Tag: jianbing guozi

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Chinese

Tian Jin Shi Tang 天津食堂 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

As someone with limited calories in a day I suffer immensely from food-related indecision. One of my partner’s worst daily bugbears is my inability to decide where we’re going to eat, as I have both extremely high standards and a lack of willingness to cede control. Though Tianjin Shi Tang has been on my radar for a couple of years as a Tianjin-food devotee, multiple trips to the restaurant have been abandoned close to the mark after seeing negative reviews about them on Google. There have been several times where we have parked down the road, and I have made a last minute decision to go somewhere else.

Tian Jin Shi Tang is testament to the fact that Google reviewers don’t always know good food, and that sometimes risking it all on a 3.1 star restaurant with more 1-star reviews than 5-star reviews is worth it. Common complaints about food safety and worker ethic were not issues that we experienced, and in fact we had a very positive overall experience.

The thing I was most keen for was this jianbing guozi (chinese egg pancake) with smoked pork ($12.80). I think that jianbing is one of the key regional dishes of Tianjin that you have to try at any restaurant that offers it, and while I don’t remember the specific taste of any specific jianbing guozi that I had in China, what I can say is that every single one I’ve had in Sydney has been quite enjoyable, this one included. The base jianbing guozi at Tian Jin Shi Tang is $8.80, and though I’d never had it with a meaty filling before, the smoked meat filling (a $4 supplement) as recommended by one guy on Google who will be remembered as being on the right side of history was tasty, umami, and well worth it to put a spin on this classic dish. The lady serving us asked if I wanted chilli on it, and I must have said yes with just little enough conviction that she gave us only a little bit (stated as “less spicy” on our tax invoice). Overall this was not the traditional 煎饼馃子 that I’m used to, with the addition of smoked pork and with chilli sauce rather than sweet bean sauce (甜面酱), but still a delicious play on the concept.

The Tian Jin Wonton Soup ($8.80), pictured above in two almost identical photos chosen to put on show both wonton and soup facets of the dish, was a cheap and hearty breakfast bowl. Presented as a claypot filled with peppery soup, a crackled and slightly scrambled egg, seaweed, coriander, and small-type wontons, this is a dish that could easily form the staple of some late teen to early twenties Burwood high-rise dwelling international student. The meat filling, though relatively small compared to that of a dumpling, made up for its small size with its high density of meat and flavour, and numbered sufficiently to avoid sadness at the end of the meal (Danny Katz of the Sydney Morning Herald makes reference to the appropriate number of wontons in a bowl of wonton soup in the linked article, though this is not the Confucian wonton parable that I remember from my childhood). My only comment would be that this soup was far more peppery than I had anticipated – not overpoweringly so, it’s just that I didn’t expect white pepper to be the main flavour of the soup.

The pork and chive potstickers (12 for $14.80) were again very good. The dumplings and buns at Tian Jin Shi Tang are made fresh to order, and so we had no problems with the short 20 minute wait which we were pre-warned of whilst ordering, during which time we were eating the rest of our meal anyway. Though other online reviewers have complained about twenty minute waits for their food, we understand that fresh handmade food is something that takes time to get right, and I was actually quite impressed by the precision of the dumpling making process, watching the chef weigh out the filling for each individual dumpling, adding and subtracting as necessary as she made them in order to achieve the target ratios and weights. Though I would’ve preferred boiled dumplings (also available on the menu – a sign of self-confidence in a dumpling restaurant’s art) and any sort of order of pan-fried dumplings is usually the doing of my partner, I really did enjoy the freshly fried crispiness of the wrapper, as well as the juiciness of the filling within. These pork and chive dumplings had a bit more of a soy flavour and a stronger taste than I’m used to, but good all the same.

RETURN VISIT, JUNE 2024

The pork and chive steamed buns (8 for $13.80) were large and well priced, though we asked for pan fried ones and they must have misheard us. Very filling.

The zha jiang mien ($13.80) was a large portion, again well priced. The gravy of mince and stir fried bean paste was suitably tasty when mixed through the noodles, but of course too salty when eaten alone. This bowl came with some scramble-fried egg, which was soft and pillowy, and unexpected as I am not used to egg in my zha jiang mien. A recommend though.

COMMENTS
Online reviews of Tian Jin Shi Tang are pretty well divided into lovers and haters of the place. Our experience was overwhelmingly positive, and I suspect that some of the difference in experience might be due to the fact that we went in the morning at 9:30AM but they’re open up until 1-2AM, which is a long time to keep up quality. We would not hesitate to go back.

