Category: Chinese

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Chinese

Golden Oceans Chinese Seafood Restaurant (文興海鲜酒楼) – Beverly Hills NSW Restaurant Review

This is not our normal behaviour, but we found ourselves at a formal Chinese seafood restaurant for dinner, just the two of us. We ordered a number of classics, at least one of which our parents would’ve been proud of.

The braiseds scallops with sugar beans and funguses with XO sauce ($38.80) were a total Chinese parent order. Super responsible, reasonably healthy, and a bit expensive. Clean feeling and delicious.

You tiao / fried dough cruller does not fit with the dinner meal thematically, but were a craving. They were fine, not mindblowing as they might have been straight out of the deep fryer on the side of the road.

We’ve been looking for zhenjiang pork ribs ever since our favourite Parramatta Chinese restaurant closed down in 2021 (RIP Taste Gallery), and Golden Oceans’ Pork Spare Ribs with Black Vinegar Sauce ($28.80) finally, finally hit the mark. I’m so glad we came here and I got to eat this again.

I like a good Shan Dong Chicken ($27.80), and though this one was a bit wet and a bit saltier than I like, it was still quite good. I imagine it would’ve been good with rice, but the you tiao were carb enough to compensate for the overflavour.

Overall I enjoyed. Take your family here.

Golden Oceans Chinese Seafood Restaurant (文興海鲜酒楼)
461 King Georges Rd, Beverly Hills NSW 2209
(02) 9580 0918

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Chinese

Hot Pot And BBQ House – Wolli Creek NSW Restaurant Review

We ate here in early 2020, and I only just came across these photos accidentally on my Dropbox. This is now no use to anyone, as they’ve since gone out of business many years ago. I think it’s now an unrelated restaurant, which is quite a shame, as their hotpot focused fitout, with recessed boilers, was quite nice. I hope their equipment found a good home elsewhere.

The meal was good, if relatively expensive. I think I remember paying $100 for 2 for lunch.

I like to think that this business could’ve thrived if it were started today. It’s just a shame that they opened in late 2019 before everything closed down for the next three years.

Hot Pot And BBQ House Wolli Creek
Suite 1/8-10 Brodie Spark Dr, Wolli Creek NSW 2205

Now closed.

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Chinese

Wonder Skewers – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

We spent $104 at Wonder Skewers in Burwood, which was definitely too much, and got us enough food to last two meals for two people.

The problem, kind of like in yum cha, is that everything came in groups of 3-5 skewers. This meant that to have any decent amount of variety as well as to not to eat repeats, you really need to come here with a few friends, not just one other person.

The variety of meats on offer was quite broad. We had lamb (5 for $13.80), beef tendon (4 for $12.80), ox tongue (4 for $13.80), pork with gristle (5 for $12.80), chicken wings (3, but really 6 wings for $12.80), beef ribs (5 for $13.80), and eggplant ($7.80), and scallops (2 for $13.80).

All food was cooked in the kitchen, and brought out to us once ready, rested on a bed which itself rested over a series of tealights, to keep the food warm as we ate. This is a pro gamer move, as oily, BBQ food tends to get much less appetizing once cold.

The chicken wings were in particular very juicy and tasty, with a crispy skin on the exterior.

A relatively special mention should also go to the beef tendon, which had a really gooey and fun texture, though was definitely too much to have all on my own, as my partner decided this was the day that beef tendon would be too weird for her.

The pork with gristle (at the left of the above photo), was really more like pork with soft bones, and quite yummy and good to crunch between the teeth.

The scallops were really overloaded with garlic, but at least had a different flavour to the barbequed meats, which to be honest all tasted very similar to one another.

Sadly the garlic eggplant was then the same flavour as the scallop.

My thoughts are these. The food was good, but definitely got quite repetitive, as essentially all of the BBQ meat had one flavour, and then the sides had another flavour. Two flavours over the $104 of food we ordered. As already mentioned, it is imperative to go with more than one person, unless you’re someone who really just wants to have 2-4 skewers of the same meat, and not try anything else.

