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. All meals are independently paid for - the author has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
My partner recently spent $125 on very middling delivered Chinese food, locking me into eating it for the rest of the week.
I will put the same amount of effort into this review as they did cooking it.
Steamed Pork Shumai 猪肉烧卖 ($8.80). Not bad, a bit salty, and a bit dry. The addition of flying fish roe on top gave it a fun crunchy fish roe texture and fish flavour.
Steamed Vegetable Dumpling 韭菜鸡蛋蒸饺 ($7.80) is actually a chive and egg and vermicelli steamed vegetable dumpling. The flavours are quite light, with only a weak chive flavour. Not great but not bad.
Boiled Pork Dumpling 猪肉水饺 ($11.80) had a very meaty taste with strong pork flavour and good chive flavour also. Actually quite good, but she accidentally ordered two servings. (Why?)
Pan Fried Turnip Patty 香煎萝卜糕 ($7.80) had a bit of a too-greasy taste to it to enjoy.
Steamed Black Bean Pork Rib 豉汁蒸排骨 ($9.80) was actively bad. Overcooked, formless meat. The wrong flavour for black bean pork rib. Don’t get this if you’re expecting the yum cha classic. Actively bad.
The Pork and Preserved Egg Congee 皮蛋瘦肉粥 ($12.80) was actually quite good. It was very accurate to the Platonic ideal of a 皮蛋瘦肉粥, and for $12.80 they actually gave us two large takeaway boxes worth.
VERDICT Most of the food from Dim Sum & More was quite disappointing. I wouldn’t recommend it to even a casual acquaintance.
Dim Sum & More Shop 2, 8 Bourke Street, Mascot NSW
My partner and I are big fans of Dopa – Devon’s offshoot donburi restaurant in Darling Square. We’ve been going regularly over the past few months, however it had been a long time since we had dined at the mothership in Surry Hills.
We went suckered in by pictures of uni laden foods on instagram, and I made my partner promise me that she would let us leave and eat somewhere else if they had run out (as is often the case at Dopa, I’m sick of being baited and switched).
We dined on a Sunday morning in an empty restaurant, much different to how it was like when we had last dined in 2019. As predicted, they were out of uni, however a craving for a pork katsu sandwich prevented us from leaving.
My partner had a matcha latte while I, as an inferior Asian, had an iced matcha soy latte. While I can’t speak for my partner’s drink, I can say that my iced matcha soy latte was not as good as the one that I had at 101kissa. There was just something so powdery and nice about the iced matcha soy lattte from 101kissa, whereas this one was a weird blend of sweet and bitter that didn’t tickle my tastebuds in quite the right way.
Devon’s pork katsu sando ($16) is cut into two portions and served in a cardboard box. The sauce is spread evenly through the sandwich, which is a selling point, however this is where the compliments end. I felt that the pork itself was not as juicy or tender as in the pork katsu sandwich I had at Cafe Kentaro. I also felt that the sandwich was overbreaded, with the bread to filling ratio too great, adding an unneeded and unwanted blandness to the taste. The size and construction of the sandwich halves were also inferior to the three pieces at Kentaro, and made the sandwich difficult to eat.
While Devon’s pork katsu sando probably stands fine on its own to a person who has never had a good pork katsu sando, it fails in comparison to that at Kentaro, a few kilometres away.
I didn’t enjoy the salted egg yolk cheesy curly fries ($13). Perhaps it’s because we’ve had just so much salted egg yolk foods in the past few weeks that I’m sick of it, but I think the more likely reason is that these chips were oily but dry. Their thinness did not help, as the higher surface area to volume ratio increased the radiative heat loss from the food, making them too cool and yucky too quickly.
My partner ordered the omurice with salmon sashimi in ponzu sauce. We were quite surprised to find that the omurice was served separately to the salmon. The salmon was cold but the omurice was warm. While the omurice itself was quite delicious with its mushroomy gravy, I don’t think it really worked as a combination. I wonder if it’s the responsibility of the wait staff to sway you away from bad choices. Either way, that was not what happened here. What happened here was a thoroughly noncohesive dish.
I’m sad to say that I didn’t really enjoy our trip to Devon. While I love their rice bowls at their Haymarket offshoot Dopa, our trip back to the mothership was disappointing.
Tucked away in the entrance to Coles Waterloo is Wild Catch on Danks, perhaps Waterloo’s best and most difficult to find fish-based restaurant. I say fish-based restaurant because not only does Wild Catch do fish and chips, but they also offer a wide menu of Asian inspired curries, salads, burgers, and laksas.
We had the Miso salmon, stir fried ginger and Asian greens and jasmine rice ($22) from Wild Catch’s dinner specials board. Provided were two pieces of perfectly cooked grilled salmon – medium rare on the inside – as well as some bok choy, choy sum, and peas. We really loved the quality of the fish both in its freshness and preparation style. It was delicious even without the miso sauce, which my partner didn’t realise was part of the meal until she was well into it. The miso sauce, when poured over the salmon, was light tasting and just enough to deliver a bit of sweet and salty umami. Overall a very good dish.
