Tag: hainanese chicken rice

Categories
Malaysian

Curry Mee 北馬咖喱面 – Homebush NSW Restaurant Review

Parramatta Road is normally a bypass for me on my Monday-Sunday weeks, given I am able to incur $112 in road tolls in those calendar weeks with a $60 capped payment. While it’s unusual for me to pass up a free trip on the M4, the promise of good food ‘on-the-way’ home from work led me to terrible quality surface roads and Curry Mee 北馬咖喱面 in Homebush.

I wasn’t able to eat at the restaurant, even though there was seating available, as my girlfriend wanted to get home quickly and go to sleep. Food was therefore eaten about twenty minutes post preparation, but remained delicious throughout.

I enjoyed this Sweet Red Sauce Chicken Rice 红酱饭 ($13.90) quite thoroughly. The chicken maryland was tasty, with a nice slightly sweet, slightly fermented red sauce flavour. I had hoped to get the chicken without rice, and sad to find that it wasn’t available as an extra on its own, however upon taking my first mouthful of the rice I realised that I was wrong. The rice was not merely just rice, but a delicious chicken rice – oily and umami and tasty.

This was excellent flavour and value for $13.90 and I’d recommend it to anyone.

The seafood curry mee 海鲜咖喱面 ($17.90) was surprisingly good. It had a mixture of egg noodles and thin rice noodles, an assortment of balls, mussels, tofu and other seafoods. Despite it being white, it still tasted red, with a rich curry laksa flavour but not too much spicy. Also pretty good,

Overall thoughts
A pretty good meal , and well priced. Would potentially come back.

Curry Mee 北馬咖喱面
131 Parramatta Rd, Homebush NSW 2140

Categories
Malaysian

Nanyang Malaya Cafe – Marrickville NSW Restaurant Review

Opening up a restaurant in close proximity to other restaurants of a similar theme can be a bit of a double-edge sword. While you may very well attract patrons of your neighbouring restaurants for their next meal in the area, you will also invariably invite comparisons between you and the three other modern-ish Asian diners with whom you are lined up with in a row. This is a comparison that Nanyang Malaya Cafe handles well.

We started with the chicken wings (6 for $10). I thought that I had gotten my photo in before my partner could steal one, but this photo is clearly evidence to the contrary. These were pretty good, marinated in a spicy curry-like marinade and coated in a crispy light starch batter (which contrasts with the breading used in most Western styles of fried chicken). The meat beneath the batter was suitably moist, though probably not at the 99th percentile of moistness as far as fried chickens go. The Terasi chilli sauce was a bit shrimpy but still enjoyed by my partner, which is a success in and of itself. The pickled vegetables were welcome but would not have been missed were they not present.

The Hainanese chicken ($21) was a pretty reasonable amount of food for the price, presented in a keto-friendly arrangement of just the good proteinaceous and vegetable bits without any chicken rice or soup (it is available also as a set for those who like the classics). The chicken had quite a mild flavour but was helped along by the solid ginger and chilli sauces, and I felt this was overall quite a good option.

The curry puffs (2 for $9) are a bit smaller than at Albee’s, less elaborate in their filling, but in no way worse overall. They came with a simple filling of potato, chicken, and curry, but with good flavour with an unexpected hint of star anise. The puff pastry was light and flaky, and this was ultimately quite a pleasurable puff.

The curry fish fillet ($26) came as a large pot of ling fillet cooked with vegetables (ocra – to my partner’s dismay, beans ,onions, and tomato) in a yellow curry. The use of ling as the protein was commendable as I’m sure they would’ve gotten away with a cheaper fish like basa, though the ling did exhibit a stronger (and welcome) texture which you wouldn’t otherwise get. The flavour of the curry was thoroughly enjoyable, if not really soaked up by the fish, and I think this dish would have been even better with some rice.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
I enjoyed everything I ate at Nanyang Malaya Cafe, and had a much better time overall than when I ate at its neighbouring modern-Asian restaurant. I can recommend a visit.

Nanyang Malaya Cafe
Marrickville Metro G001, 20 Smidmore St, Marrickville NSW 2204
0422 598 037

Categories
Chinese Malaysian

Temasek – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

The Temasek experience is oft lauded as one of the best Singaporean-Malaysian restaurants in Sydney, as well as one of the best restaurants in Parramatta overall. I first heard about Temasek somewhere in late primary school or early high school, when my Malaysian-Chinese childhood friend JL mentioned that he had been. I had also been with my parents some time during my teens, and I’d wanted to, but not had the chance (owing to Temasek’s limited opening hours) to go back until now.

Temasek, tucked in a narrow alleyway beside the old Roxy Theatre, looks, smells, and sounds authentic. Passers-by through the Roxy Arcade are treated to kitchen noises, chatter, and fragrances that would be unexpected for the Parramatta CBD. Service is brisk but friendly from the multilingual staff, and the portion sizes are huge.

