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.
Basic vibe review only, my friend and colleague SCKW paid and didn’t let me see the receipt so I don’t really know what anything is or how much it cost. I transferred him a completely random amount of money.
These beef in black pepper sauce was pretty good. Probably the thing that I ate the most of during the meal. Good flavour, tender beef. Would’ve been good with rice, not that I had any.
The steamed and fried mantou with condensed milk, not really my go to dish, but I did have a couple. I don’t really know what to say. They’re quite standard, there’s not a lot of room for success or failure.
This is some kind of fish fillets in tomato soup, with bok choy and I think possibly basa? The fish fillets had a soft consistency and intrinsic flavour which is why I think basa. Not bad.
It turns out that SCKW is a big vegetable fan, and will order vegetables at every meal. This cabbage was cooked well, no complaints. Not what I would’ve ordered, but that’s why this guy is so much more healthful than me.
Dumplings, possibly pork and chive. I have very high standards for dumplings, coming from a Northern Chinese family, and these were not the best. I don’t think they were really better than frozen dumplings from the local Asian grocer. I won’t go so far as to imply that they are one and the same. I’m done with being threatened with legal action.
OTHER THOUGHTS I would’ve liked to have the Ma La Xiang Guo that Ma La Xiang Guo is named after. Maybe next time.
Ma La Xiang Guo 麻辣香锅 152 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134 0478 827 868
One intrepid Google Maps reviewer proclaimed Pho Mom the best pho restaurant in all of Canterbury, if only by virtue of it being the only pho restaurant in Canterbury. While I don’t personally know this Johnny Wong gentleman after paying Pho Mom a visit this past week I can certainly echo his sentiments.
The beef special pho ($18.50) came with the standard assortment of rare beef beef balls, and beef tripe, but to be honest apart from this I did not find it to be very special. The ingredients are all fresh and of good quality, but I found the soup to be somewhat one-dimensional, watery and generally lacking in depth of flavour. Perhaps it is merely personal preference, and you can browse the rest of blog to find what kinds of pho I do enjoy, but this bowl just didn’t do it for me.
Though I was let down by the pho, the fried wonton ($13) were a surprise hit. These were incredibly meaty and juicy inside, with good flavour as well as a good sweet and sour sauce for dipping on the side. This was pretty much just a random order, without big expectations, but they truly did impress.
The rice paper rolls ($13) were of good quality with soft rice paper and fresh ingredients inside, but what was really stand-out about these was the great peanut sauce. I’m also happy that we weren’t locked into choosing 4 of the same roll as the menu might suggest, and they were able to give us 2 of 2 different fillings. We had the prawn as well as the pork.
OVERALL I don’t think Pho Mom really lived up to the name of being the mother of all pho. I found their pho to be their weakest offering, but thought that they exhibited unexpected strength in other areas. Given that they’re just down the road from me, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back and try some of the other options on their menu, but given also our proximity to other high quality Vietnamese restaurants I don’t think I will go back just for pho.
These were some wildly good banh mi, recommended by KS and ACHT as their favourites some time in 2021 and finally put into my mouth in May 2022. This was a couple who would commute all the way from Parramatta, where they lived, to Hurstville just for a couple of pork rolls, and while I wouldn’t necessarily go that far (Xcel Roll & Bowl in Parramatta is also great), I can see why.
I could tell you all about the sliced pork roll ($6.50) and what makes it great, but the words would essentially be the same as every other review of a pork roll that I’ve liked. The bread is crispy but not cutting, the salad fillings are plentiful and fresh, and the roll is not oversauced. What really sets out Phu Cuong King’s offering is the fact that extra pate is offered right off the bat as a main menu item. Just an additional $1 will get you absolutely loaded up on that delicious extra pate and Vietnamese mayo and send your mouth to a whole other sphere of creaminess and umami. It’s not something secret that you need to ask for, that you’re worried they might not do. It’s right there on the menu. And it’s glorious.
The $10 crackling pork roll was similarly good, though I made the health-and-self conscious decision not to load it up with additional saturated fats. A friend and colleague commented that $10 was too much to pay for a pork roll, which I used to agree with looking at the prices charged elsewhere for a similar item, but no longer do. No one blinks twice at paying $10 for a hyper-processed sub at Subway or $8.60 for a double quarter pounder made on a production line by high school students so why should we be so miserly when it comes to culturally authentic food made from fresh ingredients by ethnic workers?
THOUGHTS Big fan of the extra pate. Don’t care about the price. Don’t tell my healthcare team.
Kosta’s Takeaway is a relatively new sandwich and juice shop located nestled at the front of a smash repair shop, along the automotive district of Rockdale’s West Botany Road. They offer a staple stable of classic sandwiches, as well as a frequently refreshed specials menu. I had two sandwiches at Kosta’s Takeaway – one a quite good fish sandwich (the special), and one a generally well received but not to my taste cold cut sandwich (the classic).
