Category: Cuisines

Categories
Latin American

Chololo – Fairfield NSW Restaurant Review

As Western Sydney locals but relative strangers to the South West, it took a couple of laps around the block for us to realise that the neon-lit Chololo made famous across social media was actually situated within the somewhat dingy and run down food court of the Fairfield Chase shopping centre. The initial surprise that someone chose to open a new diner in such a place faded quickly however, as we ordered and settled in for our special Taco Tuesday meal.

Our main order was the Birria Ramen Pack with 3 beef tacos ($21). This pack is differentiated from their regular birria pack through the addition of instant noodles and pulled beef into the dipping soup.

The standard taco itself wasn’t bad, but also wasn’t a standout. The beef inside was reasonably moist, the filling to tortilla ratio was good, and the finely diced green vegetables inside were most welcome. Despite this I just didn’t get the vibe that they were very special, that is until I had them with the excellent chilli sauce, which was so fresh and fruity with just the right amount of spice. Dipping the tacos into the provided consommé, in this case an instant noodle soup, didn’t really enhance the experience as much as I had expected. It simply made the taco a bit more salty and a bit more soggy.

I don’t profess to be an instant noodle guru, though I have had many in my day. I found the noodles and the overall “ramen” experience of the birria ramen to be a bit lacking, and contrary to other online reviewers who enjoyed layering the noodles into the tacos I didn’t feel like this added anything. The noodles simply didn’t have enough of a non-salt flavour to add to the tacos, and if I were to go back I’d be choosing the standard birria pack rather than pay the premium for noodles that I did not enjoy.

Despite my lukewarm response to everything so far, the keto tacos ($4 each) were surprisingly good. We visited, by providence, on a Taco Tuesday as well, which meant that additional tacos were $2 each with any purchase of a birria or ramen pack. These keto tacos had the same general fillings as Chololo’s standard tacos, except that the carb-laden tortilla was replaced by a fat-laden crisp of grilled cheese. The cheese “tortilla” on these tacos were extremely crispy, crunchy, and tasty, while the fresh vegetables within and supplied limes to squeeze helped to balance out the oiliness. We had both the chicken and beef keto tacos, and both were quite delicious to the mouth, if repulsive when you actually start to think about how bad they are for you.

COMMENTS
If I were a man in a state of extreme unintentional calorie deficit and catabolism I would come back on a Tuesday and gobble up those delicious $2 keto tacos with their excellent chilli sauce. As I am hoping not to have a CABG in the next decade however I think I will probably not come back.

Chololo Fairfield
Fairfield Chase Shopping Centre, 34 Council Ln, Fairfield NSW 2165
0413 675 536

Categories
Chinese

吃在山东 Taste of Shandong – Hurstville NSW Restaurant Review

I love a good Shandong chicken, but a Shandong chicken is apparently not an actual Shandong regional dish. Here I will describe some dishes that apparently are.

Here is a collection of braised foodstuffs, including braised pork belly ($5), braised meatball ($5), braised soymilk film ($3), braised chilli ($3), and braised egg ($3), cross-sectional imaging to come. I had mixed feelings about this one, and only really liked the meatball out of all of them. The chilli I found was extraordinarily spicy for such a large pepper, whilst the tofu I thought was not very deeply flavoured at all. The pork belly was alright but not super tender, and the egg cooked all the way through and really nothing special.

If I could go back in time in a time machine, I would only get the braised meat ball, which was very soft and tasty, but probably needed a bit of rice to go with it.

I’ve been searching my entire life (or at least ever since Taste Gallery in Parramatta closed – a real loss for Western Sydney) for some good zhenjiang pork ribs. Sadly these marinated pork ribs with sweet black vinegar ($12.80) weren’t it. I thought that these ribs were unusually meaty, but not very tender. Their taste was not what I had pictured in my nostalgia-addled brain (nostalgia for a restaurant that I ate at two years ago – does that still count?) with a rich plum taste with too much sweetness and not enough sourness, as well as an unpleasant oiliness. Oh well, the search goes on.

