Categories
Bakery Café Korean

LAB Bakery – Strathfield NSW Cafe Review

My partner’s recent obsession with bingsu took us to Strathfield’s LAB Bakery for our fourth snowy treat in as many weeks.

Unfortunately LAB Bakery’s freaky looking Oreo Bingsu was the worst that we’ve had in recent memory. Visually it was quite striking, but not in a good way. The dish essentially consists of a bowl of milky shaved ice with layers of oreo crumb and chocolate sauce, topped with an additional layer of the same. Above this there is a scoop of vanilla ice cream and the choice use of mini oreos and chocolate sauce to make a spooky looking face.

Despite its nightmarish appearance, this bingsu’s edibility is its biggest problem. Crumbs of oreo do not, in fact, mix well with milk snow, nor do they mix well with the back of the throat. Each mouthful was like choking on a glass of sandy unmixed Milo, and unlike Milo there was no flavour hit to numb the pain.

As hinted to in their name, LAB Bakery does not only do bingsu, but also does breads. We indulged in two of their cream puffs ($1) each, which were room temperature pastry balls filled with a vanilla custard cream. These are a bit larger than the puffs at Emperor’s Garden, and their filling is cold, not warm. They are tasty and priced at just the right price point for a small afternoon snack.

VERDICT
Do not get LAB’s Oreo Bingsu. Just don’t do it. Get anything but it. Get some of their breads instead.

SUBSEQUENT THOUGHTS, 2023

Korean Garlic Bread is great.

Whatever this thing was, slightly chocolate, was not.

LAB Bakery
4 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW 2135
0450 593 522

Categories
Asian Fusion Vietnamese

Hello Auntie – Darling Square Haymarket NSW Restaurant Review

We’ve passed Hello Auntie multiple times on our numerous trips to Darling Square, and felt it was time to pay them a visit. Given the limited COVID-19 seating situation, we booked ahead for the same night, which was not a problem at all on a Wednesday.

Hello Auntie has mixed indoor and outdoor seating, and provides blankets to snuggle up under for both indoor outdoor patrons. I can’t imagine that these are washed very often, and thus with the COVID-19 context in mind draws allusions to Christopher Columbus.

As lovers of fried chicken, we were unable to see past the Ga Chien Vi Pho ($32). 500 grams of fried chicken in a pho-flavoured batter could not simply be ignored. We were surprised with three large pieces of juicy, tender chicken in a fluffy golden batter – I had imagined more numerous, smaller pieces. The chicken was tasty and not faultable – a definite recommendation. Despite being listed in the menu I didn’t realise the dish came with a large amount of salad – lettuce heart in plenty of ceasar-like dressing. A relatively heavy and oily salad but a nice and surprising addition.

The other dish we had was the Mi xao bo birria ($21). Supposedly angus blade ragu in biang biang noodles, this dish was very similar to the pappardelle with lamb shank ragu at Flour Drum, but nowhere near as good. The angus blade ragu amounted to little more than connective tissue with only a vague hint of actual meat. It was a very chewy affair. We also found that the biang biang noodles had an odd stale-like taste, which just piled onto the dish’s inadequacies. It was ultimately a poorly executed noodle dish that I wish we had avoided.

While I enjoyed Hello Auntie’s chicken, the ragu was a big letdown. I would return to Hello Auntie to try some other dishes, but probably not in the near future. Hello Auntie earns a rare 3.5/5 chickens. Bok bok.

Hello Auntie Darling Square
Darling Square, Shop 2/16 Nicolle Walk, Haymarket NSW 2000
(02) 8072 8838

Categories
Italian

Mapo – Newtown NSW Gelato Review

Mapo is currently my favourite gelato in Sydney.

My first experience with Mapo’s gelato was during my first visit to Kurumac in early 2020, a Japanese cafe which offers a hojicha milkshake as well as a seasonal milkshake made from Mapo’s gelato. I’ve subsequently taken every available opportunity to get gelato from Mapo and have thoroughly enjoyed their selection.

