Tag: chinese noodles

Categories
Chinese

Cheng’s Xi’an Traditional Foods (程记西安名吃) – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I want to skip forward and just say that this place is on the elite tier of Chinese food in Burwood.

The first time we contemplated eating at Cheng’s Xi’an Traditional Foods we peered in from outside to a completely empty, dingey looking restaurant, and decided to go somewhere else instead. This was clearly a mistake, because the next time we walked past, the place was completely bar one table, and once we were seated, others had to line up outside behind us.

The food was really quite good.

We had these 12 chicken and mushroom fried dumplings 鸡肉香菇煎饺(12个) ($13.80), which weren’t my first choice in terms of dumplings but were quite delicious despite that. The wrappers were relatively thin and crispy, with a nice lace applied to the bottom. The filing was plentiful and juicy, and the dipping sauce was an extraordinary mix of vinegar and chilli crisp. My partner reflected as we walked back to our car that despite eating dumplings for decades in all kinds of situations, she was still surprised by the quality and tastiness of this sauce. I’d like to come back for some more traditionally filled dumplings in the near future.

The Xi’an Stewed Pork Burger 肉夹馍 Roujiamo ($8.50) was less good but still not terrible. It featured quite a tasty filling with a mixture of lean and fatty pork, albeit without any chillies or capsicums or other green fillings that these often have. Where it fell down, however, was the bread, which I found to be quite dry, a problem that not even the juicy meat could compensate for. There are better roujiamo in Burwood for sure.

The Xi’an Home-Style Pork Spinach-Noodles 陕西哨子干拌菠菜面 ($18.80) was truly very delicious, some of the best noodles I’ve had in some time. This is a dry bowl of noodles, with vinegar and chilli oil, some cubed celery, potato and carrot (mixed bag of frozen veggies from the supermarket-style, but probably cut in house given the dimensions and irregularity of the cubes), tofu, scallions, green noodles, and fatty pork.

The noodles are clearly made in house, green due to the addition of spinach juice to the dough, and are quite springy without being raw – a distinct feeling of jīn dào (筋道) in opposition to the rawness of some Italian pastas marketed as al dente. Mixed up together before eating, the flavour was extremely good, with each strand of noodle being well coated by oil and sauce and an excellent balance of flavour – spiciness but not too spicy, a bit of tanginess from the vinegar, and a whole lot of umami.

THOUGHTS
Delicious. Skipping Cheng’s Xi’an based purely on external appearance would be a mistake. I’d like to go back.

Cheng’s Xi’an Traditional Foods (程记西安名吃)
9/258 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Chinese 四川 (Sìchuān/Sichuan) 重庆 (Chóngqìng/Chongqing)

Yummy Noodle King 巴蜀小面 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Google Maps lists Yummy Noodle King 巴蜀小面 as a self-service restaurant rather than a Chinese restaurant, and in a sense that’s true.

We walked in with no expectations and asked for two noodles to be recommended by the staff, resulting in two noodle dishes and a plate of dumplings.

The pork and peas noodle 特色豌杂面 ($14.80) was really yummy, with great umami flavour from the soy braised pork mince, as well as a bit of chilli oil and the weird creaminess of the corn. The dish was, I thought, better eaten as pictured rather than mixed together, as mixing it up made the pea goo go everywhere, making it impossible to avoid when I wanted at times to just have a purely meaty mouthful.

The braised beef noodle soup 红烧牛腩面 ($15.80) was quite delicious, apart from the actual beef, which I had mixed feelings about. The taste of the broth was good, as was the presence of the sour Chinese pickles, though the beef itself had a bit of a corned beef or silverside flavour, which was weird to contemplate in the setting of a Chinese noodle bowl. Overall, I don’t think this made the bowl unenjoyable, however, I probably would have preferred a more Chinese tasting braised beef.

The pork and chive dumplings 水饺, which were 12 pieces for $13.80, were below par for the local area. Though the filling was reasonable, with sweet chives, the wrappers were a bit thicker than I would have liked, making the dumplings more floury and less meaty.

Overall, quite a nice restaurant, and we do have vague inclinations to come back, probably before this post is published.

The self-service nature of this restaurant refers to the fact that once the food is ready, our number was called and we had to go pick it up from the counter. The restaurant, similar to My Aunt’s Handmade Noodles, offers free noodle topups, though we did not take advantage of this as the shop was closing and we were very full already.

Yummy Noodle King 巴蜀小面
181C Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134


Categories
Chinese

Xin Jiang Hui Min Hand Made Noodle Restaurant (新疆回民手工拉面) – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

To take my mind off some disastrous performance in a practice examination, my friend and I had lunch at this Uyghur Chinese restaurant on Burwood Road towards the top of the street where a number of Uyghur restaurants are.  It was a no-fuss, very straightforward ordeal where we chose a number of the most popular options from the menu.

 The XinJiang Style Stir fried noodles ($24.80) were quite good with tender beef, noodles that were ‘jin doa’, and a slick of oil coating every single mouthful (but in a delicious manner.) The flavours were good and there was a nice variety of vegetables and a balance of flavours, textures, and components.