Wild Catch’s Dry red curry of barramundi ($23) with beans, corn, eggplant, chilli & rice was very nice. There was a generous serving of fish, cut into chunks that I think must have been braised before cooking in the curry. The curry was less dry than anticipated, and I would in fact describe this as a thick wet curry instead. The flavours were strong, and the serving of rice (not pictured) was definitely crucial to the meal. In fact we had some rice left over from the miso salmon, and that left over rice was also very helpful in tempering the strong (but delicious) flavours. I love coriander.
The BBQ octopus with Asian slaw salad & black vinegar dressing ($13) was probably an unneeded addition to what was already a very filling and reasonably priced meal. The slaw was actually surprisingly very good and refreshing. The BBQ octopus were a bit overcooked for my liking but apart from that no complaints. I think that this dish was the weakest of the three we ordered, though still a very suitable meal for a potentially healthy low-carb lunch.
VERDICT While I haven’t had any of Wild Catch on Danks’ traditional deep fried fish and chips, their Asian fusion menu of curries and miso salmon is certified good.
We went to the Sydney Fish Markets after already having had brunch, and having made this mistake nothing really tickled our fancy.
We ended up at Peter’s Seafood’s sashimi bar. On display are pieces of seafood, sold by the kilogram and sliced to order for either takeaway or eating in on their disgusting unwiped tables. Wasabi and soy sauce incur an extra fee.
We had some kingfish sashimi ($70/kg) and toothfish sashimi ($100).
The kingfish sashimi was fresh. The cuts unfortunately not very even, and the thicker slices were much less appealing.
The toothfish sashimi was just a bad idea. Toothfish is one of my favourite fishes to eat cooked, however eating it as sashimi just doesn’t bring out the best parts of the fish. Sashimi toothfish has the same flaky texture as cooked toothfish, but instead of being good it is bad. The fish was quite chewy, and we each only had two pieces before throwing the rest away for the pigeons. Just not good.
Peter’s Seafood Shop 4 On the Waterfront,Sydney Fish Market, Pyrmont NSW 2009 (02) 9552 2555
When you think about Asian Fusion cuisine you normally think about Asian inspired meals cooked with a mixture of both Asian and European cooking techniques. JC Dragon Fusion in Parramatta flips any such expectations on their heads and serves Chinese food fused with Chinese, cooked with the traditional Chinese techniques of steaming, boiling, deep frying, and stir frying.
Let’s go back in time to before you had seen the above photo. I want you to close your eye and picture for me “steamed prawn and pork dumplings” ($8.80). Now open your eyes. Is this what you imagined?
While Chinese-literate punters would immediately recognise the 燒賣 on the menu as shaomai, the English listing of this item on the menu leads in and traps members of the Asian Fusion diaspora like myself. As shaomai these are pretty good, in no way better or worse than you would get from your regular yum cha restaurant. As dumplings they are a bit lacking.
The pork ribs with black bean sauce ($8.80) was exactly as you’d picture them, though I felt that they did not have such a strong black bean flavour as the shadows cast by pork ribs with black bean sauce of past.
Ever the intrepid explorer, my girlfriend saw a distant table enjoying an aromatic hot pot with their lobster meal, and asked if we could have the same sans lobster. The traditional free range chicken hot pot ($39.80) is not generally offered on the menu, and I’m pretty sure the owner just made up a price for it on the spot. It features half a raw free range chicken (also known as a chicken who walks in Chinese), which is boiled at the table in an aromatic bak kut teh like broth. I thought that the soup tasted and smelled good, however did not find that the chicken added very much at all. The chicken was a skinny triathelete chook, cut up with lots of bones included inside the chicken, making it quite difficult to get any actual meat. Though a large portion I did feel that spending $40 on this presumably more legitimate bak kut teh did not provide much better a result than $5 bak kut teh packet mix soup. My girlfriend stuck to her guns and said she enjoyed it but I wouldn’t get it again.
SECOND VISIT, VIBE CHECK ONLY
I quite enjoyed these special pan fried stuffed bean curd($16.80), like what you would find in a combination seafood hot pot, but not in a hot pot, and with some kind of animal combination attached to the tofu. Pretty delicious to be honest.
The Spicy Chicken with Chinese Wine Sauce ($17.80) was solid in taste and price, but I just don’t love chopped up bones in my chicken. Personal preference.
The battered and salt and pepper fried eggplant was a HUGE portion. Pretty tasty, but super unhealthy. Definitely more than we bargained for.
VERDICT
JC Dragon Fusion Restaurant’s only claim to fusion may be that it fuses yum cha lunch items and dinner items into an all day menu. I do appreciate the availability of dim sum for dinner, and can therefore recommend paying them a visit if you do too.
