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.
For dinner on our wedding night, my new wife and I had the Signature Crispy Nuggets ($10.50) from Chicken No. 5. She chose the 中辣 spice level, and I spent our brief waiting period trying to convincer her that she had made a terrible mistake, and that 中辣 was in fact “Chinese person spicy”, rather than “medium spicy”, and would in fact be too spicy for her.
The chicken was pretty good but not particularly memorable. We enjoyed the brisk service, and sitting by the outside gas heater as we ate.
The spice level was indeed just a medium spicy – certainly more of a Taiwanese fried chicken than a Sichuan fried chicken. My wife informed me as I was writing this post next to her, that she hadn’t understood my joke about the spice level until now.
Chicken Number FiveDarling Square 9 Little Hay St, Haymarket NSW 2000
I fell victim to a targeted ad for La PaTEAsserie’s cake whilst on the hunt for something to serve at our wedding.
My wife and I each got to choose a cake and my choice was the Tie Guan Yin & Orange Cake (8 inch, serves 8-12, $90), which we ordered two of. Whilst it was certainly not bad, it did unfortunately pale in comparison to its competitor, the Lemon Dream from Flour and Stone.
The majority of components of this cake were tea-infused. The chiffon, a very light sponge, was infused with tieguanyin and had a very light taste, probably a victim of the Lemon Dream that was served before it. The Tieguanyin mousse with a hint of orange zest was pretty good though overall I felt that the cake lacked in flavour and took the concept of not too sweet a little too far.
It’s a shame that we had this cake second, and I fully accept that it’s very possible that I would have enjoyed this cake significantly more had I eaten it first before eating something else that was much stronger in flavour, but it is what it is.
Again, one cake served 20 people, and the second cake that was untouched for service was sliced up by the restaurant staff at Sunny Seafood Restaurant Central Park Mall to be taken home.
We had ours in the hotel room that night.
La PaTEAsserie (online order and pickup/delivery) 35 Oxford Street, Epping, NSW
My wife and I each picked a cake to have at our wedding, and her choice was the Lemon Dream Cake from Flower and Stone Bakery in Woolloomooloo. It’s not a wedding cake in particular, but it was something that she had been wanting to try for some time, and this was finally an opportunity to do so.
I really enjoyed this cake, and I think it was easily the better of the two that we had, the other being my choice. The cake component was very rich and decadent and heavy, whilst remaining moist. The cream and lemon curd filling was delicious, and the meringue was light, with a bit of an eggy taste. Overall it was sweeter than the other cake that we had, but importantly it was not too sweet, and was well received by our fully Asian group of family-only guests.
The cake we ordered was the 12 inch cake, which was said to serve 20-30 for $165, however I think based on our experience, especially given on its density and richness, it could easily feed 30-40 people.
Flour and Stone 3 Riley St, Woolloomooloo NSW 2011
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
My second last meal of my five-year stint in my Western Sydney workplace was shawarma delivered from Shawarma al-Halabi, a recently opened shawarmatisserie in the heartland of Merrylands, which until this point I had thought was named Shawarma al-Habibi.
We ordered via Uber Eats, where surprisingly there was on upcharge to cover what are no doubt some quite significant platform fees. My (new) wife (she was in the building allegedly studying) and I shared a chicken shawarma and a lamb shawarma. Both shawarmas are externally identical and thus I have not bored my already bored readers even further with a superfluous external shot.
The chicken shawarma ($10) was not the best, not the worst, it had good flavouring with the mix of garlic sauce and pickles, however felt a little bit dry and could have done with some more even more garlic sauce. The best Western Sydney shawarma I’ve had has been from Armani Restaurant and Armani’s remains the benchmark by which I compare my shawarmas. Perhaps Halabi apologists will argue that theirs are made in a different (Syrian) style, a different tradition and therefore are meant to be dry and not moist but I think that at least I think that subjectively at least it would have been better with a bit of extra sauce. I would rate Al-Halabi over Albeik however, which suffers from the same problem.
The lamb shawarma ($12) was in comparison quite significantly better. The addition of more greenery and sauce with parsley, onion, tomatoes, pickles and tahini meant that it was just overall more moist than the chicken one. Each bite of it added a medley of flavours into the mouth and was much easier to swallow.
I would recommend the lamb rather than the chicken and if you have the opportunity to have two I would recommend two of the lamb rather than one of the lamb and one of the chicken. These are my thoughts, don’t @ me.
Shawarma Al Halabi 137 Merrylands Rd, Merrylands NSW 2160
