Categories
Vietnamese

Phở cây đa (Pho Cafe) – Bankstown NSW Restaurant Review

It’s not immediately obvious to casual readers of this blog, but I’ve actually been kind of burnt out of writing this and this is my first entry in six months. There’s a huge backlog, and every day that passes with the photos on my phone the memory of each meal becomes fainter and fainter.

That said, I have been able to work up the spoons to describe this solid pho I had in Bankstown today after a five star plastics clinic appointment (and overall patient experience from the moment my cat bit me to now – I made sure that adequate and effusive shout outs were made to all the registrars and residents involved in the case on the official patient feedback form) at Auburn Hospital.

This Pho Dac Biet ($20) was on the more expensive side of things, but had a great depth and richness of flavour to the broth, and was brimming with all the requisite meat and meat products including tripe, tendon, rare beef, brisket, beef ball, and bone. This was a far cry from those fake special phos where they mix up rare beef, brisket, and beef balls and call it a day, this was a real special pho, and really good. The serving size was ample, and importantly had ample hotness to warm up all of the herbs and bean sprouts that I stashed within it.

This was a quality bowl at a high price, one of the only offerings on their limited English menu laminated and stuck to the wall next to my table. There were multiple other non-pho menus in non-English languages throughout the restaurant, but for me, this was enough.

To their credit, card was accepted with no surcharge.

Phở cây đa (Pho Cafe)
92 Bankstown City Plaza, Bankstown NSW 2200
(02) 8102 5968

Categories
Chinese

MC Golden Tower – Haymarket NSW Restaurant Review

One of the first meals my partner and I shared together back in 2012 was at Market City’s food court, where we piled as much food as we could onto a plate of fixed surface area, and I watched in adoration as she finished all of the food when I could not.

I took her back to Market City when I proposed to her to try and relive this experience. Sadly the exact restaurant from 10 years ago was either unidentifiable or nowhere to be found, but MC Golden Tower (officially just “Golden Tower” post their renovation) seemed an appropriate substitute.

There was no self-serve on this visit, and it’s highly possible that this particular restaurant has never offered that at all. We had a number of choices (2 or 3 for a set price) served by the shop clerk with an experience somewhat marred by poor communication even though we do speak some Chinese between the two of us. Our choices of braised eggplant and soy chicken were honestly quite good for this hyper-cheap food court meal, though I wasn’t a huge fan of the fried rice which I felt was a bit wet and sticky compared to gold standard fried rice.

Golden Tower
Market City Food Court, 9-13 Hay St, Haymarket NSW 2000
(02) 9212 1100

Categories
Café

Paper Plane Cafe – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

Though self-professed lovers of brunch, my partner and I tend to find ourselves looking more for lunch than breakfast. Cafes with all-day menus tend to be more our style, and we had hope that Paper Plane Cafe, next to a convenient if expensive parking lot in Parramatta would be up our alley.

This Midnight Cuban Sandwich ($18), served with bad boy fries definitely tends close to the lunch category than breakfast. The sandwich was ok – a little dry in places, but happily saved by the ample amount of mustard within. The bad boy fries I felt were too much potato, and I would’ve loved to have been able to order this sandwich on it own.

The Veggie Plate ($22) was a nice plate of vegetables, both ruined and added to by our addition of chorizo ($4). All elements of this vegetable and meat plate played well with each other. Nothing special, but a very reasonable thing to order in the absence of any other inspiration.

Coffee was fine. I liked the novelty spoon and matching mug.

I had the Truffled Eggs ($14.50) on a subsequent visit with a group of 7 colleagues after a run of night shifts. There remained an unfortunate lack of free parking in the area, and I spent an additional $6 for parking in the Parramatta Council Eat Street carpark. These eggs were pretty solid, and I think the addition of some truffle flavouring did enhance them compared to our previous experience. The sauteed portobello mushroom was good but minimal in quantity. The chorizo satisfied my salt and carcinogen craving and the intricate slicing to maximise surface area to cooking was also beneficial in portioning it out into bite sized pieces whilst eating. Overall quite a solid breakfast for under $15.