My picks of the litter would be

  • Hojicha (roasted tea)
  • Fior di latte – a really creamy, milky flavour
  • Black sesame – basically any time I have black sesame it’s a blast to the past, evoking memories of that sweet black sesame slurry as well as black sesame filled tang yuang

Other flavours I’ve had are

  • Pistachio – Vegan, honestly pretty good for vegan ice cream, quite creamy
  • Kiwifruit (as milkshake at Kurumac) – Not bad

VERDICT

I would really recommend giving Mapo a try. They have somehow really mastered the art of turning Asian inspired flavours into ice cream, whilst maintaining a strong menu of more traditional flavours.

Mapo Newtown
123 King St, Newtown NSW 2042
(02) 8937 4919

Categories
American

Cloris Gourmet – Botany NSW Restaurant Review

Cloris Gourmet, one of our local restaurants, open until the wee hours of the morning. The food is cheap though not amazing, acceptable in a pinch.

Beef Chorizo Burger ($11.50) was only ok.

Spicy Southern Chicken Burger ($10.50) was also OK. A pretty similar mix of slaws. The chicken was better than the beef in my opinion.

The Lamb Hot Roll ($13.50) wasn’t what I wanted or expected. I thought it would be a roll in the way a kebab roll is a roll. I don’t understand why they would call the last two burgers burgers but this one a roll.

Chicken wings (6 for $7.50) were fine, not special, were a bit oily, wouldn’t go for them again.

3.5/5 + 0.5 late night bonus

Cloris Gourmet
1621 Botany Rd, Botany NSW 2019
(02) 8964 1861

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Japanese

Rising Sun Workshop – Newtown NSW Restaurant

Rising Sun Workshop, half motorcycle garage and half cafe, has been on my radar for some time. Embarrassingly enough I had avoided it as I had confused it with the similarly named Rice Workshop, a chain of cheaper Japanese diners predominantly based in Melbourne.

While Rising Sun Workshop offers both food and motorcycle related activities, it seems rare that one would partake in both on the same occasion. Indeed whilst I was eating lunch there was no point at which I felt like I was able to access the motorcycle portion of the establishment. This is in direct contrast to the Naked Racer in Cheltenham VIC (a recommendation, by the way), where patrons are able to both eat and peruse a motorcycle themed museum.

The Burnt Ends ($19) were kind of like a radish cake omurice. It was basically sweet-soy glazed pork belly atop a radish cake wrapped in scrambled egg, served with a side of pickle and sambal sauce. The radish cake was sweet, fluffy and soft, unlike radish cakes common to Shanghainese cuisine which tend to be a bit fried and harder. The egg wrapping was quite thin. The sambal sauce was a milder sambal than I’ve been having at Indonesian restaurants – more sweet than spicy, which was not so much a problem as it does make the dish a bit more friendly to a wider audience. While the portion was small the Burnt Ends was quite yummy and I can recommend it.

Chocolate Chip Cookie

While I enjoyed the Burnt Ends, there wasn’t really anything else on Rising Sun Workshop’s brunch menu that looked like it would travel well enough to bring home for my sleeping night shift girlfriend. I opted to bring her one of these chocolate chip cookies ($5 each) instead. I thought this was quite good. It had a nice three dimensional structure to it, which I tried to capture in the photo. The chocolate chips were quite melty and gooey, and the cookie itself not too sweet. The half of the cookie I saved for my partner split in half during the car ride, and she sleepily told me that she enjoyed the first cookie as well as the second cookie (don’t worry, she didn’t aspirate). They were two quarters of the same cookie.

CONCLUSION

I enjoyed my expensive and small meal at Rising Sun Workshop. There are a few other things on their dinner menu that I’d like to try, which are again small and expensive looking. The land of the rising sun generally refers to Japan however Rising Sun Workshop’s offerings look to have both Korean and Japanese influences. There is in particular a cauliflower dish called the “Korean Fried Cauliflower” in “Dear Leader” sauce. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone call Shinzo Abe “Dear Leader”.

4/5

Rising Sun Workshop
1C Whateley St, Newtown NSW 2042
(02) 9550 3891