Category: Cuisines

Categories
Indian

Faheem Fast Food – Strathfield NSW Restaurant Review

We paid a visit to Faheem Fast Food’s Strathfield restaurant (they also have one in Enmore) after a day of medium-intensity primary study where I learned and promptly forgot about the determinants of cardiac output, amongst other things.

Though the very entrance of the restaurant had a bit of a uraemic smell, this was quickly overcome by walking deeper into the restaurant, and I’m glad we didn’t allow it to turn us back, because the food was pretty good.

The half garlic tandoori chicken ($14) came out of a fridge at the front of the restaurant pre-butterflied and pre-skewered and straight into an oven (presumably a tandoor, though I won’t pretend that I know what one looks like, nor did I pay close enough attention at whatever magic box turned the raw chicken into cooked chicken. Looking online it does look like commercial tandoors have an stainless steel exterior, so it was probably that). This chicken, though smaller in terms of muscle development to many other chickens, came out extremely juicy and perfectly tasty, probably owing to the lack of thick muscle to try and cook through evenly. It was overall a really well done tandoori chicken, with a superfluous but not unwelcome hint of garlic which I wouldn’t pay 50 cents for again.

It’s very tricky for my partner to walk past a restaurant and not order some kind of potato, and Faheem Fast Food’s aloo baigan ($15.50) was this night’s victim. Though by no means experts in South Asian food, both my partner and I enjoyed this very mild mix of potato and eggplant, though I think I still prefer aloo mutter more (my intern KP made me a very good one recently, and honestly this aloo baigan can’t compete at all. I doubt she will ever see this. By the time this post is published she will probably be a fully fledged psychiatrist.)

Haleem, the king of curries ($18), a mix of four types of lentils and some shredded beef was honestly just fine. I’m glad that they looked at our skin colour and modulated the amount of spice in this “red chilli level” dish, because I don’t think my partner could’ve taken any more. I know that the vibe is for it to be a bit of a thick stew rather than a meat dish, but my disappointment in not having actual chunks of beef to chew between my molars is unbound by actual culture and tradition. Not my thing, but again much appreciated by my partner.

I thought that the cheese and garlic naan ($6) was to cheesy. A lot of complaints, I know, from a guy who can neither pronounce nor make any of this food himself but it is what it is.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Faheem Fast Food’s tandoori chicken was the obvious standout, though the other dishes that we tried enthused my partner much more than they did me. Mazaidar Foods remains my go-to for late night Pakistani and Indian food in the general 10km radius of Parramatta.

Categories
Chinese

Hong Kong Yue Baby – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

My partner went to Hong Kong Yue Baby without me, but made the mistake of bringing home these delicious custard egg yolk balls, which I enjoyed so much that we had to go back.

These salted egg yolk tang yuan ($9.50) are really delicious, super oily, large balls of glutinous rice filled with a sweet salted egg yolk filling. Not too sweet and super umami, they are served warm on these weird spoons for seemingly no reason. This dish is probably their number one house specialty, and I think make them worth a visit even if that’s all you’re going to get from them.

The peanut & taro mini French toast ($9.80) combines pieces of their taro and peanut French toasts for those with poor decision making ability. Both are of course equally oily, and differ only in the type of filling inside. My strong preference of the two is the taro type, as the peanut butter type gave me a slight feeling of staleness, which my partner contests. Either way I don’t think this was particularly a good use of calories or serum triglycerides, I wouldn’t get either again.

The steamed veg rice noodle roll ($11.80) was not bad. Very vegetably. I hadn’t had lettuce steamed in some time. It was OK.

This baked durian with cheese ($6.80) was again not bad, but not like an all time star dish. It, like the other two desserts that we had, was quite oily and not the greatest picture of wholesome.

Rock solid drink though

COMMENTS
There was nothing that we had at Hong Kong Yue Baby that particularly stood out as very good, except for the salted egg tang yuan, which stood out above very good and towards excellent. They open until quite late seven days a week, and so if you find yourself craving a sweet but warm snack it would be a thing to do to just go in for this one item alone. Maybe a drink too.

Hong Kong Yue Baby Burwood
35C Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
(02) 8593 4828

Categories
Japanese Korean

Hiroba – Strathfield NSW Restaurant Review

My partner was keen for some Japanese and I some Korean – from the outside, Hiroba’s little shop hugging the wall of Strathfield train station seemed like the perfect compromise.

Following in the tradition of Korean people serving Japanese food, Hiroba offers an extensive Japanese menu with the addition of some Korean restaurant staples. The Japanese izakaya style decor and Japanese translations on the menu provided an illusion that did not last long, shattered as soon as we unexpectedly received banchan upon ordering.

We initially pondered ordering a sushi or sashimi set, but decided on a la carte nigiri instead, making sure that our food was all thriller and no filler. The salmon, salmon belly, tuna, and snapper nigiri was all good and fresh, with thick and generous pieces of each. The tuna I thought was a bit expensive, coming in at $8 for two pieces, whilst the rest was reasonably priced ($5 for two pieces).

The mixed tempura (medium size) came with three tempura prawns and a mixture of what was mostly tempura tubers. Though freshly cooked, i thought the quality of the tempura was only middling, and felt that it was not as light and airy as good tempuras can be. We were saddened by the lack of variety in the tempura vegetables, with mostly root vegetables on offer. The only thing that really stood out was a single piece of tempura enoki – otherwise all of the tempura vegetables were quite samey.

