Categories
Bakery

Goodwood Bakeshop – Marrickville NSW Restaurant Review

Our most recent Marrickville Vietnamese meal was desserted by a trip down the road to Goodwood Bakeshop, a new-ish bakery offering an assortment of savoury and sweet pastries as well as a range of breads baked on premises. Despite their popularity and a small line down the street, our experience was a festival of speed, with good clarity of displays (sans pricing), a limited and focused offering, and a lack of seating all contributing to fast service.

My first and favourite bite from Goodwood was of their Miso Peanut Butter Cookie ($4), a rich and buttery cookie with a soft centre and crunchy exterior, with umami miso and peanut butter flavours that were delicious and most importantly not too sweet. The light coating of roasted sesame seeds on the superior surface of this cookie served to enhance its Asian-ness, making it overall a good cookie that I would recommend to an Asian or non-Asian friend.

The aforementioned peanut butter cookie was eaten on the street outside the bakery, though the four other sweet treats that we tried were eaten at a secondary location.

The Apple Cardamom Hand Pie ($8) was my first non-cookie bite, and sadly too sweet for my taste. I enjoyed the multi-layered pie crust, but felt that the sticky, sweet filling was a bit overpowering of the whole.

I enjoyed the croissant portion of the Lemon & Hazelnut Twice Baked Croissant ($8), with its nice and crispy crust and buttery interior folds, but again felt that the additions, in particular the lemon marmalade filling, was too sweet for my liking.

At the risk of repeating myself, the Pecan Cardamom Orange Scroll ($8) was again too sweet for my liking. The pastry of this scroll was appropriately dense, and I enjoyed the spicy orange and cardamom flavour and generous helping of pecans within. This would’ve been a winner, in my opinion, if the top layer of icing sugar had been left out.

After hearing me complain about the last three pastries, you will be surprised to read of my thorough enjoyment of this vanilla slice($8). This slice offered a reprieve of the sugar load from our previous entries, with an unusually thick and viscous custardy filling complete with black dots, the universal sign of vanilla excellence. While the pastry wasn’t paradigm changing, the filling was in my opinion quite special and most importantly “not-too-sweet”. Excellent.

OVERALL THOUGHTS (AT INITIAL VISIT – JULY 2022)
The majority of what I had at Goodwood Festival of Sweetness was too sweet for my liking. As always, it’s possible that my preferences in terms of pastries are culture-bound, as “not-too-sweet” is used as a common phrase to denote praise of a dessert in Chinese culture. I’d like to come back for some savoury treats that will hopefully be not-too-salty.

REVISITED, MARCH 2023

This seasonal hot cross bun ($4) was really solid. There was a great amount of fruit – both of the citrus and dessicated grape variety, as well as a little bit of spice that set this HCB apart from from the crowd. Not too sweet at all.

This everything bagel croissant ($8), ordered for my fiancée in honour of the recent Academy Award winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once, was more than met the eye. I didn’t know, when I ordered that it would be filled with wilted spinach and some feta-like substance (I have reviewed the images and there was no description posted anywhere in the bakery), but I’m glad it was, because $8 would be too much for just a croissant encrusted in some seeds. This ended up being a really tasty combination, with the crunch of the croissant exterior, the butteriness of the pastry, the salty and fragrant sesame seeds and the savoury and creamy flavours from the filling all combining to create an almost spanakopita like croissant (a fitting prelude to the quarter-Greek wedding we went to later that day). This gets a thumbs up from me but not my partner (she does not like spinach, even though this was ordered specifically for her. How rude.)

I have no complaints at all about this miso, eggplant, pumpkin, and togarashi croissant ($7.50) which was yummy with all its vaguely Japanese inspired ingredients combined with good pastry-work.

The last item in our breakfast were these fig danishes ($8.50 each), which they gave us two of instead of one in a very nice gesture as they were nearing the end of day. These were not bad, and I know I’m being annoying because 1) I’m kind of looking a gift horse in the mouth, and 2) literally in my initial review of this place in July 2022 I complained extensively about things being a bit too sweet, but I did think these were not super flavourful. I don’t know exactly the reason – perhaps it was time based – but there just wasn’t a huge amount of flavour in the figs compared to the most recent fig pastry that I had at Lucien in Parramatta. Despite this, I did enjoy them, and in particular was impressed by how big and filling they were for the price, and again the quality of the laminated pastry at the base. We not only enjoyed the first danish on the day we got them, but also the second one on the following morning.

COMMENTS
This clearly wasn’t my doing, as Pegfeeds definitely doesn’t (and if I’m being honest, shouldn’t) have the readership or cone of influence to actually affect anyone’s business in any shape whatsoever, but I was really impressed that none of my complaints about extreme sweetness I had the first time around were applicable on my second visit. Instead, both the savoury and sweet flavours were well balanced on my second visit, though maybe a bit lacking in the fig danish.

