Category: Cuisines

Categories
Bakery Café

Self Raised Bread Shoppe – Carlton NSW Restaurant Review

My recent wife has decided that my parents’ place is the optimal place for her to study, far away from the cats and other homely distractions, and so I took the opportunity to take us to a semi-local sandwich shop that had been on the radar for some time.

Sadly, the tart display case was near empty by the time we arrived, and so we did not have the opportunity to try the Cacio e Pepe tart, nor any number of other yummy-looking fruit tarts pictured elsewhere on the internet.

We instead had two sandwiches. The hoagie ($19), a cold sandwich of mortadella, salami, lettuce, cheese, beef, red peppers and a sauce that was allegedly mayonnaise but tasted more like Thousand Island was okay but not life-changing.

I enjoyed the ciabatta and especially the sesame seeds which added a nice dimension of flavour, as well as the generous serving of meats, however each bite of this $19 sandwich merely served to remind me of the excellent $15 sandwich we had from Ranieri’s Delicatessen nearer to home. Unfortunately while I have no specific complaints, this sandwich did just fail to amaze, and I do think that sandwiches should be evaluated in their broader context of their alternatives.

The fish burger ($17), featuring a panko crumbed hake fillet, melted American cheese, onion, pickles, and house tartare sauce between a milk bun was my wife’s choice. She quite enjoyed it with its flaky fish fillet and crispy panko crumb, however I personally felt that the tartare sauce could have been applied more generously, a la Kosta.

Again it was difficult not to draw a direct comparison to our nearby fish burger favorite, which in my opinion it falls short of.

Overall, neither of the two sandwiches I had blew me away. It’s a competitive market for sandwich makers out there.

Self Raised Bread Shoppe
45 Jubilee Ave, Carlton NSW 2218

Categories
Thai

Monkey King Thai – Drummonyne NSW Restaurant Review

We aimed to replicate our recent meal at Cher Thai with a meal at another highly rated nearby location, to mixed results.

We had again a chicken pad thai ($20.90), an ongoing departure from our usual order of a pad kee mao, and this time without a pad kee mao on another plate as backup. Monkey King’s pad thai was less sticky than Cher Thai’s, less sweet (this is a positive), but overall probably less exciting, though by no means bad. The flavours were more balanced, which is surely a good thing, but for some possibly purely subjective reason it just didn’t hit the same as our first pad thai in probably half a decade. Or maybe it’s just because it was less oily.

The beef Penang curry ($20.90) was pretty OK, with good flavours and a welcome smattering of vegetables. The curry itself was quite watery and would’ve gone down nicely with some rice (we were warned), but we declined the offer, opting instead to share a single roti ($6 with a curry order, otherwise $7). The beef inside the curry was sadly in the form of thin strips, not blocks, as we had hoped (not that there was any indication that there would be, apart from the presence of massaman beef on the menu), though there again was nothing in particular wrong about that.

The roti was pretty good, honestly but I think we would’ve ordered some coconut rice had there been some on the menu, rather than a rather plain sounding ‘Jasmine Rice’ for $5. The fact that the restaurant doesn’t allow leftovers to be taken away (what?!) also meant that we had to be ultra-careful about ordering too much food, and thus the rice had to be a miss.

Monkey King Thai Drummoyne
190 Lyons Rd, Drummoyne NSW 2047

Categories
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

Categories
Malaysian

Rickshaw Food – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I stood outside this restaurant pondering the menu for a brief few seconds before a somewhat elderly lady sitting on a bench told me that I should go inside and have their lunch special. At that point I felt too in-it to back out.

We had the curry chicken with egg noodles ($17.80), which came in a lunchtime special with a ice milk tea, pictured below. These noodles were excellent, with a strong peanut flavour (would it be more accurately described as satay curry noodles?), in its thick flavourful sauce. The chicken was juicy and delicious, and the portion provided was overall quite large. Absolutely satisfied with this choice.

I can’t tell you anything about this ice milk tea, which I did not have any of. My friend seemed satisfied.

The seafood dry laksa ($17.80) was not bad, though was not on the lunch menu and thus did not come with a drink. The noodles were thicker than that of the chicken noodles, and this dish’s sauce was also good though less so, and not something that actually reminded me of ‘laksa’. The mussels were very clean.

The Malay fried chicken wings ($15.80) came extremely hot, and burnt my friend’s fingers. They took a long time to cool down to an enjoyable temperature. Once tasted, I found the external skin to be crispy and tasty, however the internal meat I felt was lacking of flavour.

The satay chicken skewers ($16.80) were a bit odd, with the satay much more in the dipping sauce than in the chicken skewers themselves. The satay dipping sauce was very good, however.

Overall
Overall the meal was good, and I would definitely recommend the chicken curry noodles with its thick delicious sauce.

I’m a bit concerned about the 7% discount for cash payments though. Is that legal?

Rickshaw Food
8B/27-31 Belmore St, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Café

Plunge 46 – Summer Hill NSW Restaurant Review

I respect breakfast as the most important meal of the day, both from a medical standpoint as well as a cultural standpoint – the post night shift breakfast is probably one of the things that keeps me coming back to work. Despite my respect for breakfast as an institution, I don’t necessarily believe that breakfast should be limited only to breakfast foods, like eggs, beans, and more generally a simple lack of meats made in elaborate ways. So it comes as no surprise that I am an absolute sucker for an all-day menu.

My partner and I ate from Plunge 46’s extensive all-day menu, this morning in the middle of her run of night shifts.

We had this very lovely plate of corn fritters ($22), which is a very standard dish that my partner likes, but this rendition came with some excitement. As you can see from the photo, there was not a whole lot of batter on the corn fritters. The corn kernels themselves were quite visible macroscopically without need for any additional dissection, meaning that compared to others in its category this rendition was quite corn-forward and probably a bit healthier than its competition who are mostly completely encased in batter.

We enjoyed the sour cream, the slightly smashed avocado, the tomato and all the other bits involved, particularly the red liquid, which was somewhat of a salsa-like concoction. My partner was particularly pleased by the appearance of rocket rather than the more common wilted spinach, the two occupying opposite corners in her vegetable tier list. The fritters, topped off with a well poached egg, was overall a strong showing.

The tempura fish tacos ($17.50) that I had read about on the Google reviews before I went were somewhat less exciting (although my partner did enjoy them, to be fair). I found myself eating my allocated taco quite quickly without really being able to taste anything particularly different between the mixture of cabbage, avocado, tomato in this taco compared to the corn fritter dish. Apart from a slight hint of bitterness it was hard for me to really unpack any of the flavours in my little taco that I had, almost as if I basically ate my taco on autopilot without the ability or opportunity to really understand and enjoy it. Perhaps such an assessment is not entirely fair, but I do feel like if it were great, I probably would’ve paid more attention to it.

Luckily for this Plunge 46, there are still quite a number of options on the menu that I’d like to give a go, and it is quite likely that I’ll be back in due course.

Plunge 46
46 Lackey St, Summer Hill NSW 2130