Category: Cuisines

Categories
Japanese

Chaco Ramen – Darlinghurst NSW Restaurant Review

I’ve been craving a good noodle, and our proximity to Darlinghurst post-floatation pool in Bondi made for a good opportunity to try out the ramen at Chaco Ramen, a place that had mainly been on my radar because of the yakitori at their sister sibling Chaco Bar. Little did I know (stupid) that there is literally a Chaco Ramen in Bondi Beach. We needn’t have detoured, but at least we didn’t have to pay for parking.

This photo of Morgan McGlone’s Hot Chicken ($9) is not the most attractive, but I think people actually come here to look at what’s inside their food, and I will have you know that I am classically trained and have a university education in dissection. Boasting about my mad pencil grip knife skills aside, I actually didn’t love this chicken. It is probably my own fault for reading “roast chicken” and being surprised when it came – as advertised – roasted. The skin just didn’t have the texture that I imagined when I read the word “hot chicken”. While my partner liked the mildness of the chilli sauce, I found this to be another weakness. As a chicken fan, I prefer ATL Ayam Tulang Lunak Crispy‘s equally priced marylands over this.

This chilli coriander special ramen ($27) was a beast of a bowl in terms of size and taste, featuring a mixture of both soft poached chicken and chashu pork. The broth, chilli and coriander in flavour, was quite reminiscent of Chinese mala hotpot, which kind of made it less special to me because that’s something we eat all the time, though my partner absolutely enjoyed it. The egg was soft, the bamboo shoots were tasty, and overall there were enough different elements to this bowl to retain our interest throughout its consumption. Pretty good! Pricey.

I didn’t feel the need to upgrade our fish salt ramen ($20) to the special, as unlike the chilli coriander ramen this one came with chashu pork at the base level. In addition to the pork are a couple of john dory and prawn wontons, which were quite tasty and enjoyed by both my partner and myself, even though she did NOT enjoy the soup and the overall taste of this ramen, which she found to be too fishy for her. It should go without saying that yes, a ramen called the fish salt ramen might be a bit fishy for the anti-fishers out there, but I’m happy to report that as a pro-fish advocate I did enjoy this fishy and milky broth.

COMMENT
I enjoyed both ramens that we tried at Chaco Ramen, though if you’re someone who eats a lot of Sichuan Chinese food I think the chilli coriander ramen won’t quite feel as special. If skipping the fish salt ramen, would recommend getting the john dory and prawn dumplings on the side. Yum.

Chaco Ramen
238 Crown St, Darlinghurst NSW 2010
(02) 9007 8352

Categories
Chinese

Shanghai Night – Ashfield NSW Restaurant Review

There’s this super odd row of restaurants on Liverpool Road in Ashfield where separate establishments named “New Shanghai Night”, “New Shanghai”, and “Shanghai Night” are lined up one after another. The subject of our review today is Shanghai Night, the Westernmost of the three.

The Shanghai Spicy Noodle Soup ($12.80) was good. It was quite a large serving for the price, and with plenty of meat and flavourful soup. Not too spicy. Not much else to say apart from a recommend.

The Si-Chuan Dry Wonton with Cucumber and Chilli Oil ($10.80) looked vastly different to the menu photo, but tasted pretty good. The wontons were plenty meaty, however my partner raised some concerns about the state of the peanut butter, which I did chose not to try.

The Steam Shanghai Style Mini Pork Bun ($8.80) were not the best. The most disappointing thing about them was the fact that they were mostly broken. In fact, only 2 out of the 8 were received intact, a feat that I can easily manage with a box of frozen xiao long bao at home.

THOUGHTS: With so many competitors in the Shanghai food space within a one metre radius, I don’t think I will be going back to this particular restaurant any time soon.

Shanghai Night
275 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131
(02) 9798 8437

Categories
Thai

Silver Spoon Thai – Nowra NSW Restaurant Review

The first in a series of reviews of Nowra’s finest dining establishments is this brief piece about my visit to Silver Spoon Thai, the undisputed current second best in term of online rankings in all of Nowra. Accolades won by this establishment to date include being described as “comparable to Holy Basil of Parramatta” (Reyes, 2022), a comparison I could not personally verify having never eaten at Holy Basil despite having lived in the Paramatta area for over a decade.

First on the menu was the Thai Basil Stir Fry with Beef ($20). This was a pleasant dish, with adequate basilling and certainly not too spicy. My dining colleague made comment of the veleted beef, which was not the favourite texture of my teeth or tongue.