Solid.

Goodwood Bakeshop
 297 Marrickville Rd, Marrickville NSW 2204
0420 543 837

Categories
Chinese Groceries

Big John Pork and Chive Dumplings – Grocery Review

Before I die of dementia afraid and alone I need to tell you guys about these amazing frozen dumplings that my parents bought me. These are plump, with a real filling of meat and chives and a wrapper that far exceeds even the best of your standard Asian supermarket frozen dumplings. My partner grew up in a household without handmade dumplings. For the first 21 years of her life she thought that dumplings were these tiny, poorly filled machine-made things with more dough than taste. Her first encounter of having handmade dumplings with my family is probably what led her to stick with me for this long, and I’m honestly afraid that now that we have found such good frozen dumplings that she may leave me as there is nothing else that I can offer her that she can’t get herself.

They’re actually better than the ones I make myself at home. A pork, prawn and chive variation would be absolutely killer.

UPC 9356993000239

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Italian Korean

Firestone – Eastwood NSW Restaurant Review

We were baited to Firestone by the promise of some truly delicious looking Korean-Italian fusion food on their social media accounts. It turns out all that stuff was on an old menu. This is what we found instead.

I will start with the best dish of the day, the Truffle Mushroom Risotto ($21.90). This vegetarian dish was packed full of different types of mushrooms and truffle oil. It was creamy and umami, and even though it was vegetarian I did not miss the meat at all. Additional sliced or grated truffle was on offer for a supplement, however we declined. While it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, this dish was very good. I can recommend it.

The Chilli Dog ($12) was chilli only in so far as the sauce was chilli. There was no chilli con carne component, which is what you would expect to get if paying $12 for a hot dog named “chilli dog”. A no go.

I was really not a fan of this miso salmon benedict ($18.90). Unlike most miso salmon dishes on the streets of Sydney, this particular miso salmon was raw salmon, thick-cut, marinated in miso and mirin. It had a too-fishy flavour that kind of repulsed me. The rest of the eggs benedict was absolutely fine, but the salmon left a taste in my mouth that I can still recall to this day (about two weeks down the track).

This iced soy taro latte ($7.70) was solid. Not too sweet. Quite refreshing.

Standard teal cup large soy cappuccino. ($5.50) .

VERDICT
A tough sell. Perhaps their Hornsby branch has a more enticing menu.

Firestone Eastwood
62/80 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW 2122
(02) 8387 3624

Categories
Chinese Malaysian

Temasek – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

The Temasek experience is oft lauded as one of the best Singaporean-Malaysian restaurants in Sydney, as well as one of the best restaurants in Parramatta overall. I first heard about Temasek somewhere in late primary school or early high school, when my Malaysian-Chinese childhood friend JL mentioned that he had been. I had also been with my parents some time during my teens, and I’d wanted to, but not had the chance (owing to Temasek’s limited opening hours) to go back until now.

Temasek, tucked in a narrow alleyway beside the old Roxy Theatre, looks, smells, and sounds authentic. Passers-by through the Roxy Arcade are treated to kitchen noises, chatter, and fragrances that would be unexpected for the Parramatta CBD. Service is brisk but friendly from the multilingual staff, and the portion sizes are huge.

I wanted to like the Hainanese Chicken Rice ($16.50), I really did. What should’ve been a slam dunk easy dish to bring out perfectly unfortunately did not meet my expectations. The meat was unusually rubbery, and not warmed the whole way through. The centre of the chicken breast was unfortunately a bit cooler than the exterior. It was unfortunate that the star chicken protein was not as good as the accompaniments, with the chicken rice and soup both having good flavour. I enjoyed both the sweet sticky soy sauce and chilli sauce.

The Mee Siam ($18.80), a noodle dish in a hot and sour soup, with boiled egg, prawn and fishcake was our other choice. While I think it’s probably a fine and beloved dish in general, it just wasn’t to my taste. I think the hot and sour flavours were too strong, and I wasn’t a big fan of the rice noodles either. The generously applied proteins were good, though once I had fished them all out the resulting bowl of hot and sour soup and vermicelli didn’t not inspire me enough for me to eat the rest of the bowl.

THOUGHTS
I wasn’t a fan of what I had ordered, but would not be opposed to going back. The three people on the table next to us thoroughly enjoyed their mi goreng.

Temasek
71 George St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 9633 9926

Categories
Asian Fusion Chinese Japanese

Supernormal – Melbourne VIC Restaurant Review

Supernormal was our most highly-anticipated meal of our 2022 Melbourne trip, and boy did its expression of predominantly Chinese-marketed-as-Japanese fusion cuisine not disappoint.

