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. All meals are independently paid for - the author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Look. This is a difficult one. I’ve been to Kibuna numerous times since I’ve moved to the area. Some of their food hit well, some of them miss.
I’m a stan for their Okayama crumbed oyster. (not pictured). It is a must get.
Their soft shell crab roll is only ok.
The spicy teriyaki chicken don got me through a night shift once, it was the only thing to live for at the time, but it was not perfect.
I once had ox tongue that I thought was ox tail (what a surprise).
The swordfish collar was a daily special and a bit fishy for me.
Their ramen (not pictured) is a bit forgettable. I’ve had their pork negi chashu ramen, chicken yokozuna ramen, and their pork spicy tantan ramen and none really wowed me.
Overall a good place and I will be eating here again, hopefully eating in rather taking away. Skip the gyoza.
OLD TOWN DELIGHTS is a Thai restaurant in Mascot with a very focused but delicious menu consisting of only a few choice options.
The interior of the restaurant is a strange layout of a few tables for dining in and a couch for those waiting for their takeaway orders. There is a string of televisions behind the counter, but only one was on, playing YouTube videos of acoustic guitar music. There are also two electric guitars and an amplifier – not being skilled in music myself I did not try them.
Old Town Delight’s traditional duck noodle soup ($15.90) was excellent. The soup had a really deep, rich, umami flavour thanks to its inclusion of an array of Chinese herbs. The noodles themselves were surprisingly tasty, having been infused with some of the same flavours that makes this dish so great. There was a generous serving of gai lan and bean sprouts which added a degree of freshness to contrast with and complement the soup’s flavours. Unfortuantely the soy duck leg itself wasn’t really great – I felt it was a bit too lean and dry, but the beef balls that came with the soup were delicious. Despite the duck being a bit disappointing I can definitely recommend this dish. Absolutely wonderful flavours.
The spicy fried rice with chicken ($13.50) was also very good. It had a bit of pad kee mao quality, with basil and chilli flavours mixed into the rice. The chicken pieces were quite thick and juicy. I had a few mouthfuls in the restaurant fresh, and a few around 4AM that night at work and the food maintained its good quality despite microwaving.
THOUGHTS Old Town Delights in Mascot is an absolute hidden gem. Both dishes I had were really good, and I would readily recommend them to a friend or colleague.
Old Town Delights 830 Botany Rd, Mascot NSW 2020 (02) 8339 0889
We had a really special meal last night at Corner 75, a local Randwick restaurant that has been open for over 40 years.
I had made a reservation earlier in the evening, and on arrival we were greeted by name by Paul Varga, owner and host, and led through the dimly lit but bustling restaurant to our table. Before I get to the food, the service and atmosphere at Corner 75 must be commended. The restaurant had a real family feel – after all it is a family venture. We dined among both younger groups and older couples, many of whom seem to be regulars of the restaurant and know the staff very well. Throughout our meal Paul continued to address me by name, which impressed me so much as remembering names is something I have a lot of difficulty with.
hortobayi crepe of shredded chicken and paprika sauce
The hortobayi crepe of shredded chicken and paprika sauce ($15) was special. The chicken filling was tender and juicy, and the paprika sauce added a umami flavour that I had never experienced before. This entree really set the scene for a truly memorable meal of new Hungarian flavours.
Veal Goulash served with nokedli
The Veal Goulash with nokedli ($29) was not what we thought it was. Our last experience with goulash was probably at Stock Market on the UNSW campus around 7 years ago. This goulash was much less of a soup and more of a main meal. There were many large chunks of tender veal, and my partner commented it was much more tender and delicious than any meat I have ever tried to stew or slow cook. The nokedli, a kind of formless pasta dumpling, were a bit underflavoured for me, even when used to mop up the sauce. My partner liked it however, and liked how springy it was too. I would’ve liked this dish to have around twice as much sauce, as we did end up wanting for more with nokedli left over.
Fresh Cucumber Salad
We were upsold on the Fresh Cucumber Salad ($6.50) to pair with our goulash. We hadn’t originally intended to have it, but the proprietor recommended it, citing the ability of the sour cucumber to cut the rich taste of the goulash. It was actually pretty good. The cucumbers had been long marinated in a mixture of salt, pepper, garlic, and sugar, and topped with paprika. Paul later came back and admitted to the upsell, but we had to admit that we liked it.
Crispy Roast Duckling with mashed potato & red cabbage, Cherry sauce
While the Corner 75 house specialty, Crispy Roast Duckling with mashed potato & red cabbage ($37.50) is sold without it, it really needs to be eaten paired with their delicious cherry sauce ($3.50). I was initially a bit hesitant about eating duckling, until my learned colleague reminded me that it was the birthright of my people to eat every animal that walks, swims, flies or squawks. This was a really good dish. The duck was soft and tender, with a nice crispy skin. The red cabbage was sweet and delicious, and was a good foil for the rich duck. The potato mash was buttery. The cherry sauce was an absolute treat, with a sour and sweet flavour that added a really special touch.
The Cherry Strudel with vanilla ice cream ($12.50) was yum, the cherry being more tart than in the cherry sauce served with the duckling. The sourness of t he strudel’s filling worked well with the pastry’s sweetness. The vanilla ice cream was good, if standard. It was thoughtful of them to split our one serving into two to share.