I didn’t really like the flavour of the Ox Beef Soup, though if I’m being honest that could very well be more of a personal preference. The entire soup had a smoked taste, owing to what looked like sliced silverside beef on the inside. The overall theme of this soup could be described as wholesome feeling but not great tasting, though I did catch the chef having his own sit down meal of this soup. I assume the chef wouldn’t eat something not good, so it’s probably just our own preference that led us to not like this.

VERDICT
While the sushi at Hiroba was indeed good, would I go back again? Probably not. Strathfield holds a huge untapped potential of East Asian cuisine, and Hiroba just didn’t stand out enough for me to go back. I’d rather try something new.

Hiroba
1 Albert Rd, Strathfield NSW 2135
(02) 9763 1222

Categories
Italian

My Mother’s Cousin – Bexley NSW Restaurant Review

As a disciple of New York City food videos and pizza in general, My Mother’s Cousin has been high on my list of restaurants to visit for a little while now. Moving to the vaguely inner, vaguely South, vaguely West of Sydney has finally given me opportunity to go. As someone who’s never been to New York and whose only New York style pizza has been a single slice of Marinara from Frankie’s back in 2017 I really had no idea what to expect, and probably thanks to my partner’s choice in pizza I still don’t know what to expect, even having been.

I am grateful for my partner arriving at the restaurant before me, and ordering pizza so that I could inhale it and make a mad dash to the other side of the city for my night shift. Her choice of pizza was the Snag-a-Relli ($27), a 13-inch pizza with fior di latte, “pomodoro” which I think is just Italian marketing speak for tomato, Italian sausage, Smoked housemade “MMC” sausage, parmigiano reggiano, and pickled Jalapenos. It’s not what I would’ve chosen, but I sent her with no instructions, and again I am grateful.

This pizza, if not the Platonic ideal of the New York City Slice™, was still a pretty good pizza. The pizza was highly moist with a structure that didn’t quite stand up to it, resulting in some drips and some sagging of the very thin base of the slice on holding. This sagging was aided by the superior, top-heavy topping to base ratio, with plenty of toppings on board for maximal (but not supra-maximal) flavour. It reminded me of the meaty pizza with Jalapenos that my mum would order from Domino’s or Pizza Hut Wentworthville back in the early 2000s – though I think in the context of their last fifteen years of health kick (metabolically they’re doing great for their age) I don’t think either of my parents have had pizza in a very long time. Despite these comparisons, MMC’s Snag-a-Relli was a decidedly elevated adventuer over the old $5-with-coupon deep dish pizza (more bread for the same money!) from back in the day.

Having said all of this nonsense, my overall feedback is that the Snag-a-Relli is a good pizza, and well topped to boot. I particularly liked the texture of the sausage topping (it remains unclear at this point which pieces of sausage were Italian and which were Martian), which I felt was quite moist, as well as its taste, which I found to be not too salty (frequent readers of this blog will understand that this is quite a compliment from me). I don’t know that I would even change anything – it’s just not what I wanted in my mind, but did not convey with my words to my partner.

The hot honey with parmigiano reggiano wet wings ($12 for 6) was our other pick. They were my consolation prize for not being able to have the hot honey and pepperoni pizza, but sadly not as good as I expected. I felt that the honey was sweeter than I would’ve liked, and I was also surprised that “hot” meant warm rather than spicy. My partner enjoyed these wings, and I must admit that perhaps part of why I wasn’t so enamoured by them was the rift between expectation and reality.

THOUGHTS
Pretty good. I also like that they have separate handwashing facilities inside, because they know you’re going to make a mess. Can recommend.

My Mother’s Cousin
9 Shaw St, Bexley North NSW 2207
0410 913 335

Categories
Vietnamese

Dong Ba – Cabramatta NSW Restaurant Review

I’ve been searching for a good bun bo hue ever since my initial transformational experience at Nem Kitchen in Waterloo back in 2020, and judging from the all the internet hype surrounding Dong Ba’s reportedly authentic food I thought I had finally caught the dragon. It is a shame, therefore, that I didn’t really think the bun bo hue was all that great.

The bun bo hue ($14) was quite a disappointment. I thought that the soup was a bit watery, and nowhere near as rich as I had remembered or expected. There was plenty of meaty fillings and fresh herbs and bean sprouts to dunk in, but the thin, low-taste broth really kind of let it down. All of this was also worsened by the fact that we had a piece of plastic in our bowl, and judging from the complaints from this Chinese woman who insisted on speaking Mandarin to the proprietors of a Vietnamese restaurant we weren’t the only ones.

Luckily the banh uot cha lua ($13) was actually quite delicious. The rice noodles were very thin, soft, and delicate, and there was a huge mountain of herbs hidden underneath that gave it an amazing fresh and herbacious flavour. The cha lua was nothing particularly special, but portioned well so that each mouthful could be had with some rice noodle, some herbs, and some pork. The dipping sauce added a nice flavour but also importantly moistness to the meal, and though I don’t really remember what the red thing is (I did at the time), it was also a nice addition. Overall this was a good dish, much better than the bun bo hue whose name is hung on the wall.

The avocado shake (?$6) was actually also quite good. It was very thick with an avocado flavour as well as a white sugar flavour, and extremely cold so I suspect there is some ice blended in also.

Two cats from across the road.

THOUGHTS
I went to Dong Ba for bun bo hue, but what I found was that their banh uot cha lua was much better. I had hoped that this well known Cabramatta restaurant would become my go to, but unfortunately I’d advise any bun bo hue pilgrims to keep looking.

Dong Ba (John St)
5/117 John St, Cabramatta NSW 2166
(02) 9723 0336