Categories
Chinese

1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

This is a review of 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle in Burwood NSW, and certainly not a review of the similarly named 1915 Lanzhou Beef Noodles, around 100 metres up the road.

There always seems to be a line outside 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle, and on our visit last weekend the waiting time happened to be around 15 minutes for a seat. I wonder if the bulk of the waiting time is due to patrons only deciding on what they want once they get into the restaurant, which is a bit silly as they have a very limited and focused menu, easily visible from the outside.

Forever a fan of the classics, I chose the Lanzhou Beef Noodles ($12.80 in small) with the thinner noodle option. I really enjoyed this bowl, and I can see how this simple noodle dish has become a staple not just in Lanzhou, but across China and Chinese diasporas. The clear noodle soup, flavoured with radish, coriander, and a little bit of chilli sauce just felt so clean and wholesome, not weighed down by any soy or fattiness. The lean beef had a light but aromatic flavour to them. The noodles were hand pulled in the store window, but to be honest were not more than a caloric vehicle for the rest of the bowl. I regret only getting a small size, as it seems that the extra $1 for the large gives you a lot more soup, which is truly the star of the show.

My dining partner and also romantic partner, forever the non-classic fool, ordered the Special Dry Beef Noodle ($13.80 in small) with wide noodles. This was probably just fine but didn’t live up to the standards set by their soup noodles. It had a bit of tomato flavour to it and a bit of stewed beef flavour as well. What ultimately brought it down was the fact that the sauce did not quite coat the noodles as a pasta sauce should, even though it kind of ate more as a pasta than a Chinese noodle dish. This meant that at a certain point you were kind of just eating really wide unflavoured pasta.

These pork and cabbage steamed dumplings (4 for $4.80) were alright.

1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle Burwood
117 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
0499 041 919

Categories
Chinese Drinks

Machi Machi – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

This is not really a restaurant, and this is not really a review. It is more of a description of a vibe and a general sense of feeling that I get when I drink a small $9 flask of bubble tea.

I don’t think there’s really any argument about the quality of these drinks. They are tasty, they are inventive, and they actually have a number of elements not found elsewhere. The Grapefruit Green Tea Slush with Fruit Jelly ($8.50) is a good example of this, where these guys experimenting with new ideas, for example putting the jelly at the bottom of the cup and not throughout it, actually changes the experience. It tastes pretty good, but again I’m reminded that we just spent $8.50 on a bubble tea.

This Black Milk Tea with Panna Cotta ($9) was also actually very good. Again a daring move from the mochi mochi team putting panna cotta at the bottom of the drink. Very tasty, and I think better than the option from Xing Fu Tang which incorporates panna cotta as a separate element. The price element comes out again though, even more in this case. One of the other things about these teas is that you’re actually not getting a large 700-800mL cup like you would normally. These are quite compact, slim, hip-flask like situations, so I think ultimately you’re paying around 3x the price for what you would pay for a standard milk tea a couple of years ago.

Whilst bubble tea has always been a discretionary spend Machi Machi certainly takes the idea of it as a luxury good to the next level. I don’t think your average public selective school student or university student really has access to buying and drinking these all the time, but there’s always the international student market.

UPDATE JANUARY 2023

We found ourselves back at Machi Machi, this time in Hurstville, about 14 months on for a $9.50 Grapefruit Mango Cream Smoothie with Kanten Jelly. It actually did taste very good, but looked nothing like the picture, and again I’m left wondering to myself – who is the target market for this product? Because it sure isn’t us.

machi machi Burwood
5/127-133 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Asian Fusion Bakery Market Stall

Pantry Story – Wolli Creek NSW Restaurant Review

Pantry Story is one of those out-of-lockdown success stories where a person with the right combination of timing, skill, and social media knowhow is able to launch a brand straight out of their apartment and into an internet base of hungry gourmands. It’s a phenomenon well covered by New York’s Eater, but somewhat less common in the more suburban sprawl of Sydney.

Operating the odd market stall around Sydney’s suburbs and also doing the intermittent batch of pickup orders out of her apartment in Wolli Creek, Mutiara Putri Sucipto draws on her Indonesian heritage to create pan-Asian inspired baked treats of both the sweet and savoury varieties.

This 3 days kimcheese honey focaccia ($7) was really good. The bread was airy and spongy, with a good crispy top layer with a coating of cheese. The kimchi was flavourful but not too strong, and importantly spread not only over the top but throughout the entire loaf. The slight hint of honey added a bit of depth to the saltiness of the cheese and the funkiness of the kimchi without being overpoweringly sweet. Just a great piece of bread.

The 3 days chorizo with sake sauce focaccia ($7) is a newer addition to the menu, and while also good wasn’t as phenomenal as the kimcheese honey focaccia. The quality of the bread remains, this time flavoured with a spread of oven crispied chorizo slices and a light but appreciable sake sauce. Unlike the kimcheese honey focaccia, the flavourings of this one were more limited to the top layer rather than mixed in, hence having less of a lasting and permeating impact on the enjoyment of the whole loaf. Not bad, but second out of the two.

This pandan java cookie ($5.50), like most of Pantry Story’s other cookies is a combination between a cookie and mochi. I seriously enjoyed the soft and thick texture of the cookie, as well as the textural interest added by the layer of mochi within. The flavour was sweet but not too sweet, and ultimately quite pleasant. This was my favourite of the three sweet treats we tried.

The banana bread that started it all, the banana bread with cheesecake filling ($6) was soft, moist, and not too sweet, with a swirl of cream cheese through it. This was an alright banana bread, though not significantly better than the banana bread I’ve had from other places or even made by friends. If I’m being honest the cheesecake swirl did not leave a lasting impression, and perhaps there could have been more of it, or it could have been flavoured more strongly. I wonder if this would’ve been better heated up.