I was quite keen on some dumplings (a guy on an adjacent table had some incredibly pungent chive ones that he was ripping through by himself), but my partner chose for us to have the shandong soup buns ($12.80) instead. I honestly don’t know why we’re trying to pretend that these weren’t just xiao long bao, and in my opinion inferior to those from the freezer at your local Asian grocer.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
I didn’t love what we had to eat, though for some reason my partner still wants to go back in the future. It might have to be by herself.

吃在山东 Taste of Shandong
177 Forest Rd, Hurstville NSW 2220
0431 213 106

Categories
Café Vietnamese

Coffee & Crackles – Smithfield NSW Restaurant Review

Our first attempt at brunch at Coffee & Crackles was thwarted when we arrived at 1:30PM on a weekday and were told that they weren’t serving food at that time. It was during a period of transition, the cafe having recently undergone a rebranding and merger with its co-located night-time eatery and bar Saigon Hustle.

The café part of the joint venture clearly lost the aesthetic fight int he merger, with only the small shopfront lit in natural light, the rest of the restaurant coated in dark paint, neon lights and scrolling projections.

This pricing of this crackling pork banh mi ($13) had me a bit conflicted when I ordered it. On one hand, while I believe that our migrant communities deserve to be compensated for the work that they do and the food that they serve and that it’s a double standard to pay $30 for a plate of pasta or $20 for three ravioli and only want to pay $3.50 for a banh mi, $13 is still a bit much compared to what I’m used to. That’s not to say that, taken outside of the context of what we generally pay for banh mi in Sydney that it wasn’t worth it. This banh mi was certainly high quality. The bread was warm and freshly toasted. It was crusty in a way that was tasty and crunchy, and yet somehow didn’t cut the inside of the mouth – honestly one of the best rolls I’ve had. The five spice pork filling was plentiful, as were the pickled daikon radish and carrots, making each bite both a meaty and a fresh delight. The generous serving of pate and Vietnamese mayonnaise imparted a good sense of umami and creaminess throughout the roll, with no corner spared. The pork crackling was separate from the pork meat, and distributed unevenly between the two pre-cut halves of the sandwich as the crackling was on the exterior surface and the sandwich was sliced diagonally. The crackling did impart an unnecessary saltiness to the bites where it made a showing, and perhaps less salt could have been used in its preparation. The chips, which were a surprise addition to the meal, I could’ve done without to save a couple of dollars. They were actually quite good – freshly fried and of potato in nature – but honestly if I wanted more food I’d just order a second banh mi, which I feel are a higher plane of enjoyment over regular fries.

The Bo Ne Sizzling Beef ($23) was also quite good. It featured a small MB2 wagyu steak, some kind of sausage or processed meat, liver pate, sauteed onions and a sunny side up egg served on a sizzling hot plate, with a separate plate of toasted oiled bread, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. I’m far from an expert on bo ne, with my only previous experience to this point being the bo ne at Diem Hen in Canley Vale. Given that I don’t have much of a standard to judge against, I can only describe to you this dish in absolute terms.

The steak was cooked medium rare, tender and juicy, though the first bites were better than the last bites as it continued to cook a little on the hot plate as we ate. The live pate was some of the best I’ve had, and my partner especially enjoyed it caramelised on the hot plate. The egg was cooked to a degree of sunny side up perfection that I’ve never achieved, which is kind of crazy to me since presumably they just got the plate up to temp, took it off the heat and cracked it on. I don’t know exactly what the sausage like substance on the right side of the plate was – it was similar to siu cheong that you might get at a Cantonese BBQ shop – but it was quite nice with a bit of sweetness. The onion in this dish was in one corner rather than throughout the entire dish like at Diem Hen, which I preferred as it meant I could be the one deciding which mouthfuls I wanted onioned or unonioned. The bread was again freshly toasted and just great, excellent to pair with some pate or tasty sausage.

