Categories
Café

The Tin Shed – Nowra NSW Restaurant Review

This motel cafe about 150 metres from where I’ve been living in Nowra advertises itself as Nowra’s best bacon and egg roll, and after finally trying it on one of my last weeks in town I’m liable to agree, having never even had any of the other bacon and eggs around. Finding the actual cafe within the motel complex was a little difficult to start, and I almost walked into not one but two motel rooms with people actively making their beds or packing their suitcases before I was able to locate the café.

It was staffed by one single dude, which I guess is fair given they’re not really that busy – but it was one guy taking the orders, cooking, making the coffee, and answering the phone which meant that my post-nights haze was a bit more prolonged then I would’ve liked, sitting at their single table and waiting.

Luckily for both me and them, their Rocking Bacon and Egg Roll ($15.50) was seriously good. I honestly did not expect how good it was, and was blown away when I first bit into it. The bread is crispy (as my left posterior and inferior gum will tell you) and oily and deliciously toasted. The flavours are interesting far beyond your average B&E, with such an unexpected tanginess from the roasted pickles, the umami from the balsamic mushrooms, as well as the unusual strangeness from the use of melted camembert as opposed to just regular cheese. The egg was perfectly easy and runny, and the barbecue sauce well applied to flavour but not overwhelm. Each bite was actually extraordinary, and I realise now that I lie. I have in fact had another B&E roll in Nowra, and this is the better one by far.

UPDATE On my second visit to Tin Shed, only a fortnight later, the roll had changed. The bread was different, thicker, not as mouth-cutting, not as oily, and generally less good. This also threw off the filling to bread ratio, which was in perfect balance previously. I don’t know why they would have done this. Maybe they simply ran out of their usual bread.

VERDICT: Definitely worth a try. Call ahead to order so you’re not left waiting. I don’t know how to avoid getting the second kind of roll. Maybe show them this post and ask for the good one not the bad one?

The Tin Shed Cafe
9 Pleasant Way, Nowra NSW 2541
0409 992 109

Categories
Latin American

Chololo – Fairfield NSW Restaurant Review

As Western Sydney locals but relative strangers to the South West, it took a couple of laps around the block for us to realise that the neon-lit Chololo made famous across social media was actually situated within the somewhat dingy and run down food court of the Fairfield Chase shopping centre. The initial surprise that someone chose to open a new diner in such a place faded quickly however, as we ordered and settled in for our special Taco Tuesday meal.

Our main order was the Birria Ramen Pack with 3 beef tacos ($21). This pack is differentiated from their regular birria pack through the addition of instant noodles and pulled beef into the dipping soup.

The standard taco itself wasn’t bad, but also wasn’t a standout. The beef inside was reasonably moist, the filling to tortilla ratio was good, and the finely diced green vegetables inside were most welcome. Despite this I just didn’t get the vibe that they were very special, that is until I had them with the excellent chilli sauce, which was so fresh and fruity with just the right amount of spice. Dipping the tacos into the provided consommé, in this case an instant noodle soup, didn’t really enhance the experience as much as I had expected. It simply made the taco a bit more salty and a bit more soggy.

I don’t profess to be an instant noodle guru, though I have had many in my day. I found the noodles and the overall “ramen” experience of the birria ramen to be a bit lacking, and contrary to other online reviewers who enjoyed layering the noodles into the tacos I didn’t feel like this added anything. The noodles simply didn’t have enough of a non-salt flavour to add to the tacos, and if I were to go back I’d be choosing the standard birria pack rather than pay the premium for noodles that I did not enjoy.

Despite my lukewarm response to everything so far, the keto tacos ($4 each) were surprisingly good. We visited, by providence, on a Taco Tuesday as well, which meant that additional tacos were $2 each with any purchase of a birria or ramen pack. These keto tacos had the same general fillings as Chololo’s standard tacos, except that the carb-laden tortilla was replaced by a fat-laden crisp of grilled cheese. The cheese “tortilla” on these tacos were extremely crispy, crunchy, and tasty, while the fresh vegetables within and supplied limes to squeeze helped to balance out the oiliness. We had both the chicken and beef keto tacos, and both were quite delicious to the mouth, if repulsive when you actually start to think about how bad they are for you.

COMMENTS
If I were a man in a state of extreme unintentional calorie deficit and catabolism I would come back on a Tuesday and gobble up those delicious $2 keto tacos with their excellent chilli sauce. As I am hoping not to have a CABG in the next decade however I think I will probably not come back.

Chololo Fairfield
Fairfield Chase Shopping Centre, 34 Council Ln, Fairfield NSW 2165
0413 675 536

Categories
Chinese

吃在山东 Taste of Shandong – Hurstville NSW Restaurant Review

I love a good Shandong chicken, but a Shandong chicken is apparently not an actual Shandong regional dish. Here I will describe some dishes that apparently are.

Here is a collection of braised foodstuffs, including braised pork belly ($5), braised meatball ($5), braised soymilk film ($3), braised chilli ($3), and braised egg ($3), cross-sectional imaging to come. I had mixed feelings about this one, and only really liked the meatball out of all of them. The chilli I found was extraordinarily spicy for such a large pepper, whilst the tofu I thought was not very deeply flavoured at all. The pork belly was alright but not super tender, and the egg cooked all the way through and really nothing special.

If I could go back in time in a time machine, I would only get the braised meat ball, which was very soft and tasty, but probably needed a bit of rice to go with it.