I actually quite enjoyed the Prik Khing Crispy Pork ($22.90). The crispy pork was of good quality and crispiness despite being cooked in sauce, and the sauce itself had a good flavour, if a bit strong to have without rice. No complaints here.

I am glad that when asked if we wanted our entree first or just the dishes as they became available we chose the latter option. The Chicken Satay ($10) I enjoyed, but my dining colleague DTC, fresh from his trip to South East Asia, did not think it was the best he’s had in recent times.

Ultimately I think you certainly do worse than Silver Spoon, but nothing about what we had was particularly special. Paste, on the other hand… now that’s special.

Silver Spoon Thai
55 Junction St, Nowra NSW 2541
(02) 4421 7679

Categories
Bakery Market Stall

Natas & Co. – Sydney NSW Restaurant Review

My first review of a market stall with multiple locations and random opening times. Not too sure how the format of these will go, since there’s not really a home base as far as I can tell to direct people to, especially for the Google Maps pin.

I came across Natas & Co. at the Wentworth Point Cambridge Markets a couple of weeks ago, though they open in numerous locations across the city.

As a big fan of the humble Portuguese tart, and to the annoyance of my partner who is probably sick of them by now, I could not stop myself from ordering both a regular and a lemon tart.

The traditional Portuguese custard tart ($4.50) and the lemon Portuguese custard tart ($4.50) were probably similar enough to review in the same paragraph. Both tarts had a good, flaky pastry, but both I felt were let down by the sweetness of the filling. The lemon tart did have a lemon tinge to it, though the difference was minimal. I think by now it has become a theme that whilst I enjoy a good pastel de nata, I would much prefer one that isn’t as sweet as even the top tarts the city has to offer. It is probably therefore a matter of personal opinion that I wasn’t a huge fan of the filling of these tarts, rather than a problem with the tarts themselves.

Natas & Co.
Various markets around Sydney

Categories
Bakery

Tuga Pastries – Alexandria NSW Restaurant Review

Another day, another bakery – this one just a stone’s throw away from my partner’s GP, who has a particular interest in promoting long-term behavioural change where it comes to modifiable risk factors for non-communicable disease.

Tuga Pastries is perhaps best known for their Pastel de Nata (Portuguese Tart – $4.50), often being mentioned in the same breath as Sweet Belem when it comes to Sydney’s pastry tier lists. Though I’ve had Tuga’s Portuguese tarts at other cafes like Ashbury’s 3 Tomatoes, the experience was far better eating it fresh from the source. The filling on this tart was extremely gooey and creamy, with a fresh-out-of-the-oven warmth that coated and curled around the tongue. The pastry was similarly warm, fresh, buttery, and flaky, though if I had one complaint about this pastel de nata overall would be that it was a bit too sweet for my taste. Despite this, I would rate this above Sweet Belem‘s based on textural factors.

This great big slab is the Pork, Lamb and Harrisa Sausage Roll ($9), an attempt to fancy up the humble Australian classic that I feel met quite limited success. It features quite a thick block of finely minced meat wrapped in puff pastry, served with an extremely stock standard tomato sauce that for some reason we couldn’t get enough of. I personally found this sausage roll a bit lamby for my liking, and would’ve liked a coarser texture than what was offered here. Wouldn’t get it again.

I had no love for this 3 Cheese Toastie ($13), which I found quite dry, especially with all its seeds. I think the only way to make it better would be to add some kind of moist vegetable or meat to it, which would ruin the concept of it being a cheese only toastie. Maybe I just don’t like cheese-only toasties, but my partner, who chose this item, did not like it either.

This pear danish ($6) was really quite good. I enjoyed the flaky, buttery pastry, but more suprisingly I enjoyed the pear, which looked sweeter than it actually tasted. It was, in fact, not too sweet.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by how dense and ricotta-y this blueberry ricotta tart ($6.50) was. Didn’t love it.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Though much of what we had at Tuga was a bit hit and miss, there’s no denying the high quality of their pastel de natas. These are probably my favourite Portuguese tarts in Sydney right now, and for that reason alone I’m looking forward to the next time I have to take my partner to the doctor to hear about why we shouldn’t be eating so much.

Tuga Pastries Alexandria
10/112 McEvoy St, Alexandria NSW 2015
0412 664 165