OTHER THOUGHTS
All in all I enjoyed my visit to Coffee & Crackles, even if certain items on their previous menu, for example their bo kho tacos, were no longer available after the merger. Saigon Hustle looks to have a pretty interesting Vietnamese fusion menu for dinner though, so I’d like to come back at night some time in the future.

Coffee & Crackles
678A The Horsley Dr, Smithfield NSW 2164
0423 460 054

Categories
Chinese Groceries

Prestons Foods Pork & Garlic Chives Wontons – Grocery Review

While I guess some of the grocery posts on this blog have worldwide appeal, much of what I eat from the local Asian grocery store is made here in Sydney, and only available at a few places. This makes me writing this essentially useless, as the likelihood of even a single person reading this and then deciding to buy or not buy these wontons is exceedingly low.

Despite this, I thought the Prestons Foods Pork & Garlic Chive Wontons to be quite solid. The filling was generous and had a good meaty texture and good chivey flavour. I’d eat them again.

UPC 9344064000226

Categories
Chinese

Yummy King BBQ Kitchen – Campsie NSW Restaurant Review

We went to local restaurant Yummy King on an online recommendation for some suckling pork. Unfortunately they were sold out of suckling pork for the day (we were told that they usually run out around 2PM, earlier during festive seasons), so this is what we had instead.

We started, after a couple who had only just finished their meal were hurried out of their table so that we could be seated, with this classic complimentary soup with some pork bone, carrot and potato. It had a light and wholesome flavour, perfect to drink during the extremely short wait for our food to arrive. My partner always enjoys this, no matter where we go.

We had the double varieties BBQ with rice ($13) with BBQ pork and roast duck. The quantity was quite ample for the price, especially considering you can get this with the huge mountain of rice, a good amount of protein, and a free soup for just $13. The roast duck (燒鴨) was pretty good, with good flavour, skin and texture with a good combination of meatiness and fattiness, with not much bone.

The BBQ pork was less good in our opinion – cooked a bit sweeter than we like, with also a different cut of pork than we are used to (or is it just cut in a different direction?) I honestly think that the char siu (叉烧) that my partner makes at home with the recipe from The Woks of Life is better.

We also ordered an entire serving of roast pork ($15.80) by itself. Contrary to the disappointing char siu, Yummy King’s roast pork was actually some of the best I’ve ever had. The flavours were perfect, with just a little bit of salt and other seasoning coming through, but not to an overpowering or oversalted extent. The skin was incredibly crispy and tasty throughout the course of our meal, and the meat was tender and juicy, with not much fat. This was really some very top tier siu yuk (燒肉), and I would not hesitate to recommend it.

The ginger and shallot sauce, along with all other sauces like duck sauce were self-serve from a little sauce stall at the back of the restaurant. As it was end of day, the ginger and shallot sauce had gotten a little sedimenty.

Because we are cosplaying as responsible adults this year, we ordered a serve of steamed Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce ($10). Truth be told, we could’ve had better value getting a set menu for two, but my partner specifically wanted gai lan over choy sum (a little bit of which came with th BBQ meats anyway). These were super green and probably quite healthy, though we are told by my partner’s mother that greenness comes from the addition of oil in the cooking process.

SUBSEQUENT VISIT (APRIL 2023)

The soy chicken, had for takeout, was pretty good. Exactly what it is, no more and no less.

The suckling pork ($78/kg) was really delicious. So juicy and fatty, and yet crispy at the same time, with just the perfect fat to meat to skin ratio. At the asking price, not something we can have all the time, but I’m so glad we were able to come back and get this.

OTHER THOUGHTS
I went out onto the street to find the nearest ATM because my partner thought that they told her there was a 4% card surcharge, something she’s since backed down on since she now claims she doesn’t understand the language perfectly (never mind the fact that she grew up with Cantonese at home). A 4% card surcharge would be highly suspicious but without clear evidence of this there’s not much more to say.

The roast pork is delicious. Don’t expect to be allowed to stay much longer than your eating time. They’re super busy and popular, with a line out the door when we arrived.

Yummy King BBQ Kitchen Campsie
164 Beamish St, Campsie NSW 2194
(02) 9718 0882