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.
I went to Chan Kun Kee with my semi-Italian friend who has a Hong Kong girlfriend for lunch based on a commenter recommendation. The publishing of this review has been expedited in honour of that.
This Hokkien/Fujian Fried Rice (福建炒飯) ($22) was pretty good in terms of quantity and flavour, though I’m not sure about the use of seafood extender and kind of wish they had used the ingredient known as ‘actual seafood’ instead.
The Beef Served in Sichuan Style Chilli Broth (水煮牛肉) ($18 – lunch deal with a bowl of rice and can of drink) we got as a lunch meal deal, however the rice that it was meant to come with did not come, and we forgot about it by the end of our meal. The quantity was really very good for the price, something that left me wondering whether or not we should’ve just ordered the next meal as a lunch combo as well.
The Deep-Fried Pork Chop with Wasabi Sauce (Wasabi 沙拉豬扒) ($22) was also available as a lunch deal, for a cheaper $18 price, but we ordered it as a separate item in the hope that the serving may be bigger. Judging from the size of the sichuan beef, we’re not so sure any more. This was certainly an interesting flavour concept, not something that I had had before. The wasabi sauce was creamier than I had expected, almost as creamy as the kind of sauce that you would put over Portuguese fried rice. It was pretty good! I would have it again.
Overall I felt that the meal was pretty good, and sharply priced, as long as the portion size is the same for their lunch menu as it is for their normal menu. I would’ve ordered other options, but they were out of essentially all chicken dishes for lunch that day.
We celebrated my partner’s birthday like four times over the course of a fortnight. One of those times was at Kabul House in Merrylands. I showed up about 90 minutes into the thing after a day shift at work, but I feel confident in my assessment given that we ordered a huge new batch of food for me to have by myself, whilst everyone else watched.
This is the half platter ($65), a huge dish of 2 shami kebab (minced lamb), 2 chicken kebab, and 2 tikka kebab (lamb cubes), as well as bread (pictured below). My partner, who ordered for me as I drove from work, wanted to give me the option of trying as many things as possible, but didn’t realise that it was possible to order half this amount of meat for half the price. This is definitely too much meat for one human, and this was after finishing work at 9PM and not having eaten anything that entire day apart from two soy coffees and a protein shake in the morning.
As far as the meat quality goes, I enjoyed the chicken the most, as it was juiciest and most tender, followed by the shami kebab, for similar reasons. The tikka lamb kebab was a tiny bit tougher and drier, and definitely decreased in palatability as it cooled down a bit, whilst the other two remained good throughout the course of the meal. I consider myself pretty good at cooking chicken, but I wish I could cook chicken like this.
This is bread, which came with the half platter. It is not the best Afghan bread I’ve had, but not the worst. The best Afghan bread I’ve had to date was from Gulistan Take-Away in Box Hill VIC on the 16th of September 2017.
We also had some chopan kebab ($16 for one 4-piece skewer), which were barbequed lamb chops, which everyone else raved about the tenderness of but I didn’t love.
The aashak(aushak) ($25), described on the menu as “10 fresh chives stuffed dumplings topped with yogurt and lentils” was really good. I think it’s vegetarian, but I didn’t even notice. I’d not had this before, but really loved the creaminess of the sauce, the slight bit of texture of the lentils, as well as the moistness and chive flavour of the dumplings and the overall package. I think unless you have a specific aversion to one of the ingredients in this dish, this is something you have to try if you eat here. I devoured the leftovers the following night.
Overall thoughts I really enjoyed the aashak dumplings, and think they were the standout of my meal. The meat was not bad, but I actually think that the lamb tikka at nearby Kabab Al Hojat was better.
We ate at La Disfida two days before Christmas, two years after the first time we walked past it on our way to Yakitori Jin (really great, by the way). The place was almost empty on this Saturday 23rd, though my friend and colleague DTC who first told me about this place said he couldn’t get in at all on a weekday 27th, just four days later.
This is a picture of bread.
This is burrata with smoked/marinated eggplant and pomegranates ($25). It has been my long held belief that burrata represents extremely poor value when ordered at a restaurant, but I simply can’t stop my girlfriend from ordering it every time. I tell her, “we have burrata at home”, and really the options from La Casa Del Formaggio ($6.50) and whatever company makes the $8 burrata at Coles Local (I thought it was Fresh Fodder but I’m being proven wrong by Google at the time of writing) are perfectly fine, and in fact better than the one we had, often with a runnier and less solid centre. I just don’t find an additional $18.50 of value in some mashed eggplant, a miniscule amount of pomegranate, and a drizzle of EVOO. That’s how I feel.
Somehow dining with a family of seafood haters we were able to order the busiate with fresh snapper, calamari, and prawns with olives, green peas, chilli & cherry tomatoes ($36) off their specials menu. It had a pretty good mix of tomato and seafood flavour, though I think the tomato dominated over the seafood and I wouldn’t have minded some extra ocean-ness to this dish. The pasta had an enjoyable chew to it.