Another interesting thing we noticed was that there was a notice on their ordering webpage (via QR code at the table) asking patrons not to abuse their staff for cooking slowly. No idea what that is about, we were served within 5-10 minutes of ordering.

Wonder Skewers
77 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
0413 735 979

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Chinese

Chan Kun Kee 陳根記 – Rhodes NSW Restaurant Review

I went to Chan Kun Kee with my semi-Italian friend who has a Hong Kong girlfriend for lunch based on a commenter recommendation. The publishing of this review has been expedited in honour of that.

This Hokkien/Fujian Fried Rice (福建炒飯) ($22) was pretty good in terms of quantity and flavour, though I’m not sure about the use of seafood extender and kind of wish they had used the ingredient known as ‘actual seafood’ instead.

The Beef Served in Sichuan Style Chilli Broth (水煮牛肉) ($18 – lunch deal with a bowl of rice and can of drink) we got as a lunch meal deal, however the rice that it was meant to come with did not come, and we forgot about it by the end of our meal. The quantity was really very good for the price, something that left me wondering whether or not we should’ve just ordered the next meal as a lunch combo as well.

The Deep-Fried Pork Chop with Wasabi Sauce (Wasabi 沙拉豬扒) ($22) was also available as a lunch deal, for a cheaper $18 price, but we ordered it as a separate item in the hope that the serving may be bigger. Judging from the size of the sichuan beef, we’re not so sure any more. This was certainly an interesting flavour concept, not something that I had had before. The wasabi sauce was creamier than I had expected, almost as creamy as the kind of sauce that you would put over Portuguese fried rice. It was pretty good! I would have it again.

Overall I felt that the meal was pretty good, and sharply priced, as long as the portion size is the same for their lunch menu as it is for their normal menu. I would’ve ordered other options, but they were out of essentially all chicken dishes for lunch that day.

Chan Kun Kee 陳根記
Shop 5/42 Walker St, Rhodes NSW 2138

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Chinese

JML Dumplings – Wolli Creek NSW Restaurant Review

This place was really hard to find, owing to the fact that their Google Maps location points to a different and completely unrelated dumpling restaurant, whose staff were at least gracious enough to point us in vaguely the right direction.

We started with some soy/tea eggs ($2 each), for which unfortunately the marinade had not penetrated into the yolk, leaving a tasty white with a boring hardboiled centre.

The Shepherd’s Purse & Pork Wonton Soup ($12.80) had a nice filling (though not particuarly better than the frozen dumplings I’ve been getting from the grocery store lately) as well as a nice wamrth and lightly salty umami flavour to the soup, but suffered from an unusual and unpleasant thickness in the wonton skin, making it more of a meal and a chore to eat this meal than a wonton soup should be.

Though I failed to capture a photo of the Dumplings of Pork & Chive ($12.80) apart from a single cross sectional shot, I much preferred these to the wontons. They had a strong chive flavour to them, which is really what you want and often can’t be replicated by the frozen stuff. The skin was again a bit thicker than ideal, but this was not as problematic as it was for the wontons.

I did not think I would enjoy the Steamed Pork and Sticky Rice Dumplings ($9.80), but they came out first after the eggs, and I guess I was hungry. I’m glad the sticky rice wasn’t too densely packed, because it was a real I heard you like carbs in your carbs so I put carbs in your carbs so you can carb while you carb moment.

The Honeyed Pork Ribs ($12.80) were good, meaty, tender and juicy, but very sweet and sticky.

Overall thoughts
The price to performance ratio at JML Dumplings in Wolli Creek was good. I am a highly predictable rater, and any half decent pork and chive dumpling at a restaurant that offers them boiled will score high marks from me. Their menu is diverse, however, so even if you don’t like anything featured here there is probably something for you.

JML Dumplings
Shop 2/1 Brodie Sparks Drive, Wolli Creek NSW 2205
0481 863 226