I’ve been searching my entire life (or at least ever since Taste Gallery in Parramatta closed – a real loss for Western Sydney) for some good zhenjiang pork ribs. Sadly these marinated pork ribs with sweet black vinegar ($12.80) weren’t it. I thought that these ribs were unusually meaty, but not very tender. Their taste was not what I had pictured in my nostalgia-addled brain (nostalgia for a restaurant that I ate at two years ago – does that still count?) with a rich plum taste with too much sweetness and not enough sourness, as well as an unpleasant oiliness. Oh well, the search goes on.

I was quite keen on some dumplings (a guy on an adjacent table had some incredibly pungent chive ones that he was ripping through by himself), but my partner chose for us to have the shandong soup buns ($12.80) instead. I honestly don’t know why we’re trying to pretend that these weren’t just xiao long bao, and in my opinion inferior to those from the freezer at your local Asian grocer.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
I didn’t love what we had to eat, though for some reason my partner still wants to go back in the future. It might have to be by herself.

吃在山东 Taste of Shandong
177 Forest Rd, Hurstville NSW 2220
0431 213 106

Categories
Café Vietnamese

Coffee & Crackles – Smithfield NSW Restaurant Review

Our first attempt at brunch at Coffee & Crackles was thwarted when we arrived at 1:30PM on a weekday and were told that they weren’t serving food at that time. It was during a period of transition, the cafe having recently undergone a rebranding and merger with its co-located night-time eatery and bar Saigon Hustle.

The café part of the joint venture clearly lost the aesthetic fight int he merger, with only the small shopfront lit in natural light, the rest of the restaurant coated in dark paint, neon lights and scrolling projections.

This pricing of this crackling pork banh mi ($13) had me a bit conflicted when I ordered it. On one hand, while I believe that our migrant communities deserve to be compensated for the work that they do and the food that they serve and that it’s a double standard to pay $30 for a plate of pasta or $20 for three ravioli and only want to pay $3.50 for a banh mi, $13 is still a bit much compared to what I’m used to. That’s not to say that, taken outside of the context of what we generally pay for banh mi in Sydney that it wasn’t worth it. This banh mi was certainly high quality. The bread was warm and freshly toasted. It was crusty in a way that was tasty and crunchy, and yet somehow didn’t cut the inside of the mouth – honestly one of the best rolls I’ve had. The five spice pork filling was plentiful, as were the pickled daikon radish and carrots, making each bite both a meaty and a fresh delight. The generous serving of pate and Vietnamese mayonnaise imparted a good sense of umami and creaminess throughout the roll, with no corner spared. The pork crackling was separate from the pork meat, and distributed unevenly between the two pre-cut halves of the sandwich as the crackling was on the exterior surface and the sandwich was sliced diagonally. The crackling did impart an unnecessary saltiness to the bites where it made a showing, and perhaps less salt could have been used in its preparation. The chips, which were a surprise addition to the meal, I could’ve done without to save a couple of dollars. They were actually quite good – freshly fried and of potato in nature – but honestly if I wanted more food I’d just order a second banh mi, which I feel are a higher plane of enjoyment over regular fries.

The Bo Ne Sizzling Beef ($23) was also quite good. It featured a small MB2 wagyu steak, some kind of sausage or processed meat, liver pate, sauteed onions and a sunny side up egg served on a sizzling hot plate, with a separate plate of toasted oiled bread, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. I’m far from an expert on bo ne, with my only previous experience to this point being the bo ne at Diem Hen in Canley Vale. Given that I don’t have much of a standard to judge against, I can only describe to you this dish in absolute terms.

The steak was cooked medium rare, tender and juicy, though the first bites were better than the last bites as it continued to cook a little on the hot plate as we ate. The live pate was some of the best I’ve had, and my partner especially enjoyed it caramelised on the hot plate. The egg was cooked to a degree of sunny side up perfection that I’ve never achieved, which is kind of crazy to me since presumably they just got the plate up to temp, took it off the heat and cracked it on. I don’t know exactly what the sausage like substance on the right side of the plate was – it was similar to siu cheong that you might get at a Cantonese BBQ shop – but it was quite nice with a bit of sweetness. The onion in this dish was in one corner rather than throughout the entire dish like at Diem Hen, which I preferred as it meant I could be the one deciding which mouthfuls I wanted onioned or unonioned. The bread was again freshly toasted and just great, excellent to pair with some pate or tasty sausage.

OTHER THOUGHTS
All in all I enjoyed my visit to Coffee & Crackles, even if certain items on their previous menu, for example their bo kho tacos, were no longer available after the merger. Saigon Hustle looks to have a pretty interesting Vietnamese fusion menu for dinner though, so I’d like to come back at night some time in the future.

Coffee & Crackles
678A The Horsley Dr, Smithfield NSW 2164
0423 460 054

Categories
Chinese Groceries

Prestons Foods Pork & Garlic Chives Wontons – Grocery Review

While I guess some of the grocery posts on this blog have worldwide appeal, much of what I eat from the local Asian grocery store is made here in Sydney, and only available at a few places. This makes me writing this essentially useless, as the likelihood of even a single person reading this and then deciding to buy or not buy these wontons is exceedingly low.

Despite this, I thought the Prestons Foods Pork & Garlic Chive Wontons to be quite solid. The filling was generous and had a good meaty texture and good chivey flavour. I’d eat them again.

UPC 9344064000226