Category: Chinese

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Sunny Seafood Restaurant Central Park Mall 偉洋海鮮酒樓 – Chippendale NSW Restaurant Review

My partner and I got married relatively recently, and celebrated with a small lunch at Sunny’s Seafood Restaurant with close family only. We were seated in a private dining room and had dishes from a slightly varied banquet menu, which provided a good balance of price and performance as well as tastiness. The majority of dishes that we chose were classical Chinese restaurant fare however some were of the restaurant’s Teochow specialty regional cuisine.

I will aim to picture and vaguely describe each dish, but the overall takeaway should be that the food was all very good, even though no particular dish necessarily stood out.

Though I can no longer identify each of the various components of this braised mixed platter, I can remember that I enjoyed it thoroughly, as the first piece of food that was offered. I enjoyed the braised pork hock, which I remember to be gelatinous and melty, as well as the tofu and other now unidentifiable animal pieces. I think there was some chicken in there.

The lobster with e-fu noodles, ginger and shallot 姜葱龙虾 is a classic dish that no Chinese restaurant celebration can go without, no complaints here.

The special pork Spare ribs with vinegar sauce 镇江排骨 were really good. We’ve been searching for these pork ribs for a multiple years, and this is the first time where we were able to find something that was sweet and sour but mostly sour and only a very little bit sweet. The meat was tender, the flavors were right on, and I’m happy we were able to have this for our wedding.

The Peached Vegetables with Oyster Sauce (郊外油菜胆) were ordered to appease some kind of higher power that demanded that at least some vegetables be present in our meal. It came with seasoned with these little pieces of dried fish which were crispy and quite interesting, even though my wife did not love them, fish-hater as she is.


The family got to the steamed coral trout before I was able to take a photo. I didn’t end up having much of it, but it was pretty good with tender flesh and a very classical coriander, soy and shallot based saucing.

This braised pan fried bean curd with mushroom 冬菇红烧豆腐 was also the victim of family members. Don’t they understand why I had gathered everyone there? It was also pretty good – not something we normally have (a recommendation from the restaurant), but quite tasty, and well liked by all.

The Signature Stir Fried Beef Steak in Japanese Style 招牌清酒和牛粒 was tender and tasty. Even though I had originally envisioned getting the one with the wasabi sauce, I did not regret my decision to not change it once I realised I had ordered the wrong one.

The stir fried scallop with vegetable 翡翠带子 tasted as it looked.

The Crispy Goose 脆皮烧鹅 was actually really good. There aren’t that many places in Sydney to get barbecued goose, and this was our first time having it. It was so much meatier than your average roast duck, but also so tender and juicy and fatty in all the right places and cooked with such a crispy skin.

The fried rice with chicken and salted fish 咸鱼鸡粒炒饭 was ordered for my brother in law as a low-seafood option, given the large volume of seafood on the menu. He instead opted for an entire bowl of steamed white rice. The fried rice was pretty good.

For dessert, the red bean soup. Very standard.

They also patiently served and cut up 3 cakes, packing half of all cake up into takeaway boxes for us to take home, which was really good from a service point of view. They had a good eye for the amount of cake required for the attendees, and it was much more obvious to them than it was to us that we had ordered twice as much cake as we needed.

This unusual, slightly sweet jelly, embedded with flowers and goji berries, was quite refreshing and had a bit of a tea flavour. I don’t know what it’s called, but I would not mind having it again.

These cookies were fresh out of the oven and absolutely amazing. So warm and buttery.

Overall

We had a really good meal. I think at least a large part of this was the fact that we literally got to order everything that we wanted to eat and nothing that we didn’t want to eat. It’s so hard for a two-person couple (as opposed to what, a three-person couple?) to go to a formal sit-down Chinese restaurant and order a variety of food, simply because the portions are so large. In gathering all of our close family under the auspices of having a wedding we were able to eat everything that we wanted to.

Total cost was around $100 pp, which is amazing for a wedding.

Sunny Seafood Restaurant Central Park Mall 偉洋海鮮酒樓
R201/1 Central Park Ave, Chippendale NSW 2008





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Chinese

Toi Shan – Bendigo VIC Restaurant Review

I saw on the news that Toi Shan in Bendigo has closed its doors two days ago, ending its streak as the longest-running Chinese restaurant in Australia after 133 years, and I did not feel a single shred of sadness. Reading through the praise online from individuals as well as outlets like Fairfax’s Good Food really makes me doubt these people have actually eaten there, or if they’ve ever eaten Chinese food anywhere else.

