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.
Don’t call the police on me but I got a half takeaway tub at Cow & the Moon and ate it in their outdoor seating with my back against the window even though they expressedly told me not to. It was a thrill and a rush.
My half litre tub ($13) was vaguely-equal parts Cherrymania (self-explanatory) and Queenslanda (named after one of QLD’s top domestic exports – the mango).
The cherry mania was in places sweet and in places tart. My partner is a big fan of cherry and I knew that she would love it.
The Queenslanda was a mix of mango and cream, a much milder flavour compared to the sometimes deliciously sour cherry ice cream.
Both were good and highly recommendable.
5/5 but I would prefer Mapo’s more subtle flavours most days of the week.
I drove through local flooding on the M2 recently to bring you this review of what is possibly the best train station hot pot restaurant north of the Harbour Bridge.
For the reasonably sane price of $266 we were able to fully feed six grown adults ($45 per person), without really skimping on anything that anyone wanted. We chose a centralised large pot format with two options of Chongqing Spicy Soup and Oxtail and Tomato Soup, though individual pots are also available at this restaurant. Despite the fact that all six of us were of Asian descent and likely exposed to spicy foods from a young age, only my colleague WKS was able to fully enjoy the spicy soup. The rest of us quickly gave up and essentially only had the non-spicy soup for the majority of our meal.
Both the standard sliced beef and lamb options were of good quality. We ordered a mixed plate of beef and lamb ($29.50) and additional beef ($16.50). The beef was tender, with a bit of marbling but not much fat external to the muscle. The lamb was also good, with less fat than most other places.
The large golden ball to the left of the image is the giant deep fried glutinous rice ball ($13.50), a sweet deep fried snack similar to the much smaller, usual variety. Though large in volume, the skin of this ball is actually very thin, so the ball is not as substantial a food as it may look. It is a nice snack.
I would not recommend the spicy beef ($13.90), which is very heavily spiced with cumin and chilli, nor would I recommend the shrimp meatballs ($17.80), which I didn’t feel were as special as those at The Dolar Shop.
Beef and coriander balls ($9.50) weren’t really that great. Most of the coriander melted off into the pot, and there was not much of a beef texture within. They also took a really long time to cook, which in itself presents a form of opportunity cost. I wouldn’t get these again.
Similarly to competitor Spice World, Memory Tongue offers some of its meat options draped around naked barbie dolls. There is a price differential between the Barbie Pork Belly Slices ($14.50) and the regular Pork Slices, however no mention of the quantity provided with each order. Though as a group we are well known for ordering things purely for the meme value, it still would’ve been nice to know exactly what we were paying for this display.
VERDICT There’s much of the meal that I haven’t directly mentioned. Those elements – the vegetables and tofu offerings – were absolutely fine, with good range and value. $45 per person at Memory Tongue left us feeling satisfied and full, and though they posted a closing time of 10PM they let us stay until 11. It was a good meal, and I wouldn’t hesitate to go back.
I’m a highly price-conscious consumer of food and other small luxuries, and while I will happily shell out for something truly special, sometimes I do need to be convinced that a meal is “worth it”.
I didn’t have any of this soy cappuccino ($4.50) as I was pre-nights but I really enjoyed the look and feel of this cup. They sell their mugs for around $50 on their Etsy store, and it looks like woman has bought 13 of their 16 items ever sold. I’m not currently in a suitable financial position to spend $50 on a small mug that I will never use (my mugs are in the litre-range, excellent for loading up on the disgusting but healthful material that is psyllium husk), but many of their creations are quite beautiful.
My partner isn’t usually an oyster eater, but these Magaki Pacific Oysters ($5 each) had enough random toppings on top to make her venture out of her comfort zone. These particular oysters were topped with salmon roe and flowers, which did add a nice fruitiness to the oceanic flavour mix. Again, love the bowl.
These Gobo Chips ($13.50) with wasabi mayo were a bit too fibrous and slimy for me. Any supposed health benefits, for example from burdock root’s relatively high fibre content were probably well balanced by the battering and deep frying.
We quite enjoyed the Snapper Ramen ($24), with its nice in house tonkotsu base, baby bok choy, and lightly seared fish. The yuzu kosho was described by our waitress as something we could use to add flavour, as was the vegan capsicum butter, which I felt was a bit redundant as that is the general purpose of any flavouring or topping. The flavours of the soup were nice overall, and perhaps the two above mentioned additions hindered rather than helped it. I enjoyed the fish but would’ve liked more.
