Categories
Vietnamese

Pho Viet Xua 1919 – Marrickville NSW Restaurant Review

It’s rare to find stir fried pho in Sydney, and for our first tasting we had a simple medium special beef pho ($19), with beef brisket and stir fried beef. The beef, stir fried before being mixed in the broth, added a heightened degree of oiliness to the bowl, not normally seen. A degree of tenderness that normally accompanies rare beef pho is lost with stir fried beef, and the flavours somewhat overpowered by the liberal helping of onion. The lack of bean sprouts also hurt me, and so whilst I respect that some people may prefer this version of the bowl, it’s just simply not for me.

The red wine beef with bread roll ($18) felt a lot less like the Vietnamese food I’m used to and a lot more like a beef bourguignon. I say this as a non-Vietnamese person, though and if I am told in the comments I’m wrong then I guess I will be wrong.

This donut / fried dough cruller / you tiao ($2) was quite good, freshly fried, crispy, and probably better than a lot that I’ve had at actual Chinese restaurants. A surprising strength.

The salted coffee ($8) was an interesting and valuable experience. It was a bit salty, a bit sweet, and actually quite enjoyable for someone who doesn’t normally go for a salted caramel type thing. Something to try, even if not something I’d have on a regular basis.

Pho Viet Xua 1919
279 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville NSW 2204

Categories
Italian

Ginger Indian Restaurant – Harris Park NSW Restaurant Review

So apparently Ginger is a local Western Sydney icon, news to me as someone who grew up in the famous 2145 postcode and who had not heard of this restaurant until last week, when I went with two colleagues before a night shift who had together eatern there in excess of ten times.

We started with the Fish Amritsari ($14). This was actually really good. The batter was very lightly applied and crispy. The flavouring was very lightly spicy and salted, to the appropriate degree, and the chunks of fish were thick and moist. This was on the higher side of the quality scale of what I had pictured ordering (I’ve had a few middling renditions recently) and I would get this again.

The Murgh Makhni (Butter Chicken) ($21) was fine. A bit on the sweeter side to what I’ve had previously. The size was good, not served in some tiny pot.

The Shahi Korma Lamb ($22) I was less fond of. Our waitress questioned the table’s choice of choosing two sweet curries with not even a hint of spice, but this is what the people wanted. Irregards I don’t think a spicier lamb curry would’ve saved it. I just didn’t love that the pieces of lamb meat were quite solid and tough.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a Cheese and Garlic Naan ($5) I didn’t love. Not the best ever garlic and cheese naan of my life (the bread from nearby Mazaidar in North Parramatta is a strong recommend for me), but no complaints here.

Would I come back? Probably not ten times. But that fish was great.

Ginger Indian Restaurant
94 Wigram St, Harris Park NSW 2150

Categories
Chinese

牛百岁 BFC Fast Food – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

We’ve walked past this restaurant in Burwood Plaza so many times in the past few months, that we had to give it a go.

BFC’s menu is predominately noodle based, and we of course chose the premium beef combination with vermicelli 精品牛杂粉丝汤 ( $16), their most expensive menu item and one with the word premium in it. We did not expect, though I suspect people who are able to read Chinese may have known, that the combination aspect referred to the combination of several different types of offals and tripes, which we were not so keen on. Indeed, even the beef muscle, which was interspersed with yummy gooey tendon, had a bit of an over-gamey flavour to it which we did not enjoy. The soup, and the noodles, however, were quite tasty, with a mild spice and a lot of umami.

The cumin lamb ribs 孜然羊排 ($14) were decidedly less challenging for our unrefined palates, and quite delicious, especially with a bit of chilli oil on takeaway lid.

Overall thoughts
ONLY WHILE WRITING this review did I realise that I had the exact same meal at NBS Big Bowl OUTSIDE Burwood Plaza a couple of years ago. Because I am absolutely illiterate in Chinese and must only rely on English text, I did not make the connection that it’s actually the same store. I don’t think my tolerance of offal has changed over the past couple of years though – I think this version in 2024 is simply more offally and gamey and less delicious than it used to be.

牛百岁 BFC Fast Food
Shop 18 Burwood Plaza, 42 Railway Parade, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Japanese

Miko Miko – Brighton-Le-Sands NSW Restaurant Review

Bucking the trend of Korean-run Japanese restaurants in Sydney is Miko Miko, a relatively new Chinese-run Japanese restaurant in the coastal suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands, replacing the long standing LUCK SUSHI. We paid a visit to them relatively late on a Wednesday night, to see if they were deserving of all the extremely mixed reviews that they had received on Google Maps.

The salmon sashimi (3 pieces for $7, $14 as pictured) cannot be faulted. It is difficult to do wrong when your only job is to purchase and then slice some fish, and it hit the craving that my partner had that led us to this restaurant in the first place. The grated fresh wasabi, rather than the el cheapo fake stuff from the tube, was noted and appreciated.

The gyudon ($18.80) was really quite good. The beef had a rich flavour, and the portion was adequate to flavour all of the rice. The egg yolk was perfect in its consistency, and again soaked through the rice once popped to flavour almost every grain. The pickles added an appropriate brightness, and I wonder if I could make this at home, though I wouldn’t know what to do with 980g of pickled daikon and 980g of pickled ginger.

The assorted tempura ($15.80) was fine, and though I did not love the prawn, I thought the eggplant tempura was really delicious. Tempura is not something that is easy to do at home, in view of all the oil required, though I do think the portion was quite small for the price asked.

Thoughts
Visiting a Japanese restaurant run by Chinese people, with almost the entire breadth of Japanese cuisine on the menu gave me pause, but ultimately their food was quite alright. I don’t know that I’d get the tempura again though, as good as the eggplant was.

Miko Miko
309 Bay St, Brighton-Le-Sands NSW 2216

Categories
Indian

Fuadijan – Auburn NSW Restaurant Review

I drove past Fuadijan on the way home maybe 500 times before I went to eat there with my friend ES.

The chicken seekh kebab plate ($13.50) with naan was juicy and flavourful, and a good amount of the price.

The lamb tikka plate ($16.50) I enjoyed less, finding the meat a bit tougher than I would have liked, a problem not at all helped by the flimsy single use cutlery providing no means to cut it.

But I had a fun time, and the woman working there was really nice. She even let us try some extra rice when we couldn’t decide between rice and naan.

I don’t know that I’d go back to be honest, I’m surprised that such a meat forward place did so little for me food wise. But I’m glad we went.

Comment below if you strongly feel that Pakistani food should have its own category on this site.

Fuadijan
129 Parramatta Rd, Auburn NSW 2144