Tag: chive pancake

Categories
Chinese Groceries

Ruyee Chive and Egg Dumplings, (如意 韭菜盒子) – Grocery Review

I had the PLEASURE of eating these chive and egg “dumplings” from Ruyee a few minutes ago. They were new to my local Asian grocery store, and what a delight they were.

Though labelled dumplings, I would not really characterise them as such as they were each quite large (shown in a 10-inch carbon steel pan above). The Chinese label, 韭菜盒子, is much more accurate, indicating that they’re more of an egg and chive pocket. The cooking instructions suggested heating them in a small amount of oil for a total of six minutes, however due to the three dimensional shape of the pockest I found it neccessary to hold the straight sided edge against the pan to ensure that that portion of the pocket was not left raw.

The taste of these, however, was really good. There was a strong chive taste, with an excellent filling to dough ratio – honestly even better than ones I’ve paid for at literal restaurants and food stalls.

At a pack of 5 for $6-7, I have no notes – hopefully I will be able to find more yummy frozen snacks from this company in the future.

Ruyee Chive and Egg Dumplings 如意 韭菜盒子
UPC 936999818197

Categories
Chinese

Xi’an Restaurant (西安风味小吃) – Ashfield NSW Restaurant Review

One of my favourite things about Xi’an restaurants is that they are almost invariably named “Xi’an Restaurant”. We ate here in the first week of having moved house, in a flurry of cheap and cheerful dines out whilst we were still unpacking our kitchen.

The food was generally good. This Chinese pork burger Roujiamo 肉夹馍 ($8) was moist and meaty, flavourful though lacking any visible vegetables or herbs.

The Pan Fried Chives Pancake 韭菜盒子  ($7) is a relative favourite of mine. This example had a good crispiness to the skin, which was kept thin so as to maximise the filling to pastry ratio. A good example in a sea of good examples.

The Rice with Yuxiang Eggplant 鱼香茄子 ($16) was a vegetarian version of the dish, well priced, tasty, and very filling. Something my partner enjoys and I am yet to make an edible version of.

Comments
Though readers will note that only the roujiamou was particularly Xi’an in origin, this restaurant executed good versions of Northern as well as Sichuan cuisine at good prices. I’m sure we will be back for more.

UPDATE 13/03/2026


I went back by myself last night, about half an hour before close, for a bowl of noodles. I kind of rationalised going back without my wife by it being just a quick meal, that was ultimately going to be cheaper than buying groceries and cooking for one. The Biang Biang Noodles 𰻞𰻞面 were $17. The service was fast, and the bowl was gigantic. The sauce or gravy of the noodles was extremely delicious, with lots of umami flavour contributed to by the variety of ingredients including egg, pork (with cubes of both lean and fatty meat), as well as tomato, a natural source of glutamate.

The cubes of potato added a richness and thickness to the soup that would have been difficult to achieve with tomato alone, ensuring that flavours clung to each road strand of noodle. The noodles themselves were a bit more soft and well cooked than I would have expected, however thicker parts of the noodle did retain a signature kind of bounce to them, which was I liked.

It was overall a good bowl of noodles at a reasonable price, that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.

Xi’an Restaurant (西安风味小吃)
30 Hercules St, Ashfield NSW 2131
0426 092 275

Categories
Chinese

Tianjin Bun Shop (天津包子) – Campsie NSW Restaurant Review

I’m glad we ate at Tianjin Bun Shop after walking past it, on the merit of its offerings and without having read any reviews online beforehand. It’s the sort of place that people who don’t understand the nature of Chinese fast food love to criticise about brusque (read: hyper-efficient) service, whilst conveniently forgetting every time they’ve gone through a KFC drive through or purchased a quarter pounder from a touch-screen rather than even a real human.

As an illiterate 文盲 who is reliant on Google Translate for basically any Chinese text in this entire blog including these two preceding characters, I’m often very hesitant to order in my limited Mandarin because I never know if what I’m calling a menu item based on the pictures is actually what is written down next to it. Unluckily for me the woman at the counter serving me spoke even less English than I do Chinese, and even asked the customer waiting in line next to me if he could translate, to which he replied that he also did not speak English. Rather than let this be a problem, however, the woman serving me was able to intuit what I wanted based on a bit of broken Chinese and finger pointing, which I think is ultimately good customer service, rather than bad.

I had this chive pancake ($5) which was huge, and filled with fresh and fragrant chives, egg, and vermicelli. The wrapping was thin enough to not bore (some competitors are guilty of using a thicker wrapper, which puts off the filling-to-wrapper ratio), and the whole thing came out piping hot and delicious.

The Chinese burger (jianbing guozi) ($7) was also freshly made, featuring a cracker rather than a youtiao by default. It was pretty good with a classic sweet bean paste sauce, but compared to others was on the drier side, and ultimately in my opinion inferior to the one at Jinweigu Foods across and down the road.

This pork bun ($2.50) was pretty classic, soft bao with adequate filling and classic taste, not too salty, but with just the right amount of flavour. The filling was bitey enough, and not loose like some of the ones around. My partner thought there was too much bread to filling, which I agree with, but no one is holding a gun to your head to make you eat all of it.

Overall verdict: Pretty good, especially the chive pancake.

Tianjing Bun Shop Campsie (天津包子)
180 Beamish St, Campsie NSW 2194