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.
Saigon Rolls is a small Vietnamese restaurant in St Leonards serving a variety of banh mi, rice paper rolls, and pho. I dropped in on a chilly May morning for a couple of banh mi, eager to fill myself up before a day of minimally catered meetings.
This crackling pork roll ($8) was quite good. Lots of fresh-feeling salads, sufficient meat, at a reasonable price. Not the best I’ve had in my entire life, but did its job well.
The cold meat pork roll with double meat ($9) was really only fine. Again filled with a good amount of salad, I felt that the extra meat was not adequately balanced by extra pate or butter. Maybe it’s my own fault for not asking for double pate as well as double meat, but I find that in most places this balance is made automatically.
Saigon Rolls St Leonards Kiosk 5/436 Victoria Ave, Chatswood NSW 2067 (02) 9410 0988
I am glad that I turned down Big John’s offer to comp me a bag of their fab frozen dumplings after my stellar review, because it leaves me free to write a less gushing review about one of their other products. As someone immersed in the Sydney foodie social media scene, it always makes me feel uncomfortable how many of these influencers are taking money or freebies from industry. I understand that for some this is a job rather than a mere stupid hobby, but I find it very difficult to trust recommendations from anyone who might have a conflict of interest. Even when a review is not directly paid for or comped, there’s a general understanding that if you’re someone who’s a negative Nancy you’re less likely to be invited to collaborate with other brands.
So I’m glad to say that I have no conflicts of interest to declare when it comes to reviewing Big John’s Jumbo Pork Meatballs, Classic Shanghai Style. I had been craving a lion’s head meatball ever since I was reminded of their existence in some kind of Youtube video. My last such meatball was from Taste of Nanking in Waterloo, two years ago, and it was time to have it again.
These meatballs were cooked as per the instructions, in a light broth of ginger and light soy sauce, though I forgot the ginger. I also later cooked them steamed and then another time boiled with just plain water.
No matter how I cooked them, I felt like they were too wet and too loose in their structure. Perhaps it’s because my view of what these balls should be like are coloured by my last experience. Perhaps they’re not even meant to be the same kind, as these are Shanghainese and those were from a Nanjing-themed restaurant. Who knows, not me, for I do not read Chinese. I invite commenters to tell me that I’m comparing them to the wrong benchmark if that is the case.
I also felt, probably related to their structure and texture, that there was too much ginger in the meatball itself, let alone for it to be boiled with ginger as per the instructions. Perhaps if the ginger was minced more finely the ball would stay together better.
Ultimately though, while some may like these, they were not what I was after.
Anyone who’s ever had to work a roster that transitions directly from days to nights knows that the 24-hour period between your last day and your first night is a difficult time to manage. This strange twilight zone, where you’re exhausted from work but trying your hardest to stay awake so that you can get restful sleep in the daytime is probably a contributor to many peoples’ metabolic disorders, including my own.
On occasion I try to optimise my use of this 24-hour period off work by fitting in a meal after I finish work at 9PM. Diem Hen is one of those restaurants a mere 15 minutes from my work that opens until 12 midnight every night of the week, providing a good and valuable service for night owls and shift workers.
Whilst I’m a big fan of pho, I do still try my best to try new and exciting Vietnamese foods like the Bò Né Đặc Biệt (Vietnamese Steak & Egg – $15). My friend CV often gets a text message with a photo of my meal and accompanied by a “how do I eat this?”, and it was on her advice that I dipped the warm, crusty bread into the French oniony sauce and began my journey. I will review each component of this dish separately.
To begin, I think the bread was particularly good. It was freshly toasted, warm and crusty. This is quite special, especially given that Diem Hen is a restaurant, not a bakery. The bread within the crust was a little bit denser than I find in most Vietnamese bakery baguettes, though perhaps this was to improve its ability to soak up the Bo Ne sauces.
The egg in the Bo Ne was very runny and soft, and mixed with the sauce was a much more pleasant eating experience than any other shakshuka (essentially another egg in sauce in cast iron dish) I’ve ever had. Great with the bread. I later overheard some other guys asking for extra eggs for a different dish, and immediately regretted not asking for some extra eggs myself.