This quite delicious fish sandwich ($17) was a time-limited special, though judging from Kosta’s social media it seems to float in and out in various forms throughout the weeks and months. This particular iteration featured a 10-minute dry brined ling fillet, freshly deep fried with excellent textural attributes including a warm and crunchy outer crust and moist, flaky fish meat inside. The tartare sauce was tangy and creamy, and the pickled daikon radish brought a surprisingly bright and crunchy tartness to the sandwich. Even the iceberg lettuce, now a $20/kg luxury in April 2022, brought a much appreciated freshness to each bite. I thoroughly enjoyed this sandwich, so much so that I immediately sent a photo to my friend, colleague, and Filet-o-Fish® enthusiast CJP.
The Super Deli Panini ($14.50) is a different kettle of fish, and not my kind of fish. The fillings included a number of cold cuts (ham, sopressa, mortadella), graviera cheese, and some green and red mixture of marinated peppers, eggplant, spinach, fennel butter, and salsa verde . While I think this is probably a fine sandwich for the kind of sandwich-goer who likes this, I just didn’t really find the continental flavours appealing to me – a similar feeling to when I had A1 Canteen’s famed muffuletta two years ago when I first started this blog.
A RETURN, DECEMBER 2022
In true Pegfeeds fashion, this post is being updated prior to it even being published. We went back to Kosta’s Takeaway in December 2022 to try a few of their other offerings, as well as a repeat of the fish sandwich, which has now changed.
The fish sandwich, now $18 in December 2022, has evolved since our last meeting. It is now absolutely drenched in deliciously tangy dill and tartare sauce, which is now less thick but equally delicious. The batter is now lighter than it was before, while the ling fillet remains extremely moist and delicate. The bright pickle has disappeared and has been replaced by a slice of yellow ?American cheese, bringing this sandwich closer to the Platonic ideal of a Filet-o-Fish than it was before. Still good.
Continuing on this McDowell’s trend is the bifteki ($7), similar to a sausage and egg roll with a dry aged beef patty from The Whole Beast Butchery (I felt oddly intimidated by the specialtiness and also staff to consumer intimacy of it all when I went there, even more so than at Victor Churchill), cheese, egg, an spesh (read: similar to Big Mac) sauce. This was actually very tasty – a solid breakfast muffin with good flavours, but actually very much too salty for my liking. Because of that, I think the McLovin Muffin from Happyfield is the superior breakfast muffin of Sydney (at almost twice the price – absolutely no complaints about the value aspect of the bifteki).
This lamb conbab ($18) was also very good. I loved the crispy potato that you can see spread out in the open photo, that gave it a great texture in each mouthful. The second somewhat revolutionary thing about this roll is that the lamb kafta itself has been made into an incredibly thin pancake-like shape, so that it forms an entire layer over the inside of the bread. Again, this means that there is a bit of lamb with every bite, and that no bite is left without interest. The freshness of the pickled onions, tomato, and salad as well as the quite mild toum gave this very much a kebablike flavour, but fresher and less guilt-inducing. It is a shame, therefore, that this was also very salty overall, too salty even for me right now as someone with active COVID-19.
You can’t say that I’m biased because I thought that this poached chicken on schiacciata ($13.50) with fermented chilli ($1) was actually bomb, with just the right balance and level of flavours. The chicken was poached so softly and flavoured so lightly, while the texture of the bread was just amazing, so crispy and crunchy but with none of the oral mucosa cutting that you might get from a Vietnamese banh mi. The fermented chilli was not too spicy, but a good and worthwhile and probably essential addition. One of my cats stole a bit off my plate as I was eating, which left me with just one side of schiacciata and smashed avocado on top, and so I can confirm that this doubles well as smashed avo on toast.
The double choc iced chocolate ($8) I didn’t feel was worth taking a photo of. Pretty good, but I thought it was like $4. If I had known my partner had paid $8 for this I definitely would’ve photographed it and complained about it more.
THOUGHTS One of the best fish burgers I’ve ever had, and even if not all the flavours appeal to my East-Asian centric palate, this is definitely a place to watch.
I wanted to try Duo Duo’s social media hyped Asian-inspired ice cream and desserts for some time, especially as they’re quite close to where I’m currently living, but left sad and disappointed after a moderate wait in wet, cold, and dark conditions.
It’s hard to explain why exactly the things that I tried at Duo Duo didn’t tickle my fancy, but the Pandan Coconut Kaya Filled Donut ($6.50) just didn’t do it for me. I’m certainly not a pandan hater, some of my best friends are pandas, but I think what hurt this the most was more the odd sticky-but-pasty consistency of the icing rather than anything else. Such a weird feeling in my mouth.
The brown butter and caramelised apple deep fried ice cream was actually my first ever experience with deep-fried ice cream, being I think more an American-Chinese restaurant invention than an actual traditional Chinese dessert. The ice cream was quite sweet for my taste, and I didn’t love the batter, though I think that’s probably more of a problem with the format rather than the execution, and I wouldn’t have this again.
THOUGHTS I really wanted to like Duo Duo, but I just didn’t. I think I will try and go back and give it another shot this year, since I live so close by, but I will leave the above thoughts up online regardless of what I find on my next visit.