I wanted to like the Hainanese Chicken Rice ($16.50), I really did. What should’ve been a slam dunk easy dish to bring out perfectly unfortunately did not meet my expectations. The meat was unusually rubbery, and not warmed the whole way through. The centre of the chicken breast was unfortunately a bit cooler than the exterior. It was unfortunate that the star chicken protein was not as good as the accompaniments, with the chicken rice and soup both having good flavour. I enjoyed both the sweet sticky soy sauce and chilli sauce.

The Mee Siam ($18.80), a noodle dish in a hot and sour soup, with boiled egg, prawn and fishcake was our other choice. While I think it’s probably a fine and beloved dish in general, it just wasn’t to my taste. I think the hot and sour flavours were too strong, and I wasn’t a big fan of the rice noodles either. The generously applied proteins were good, though once I had fished them all out the resulting bowl of hot and sour soup and vermicelli didn’t not inspire me enough for me to eat the rest of the bowl.

THOUGHTS
I wasn’t a fan of what I had ordered, but would not be opposed to going back. The three people on the table next to us thoroughly enjoyed their mi goreng.

Temasek
71 George St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 9633 9926

Categories
Indonesian

Mirasa – Mascot NSW Restaurant Review

Don’t deny it. I know you’ve missed my awfully lit photos of food in takeaway containers.

Rather than go out to eat before my first in a run of four emergency department night shifts we decided to get takeaway from Mirasa. a local Indonesian restaurant we have often seen listed in the delivery apps but had never tried. Prices are what we paid Deliveroo. They may very well be cheaper in store.

L: Pangsit Goreng, R: Sayap Isi

The Pangsit Goreng ($3 each) were yummy. They are deep fried wontons with an ample amount of filling, which went surprisingly well with the sweet chilli sauce.

The Sayap Isi ($4 each) were not as much to my taste. I’m finding them difficult to describe, but I felt that while the chicken meat was quite tender their outsides had more of a soft steamed or boiled quality, which is not what I would expect from the fried component of “deboned and stuffed fried chicken wings”.

Nasi Goreng

I was hesitant to order the nasi goreng ($15.50), as nothing on their menu suggested that this would not be a vegetarian dish. Thankfully the nasi goreng came with chicken – I don’t think I would’ve liked it otherwise. I did enjoy the runny, soft-fried egg, and think it could have even benefited from an extra egg. The taste of this dish was good, and the box was quickly polished off the following morning.

Nasi Hainan

The Nasi Hainan ($15.50) was not quite classic Hainanese chicken rice. While the chicken was reasonably accurate, the toppings and flavourings are different from what you would expect from the classic Malaysian/Singaporean dish. I understand this is more authentic to the Indonesian style of Hainanese chicken rice. The rice was adequately flavoured, and this dish was my partner’s favourite of our order.

Sup Campur

The Sup Campur ($15.50) is a light clear soup with beef balls, wonton, and fried tofu. I really enjoyed the taste of all of these three components, however the soup itself was too light and watery and left much to be enjoyed. We basically fished out the fillings, drank half the soup, and disposed of the rest. Sorry.

I think overall my ambivalence towards Mirasa is more of a reflection of my East-Asian-centric palate, and probably not anything wrong with Mirasa itself. I personally won’t be eating their food again, but don’t think this means that you shouldn’t if you’re into Indonesian food.

Mirasa
1179 Botany Rd, Mascot NSW 2020
0421 100 085

Categories
Chinese Vietnamese

Lee Chef (利記中越餐廳) – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

Lee Chef is your friendly neighbourhood ethnically ambiguous Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant. Open until 10PM, they have, on multiple occasions, patiently remained open as we slurped up our post-shift pho and eaten our fill of authentic Asian classics.

The fried chicken wings were great. They were lightly battered and freshly fried, seasoned with 椒盐 (jiao yan), which is a traditional Chinese salt and chilli pepper seasoning. Each wing was crispy on the outside but moist on the inside – perfectly executed.

The vegetarian spring rolls were not great – in fact they teetered on the edge of actively bad. They were brought out very quickly and didn’t really feel like they had been heated all the way through. The filling inside the spring rolls were lukewarm at best, and displayed a mushy texture. We didn’t end up finishing these spring rolls – they were simply calories for punishment.

The Combination Beef Pho was wholesome and authentic. All elements were good. The protein component consisted of rare beef, beef balls, tendon, and beef rum. The soup was full of umami flavours and not too sweet or salty – just right. The side of Thai basil and bean sprouts was not only adequate but generous. I am blessed to live near a restaurant that can deliver such consistently good pho, and I have ordered it as takeaway roughly 12 times in the last six months

I was less impressed by the Hainan Chicken Rice. I found the chicken too bland and tasteless and the rice a bit too hard, though I did appreciate the soup and the generous serving of chilli and ginger and shallot condiments. My partner was a much bigger fan of this dish than I was.

The combination bean curd hot pot was of quality and taste commensurate with its price. I do love myself a combination bean curd hot pot.

VERDICT
Quality neighbourhood eatery
Hits all the classics right in the bullseye
Wouldn’t travel for it, but will keep coming back again and again this year.
4/5

UPDATE (2023): Closed. A loss to the local area.

Lee Chef (利記中越餐廳)
1/140 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 8677 4425