We started our meal with this excellent raw bar starter of nori cracker, seared tuna, and bonito ($14 for 2 pieces). The cracker was similar to the tempura seaweed snacks that you can get at the Asian grocery store, but with greater substance and rigidity suited to holding its toppings. The seared tuna was fresh and tasty with a good texture (contrasting to other seared tunas we had on our trip, for example at Lover), and while the topping of ginger was perhaps over-represented, overall both the flavours and textures of this starter were excellent. This was perhaps the most Japanese dish of our pseudo-Japanese fusion meal.

The soy-roasted pumpkin seeds, a complimentary snack, were sweet, savoury and had a great crunch. Good to pass the time between dishes, not that there was much delay at all.

The Hunan-style beef tartare with fragrant chilli oil ($20) was again excellent, with a title reflective of its inspirations. It was fresh and spicy, with a flavour profile highly reminiscent of liángpí (凉皮), but with a rawness that most Chinese people would traditionally not touch. This tartare was one of the better of the many we had in Melbourne, with quite innovative flavouring and good quality meat.

The sesame flatbread with whipped cod roe ($12) was another outstanding showing. It’s almost crazy to think that you could find the Platonic ideal of shāobǐng (烧饼) at this Asian Fusion restaurant that pretends that it’s not Chinese, but that’s exactly what this is. The flatbread was fragrant, soft, and warm, aided by a very generous sprinkling of toasted white sesame seeds. The bread, though excellent itself, was brought to a whole other level entirely by the whipped cod roe dip, which was impossibly creamy and umami. The green oil on top of the dip, for those who are wondering, was explained as the oil of scallion, though to me tasted like nothing. Even if the greenness is just for aesthetics, I don’t think you can walk past this dish. It is a great bread.

As an aside, the diners on the table adjacent to us asked the waiter if roe was a type of sauce, and the man also remarked to his dining partner “I know this will probably scare most people” as their bread arrived. I am glad they are trying.

We interrupt this food review for a photo of Super Soda ($11), a refreshing non-alcoholic beverage.

Though I have much praise for many of Supernormal’s offerings, I must say that the New England lobster roll ($18) was not extraordinary. While the buttery, lightly-toasted brioche bun was excellent, the taste of the lobster itself (presumably the star ingredient) was very mild and smothered by a large predominance of mayonnaise. The bun was quite small for $18, and sharing this roll between two people was ill advised.

The duck bao ($32) with twice-cooked duck leg ,vinegar & plum sauce was very good. The duck leg had a salty and hard exterior with crispy skin, which cracked open to reveal moist flesh within which paired well with the fresh cucumber and tangy sauces. The “bao” of this dish was bao in the same sense as most Western iterations of the word – folded white steamed dough – a form I don’t believe actually exists in China. We found that, given the abundance of duck, a superior topping to bread ratio could be achieved by splitting the “baos” in half. Very good.

Another dish, another focus of Chinese inspiration. The slow-cooked lamb shoulder with eggplant, Yuxiang sauce, crispy garlic with a cabbage salad (small serve, $42) exhibited a strong Sichuan influence, rather than anything Japanese. Though our waiter helpfully suggested this half-size given how much other food we ordered, we found that even this small portion was quite large. The dish was replete in both má and là, with an additional element of tomato or vinegar flavour which was reminiscent of mápó tofu (麻婆豆腐). The lamb had a crispy semi-melted fatty layer atop which made for a good texture, especially combined with the crispy garlic coating. The eggplant was soft and flavourful, being an excellent soak for all of the sauce and juices, while the cabbage salad, seasoned with cumin, was just a bit too weird for me to want to eat it in any large amount. I don’t think cumin cabbage should be a thing.

For dessert we had the peanut butter parfait ($18), featuring a dark chocolate mousse that surprised me with its lack of coldness (I had misidentified it as an ice cream). It was good. It was all good.

For second dessert we got this massive box of Pocky ($2) from the vending machine downstairs. It’s actually cheaper than your local Asian supermarket?

THOUGHTS
We had a great meal at Supernormal, easily the best of our 2022 Melbourne trip. The dishes were hit after hit after hit, melding familiar Chinese flavours with new ingredients and ways of cooking. My one very significant complaint would be how this restaurant markets itself as Japanese-fusion, with its use of katakana in its branding and promotional material. I feel that, based on the selection of dishes that we tried as well as the wider menu on offer, Supernormal should be considered pan-Asian-fusion at broadest, and honestly probably Chinese-fusion for the most part. I think at the end of the day it’s just unfortunate that it’s harder to convince someone to spend $100 per person on “modernised/Westernised/fused” Chinese cuisine than on Japanese.

Go though, you will enjoy it.

Supernormal
180 Flinders Ln, Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9650 8688