Tag: dumplings

Categories
Chinese

Harvest Foodie 聚丰源 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Panned by both the NSW Food Authority (1) (2) and Google Maps reviewers alike, Harvest Foodie sits adjacent to the Burwood Chinatown arcade and somehow became our choice of a second breakfast meal one morning, after a salty visit to Cha Dim House.

While the majority of negative Google Reviews seem to be about the attitude and communication skills of the aunties working here, my partner and I found no problem with this. I actually thought they were pretty chill, even taking my beef noodle order through me showing them a photo of what I wanted from the placard outside. Sadly the food was not as good as I had hoped.

This is a soy milk ($3). How can I really describe essentially the same soy milk made by a couple of similar machines across Burwood? Why does my partner always order them? Should I buy a soy grinding machine for home?

This is a soy egg ($2), not the same as a soy milk. It was fine. Totally adequate.

These pan fried dumplings 鲜肉锅贴 (8 for $10) were very cheap, but not particularly good. I felt that the wrappers were far too thick, with a leavened texture to them, which is the opposite of what I like. Dumplings, I feel, should be filling forward.

This homemade beef noodle soup 红烧牛肉面 ($15) was deeply disappointing. It was very salty, but had none of the spiciness that the menu picture implied. We didn’t finish it.

Other thoughts
Commenters on Google Maps seem to feel that the restaurant offers a dynamic pricing model, based on how much cash the aunties think you have in your pocket. Whilst this would be hilarious if true, and would be supported by the lack of prices on the placard outside, I just feel like it would be too much work to put into practice.

Harvest Foodie 聚丰源 Burwood
135 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Chinese 四川 (Sìchuān/Sichuan)

Bowl Bowl Beef 碗碗牛四川跷脚牛肉 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Bowl Bowl Beef 碗碗牛四川跷脚牛肉 is a small stall on the upper level of Burwood Chinatown, offering Sichuan themed noodles and soups – possibly but not provably linked to the Taikoo Li, Le Shan group of restaurants on Burwood Road. Surely it doesn’t make sense for them to have three restaurants in one suburb? I went on a weekday afternoon, availing a 40% eat-in discount from an app that cost me thousands in extra fees during the 2018-2021 era.

I ordered the Qiao Jiao Beef Brisket 跷脚牛肉 ($17.80) from the menu underneath the main section with the big pictures. That should’ve been the first clue. I immediately tried to lift up the noodles with my chopsticks for a representative photo, but I was unable to find any. Fearing that perhaps they had messed up my order, I reviewed a picture of the menu on my phone, and I had indeed ordered a bowl of soup without noodles. Though it isn’t what I would have wanted, I had to prevail.

The soup was pretty good. it had a light, not overpowering herbal taste, but not in the sense of it being Chinese medicine in nature. The broth was clear and felt more cleansing than what could’ve been a heavier alternative, possibly aided by the cabbage, which had most of its intrinsic flavour boiled away. There was plenty of beef within the bowl for one person, though I think I would’ve been much less satisfied with the quantity had I paid the full price rather than with a 40% discount.

I enjoyed the mixture of lean and fatty pieces of sliced brisket, especially the fact that the ratio of straight fat to muscle was not too high. The beef was tender but chewy, providing a good mix of mouthfeels. The soup was served with a side of chilli flake-powder, with which no instructions were provided. Unfortunately there were no other more clued-in diners nearby for me to watch and copy, so I just intermittently dipped some of the beef slices into the powder.

Overall not bad for a soup, and definitely suitable for someone looking for a low carb Chinese food option, but I was really fanging for some noodles.

The prawn and beef pan fried dumplings 鲜虾牛肉锅贴 ($14.80) were really excellent. They were pan-fried well – crispy on the outside, but still moist on the inside, and featured a lacey skirt, which added extra crisp.

The filling was very prawn forward, with large portions of prawn wrapped in beef. The flavour of the filling and the dumplings themselves were very umami. Delicious. My only complaint was that these were not served with vinegar, but I realised on my way out that there was vinegar available at the counter.

Overall I didn’t get what I thought I was getting, but the food was pretty good, especially at a 40% discount. I have to say I’m not that excited about eating hot food out of disposable plastic any more, however.

Bowl Bowl Beef 碗碗牛四川跷脚牛肉
Burwood Chinatown, 127/133 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Chinese 西安/陕西 (Xi'An/Shǎnxī/Shaanxi)

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 Groceries

Lucky Dumplings 品质王 饺 – Grocery Review

Don’t tell any of my local Chinese restaurants, but I would not be mad if I had these pork and cabbage dumplings 猪肉白菜饺 (500g for $10) served to me in a restaurant.

They were large, plump, tolerated well my haphazard boiling with no stirring of the pot, and most importantly, tasted good.

The filling of the pork and cabbage dumplings had a good texture with a bit of meat texture which made it seem like more than just your classic mystery slurry, and a light but enjoyable flavour that was allowed to shine by the addition of some extra vinegar for dipping. I can recommend them.

Lucky Dumplings Pork and Cabbage 品质王 猪肉白菜饺
EAN 9309002913068

Others:

Though I enjoyed the pork and cabbage dumplings, my experience with the country-style chicken 田园鸡肉饺 variety was less rewarding. I enjoyed neither the flavour, which I felt was lacking, nor the texture of the frozen vegetable medley.

Lucky Dumplings Country-Style Chicken 品质王 田园鸡肉饺
EAN 9309002913099

Conversely, the addition of a little bit of prawn (and I think a bit of chilli) in the chicken, corn, & shrimp 鸡虾玉米饺 dumplings, as well as the removal of carrot and peas, made them much more palatable.

Lucky Dumplings Chicken, Corn & Shrimp 品质王 鸡虾玉米饺
EAN 9309002913051

by FD Catering Service,
Unit 3/31 Ascot Vale Rd
Flemington VIC 3031