Pasta #2 was more tomato, a gnocchi della nonna pomodoro e basilico ($26). My partner, who usually loves all forms of potato but apart from gnocchi, did actually enjoy this. It would’ve been nice to have more than one basilico in it, given the basilico makes up 16.7% of the words of this dish but much less percentage by either weight or volume.
Both pizzas we had were pretty good, and really the reason we came here. I was banned by the group from ordering anything with anchovy on it, so a number of attractive options were out of contention. The barletta ($27) with a tomato base, mozzarella, prosciutto crudo, basil, black pepper, and olive oil was pretty good. Good tangy flavour to the tomato base, well balanced with thin slices of prosciutto, and an actual showing of basil leaves that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to write about in the dish’s title.
The quattro gusti ($28) with tomato, mozzarella, hot salame, eggplant, pork sausage, and wild mushrooms was what I settled on as my pick from the menu. This was a really tasty pizza, if I do say so myself, with a bit of spice from the salami, a nice rich and moist sausage, and a smattering of vegetables and fungi to make you feel like they’re doing something good for your body whilst devouring a thousand calories of grease. It was delicious and absolutely loaded with toppings, although this drew attention to La Disfida’s very thin and flimsy bases.
It was an impossibility to eat this pizza by hand without folding or wrapping it up, as the base simply didn’t have the ability to remain rigid under the weight of its toppings. This is something we experienced with the more lightly laden barletta as well, but which definitely came into play more with the quattro gusti. It didn’t make it less yummy, but it did make it more messy to eat.
Overall thoughts Pretty good showing for pizza, though I’m not as sure about the pasta, and definitely not convinced by the burrata. If anyone has suggestions on how to fix my burrata problem, please let me know. I’m thinking I pre-read the menu for any future restaurant meals and replicate the burrata with the same toppings 3 days before we go. Thoughts?
After MAKING A BOOKING at nearby Italian restaurant Il Grappolo, we arrived in the pouring rain to find that that restaurant was closed without warning. Luckily, Alegrias was only a 1 minute drenching walk away, with walk-in availability on Christmas eve.
These are the ALBÓNDIGAS EN SALSA MADRILEÑA ($22), wagyu beef meatballs in a tomato sauce. They were very meaty, with a coarse texture and what my partner thought was a very beefy flavour. Though this sounds like a recipe for success, we did not particularly care for them. The tomato sauce was good though.
The PATATAS BRAVAS ($18), not pictured, was a relatively large serving of deep fried potato wedges with bravas sauce and aioli. The serving size was quite good for the price, especially compared to the other things we had, and they were really quite good. The potatoes were moist and fluffy inside with a good crisp on the outside, and the sauce, a combination of slightly spicy tomato and aioli, was right on.
I’m not a big paella fan, but this was a big paella. The PAELLA DE CARNE ($69 for a 2 person serving) was a large but shallow dish of paella with pork, chicken drumettes and wingettes, chorizo, and a bit of seasonal vegetable which in this case turned out to be mostly capsicum and peas. My partner liked it, but it didn’t feel special to me and it didn’t feel like something I’d like to spend $69 on. I honestly think I could make this at home, in our 30cm paella pan from DARTO, but I wouldn’t want to, because I didn’t enjoy it. I can’t pinpoint any particular faults, though of the three animals I felt that the chicken drumettes and chorizo were better than the pieces of pork, which had a tougher consistency than it necessarily had to. The serving was quite large for 2, and would be suitable for 2 only if it were the only thing you were eating for that meal.
Thoughts Maybe I just don’t like paella, but my partner wanted to try it and it was just so much food and money that it stopped us eating other things I would’ve liked more.
After a somewhat cursory eSafety check glance from a nearby JDM mechanic, we tucked into some pretty good Malaysian food at Warung Taming Sari.
The nasi lemakwith chicken curry ($15), pictured here with extra bergedil ($1), was pretty good. It was everything you could ask for in a nasi lemak, and helpfully for my weak constitution was not too spicy at all. My partner enjoyed gnawing at her giant drumstick, which meant that she was too distracted to have much of the laksa.
A note on the bergedil ($1), a small potato ball that we added on as extra to the nasi lemak. Though I don’t have any other experiences to compare this to, this small potato ball was dry and minimally flavoured. I would not get it again, and judging from this experience I am much less likely to try it again at any other store either.
The curry puffs ($3 each), came in a number of meaty and non meaty options. The meaty options included chicken, beef, and lamb. There were only 2 meaty flavours left available, and though I don’t recall which 2 of the 3 flavours we got, it doesn’t really matter, as they were tepid out of the pie “warmer” and both tasted the same. I can’t even really tell the difference in this cross-sectional comparison (hastily cut together to keep both in focus in the one image). Can’t recommend.
Disappointments aside, this chicken laksa ($15) was great. It didn’t look like much, but the rich texture and flavour of the soup, the soup soaked tofu, and the perfect ratio of noodles to other toppings made this an excellent bowl. I had no problem demolishing the majority of this whilst my partner was preoccupied bone-gnawing. Yum.
Warung Taming Sari Cnr Queen &, 30 Firth St, Arncliffe NSW 2205, Australia +61 439 693 298
