Categories
Middle Eastern

Brothers Kebabs – Banksia NSW Restaurant Review

I first started going to Brothers Kebab’s back in 2015. At the time, Brothers Kebabs was well known for its good service, their signature “what’s up brother?” greeting, and the fact that they were one of the few kebab shops in the area to serve actual lamb meat, not just doner kebab mystery meat. Brothers Kebab was one of my go-to kebab places in the local area, and I made multiple trips to Brothers Kebabs despite there being other places closer to my home.

Flash forward to 2020 and I’m once again living and working in the local area. I have, over the course of the year, visited or ordered kebabs and snack packs from Brothers Kebabs a number of times, often during a night shift or on the way home in the evening.

The quality at Brothers Kebabs has, by and large, dropped since its heyday five years ago. Every time I have one of their kebab rolls it’s a toss up as to whether or not the salad will taste like literal garbage – I think that their ingredients are often just teetering on the edge of an unsafe level of freshness. The good ones are good, but the bad ones have quite an offputting aroma to them. In addition to this, I think that their lamb meat has dropped in quality over the past few years – it is now mostly composed of fatty, gristly bits where I remember it used to have a bit more actual meat.

“Mixed snack pack with half tabouli and half chips”

On my most recent visit to Brothers Kebabs I asked for a mixed snack pack with half tabouli and half chips. The guy said “sure”, but what I ended up getting was just a normal doner mystery meat snack pack. It really wasn’t what I asked for, but I was too tired by this point to fight it. The chips were fresh and really good, but that’s about it. The doner meat was the same doner meat you would get anywhere. I really wish I had gotten what I asked for.

VERDICT
Brothers Kebabs used to be one of my favourite kebab places in the Rockdale area, but it has since fallen from grace. Go if you want to be surprised by what you get.

3/5

Brother Kebabs
315 Princes Hwy, Banksia NSW 2216
(02) 9567 4194

Categories
Italian

Maranello’s – Maroubra NSW Pizza Review

Back in mid 2018 my partner went for dinner with her friends from work to Maranello’s in Concord. I wasn’t invited along, but boy was I invited to listen to her talk about how good it was. I’ve recently been craving a bit of pizza, so took the opportunity to order from Maranello’s Maroubra branch. It was disappointing to say the least.

Mamma’s (L), MeatLovers (R)

For starters, the pizza dough at Maranello’s Maroubra is not the classic kind of dough that you get at wood-fired pizza restaurants. Rather than being light and stretchy or thin and crispy, Maranello’s pizza base and crust is hard, dry, and agricultural. Eating the crust was not unlike eating a piece of high fibre wholemeal toast. In addition to this the dough had a slight bitter taste, and was overall just not appropriate for use in pizza.

The Mamma’s ($24.90) with bocconini, tomato and basil would’ve been good were it not for the base. The flavours were fresh, especially with the inclusion of thick slices of fresh tomato. If I could transplant the toppings on this pizza to a base made by any other wood fired pizza restaurant then this would’ve been a winner.

The Meat Lover’s Pizza ($23.90) was a disappointment of ham, cabanoosi, pepperoni, and beef in a barbecue sauce atop a very bad base. The toppings could’ve been good on their own (though not at all gourmet), but the bitterness from the pizza base really ruined it for me.

VERDICT

After the hype-up from my partner, Maranello’s in Maroubra was quite disappointing. A review of their Concord branch’s website shows that their pizza has the right kind of dough. So why can’t their Maroubra mothership do the same? Expensive and not good.

One lone star. Get da mario’s instead.

Maranello’s Maroubra
Pacific Square Shopping Centre, 51/737 Anzac Parade, Maroubra NSW 2035
(02) 8347 0733

Categories
Bakery Chinese

Best Tastes Dim Sim – Homebush West NSW Restaurant and Take Away Review

This is less of a restaurant review and more of a grocery store review. The only cooked, ready to eat item that they sell is an egg tart, which is itself only available on weekends.

The egg tarts ($1.50) are however very good, with great colouration, a nice sweet but not-too-sweet filling, and a delicate flaky puff pastry crust, which is in my opinion across the board superior to shortbread crusts. They are served room temperature, unfortunately, and having them warm would make them just a little bit more perfect.