I’m not generally in the habit of ragging on places I went to 9 years ago, but I remember the visit distinctly, have photographic evidence to back me up, and I figure that now that they’re closed forever it’s fair game.

I’m pretty sure we had the Shandong chicken, which doesn’t exist on the menu at the current time, and so may have been the Northern Chicken instead. It arrived served on a sheet of aluminium foil (why?) and looked nothing like what we expected. In a move of 2016 humour, we even took a photo comparing it to a photo of Shandong chicken from Google Images.

I don’t have a good recollection of the flavours but judging by the visual appearance, my general vibe of the memory of the meal, as well as a silly selfie of my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and myself making sad faces in the restaurant I can safely say it is was not the best.

I don’t think their closure is a great loss to the culinary arts.

This has been an unauthorised eulogy for:

Toi Shan Bendigo
65/67 Mitchell St, Bendigo VIC 3550

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Chinese

Jinweide 金味阁 Lanzhou Golden Taste – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I walked into Jinweide expecting a simple menu where I could just say ‘1 lanzhou beef noodle please’, but when confronted with a number of unexpected options, I deferred to the person taking my order, ending up with this Handmade beef noodle, thin (type 3) noodles, less spicy ($14.80)

Despite the high degree of visual appeal, the taste of these noodles failed to impress me. I think the most critical part was that the flavour of the broth was too mild, tasting watery rather than soupy. I don’t think the ‘less spicy’ option was necessarily a factor in this, but just that a bit more salt or even some natural or artificial glutamate would’ve helped. Having said that, the quantity of food for $14.80 was quite good, with a large serving of noodles and beef and soup that I could not finish, only half because I didn’t want to.

The beef bun / roujiamo with lean and fat meat ($8.80) – choices of just lean and just at also available – was not bad, but not great. It was overall pretty juicy and flavourful, with little bits of tendon included, and more spice and colour than from Cheng’s next door. Though I understand the need for a beef variation for our Muslim friends and colleagues, this one was far from the standard of a good pork roujiamo.

Other thoughts
The guys on the table next to me participated in some kind of challenge item where you place a gloved hand into a big box of sliced beef, and the amount that you fish out is the amount that you get to eat. This looks fun, though I don’t know how I would’ve eaten such a large amount of unexciting noodle soup. Overall I feel that 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodles, further down Burwood Rd, is a superior option.

Jinweide Lanzhou Golden Taste 金味阁兰州牛肉面版权所有
Shop 8/258-264 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
(02) 9360 0171

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Chinese

Traditional Cantonese Taste 老广记石磨肠粉店 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Traditional Cantonese Taste 老广记石磨肠粉店 unlocked for me something above and beyond what I understood cháng fěn 肠粉 could achieve.

We had the dried cordyceps flower with pork and egg rice paper roll 虫草花猪肉鸡蛋肠 ($16.50). While I’ve had a couple of different cheungs fun around the place, mostly from yum cha restaurants, I’ve never had anything like this in my life. Though it seems small in this photo, the thing was huge and bulging, of adequate size for the price asked.

It was absolutely packed with layers of tender pork mince, multiple layers of rice noodle sheets, as well as soft egg, with each layer melding into one another to form an ultimate combination of creamy umami. The egg component I think was a true winner, adding moistness, textural interest, as well as creaminess to a dish that may sometimes otherwise be a bit bland. Ultra-light soy sauce was available on-table, but unnecessary.

I did not love the pork and preserved egg congee 皮蛋瘦肉粥 ($12.80). While the bowl was large, I felt that it was too sparsely topped/filled, especially with regards to the only minimal showing of century egg, sliced ultra-thinly to maximise visual appeal without actual mass presence, making the bowl closer to a bowl of plain rice congee than a classical flavourful pi dan shou rou zhou.

The fried bread / you tiao / dough cruller 经典非凡油条 ($3.50) was excellent. Freshly fried, crispy, warm, and soft. It’s a shame that the congee was so unspectacular and bland, as it would’ve made a good accompaniment to a more flavourful zhou.

I really don’t know why I was expecting something different when I ordered the fried egg noodles with beef 干炒牛面 ($16.80). I had pictured, for some reason, some kind of saucy Hokkien mee, but instead what this actually was was just gānchǎo níuhé with egg noodles instead of rice noodles. The dish was large, with a mound of voluminous noodles and a weaker than average meat to noodle ratio. The flavour was light, and I regret not adding some of the tableside soy sauce to the mix. I don’t know if my lack of enjoyment of this dish was due to unmet expectations or the food itself, though it did taste better after a period of fridge time, microwave time, and resting and digesting on my part. Either way, there’s probably a good reason this dish is usually made from rice noodles, and it’s my own fault for being illiterate in Chinese.