I can really recommend Corner 75 in Randwick. Somewhere over the last forty years the restaurant has found and managed to keep something truly special. I can’t wait to come back, and maybe over the next four years of my partner working in Randwick we will become regulars too.
$110 for 2 including one glass of red 5 little roasted ducklings
Tucked away at the back of a shopping centre in Sydney’s Chinatown is JKG Shangcheng Hotpot King. It is a relatively budget hotpot restaurant, with a wide selection of meats and seafoods but a lower emphasis on cleanliness and service.
Ordering is via a tablet-based system. Make sure to scroll down the page to view all offerings, as we were initially very confused as to why our options were so extremely limited.
Sauce attracts an extra charge, however as I’m not a big fan of sauce we were able to convince them to let us only pay for one serving. The sauce station was very dodgy and had a bug-zapper lamp next to it. I don’t know if this was the best decision, as while it would be good at killing bugs it was probably also part of why there were so many flying bugs near the sauce station.
The wontons in chili soup were yum. The filling was evidently housemade, which is preferable to store-bought.
For our soup bases we got mushroom and chicken broths. The mushroom broth was very shroomy with many assorted shrooms – perhaps superfluous as we also ordered a number of shrooms to cook ourselves. The chicken broth we felt was flavourless apart from being salty.
The serving sizes for fresh vegetables, mixed mushrooms, and mixed tofu were quite large, and good value for the price. Having full sized servings of all three was a bit too much for us as a couple however , and we wish that they would do half sized servings for half the price. Nonetheless, it would be good for a party of three or four.
A metre of beef was too much for us. The beef was a bit too fatty.
No complaints about the chicken.
Overall my partner and I spent around $120 on our meal including a beer. This is around the same price that we paid at YX Mini Hot Pot, however we got much more food (of somewhat lesser quality) for the money. I would recommend JKG Shangcheng Hotpot King to a more price-conscious market, for example students, who at the same time do not expect much service (it took a very long time and multiple visits for our hot pot soup to be topped up).
After finishing lunch at Danjee at 1PM my friends wanted to go to Bornga that same evening at 8:30PM. I think this was probably my own fault, as I essentially incepted them by telling them I was having Korean that day.
While Danjee bills itself as Korean fine dining, I think Bornga is more suited to hold that title. Bornga’s interior, with its booths, decorations, and BBQ facilities is actually quite nice. We partook in a mixed meal of Korean BBQ and other non-BBQ dishes.
The side dishes were pretty adequate. They were not refilled on their own, rather we had to ask for them to be refilled.
Jap Chae
The Japchae (stir fried glass noodles and vegetables – $23) was delicious. It was a nice and warm dish with lots of umami and sesame flavours. I liked how easy to eat and minimally chewy the glass noodles were. I’d get this again.
Bornga’s Bibim Naengmyeon (spicy buckwheat noodles – $17) was the second serving of Korean cold noodles that I had of the day. Compared with Danjee’s this one had far less soup, though I think there was a separate item on the menu with soup to drink. The noodles were much easier to eat, helped by the fact that we were given scissors to cut them up. Eating this dish helped me to realise that I shouldn’t have been so critical of Danjee’s naengmyeon’s minimal serving of meat – two slices is probably the standard. Not bad.
The Yesan tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patties – $23) was a sliced up patty made of marinated beef short rib meat and rice cakes, served with some creamy mayonnaise-like dipping sauce. It was quite good, fatty and moist and juicy, with a sweet flavour to it. It was reminiscent of a fatty and highly minced hamburger patty. Apparently it is rare to find this dish in Sydney, so if you’re at Bornga and there’s room in your tummy it’s worth a try.
The seafood and green onion pancake (haemul pajeon – $25) was the eggiest seafood pancake we’ve ever had. As you can see from the photo almost the entire exterior surface was covered in egg. My colleagues complained that there was not enough seafood within the pancake, however each slice I had did come with some seafood packed inside – not to mention the extra seafood my partner snuck into my bowl (she loves seafood pancake – hates seafood). I would agree, however, that this does not even reach my top five seafood pancakes that I’ve had in Sydney, and would recommend you not get this unless you have a distinct craving for it.
Salad leaves
These are salad leaves. I’ve presented a photo of them here to help differentiate against Danjee, who didn’t give us any salad leaves.
Our ex-surgical colleague cut and cooked our Korean BBQ with incredible deftness. We had the wagyu kkot sal (wagyu short rib – $42), Mansinchang Samgyeopsal (marinated pork belly – $24), Woosamgyeop (beef loin – $23) and Samgyeopsal (pork belly -$22). All the meat was of high quality, though a bit expensive. We were keen to order some vegetables to cook on the BBQ as well, but their vegetables were out of stock. The only vegetables we were able to BBQ were two piece of onion, two of pumpkin, and one mushroom with the Bornga logo stamped onto it.
Bornga Wagyu Bulgogi
The Bornga Wagyu Bulgogi ($43 – Korean bulgogi hot pot with beef and vegetables) was quite a large servingf and delicious. It was really packed with a lot of greenery, mushrooms, and noodles. One of my colleagues had a lot of this dish.
.VERDICT $265 at Bornga bought more than enough to feed 4 large Asian boys who often get confused for one another and 2 normal sized women, including a bottle of makgoli to share. Bornga’s food is of high quality, reasonably priced and delicious. I can definitely recommend Bornga as the best Korean I’ve had in the Sydney CBD to date. Make sure to book ahead.