 The stewed beef with vegetable ($24.80) was delicious and tasty. It came loaded with glass noodles, however it probably would have been good with extra rice, given the sheer quantity of gravy. Despite the fact that some extra rice probably would’ve been optimal, it was however just fine without it, not too salty, and not neccessarily needing a second carb to dilute the flavour. The beef was fatty and flavourful, without too much gameiness or agriculural scent, and the vegetables a mind-trick into pretending we were eating something slightly healthy.

The lamb skewers (4 for $16) were pretty good when they were fresh out of the grill, not too spicy and in fact probably could have actually used a bit more spice. Sadly my friend is a white man and we wonder if that may have affected the amount of spice that was laid onto these skewers, but we wouldn’t want to assume for sure. It’s sad that these skewers did get a bit less appealing towards the end of the meal, once the heat had been radiated away to the environment. It is not physically impossible to avoid degradation of lamb skewer quality throughout the course of a meal, by the application of a heated plate or using a heating element, for example, a candle under a plate, however this was not in practice in this restaurant, or to be fair any other Chinese restaurant I’ve been at. The Koreans have this down though.

Overall
I felt the meal at Xin Jiang Hui Min Hand Made Noodle Restaurant was quite good and quite a reasonable price for the amount of food that we got. We left quite filled and with leftovers that continued to taste good after a trip to the microwave.

I would recommend this restaurant to a friend or colleague.

Xin Jiang Hui Min Hand Made Noodle Restaurant (新疆回民手工拉面)
193 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
(02) 8971 5876

Categories
Chinese

My Aunt’s Handmade Noodles 胖姨儿手工拉面馆 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

We waited in line for about 20-30 minutes, after 8PM on a weeknight, for a couple of bowls of pretty good noodles. Luckily, our time in line was not wasted, with a supply of complimentary plum juice and an Anki MCQ deck of recent vintage. In retrospect, this line is also probably where I got a viral URTI just before my exam, leading to a practical learning point about the hypothalamic set point.

The Biang Biang Noodles, Four-in-One 四合一面 （宽面）($17.90) were pretty good, coming as a large portion with a perfect ratio of topping to noodle. The noodles were ultra broad and chewy, though could only be moderately coated by the sauce unlike some other highly-coated competitors. While this was a good bowl of noodles, and somewhat of a staple that can be eaten over and over again, I would hesitate to really elevate my praise of it to that of one of the greats.

The Lamb stir fried shredded noodle cakes 羊肉炒饼丝 ($20.90) was an absolute mountain of a plate. Loaded with shredded noodle, lamb, egg, and a bit of vegetables, it was all stir fried together to achieve a level of yellow-brown normally confined to UK cuisine. The flavour was subtle on first bite, but as I began to eat more and more mouthfuls it seemed to build upon itself, like amiodarone inhibiting its own metabolism, until a high tier of umami enjoyment was achieved. For those wondering, the lamb was not very ‘lamby’, and game-hesitants need not avoid.

The lamb stir fried noodles were only made better through the addition of the bonus toppings, chilli oil (which was delicious, and not very spicy) and evil green garlic (known to me for many years from the short videos of recipes involving water specifically from the Mississippi River, but not tasted until now), which added a nice tang and cut through the oiliness of the dish.

A bean curd side was also included, though it was not fantastic nor something I would’ve paid for.

Overall I had a pretty good meal, although again I have to wonder why a restaurant would offer a 5% discount for cash payments. Has this always been happening or have I only begun to notice it recently?

Categories
Malaysian

Rickshaw Food – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I stood outside this restaurant pondering the menu for a brief few seconds before a somewhat elderly lady sitting on a bench told me that I should go inside and have their lunch special. At that point I felt too in-it to back out.

We had the curry chicken with egg noodles ($17.80), which came in a lunchtime special with a ice milk tea, pictured below. These noodles were excellent, with a strong peanut flavour (would it be more accurately described as satay curry noodles?), in its thick flavourful sauce. The chicken was juicy and delicious, and the portion provided was overall quite large. Absolutely satisfied with this choice.

I can’t tell you anything about this ice milk tea, which I did not have any of. My friend seemed satisfied.

The seafood dry laksa ($17.80) was not bad, though was not on the lunch menu and thus did not come with a drink. The noodles were thicker than that of the chicken noodles, and this dish’s sauce was also good though less so, and not something that actually reminded me of ‘laksa’. The mussels were very clean.

The Malay fried chicken wings ($15.80) came extremely hot, and burnt my friend’s fingers. They took a long time to cool down to an enjoyable temperature. Once tasted, I found the external skin to be crispy and tasty, however the internal meat I felt was lacking of flavour.

The satay chicken skewers ($16.80) were a bit odd, with the satay much more in the dipping sauce than in the chicken skewers themselves. The satay dipping sauce was very good, however.

Overall
Overall the meal was good, and I would definitely recommend the chicken curry noodles with its thick delicious sauce.

I’m a bit concerned about the 7% discount for cash payments though. Is that legal?

Rickshaw Food
8B/27-31 Belmore St, Burwood NSW 2134