Big respect also to a venue that gives a tax invoice for a cash purchase without being asked. It’s sad that operating a company that doesn’t steal from the rest of society is something to be praised, but where so many in the hospitality industry don’t do the right thing, it’s important to pay homage to the ones who do.

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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

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Chinese

Jinwei (Jinweigu) Food 津味谷) – Campsie NSW Restaurant Review

My mother doesn’t approve of my dining out habits and related financial insecurity, but Jinwei (Jinweigu) Food has the rare distinction of being one of the few places approved by my mother. Their offering of Northern Chinese breakfasts foods is attuned almost perfectly to my tastebuds as an ex-Northern Chinese kid, and I must say that I enjoyed almost everything on offer.

This triangle pork pie ($6.80) is a best seller, and one bite is enough to tell you why. The pork filling is juicy and tasty, and the thin pan-fried flour pastry is perfectly proportioned for that optimal filling to carb ratio. This isn’t something that I remember having growing up, but I wish it were.

The shitake mushroom and pork pie ($5) was in a form more similar to what I’m used to, adhering to the standard filling enveloped by dough xian bing formula. Like the triangle pork pie this filling of mushroom and pork was also new to me, but thoroughly enjoyed. I do wish that the dough were a little bit thinner to optimise the flour to filling ratio though, and you can see from the cross-sectional imagery that one layer of dough was unfortunately much thicker than the other.

The mashed potato and beef roll ($3.50) was not bad, but certainly more potato than beef, with an overall creamy taste and texture with a hint of meat umami. It was a favourite of my partner the potato fiend, though as I have been in a carb-avoidant state I tried to only have a little bit.

The mung-bean powder wrap with deep fried dough sticks ($7.50) or jianbing guozi (煎饼馃子) was the memory from childhood that I had been chasing, which sadly will remain just a memory for now. I had incredibly high expectations from this, jianbing guozi being perhaps my favourite food in the world before the age of four. While there are specific points for improvement (the dough cruller (you tiao) was not particularly crispy and they used another sauce other than tian mian jiang)) I think that ultimately much like your Italian nonna’s bolognese it’s probably just not physically possible to reach the pinnacle of expectation that your four year old self with an undeveloped frontal cortex has set for you. Nothing is ever as good as you remember, though in this case my mum agrees.

In mid 2023 I had this eggplant pie ($3.50), which tasted exactly the same as it looks – oily, juicy, crispy, meaty, with some pork mince and eggplant surrounded by a light batter and deep fried. Delicious and terrible for you at the same time.

THOUGHTS
Overall Jinwei Food is a winner for me, directly invoking memories of growing up and eating food at the hawker stands under our apartment building in Northern China. Many of their foods are delicious and well priced, though sadly the one thing that I was really looking forward to (jianbing guozi) did not quite live up to my expectations. Despite this I am glad to live so close to such a fantastic restaurant, and hope that they can open back up for dining in at some point soon.

Jinwei (Jinweigu) Food 津味谷
277 Beamish St, Campsie NSW 2194

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Chinese

Hungry Paulie 愛呷囝仔 – Eastwood NSW Restaurant Review

Tucked away on Trelawney St on the Chinese side of Eastwood is Hungry Paulie, purveyor or fine Taiwanese breakfast foods.

The Traditional Egg Pancake with Fried Bread Stick (P15 台式蛋饼包油条 – $9.50) is similar to but not quite the same as the jianbing guozi (煎饼馃子) that I had in my childhood. Thin pancakes with a layer of egg omlette are wrapped around freshly fried yóutiáo, with a bit of very light soy flavoured dressing on top. The yóutiáo at Hungry Paulie are seriously good and well worth a mention, each hand-prepared on site from scratch by artisans working behind a glass window. I can recommend this.

My partner was a big fan of the Black Pepper Pork Pastry with Shallots (Paulie Pie) (P1 胡椒饼 – $6.50), which was essentially a large spherical pie with a huge amount of peppery beef steak filling. There is little in common between this meat pie and the classic Australian meat pie. The shape is almost spherical, with a more dough-reinforced base at the bottom and minimal crust up top. The filing is steak-dominated, with big chunks of chewable meat in a black-pepper rich semi-solid gravy. It was pretty good, and at $6.50 good value and worth a try.