The beef was of the Bo Ne was a sliced steak cooked medium and while its cut was a mystery the meat was really quite tender. The Xiu Mai had a good light taste and offered a pleasant interplay of different internal textures. The small sausage had supermarket kransky energy, but not all things can be perfect. All in all this was a good dish, though a little bit on the salty side for all you hypertensives out there.
The Cánh Gà Rang Mắm Nhĩ(Fried Chicken Wings with Special Fish Sauce – $12) was chosen as a bit of a safe bet in the setting of some other unknowns, but ultimately was a bit of a let down. My main issues with them was that they were quite dry and non-crispy, even though they were fried. They didn’t have a strong taste either, despite special fish sauce being advertised as a main component of the dish. The pictured salad I’m actually not sure if it is part of the wing dish or part of the Bò Né. They served the wings with the bread and the Bò Né with the salad, but I suspect that it was meant to be the other way around. Regardless, the salad was actually pretty tangy and tasty.
COMMENTS Will I come back? Most definitely
Diem Hen 205-207 Canley Vale Rd, Canley Heights NSW 2166 (02) 9728 4430
Chungking’s menu sits on a pedestal outside their Burwood restaurant, and while novices like us will peruse it from the outside, likely making a plan or two for what to order before going in, all bets are off once one is actually inside. The walk from the front door to the dining table often provides us with a chance to see a selection of what’s good and popular at a restaurant, and on this particular walk we saw no less than 6 tables (around half of the diners) eating the same thing.
The specialty of the house was the Charcoal Barramundi. There is a choice between frozen and live barramundi, as well as a choice between other barramundi and other fish, including Murray cod. We had a live barramundi, which meant that the dish started at around $50. There was a choice of soup base, and being spice wimps we chose a mildly spicy garlic base. We thought that this would be the end of it, until our waitress told us that we needed to select three additional items at additional cost. We chose the fried tofu, some glass-style noodles, and baby bok choy each at an additional cost of around $5.
Luckily, this dish was actually quite good. The barramundi came butterflied, a bit fried and crusted on top with salt and pepper flavouring. It was supported by a bed of noodles, tofu, and baby bok choy as specified, keeping it crisp and preventing sogginess as we ate. I would probably do this again, but with a frozen dead barramundi rather than a live and then dead barramundi.
This lamb stew hotpot (I want to say, $32?) was the other dish that we got. Looking around the room as we left we found that other tables of two diners essentially just had the charcoal fish and nothing else. That would’ve been the right thing to do. The wrong thing to do was to order this dish as well. It wasn’t even really special. Might’ve been better with some rice.
Some say that Lush (Bowl ‘n’ Roll, nee Food Bar) is dressed as a restaurant but is really just a cafe, while in my opinion they are the complete opposite. Despite its tiny physical footprint and decor befitting a cafe, its extended opening hours and extensive menu of actual food betray its true nature.
This beast of a dish is the Bun Dau Mam Tom & Sea Food Version ($16.90). The intricacies of proportion are difficult to capture without something standardised like a banana for scale, but believe me when I tell you that this was not the amount of food I was expecting to get for $16.90. This plate had a huge variety of ingredients to be eaten individually as one likes or wrapped up in lettuce leaves, as confirmed with my Vietnamese social work friend. The flavour centre of the dish was really the fermented shrimp paste sauce, which was simply something I’ve never experienced before. This brown, almost purple sauce was so deep and rich in flavour, with such a strong shrimpiness, that quite literally only a tiny smattering was required to flavour each mouthful. I’m glad I chose to order this at a time when I was dining alone, as I’m sure that my girlfriend, seafood-averse as she is, would’ve hated this. The strong umami and seafood flavours in this tiny dish of sauce reminded me of a particular Food War based anime where the protagonist would make very fishy things with squids much to the chagrin of his colleagues.
Other elements of note in this dish were the soft and light rice noodle, which flavoured with a light touch of the sauce was very easy eating. The fried tofu was superb, somehow done in a way where it was warm all the way through while remaining soft, with the thinnest imaginable fried outer layer that didn’t negatively affect the soft texture at all. The pork hock was similary soft, warm and delicious. The fish cake and prawns were as imagined, and adding up all of these different proteins you can see that this is actually quite a generous serving. This is really something to try.