The Area 51 ($36), a seared toothfish ochazuke was unfortunately quite similar in taste to the snapper ramen. It was probably our own fault for choosing both of these dishes rather than something different. My main complaint carries over from the snapper ramen, there being only a small amount of toothfish at this relatively large price, though my secondary complaint is the less than ideal broth to rice ratio. It tasted nice, but it just tasted like more of the same.
THOUGHTS
We spent $88 between the two of us, with one drink. While we did eat quite a bit of food, I still have difficulty reconciling the substantial price point for what was ultimately good but not super-special.
There is something very special and expensive happening at LODE Pies and Pastries, a venture born during the pandemic as online-order, bake-at-home versions of LuMi’s pies and now come of age as its own little Crown St pastry shop.
This sausage roll ($7) with its filling of differently textured bits of meat was good but did not blow my mind. It is at a high tier of sausage rolls, but it didn’t really do anything extremely special for me to grant it the rank of master.
Lode’s Fruit Tart ($10) changes on a semi-regular basis, and we were treated to this delicious mandarin version on our visit. This tart featured fresh mandarin atop a bed of semi-sweet creme patissiere, itself on top of a nutty and texturally complex mixture of mandarin jam and macadamia frangipane, all of which was encased in and supported by a base of multi-layered flaky pastry. This was a very strong sweet snack, and with Lode’s frequent iterations on the theme of fruit tart certain to be a recurrent drawcard for return visitors.
The Mr Peanut ($11), a log of sugar-dusted croissant dough filled with peanut frangipane, caramelised banana and a hint of dark chocolate was a bit sweeter than its fruity colleague, but still very good. This was an extra-dense log of sweetness and butteriness, with the tried and true breakfast combination of banana, peanut, and chocolate in the filling complimenting but not overpowering the pastry.
The LuMi Pithivier ($20), an unusually expensive pie with a pork and shittake mushroom filling in a laminated pie crust served with a chicken sauce is Lode’s flagship item, and ultimately not mind-blowing, especially at the princely sum commanded. The crust was clearly multi-layered and delicately built, but I didn’t feel that the flavours of the filling was good or special enough to earn it all the accolades heaped upon it online. Maybe the combination of pork and mushroom isn’t so much a novelty to my palate as it is to others. This pie, like the sausage roll, was good but just didn’t blow my mind.
COMMENTS: I thoroughly enjoyed the mandarin tart, as well as the bread-components of each pastry itself, but felt that the fillings of the savoury dishes didn’t quite tickle my fancy. Having said that, my partner is constantly wanting to go back (I resist), and that’s probably a market of goodness in itself.
Social Hideout is one of my least favourite cafes in Parramatta, and judging from the number of posts on this blog I feel like I have a broad-enough experience to hold an opinion on this. My first encounter with Social Hideout was in 2018, when my partner took me at the end of a run of ward cover night shifts (my last ever), at the start of my annual leave. Though this was well before the creation of this blog, and before I really started thinking about keeping track of what was good and what was bad, I remember my impression being that the cafe had seemingly spent a lot of effort in decorating, and perhaps could’ve better spent that energy into its food. I have the photos from that September 10, 2018 visit, though given it’s been so long and I honestly have no idea how it tasted I don’t think there’s really any point in my sharing them now. We had a red velvet latte, a taro latte, poached eggs on beetroot toast, and a french toast.
This first visit all the way back in my first year out in the real world of employment and dining out must have left a serious impact on my psyche however, as I spent the next four years trying to avoid going back, until I couldn’t. Dragged by my tail from the exhausted safety of my workplace Entrada Centre in Parramatta by a group of colleagues, I was to remember why I didn’t like this place.
The decor at Social Hideout remains as floral as ever, and though I had hoped that perhaps time and iteration might have resulted in some improvements in their food menu I was disappointed. The Lamb and Cheese Pot of Gold ($22.90) was an extremely salty mixture of tomato, slow cooked pulled lamb, beans, miso mushrooms, and labneh served with sourdough bread and butter. In my opinion this is definitely a dish that looks and reads better than it tasted – I just can’t understate how salty it was, the only saving grace being the bread, while it lasted.
I was glad to hear that opinions were not merely held by me, but also a number of my colleagues, who did not love their chicken-waffle dishes.
Ultimately I think that some cafe-goers want a place where they can take cute photos of their food with attractive floral backdrops, and some just want a place to have a nice meal. Some places manage to do both – the similarly named Social Society in Zetland (and actually quite close to Social Hideout’s Waterloo branch) comes to mind, but in my opinion Social Hideout just doesn’t cut the mustard.
