Category: Cuisines

Categories
Chinese Groceries

Ruyee Steamed Bun with Shepherd’s Purse and Egg 如意纸皮包子 荠菜鸡蛋味 – Grocery Review

These shepherd’s purse and egg buns came recommended by a reader, though I actually already had them in my freezer by the time the comment came through.

They are part of the ‘paper skin’ line, which is an accurate description given the superb filling to skin ratio as seen on the cross-sectional image provided. The skin, despite its thinness, was extremely strong, bouncy, and held up well to steaming.

My wife and I were less impressed by the filling, however, and felt that the taste was a bit bland. This was easily corrected with a bit of chilli crisp and vinegar, but having to add flavour to a prepackaged frozen bun isn’t exactly my dream.

I wouldn’t get these again, but I do like some of Ruyee’s other offerings.

Ruyee Steamed Bun with Shepherd’s Purse and Egg 如意纸皮包子 荠菜鸡蛋味
EAN 9309000476008

Categories
Middle Eastern

Granville Kebab House – Granville NSW Restaurant Review

I sat out on the first order from Granville Kebab House on our run of nights, but after letting my colleagues test the waters on night one, I took part on night two.

Contrary to the opinions of my colleagues, I did not feel that this lamb kebab ($17.50) was the best. I would rate it in the bottom quartile of lamb kebabs I’ve had, purely because of the quality of the meat was lacking. While it’s usually nice to find a kebab with something resembling actual meat as opposed to mystery meat, I found the meat in this kebab to be unpleasantly chewy and gristly, with at least a couple of mouthfuls where the meat was impossible to chew to a small enough particle size to swallow, and had to be discreetly spat out instead. Factors counting in favour of this kebab however include its huge size, though another factor detracting is the $1 surcharge for tabouli. Perhaps a mystery-meat and chicken mix kebab would be a bit better.

I had only a single soggy bottom chip from this large snack pack ($22), but I wanted to add this photo to show just how huge and heaped it was. The concave upper lid was packed to the absolute max. I appreciate the effort, but would appreciate it more if the portion sizes and prices were both smaller.

Granville Kebab House
17 South St, Granville NSW 2142
0410 801 801

Categories
Café European

Schmucks Bagels – Melbourne VIC Restaurant Review

I was fresh off the plane, with my luggage at Southern Cross, looking for some viennoiserie at 2:30PM. Sadly there were no obvious nearby locations available, and I settled on an acceptable alternative within a short walk.

The first of two bagels I had was this absolutely loaded Salt ‘N Sauer ($15), packed with an unreasonable quantity of salted beef, a mountain of saukerkraut, and a small amount of dijon mustard on a sesame seed topped rye bagel. This was truly quite filling for something relatively compact in two-dimensional space, though true to its name was quite flavourful, erring on the edge of being too salty (but not too sauer).

After eating half of the above bagel, I then turned my attentions to the Miss U Lox ($16.50), a classical kind of smoked salmon bagel with cream cheese, pickled red onion, and cress, again on rye. This bagel was more expensive but much smaller than the other, reflecting recent increases in price across all brands for smoked salmon products. The filling was simple but clean feeling and tasty, though this did tend to mean that certain bites leant the other way into having inadequate flavour. The sweet pickles came in handy in dealing with the excess bread.

Overall I had a pretty enjoyable meal, but it turns out I was the schmuck, because I went to a bagel shop looking for ‘classical’ bagels, not realising that it was run by Asians and thus missing out on a likely good quality Asian-fusion menu. Maybe I’d try a miso tuna.

Schmucks Bagels (Collins St)
Tenancy 9/567 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000

Categories
Chinese Groceries

Xianjiuji Sichuan Braised Pork with Pickles 香九记四川扣肉 – Grocery Review

I picked this up from the freezer aisle of a local Asian grocery store. The picture on the label promised juicy, fatty, braised pork with pickles. I expected the pickles to not be a major ingredient, firstly because they were left out of the picture, but also because of the text that said “meat only goodness”.

The pickles were, in fact, a major component. The bowl, heated up via a combination effort of steaming and microwaving, was probably 50/50 pork and mustard greens.

The flavour of the food was quite strong and salty, though we ate it by itself rather than accompanied by rice, which I assume is how it was designed. The mustard greens and sichuan pepper contributed the majority of the flavour, in addition to an enthusiastic quantity of soy sauce.

The pork was a combination of fatty pork belly as well as pieces of lean meat. The pork belly bits were delicious, fatty, and delivered the characteristic melt-in-your-mouth quality despite having been frozen and reheated two ways. The lean bits of pork were in my opinion too lean to be enjoyable.

Overall thoughts: Promising, but way too salty for me to buy again to eat without rice.

Xianjiuji Sichuan Braised Pork with Pickles 香九记四川扣肉
EAN 9301168240064

Categories
American

Mary’s – Newtown NSW Restaurant Review

The first time and only time we ate at Mary’s would’ve probably been somewhere between 2015 and 2018. I remember first hearing about the place on the now-defunct platform Zomato, (which was still alive when this blog first started), and waiting in line a non-insignificant period of time to have our promised fried chicken. Though almost ten years have passed since that visit, I still remember going upstairs, the dim lighting, the loud music – all things that were there for people who were not us. All we wanted to do was have what was allegedly very good fried chicken. And I think it was good.

Now, around ten years later, we’ve once again eaten Mary’s fried chicken, this time skipping the grunge bar vibes and consuming it from the safety of our own home. The half bird ($24) has increased in price, but remains very good, with a craggly batter. The thigh piece was really juicy and excellent, though the breast piece, less so.

The fries ($5) were fries. No better worse than those from your local global fast food chain.

The gravy ($3) was truly terrible. It had this extremely burnt taste and was nigh-inedible. I hope it was a problem with the batch rather than their standard recipe, because I would not be able to put my name to this gravy had I made it.

Overall thoughts
The fried chicken was good, but avoid the gravy. Ordering online means that you won’t have to subject yourself to the darkness and loud noises inside.

Mary’s Newtown
6 Mary St, Newtown NSW 2042