Tag: chinese noodles

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Chinese

A Bowl Of Noodles 一碗面 – Haymarket NSW Restaurant Review

Unfortunately my dinner at A Bowl of Noodles did not live up to the expectations set by following their social media over the past year or so.

The Yellow Croaker Noodles ($23.80), one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, did not amaze me. It had unfortunately and probably unavoidably quite a fishy smell to it, though to its credit it did not actually taste fishy. The flavour of the soup was quite light, umami, and pleasant, though pleasant not to the degree that we wanted to finish it.

The Pan Fried Pork Buns (sheng jian bao 生煎包 – $11.80) were fine on the outside with good dough and crispiness, but oddly gooey on the inside. I won’t go so far as to say uncooked, because I don’t know for a fact and I didn’t get sick after my meal, but these buns were generally unpleasant for me.

The chive and pork dumplings (10 for $13.90) were actually very good. They stood alone as a dish that met expectations and were the highlight of the meal.

I kind of felt that the xiao long bao ($9.80) would be a dish that I could trust that a Shanghainese specialty restaurant would do well, but I was of course mistaken. These XLBs were quite dry and devoid of soup, without even any holes in the skin that could explain it. I’ve had much better steamed from a box from the frozen section of my local Asian supermarket.

COMMENTS. I didn’t find what I was looking for.

A Bowl Of Noodles 一碗面
735 George St, Haymarket NSW 2000
0415 483 140

Categories
Chinese

Shanghai Night – Ashfield NSW Restaurant Review

There’s this super odd row of restaurants on Liverpool Road in Ashfield where separate establishments named “New Shanghai Night”, “New Shanghai”, and “Shanghai Night” are lined up one after another. The subject of our review today is Shanghai Night, the Westernmost of the three.

The Shanghai Spicy Noodle Soup ($12.80) was good. It was quite a large serving for the price, and with plenty of meat and flavourful soup. Not too spicy. Not much else to say apart from a recommend.

The Si-Chuan Dry Wonton with Cucumber and Chilli Oil ($10.80) looked vastly different to the menu photo, but tasted pretty good. The wontons were plenty meaty, however my partner raised some concerns about the state of the peanut butter, which I did chose not to try.

The Steam Shanghai Style Mini Pork Bun ($8.80) were not the best. The most disappointing thing about them was the fact that they were mostly broken. In fact, only 2 out of the 8 were received intact, a feat that I can easily manage with a box of frozen xiao long bao at home.

THOUGHTS: With so many competitors in the Shanghai food space within a one metre radius, I don’t think I will be going back to this particular restaurant any time soon.

Shanghai Night
275 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131
(02) 9798 8437

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Chinese

Tarim Uyghur Handmade Noodles – Auburn NSW Restaurant Review

Last year we went to the Ramadan night markets in Lakemba just down the road from where we live twice, and I got gastroenteritis twice. This year I did not wish to be unwell, and so we skipped the night markets for a sit down meal in one of Sydney’s other Muslim centres.

We started with besip lagman ($18), flat noodles stir fried with diced meat, cabbage and red peppers. We enjoyed these noodles, with its tangy tomato sauce base, good umami flavour, and nicely jin dao noodles. The “meat” topping was stated at the top of the menu as a mixture of lamb and beef, and I wonder if it would have been less suspicious to in the description of each item rather than just at the top of the menu.

The toho qordah (small: $20), descriped as special chilli chicken braised with potatoes, red peppers, and shallots, complemented with flat noodles was unfortunately almost exactly the same thing as the besip lagman, except for the addition of potatoes and the substitution of chicken. Again a tomatoey base, but with a tiny amount of spice this time, and a little bit more oily. I’m not usually a big fan of chopped up chicken drumsticks, but I did not mind it in this case as there were not really any broken bone fragments for me to spit out. My partner, potato-fan as she is, was not too sad at the sameiness of this dish, though ultimately I think we would’ve liked to try something else instead.

The kawap lamb skewers ($4.50 each) were really quite good. Super tender, but not fatty at all. No significant unwanted lambiness to them. Quite good, though I wonder if they would’ve been better with some chilli (I have no idea if this would take it away from being traditional Uyghur cuisine).

OVERALL THOUGHTS. Pretty good. Not expensive. Great lamb. I don’t know why the guys on the table next to us were so surprised that they didn’t serve alcohol.

Tarim Uyghur Handmade Noodles
105 Rawson St, Auburn NSW 2144
(02) 9649 9085

Categories
Chinese

New Hunan Noodle Bar 一呷一嗦 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Quick one.

Slow cooked braised beef tenderloin in a special chili sauce ($14.80) – There was much meat, which was good, but much of the meat was quite fatty. The flavour was slightly umami and slightly ma la, but ultimately I didn’t feel like these noodles were anything to write home about.

Succulent chicken feet with chili garlic toppings ($6.80) – The taste of these with fresh chili was good, but sadly the paws were skinny and not very meaty.

COMMENTS – Would I come back? I don’t know that I would. There’s so much variety in Burwood that unless a place is very very good it tends to be a one time visit.

New Hunan Noodle Bar 一呷一嗦
Shop 1, Clarendon Place, 38-40 Railway Parade Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Chinese

1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

This is a review of 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle in Burwood NSW, and certainly not a review of the similarly named 1915 Lanzhou Beef Noodles, around 100 metres up the road.

There always seems to be a line outside 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle, and on our visit last weekend the waiting time happened to be around 15 minutes for a seat. I wonder if the bulk of the waiting time is due to patrons only deciding on what they want once they get into the restaurant, which is a bit silly as they have a very limited and focused menu, easily visible from the outside.

Forever a fan of the classics, I chose the Lanzhou Beef Noodles ($12.80 in small) with the thinner noodle option. I really enjoyed this bowl, and I can see how this simple noodle dish has become a staple not just in Lanzhou, but across China and Chinese diasporas. The clear noodle soup, flavoured with radish, coriander, and a little bit of chilli sauce just felt so clean and wholesome, not weighed down by any soy or fattiness. The lean beef had a light but aromatic flavour to them. The noodles were hand pulled in the store window, but to be honest were not more than a caloric vehicle for the rest of the bowl. I regret only getting a small size, as it seems that the extra $1 for the large gives you a lot more soup, which is truly the star of the show.

My dining partner and also romantic partner, forever the non-classic fool, ordered the Special Dry Beef Noodle ($13.80 in small) with wide noodles. This was probably just fine but didn’t live up to the standards set by their soup noodles. It had a bit of tomato flavour to it and a bit of stewed beef flavour as well. What ultimately brought it down was the fact that the sauce did not quite coat the noodles as a pasta sauce should, even though it kind of ate more as a pasta than a Chinese noodle dish. This meant that at a certain point you were kind of just eating really wide unflavoured pasta.

These pork and cabbage steamed dumplings (4 for $4.80) were alright.

1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle Burwood
117 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
0499 041 919