The strawberry milk brochi (brownie-mochi – $7) was the weakest of the bunch. For starters I felt like it was too sweet, both overall but particularly from the pieces of white chocolate spread throughout. The slab of mochi was a bit thicker in comparison to the brownie than it was in the cookie, and whilst that’s probably the point of the fusion item I thought the ratio was better in the cookie. This was also my partner’s least favourite of an otherwise good meal, though her additional complaint which I don’t completely agree with was that she couldn’t actually taste the strawberry in it.

OVERALL THOUGHTS Our haul from Pantry Story was mostly pretty good. The kimcheese honey focaccia and the pandan cookie were the standouts, but generally a strong showing for someone operating out of their apartment. I will watch her career with great interest.

Pantry Story
Various market stalls across Sydney
Pickup at 15 Guess Avenue, Wolli Creek, NSW

Categories
Cellar Door Italian

Hillbilly Cider Shed – Bilpin NSW Restaurant Review

We spent an hour on a Friday afternoon at Hillbilly Cider’s cellar door and restaurant in the Blue Mountains.

They are a local producer of apple ciders, though not a brand I have seen or taken note of in any liquor store. On display on site are these large metal vats, that may or may not be used for the processing or storage of cider.

Also on display are these wooden barrels, which are confirmed to contain the cider poured diretly into glasses for patrons to drink.

We opted for a flight of four 150mL ciders to sample between the two of us. I’ve always been incredibly cautious about driving after having alcohol so my partner kindly agreed to drink less and drive on the way back to Sydney. We had the Hillbilly Scrumpy Cloudy Apple (ABV 6%), Hillbilly Crushed Apple (ABV 4.5%), Hillbilly Sweet Julie Apple (ABV 3.5%) and the Hillbilly Pear (ABV 4.5%) with some parallax error trickery that meant that we received slightly more than 600mL for our $18 investment. While I normally like a drier cider, I found that our sweetest choice, the Hillbilly Pear, was the most easily consumed, while the drier ones – still not bad – were not quite as appealing.

Hillbilly’s wood fired pizza oven is its second claim to fame in the local area, and they really do churn out high quality pizzas in good time.

This Pepperoni Pizza ($23) was rock solid. The base and crust were thin but chewy, cooked perfectly with the avoidance of any charring. The Neapolitan sauce and mixture of fior di latte and mozzarella made for a nice and mild base, and the pepperoni was sprinkled on with expert percision and reasonable generosity. It was all quite good. I don’t know why the pizza is shaped as it is.

The Sweet Julie Apple Calzone ($23), dubbed by one reviewer on Google as “a revelation” was also pretty good. It seems to be Hillbilly’s take on the hot apple pie, a staple among rest stops and little stores within a 5km radius. The filling of sweet caramelised acinnamonised apples was maybe just a little too sweet for my liking, but the pastry just as good as the base of the pepperoni pizza. I was grateful for the whipped cream which helped to temper down the sweetness of the apple filling.

OVERALL FEELINGS
I enjoyed the pizza, and after years of my friend GGL sending our group chat pictures of flights of alcoholic beverages I was finally able to return the favour. Hillbilly Cider Shed is also a great example of COVID-safe dining, with the choice between a huge outdoor dining area with picnic tables, a large gazebo like structure, and a verandah to sit on for those rainy days.

Hillbilly Cider Shed
2230 Bells Line of Rd, Bilpin NSW 2758
(02) 4567 0965

Categories
Café French

Bitton Gourmet Cafe – Alexandria NSW Brunch Review

My partner took us to Bitton a couple of mornings (years now, by time of publication) ago. I had pre-peeked the menu and nothing struck my fancy, but the reviews were good and my partner was keen.

We arrived to an almost full house. There were 4 dogs in the cafe’s outside seating, but none inside. We didn’t have a booking but that wasn’t a problem on this Saturday morning – they were able to ready a table for us in minutes, however didn’t wipe it down.

The coffee at Bitton was good, but not a standout. We did enjoy these nice red mugs that it was served in, however.

The Croque Madame ($21) was a enormous letdown. I had wrongly assumed that $21 would afford me something greater than a mere ham and cheese toastie with egg on top. There are numerous places in the local area to get a croque madame for $12-14, and I truly regret paying this amount. For what it’s worth, the sandwich was fine and tasted good. The spicy tomato sauce and the side salad were also good, but it didn’t really justify the cost.

The Lamb Merguez Sausage (2 for $7) were actually quite coarse and complex. We enjoyed them and they added a much needed meatiness to the baked eggs and sweet potato hash.

My partner enjoyed the Baked Eggs and Sweet Potato Hash ($18) much more than I did. I generally don’t like hash, and this was no exception. The dish alone is vegetarian, and $7 was spent on some much needed sausages. I often find hash too bland in taste, and this was again true this time. They serve pepe saya butter with their bread.

I literally don’t know how much they charged for this Vanilla Slice, but I thought it was only ok. The vanilla slice itself was one of the better that I’ve had, though far from the best – a title which still belongs to Bourkies Bakehouse in Woodend, VIC. I did appreciate the vanilla ice cream and berries, which we weren’t expecting. The vanilla ice cream had black dots, an unmistakable sign of quality.

Overall I can’t recommend Bitton Cafe. We paid an exorbitant amount for food that was just fine. I’m particularly angry at myself for paying $21 for a toastie. I don’t care if it’s French. Never again, though I’m sure that I would have fonder feelings about the place had the prices not been so high.

Bitton Gourmet
36/37A Copeland St, Alexandria NSW 2015
(02) 9519 5111