Like an absolute fool I thought that I would be safe in ordering this beef roll ($7.50) in addition to the gigantic bun dau mam tom discussed above. Luckily for me, the staff at Lush Food Bar knew me better than I knew myself, and straight up served this banh mi to me fully wrapped up and in a biodegradable plastic bag to take home. My normal go-to banh mi is either the classic cold cut pork or crackling roast pork, and this may very well be the first or second beef roll I’ve ever had. The sheer quality of it, even having survived a trip from Strathfield to the nearest quaternary hospital, a surveillance COVID swab, an hour of incidental teaching, and then a trip home was extra-ordinary. Unlike some rolls this one had the perfect degree of moistness, owing from the mixing of juices from the beef (something you don’t get with pork based rolls), the generous serving of Vietnamese mayonnaise, and pate. Really great.
I also hope you enjoy this photo, which was taken on my balcony after my realisation that most people probably don’t enjoy seeing the bitten, half-eaten rolls that I’ve been posting. I had to lock the cats away so that I could access the balcony safely, so it was really quite an effort.
UPDATE DECEMBER 2022 We went back to Lush, now rebranded Lush Bowl ‘n’ Roll, in December 2022 after I crashed my car and was forced to take public transport, with my partner forced to pick me up from Strathfield station on the last leg of my journey home after nights. Because having to pay for my insurance excess as well as all the other associated costs of being in an accident without a car and without rental car coverage weren’t enough, we ate out.
I had the Lush Special Patties ($21.90), whilst my partner decided to stay in the car. It featured rolls of vermicelli with grilled betel leaf beef, grilled pork, BBQ pork, and sugar cane prawns, with a bit of herbs, cucumbers, and dipping sauce. It was really good, a great variety of different things, with the sugar cane prawn and the BBQ pork my favourite parts. My partner, once finally convinced to come downstairs and eat with me, also enjoyed every portion of this dish, and thoroughly. She could not, in her delirious state, stop talking about how every part of this dish was yummy, even the prawns, which she does not usually like.
My partner didn’t like the roasted pork roll ($8.90), but I didn’t have a problem with it. Her particular complaint was that the crispy pork skin wasn’t particularly crispy, but I think it was her fault for waiting for it to cool down, because it was actually served quite nice and warm. This wasn’t a particularly top tier roll, but it was certainly undeserving of her criticism.
UPDATE JANUARY 2023 My car is still out of action until at least early March (two and a half months for a repair, seriously AAMI comprehensive), which means that my partner is still picking me up from Strathfield after night shift whenever she can. We had yet another opportunity to have a yummy Vietnamese meal at Lush this past week.
We really enjoyed the special patties plate featured above, and thought we’d try the special combination vermicelli salad ($20.50) this time instead. Similar to the Lush special patties, this “salad” featured greenery, some spring rolls, grilled pork, and sugarcane prawn. No attempt was made in forming the vermicelli into a patty shape, but really the concept was essentially the same – we’re not sure if it really deserves being in a whole other section, especially as this “salad” had no more salad than the non-salad item. The loss of the betel leaf beef and BBQ pork we think was not worth the inclusion of the spring roll, which were either vegetarian or insufficiently meaty to result in enjoyment. All other things being essentially the same, I would rate the Lush special patties above this every time, for a dollar more.
The wagyu beef pho ($18.90) had a great soup flavour, plenty of bean sprouts and herb garnish, but was another example of where the label of “wagyu” doesn’t quite live up to expectations. Though I enjoyed this bowl overall (and indeed the broth was more rich and flavourful than many I’ve had in the past year), I didn’t feel that the rare beef was particularly tender – in fact less tender than most pho restaurants that have just regular beef. Cut and quality of meat matters just as much, if not more than the breed of cattle, and I wish I had gotten a special pho (not offered with wagyu) with regular beef instead. I’m sure that would have been even better.
Verdict Enjoyable.
Lush Bowl ‘n’ Roll (ex- Lush Food Bar) 11/23 The Boulevarde, Strathfield Plaza, Strathfield NSW 2135 (02) 9746 9905