The majority of Best Tastes Dim Sim’s business is in the frozen dim sum game. Best Tastes, along with Hurstville competitor Delight Dim Sim are my two go-to sources for frozen treats like siu mai (shao mai), har gao (xia jiao), and all kinds of other buns, dumplings, and things wrapped in bean curd.

The service at Best Tastes Dim Sim is also extremely straight forward and friendly, you essentially just pick out what you want from their freezers and take it to the front. I even dropped and destroyed an entire box of dumplings (my fault entirely, I was on the phone and holding way too much stuff), that I was not charged for, even though I offered to pay.

Their food is cheap and delicious, and got me through the recent COVID-19 Delta variant lockdown in Sydney without suffering yum cha withdrawal related delirium tremens. A little bottle of Koon Yick chili sauce also goes a long way.

Enjoy

Best Tastes Dim Sim
11 Henley Rd, Homebush West NSW 2140
(02) 8746 0498

Categories
Italian

Elias Gourmet Pizza – Maroubra NSW Restaurant Review

Elias Gourmet Pizza is not as gourmet as I’d like it to be.

This meal was ordered via the Deliveroo app. The headline photo showed woodfired style pizza, however what I got was vastly different to the photo.

Gourmet Meat Large Half and Half Pizza – Brabyn St Special, Kalymnos

One of the positive attributes about Elias Gourmet Pizza is that there is no significant surcharge for half and half. I had the Gourmet Meat Large Half and Half Pizza with Brabyn St Special and Kalymnos ($26).

The Brabyn St Special consists of “Beef, pepperoni, roasted capsicum, onion, tomato, jalapenos, double chilli with a side of sour cream”. It is actually quite good, nice and spicy. It would my pick of the two halves.

The Kalymnos consisting of “char grilled meat balls, bacon, fresh tomato, onion & roasted capsicum” wasn’t so good. I thought that the meat balls were dry and a bit tasteless, and too sparse to really make the pizza feel like a meatball pizza – it was rather a pizza with occasional meatballs. I wouldn’t recommend this at all.

The American Smoked Pork Ribs ($28) was actually pretty decent, both in quality and price. I would normally expect to pay $35-40 for this quantity of ribs, so $28 from a delivery app is extremely reasonable. The pork was tender and well sauced but not oversauced, which was a plus. Surprisingly much better than the pizza – perhaps Elias should rename itself to Elias Gourmet Ribs instead.

VERDICT
Not really special, wouldn’t recommend their pizza but if you have a hankering for ribs and live within the delivery radius it’s worth a go.

Elias Gourmet Pizza
55 McKeon St, Maroubra NSW 2035
(02) 9315 5575

Categories
Chinese

Long Men Zhu – Mascot NSW Malatang Restaurant Review

Long Meng Zhu is one of many restaurants that serve Ma La Tang in Mascot’s recently developed high-rise area, located mere footsteps away from its nearest competitor.

The concept is much the same as every other Ma La Tang restaurant. There is a refrigerated display of a variety of meat, seafood, and vegetables. The selection is a bit narrower than what you would find at a larger competitor like Yang Guo Fu Ma La Tang, but still reasonably appropriate. The meat are fresh and were still being actively topped up by the time I visited at around 10:30PM. What sets Long Men Zhu apart from many of its competitors is the array of soup bases on offer. Along with the classic spicy malatang soup, Long Men Zhu also offers a pork bone broth, a laksa broth, and a chicken broth.

I had a selection of sliced meats, vegetables, balls, and tofu in the pork bone broth. Service was fast however I did notice that one of my fish balls was still cold inside. The rest of the food was thoroughly cooked, and I did not get sick afterwards. The pork broth was quite nice and umami, a lighter option in terms of flavour than the usual malatang soup. It was actually so good that I drank most of it at the conclusion of my meal.

A shoutout should also go to the nice man working front of house, who was friendly and made me feel welcome as someone who pretend not to speak Chinese. He is probably the reason why there is a reasonably multicultural patronage at Long Men Zhu.

VERDICT

Pretty good, worth a try! The boss asked me if he would be seeing me at his restaurant more, and I told him to be honest probably no as I’m moving away from the area soon. I do want to bring my girlfriend back though.

Long Men Zhu
1/56 Church Ave, Mascot NSW 2020