai ($8.50), conversely, were quite bad. They were very loose inside, packed with vegetables rather than the classic pork or prawn meat. Thematically they were more similar to the Australian “dim sim”, a fried mess of minced cabbage and mystery meat. I wouldn’t recommend these.
The prawn dumplings (xia jiao) ($8.50) were alright. They were plump and tasty, though I felt like again they could’ve been steamed for longer. The wrappers were just a bit too chewy in my opinion.
The Singapore style barramundi ($20.80) was, in my opinion, better than that at related restaurant Mr Stonepot in Eastwood. While I think the fish was probably leaner or smaller and the dish a dollar more expensive, I thought the sauce tasted better here.
OVERALL THOUGHTS I think that Mr Stonebowl does live up to its reputation for providing reasonable quality Chinese food at an attractive price. The four of us had initially set out for hotpot, but after finding we looking at paying around $80 pp for the only hot pot available in Burwood on the first night of eased COVID-19 restrictions we chose to dine here instead at the relative bargain basement price of $33 per person. There are certainly things I’d avoid at Mr Stonebowl, which generally includes anything steamed, but the rest of the food seems pretty reasonable.