General Thoughts
Paper Plane Cafe isn’t my favourite place in Parramatta, and yet I keep finding myself back there every few years, just to see if it has improved. The food I would say is passable but not standout. I felt the service was somewhat disinterested. Overall I would call it a miss, but there’s nothing extremely wrong with it if you’ve exhausted all the other nearby options.

Paper Plane Cafe
5/2 Horwood Pl, Parramatta NSW 2150
0412 796 176

Categories
European

German Butchery Deli & Café – Bexley NSW Restaurant Review

My grandmother recently moved into a low level residential aged care facility in Bexley, and I took the opportunity to visit the nearby German Butchery after seeing her.

I had actually intended to buy some kind of German sausage for home, but overwhelmed by the wide selection of unfamiliar choices, I chose a Leberkaise roll ($6.95) with mustard and tomato served within a pretzel to have at the deli. They had run out of regular bread by the time of afternoon that I visited, and I paid a small $1.50 surcharge for it to be pretzefied.

The German meatloaf filling was juicy and peppery, though too salty for my taste. The pretzel was warm and very bagel-like in my unqualified opinion, and ultimately this was a affordable and unusual snack for my Asian-oriented palate.

German Butchery Deli & Café
1/2-6 Sarsfield Cct, Bexley North NSW 2207
(02) 9150 6402

Categories
Chinese Malaysian

Ho Jiak – Strathfield NSW Restaurant Review

My first visit to Ho Jiak’s Haymarket restaurant last year didn’t leave me with a lot of great feelings, but my most recent visit to their Strathfield food court store did. Barring the involvement of serious live shellfish and other seafood, East and South East Asian food generally has an upper price point that most patrons would be willing to pay. I can only imagine that the higher overhead costs in the CBD are part of what makes Ho Jiak’s Strathfield Plaza branch a more attractive option.

Food is reasonably priced, and service is fast. There is no in-restaurant seating, with only a few tables and plastic chairs outside shared with the kebab shop across the corridor. While some may baulk at this lack of formality, I think it’s important to consider this is the kind of thing that keeps food as cheap and accessible as possible. I’ve certainly never thought that char kway teow needs a tablecoth, though if the presence of a few less savoury characters roaming the halls of Strathfield Plaza could be managed that would be more ideal.

The Bah Kut Teh Rice ($19) was good. From the garlic infused rice to the you tiao to the herbal soup and pork ribs, each bite was full of flavour. The rice was warm and moist, and the serving of pork belly was quite generous for the price. I didn’t quite feel that the bak kut teh was the standard flavour – it had more of a dark soy sauce component – but it was good nonetheless. The you tiao was a bit tepid in temperature, but somehow incredibly crispy, great dipped in the soup or on its own.

If the bah kuth teh rice was good, the Indomee Goreng Salted Duck Egg & Crab Meat ($22) was even better. Every single bite of this was good. The noodles were al dente and delicious, completely transcending the expectations set by its 40 cent per packet price. The rich soy, spicy, and umami flavours of the noodles were amplified by the mince, fish balls, and vegetables, and duck egg accompaniments. The crab meat, though probably the bigger money ingredient here, didn’t really add as much as I had hoped. This was just an amazing dish (if a little salty), though next time I’d save $4 and get it without the crab.

The Inchi Kabin (4 for $13) were Nonya-style deep fried chicken mid wings. Mid wings are, in my opinion, the optimal part of the chicken wing, and I much prefer them to drumsticks. These particular wings were quite good, with a nice crispy skin and moist interior. They reminded me of those at Nam2 in their construction.

The Teh Susu ($3.50) is a very cheap milk tea.

VERDICT
I really enjoyed Ho Jiak’s Strathfield Plaza outlet. The food was great, and the prices quite reasonable. There are both pros and cons to its food court location. We were asked for spare change by the same guy twice during our quick meal.

Ho Jiak Strathfield
Shop 33 Strathfield Plaza, 11 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW 2135
(02) 9008 8020