Tag: egg tart

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Chinese

Steamup Cantonese Restaurant – Eastwood NSW Restaurant Review

I gave my partner a number of non-Cantonese options in Eastwood, as well as this single Cantonese option, and this is the one she chose. We visited Steamup Cantonese Restaurant’s Jusco Centre branch, which is not the one cited for “Fail to store potentially hazardous food under temperature control – Previous warnings given” on 10th July 2024, by the NSW Food Authority/City of Ryde. That one was their store on Progress Avenue.

We ordered a number of items from their electronic menu. Interestingly, the online menu provides an indication of what items are popular that given day, helping customers to choose not just what the restaurant believes to be its house specialties, but also what the customers think is good.

We had this fried dough 油条 you tiao ($3.50), which was fine, not the best, definitely not particularly crispy or fresh, with a bit of a self-raised taste to it.

This BBQ pork rice roll 叉烧肠粉 cha shao chang fen $15.80 was OK at the time, but pales in comparison to a better one that I had at Traditional Chinese Tate in Burwood about 6 weeks after this meal. The one here at Steamup was in comparison less bulgingly full, with a char siu that wasn’t as good as the standard of char siu you’d get at most Cantonese BBQ restaurants.

We ordered also this chinese bacon & chinese sausage claypot rice 腊肉腊肠煎仔饭 ($18.80), into which lightly gingered soy sauce was poured by the server, tableside with resultant sizzle, in an act of showmanship. I didn’t love it at first, particularly not enjoying the flavour of the preserved meat, but it did grow on me.

The bottom of the claypot rice was lightly charred and crispy, as it should be.

The egg tarts 蛋挞 (2 for $5) were terrible. The pastry wasn’t flaky, and the filling was too set and solid rather than soft, and also without an eggy flavour. The freezer aisle at your local Asian grocery store has better options. I would be embarrassed to sell this.

Unlimited refills of ginseng tea was also on offer, with the tiniest cups and the longest walk to the urn to minimise wasteage.

Overall the food was OK, and enjoyed much more by my partner than me. What this trip really did open our eyes to was the deep variety and availability of Chinese foods in Eastwood, a place we haven’t really been to much given we’ve always lived in a relatively Southern part of the city. Perhaps one day when our financial circumstances improve we’ll be able to go back to Eastwood.

Steamup Cantonese Restaurant Jusco Branch
8A-9A/1 Lakeside Rd, Eastwood NSW 2122

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Uncategorized

Cha Dim House 一厘棧 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Cha Dim House 一厘棧 was the first of three Burwood restaurants we ate on a single day, and the first of two of which made up my post-night breakfast with my partner. This particular location was chosen by her in part to help me with my post-night shift decision fatigue.

We had this five spice pork and taro roll 芋絲五香豬肉捲 ($3.80) which was fried, crispy on the outside and tasty, though a little bit salty on the inside. Not bad.

The pork siu mai 猪肉烧卖 (4 for $8.50) was quite well structured, with meat and large prawns however, very very salty, too salty for enjoyment and thus cannot be recommended by me.

The radish cake 蘿葡糕 ($2.30) was pretty good, and not a large price to pay for one variety of food.

The puff pastry egg tarts 酥皮蛋挞, which were $3.50 each were pretty good.

And finally, the steamed pork ribs with black bean sauce 豉汁蒸排骨($10.50) I wouldn’t recommend, given the price, as well as the fact that I’ve easily had better steamed from a frozen pack from one of my preferred frozen dim sum purveyors.

THOUGHTS
Despite variable quality of its offerings, this kind of restaurant is a particularly good place where a solo eater could get a number of different things for a relatively small price. For that reason, it’s not neccessarily a pass.

Cha Dim House 一厘棧
Murray Arcade (Burwood Chinatown), Shop 7, 127/135 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

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Bakery Chinese Dessert

Fujimi Bakehouse – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review


I had the opportunity to not enjoy this pearl custard/egg tart almost 2 years ago, not post about it, and have the photo sit on my computer until now.

I had in fact forgotten about the experience, until I revisited it when I was served baked goods from Fujimi during a recent echocardiogram course.

Clearly not learning from my mistake, I had again the same tart. My main criticism about this arises from the fact that I don’t actually enjoy the pearls in bubble tea that much, let alone on top of a tart. They’re OK one by one, surrounded by a large mouthful of bubble tea, but when clumped in a group together I think they’re just too sticky and flavourless.

I also had this purple tart, which I can’t identify, but was slightly better. My main complaint about the pastry was that it was soft, rather than crispy. Was this due to the travel-and-wait time, or is this a factor inherent in these tarts?

I don’t know, but I don’t want to have them again to find out.

Fujimi Bakehouse
Burwood Chinatown
Murray Arcade, 127 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Bakery Chinese

Diamond Bakery – Hurstville NSW Restaurant Review

A quit review of some Chinese breads from Diamond Bakery, a Taiwanese bread shop next to its sister Taiwanese cafe.

I normally love a puff pastry egg tart ($2.50), but you just can’t beat a fresh one from yum cha (or the freezer aisle of an Asian grocery store with a quick trip in the toaster oven) with a cold store-bought alternative. It looked highly promising with a layer of wetness on top, and a 50c premium over the shortcrust variety ($2), but ultimately didn’t do it for me. I don’t know if you can time it so that you get them fresh out of the oven. Not too sweet.

This taro (yam) pineapple bun ($3.50) was actually huge and quite good. Not too sweet, with the yam filling adding an additional dimension to the standard bun. Very filling at only $3.50. Can recommend.

This lychee rose pastry ($5.80) was a bit expensive for its diminutive size, but at the end of the day is the product of multiple layers of skillful eggy baking, the likes of which would also attract a price premium at a Western bakery. The filling of rosewater with some lychee flesh embedded within was on the sweeter side of the Asian dessert spectrum, but still quite pleasant. I don’t know that I’d have it again, but overall it wasn’t a bad dense ball.

Diamond Bakery
95 Forest Rd, Hurstville NSW 2220

Categories
Bakery Chinese

Best Tastes Dim Sim – Homebush West NSW Restaurant and Take Away Review

This is less of a restaurant review and more of a grocery store review. The only cooked, ready to eat item that they sell is an egg tart, which is itself only available on weekends.

The egg tarts ($1.50) are however very good, with great colouration, a nice sweet but not-too-sweet filling, and a delicate flaky puff pastry crust, which is in my opinion across the board superior to shortbread crusts. They are served room temperature, unfortunately, and having them warm would make them just a little bit more perfect.

The majority of Best Tastes Dim Sim’s business is in the frozen dim sum game. Best Tastes, along with Hurstville competitor Delight Dim Sim are my two go-to sources for frozen treats like siu mai (shao mai), har gao (xia jiao), and all kinds of other buns, dumplings, and things wrapped in bean curd.

The service at Best Tastes Dim Sim is also extremely straight forward and friendly, you essentially just pick out what you want from their freezers and take it to the front. I even dropped and destroyed an entire box of dumplings (my fault entirely, I was on the phone and holding way too much stuff), that I was not charged for, even though I offered to pay.

Their food is cheap and delicious, and got me through the recent COVID-19 Delta variant lockdown in Sydney without suffering yum cha withdrawal related delirium tremens. A little bottle of Koon Yick chili sauce also goes a long way.

Enjoy

Best Tastes Dim Sim
11 Henley Rd, Homebush West NSW 2140
(02) 8746 0498