My partner always orders a soy bean drink unsweet hot 石磨原味豆浆 无糖 ($3) from wherever it may be available. I did not care for it.

Overall thoughts (interim)
The rice noodle roll with egg and the fried dough crullers are my top picks from this restaurant, though I would be hesitant to recommend the other things that I had here.

Update October 2025
We rarely go to the same restaurant twice, unless it’s really good or it’s been a long time, but we went to Traditional Cantonese Taste twice in four months – not because it was truly amazing (though the rice noodle rolls are), but because there are truly quite few restaurants open for breakfast in Burwood. My wife gave me the opportunity to walk through Burwood for 15 minutes to find somewhere to have breakfast at, and all the places we walked past were either not that appealing, or we’d done them to death. Traditional Cantonese Taste 老广记石磨肠粉店 was the call that she made in her frustration of my indecision.

We had the dried cordyceps flower with chicken and egg rice roll 虫草花滑鸡蛋肠, which was pretty good, but probably not as good as the pork mince version. I thought about what the reason for this difference could be, and I think it’s because the chicken chunks were relatively large, whereas pork mince really lends itself to homogeneity and a melding in of flavours and textures between the egg, rice noodles, and meat.

The Rice with pork ribs, chicken and cured meat clay pot 大四喜煲仔饭（排骨, 滑鸡, 腊肠, 腊肉）*$25.80) was I think a new addition to menu, which since our previous visit has been upgraded from a single laminated sheet to a multi page booklet complete with photos. I enjoyed the rice, first and foremost, with the lightly salty soy sauce and the crispy but not burnt bottom section. The protein components, of which there were 4 different ones, were less enjoyable. I felt that both the chicken and the pork ribs had distinct but different ‘agricultural’ tastes, with a strong scent of the animal. It’s rare for me to ever have a problem with the gaminess of meat (especially unless it’s goat), but this was what I experienced. The two types of cured pork were yummy, and my wife graciously allowed me to have more than my fair share of this.

I tried to get us more you tiao but they hadn’t started them at the time I ordered, and the woman who told me she’d let us know when they turned the deep fryer on failed to let us know. It’s ok. We were full anyway.

Overall thoughts (update – October 2025)
My thoughts remain the same. Rice noodle roll with egg good. Other things, not as good.

Traditional Cantonese Taste 老广记石磨肠粉店
101 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
(02) 8528 8962

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Chinese

Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I’ve walked past Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面 in Burwood Plaza quite a few times, but have never eaten here before due to a general lack of desire, as well as a general sense of cultural inaccessibility, with a somewhat confusing menu (for an outsider) and a paucity of reports online.

We therefore present the first published English language full length case report of a Western person eating at Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面.

I had this dry noodle with pork soup ($14) with an added tea/soy egg for $1. The noodle and the soup was served separately, and indeed available to order separately. Available at the counter are self-served jars of Chinese pickled chilli, and zhejiang vinegar ( visible in the top left hand corner of the photo above.)

The meal came with no instructions, and through a process of trial and error I took alternating mouthfuls of noodle and soup. The noodle was chewy but not overly tasty, with the majority of the scallion oil flavour settling at the bottom. This persisted despite some pretty vigorous mixing on my part.

The soup was a clear soup, with pieces of lean pork meat and lettuce, ladled from giant vats at the back of the restaurant. Though I wanted to enjoy this, there was a faint gamey taste to it, which put me off a bit.

At a point midway during my meal, a stranger came and sat directly opposite me and started chowing down his noodles. We neither spoke nor made eye contact, but we were in quite close proximity that I’m quite confident that others in the West would also see this as unusual behaviour. But of course, Burwood is not part of ‘Western Culture’. The experience of sitting face to face with this guy, though strange, was of net benefit to me as I was able to watch how he ate his meal and adjust my own strategy accordingly. It didn’t make the food much more appealing.

Overall thoughts
Apart from a single comment on reddit, I have presented the only full English-language case report of a meal at Chaoshan Dry Noodle / Chao Shan Delights in Burwood. I did not love my meal and would not return.

Chao Shan Dry Noodle 潮汕干面
Shop 20/42 Railway Parade, Burwood NSW 2134