My partner, keen on a dessert dish, ordered the hot Roasted Peanut Rice Milk (D2 – 花生米浆 – $4) This wasn’t quite what she expected. Rather than being a dessert, it was more of a staple meal, with quite a significant size and warmth to it. It had a distinctive peanut flavour and it wasn’t too sweet, but neither of us was a big fan of it. Perhaps it just wasn’t what we were looking for this morning.

The Taiwanese Anchovy Congee (C16 – 台式吻仔鱼粥 – $12) is a loose, wet congee flavoured with little dried anchovies. It is much looser than the congees of my childhood, though not to its detriment. The toppings of youtiao and fried wonton skins added a nice amount of crunch, but unfortunately the anchovy added only a slight almost-imperceptible umami flavour. Though this was a nicely warming bowl overall, I don’t think I really got much out of the anchovy flavouring. I think that if I were to come back I would get a more standard congee, like the one with preserved egg and pork, which is a known favourite.

The Braised Combo Noodle Soup (N6 – 红烧手工牛肉三宝面 – $18.50) was ordered essentially because there was a portrait of it sitting in front of me at the bar seats. It was probably fine, but to be honest at this point in the meal we were a bit too full to enjoy anything properly. The noodles had a slight mala flavour, which I normally don’t mind (and even enjoy) but didn’t appeal to me today. It was packed with protein of multiple bovine sources – muscle, tendon, rumen, and probably some reticulum too. Whilst I enjoyed the muscle, I could only bring myself to nibble on the other beef parts – I think it really is a dish best ordered hungry. The noodles were otherwise good, and the baby bok choy was very tender and sweet. I feel like I disappointed this dish, not the other way around.

The Savoury Rice Pudding (T1 – 碗粿 – $7) was a creamy, almost radish-cakey lump of starch in a bowl of gravy and mince. It was tasty and good, though I’m still not really sure what was inside

SUBSEQUENT VISIT
We re-visited Hungry Paulie around 7 months later, under a cloud of general malaise (short-lived, and well worth the extra protection) following the third dose of a COVID vaccine.

The Soy Bean Jelly with Sweet Soft Peanut (花生甜豆花 – $5.50) was like a wet, loose dou fu nao. There was less tofu than I would’ve liked, but I felt it was still adequately soft and silky, suspended in this soy milk soup. My partner, in a moment of surprisingly conviction, said that she thought that the tofu in this was still not as silky as what she gets at yum cha.

The Braised Soy Egg (滷蛋 – $2.50) was a soy egg, cut into quarters, and presented with a bit of garlic and chilli sauce. While there were no surprises with the egg itself, the addition of sauce was completely unexpected, as was the addition of shallots and lettuce. The sauce was ultimately quite tasty, and added to the experience. It’s interesting that there is a price differential between ordering this in the restaurant and via an online ordering app. It appears to be cheaper delivered, which is just strange.

The Fried Radish Cake in Garlic Sauce Dressing ($5.50) was unexpectedly enjoyable. I’m normally not a believer in the radish cakes, but this one had me surprised. The outer layers were crispily fried, whilst the gooey inner layer was only modestly thick and barely noticeable. These radish cakes were drenched in a similar sauce to the eggs, which was very valuable to adding flavour. I think that with optimal frying dimensions and garlic sauce dressing these radish cakes were able to be enjoyed even by the non radish cake lover.

The Traditional Shallots Pancake with Braised Beef (牛肉捲餅 – $11.50) was not as good as the egg pancake, and not as good as I hoped. The actual pancake itself was stellar – thin, hot, and crispy, and with good shallot flavour. What was unfortunate was the filling that the shallot was wrapped around – a huge mass of lettuce, with a small amount of dressing and some cold braised beef. I think some warmth on the beef would’ve gone a long way, and it was certainly not helped by the mass of cold, internally wet lettuce. They really need to rethink this one.

The Taiwanese Pork Thick Soup with Bamboo and added Rice (嘉義赤肉羹 – $17) was quite enjoyable. It had a quality similar to a hot and sour soup, with plenty of white pepper flavour as well as something similar to bonito flake on top. It was thickened, with a reasonable amount of meat, bamboo, and mushrooms for the price. We were almost going to riot for not getting our rice, until we realised it was actually hidden inside the soup. So it was essentially a kind of congee.

This Wintermelon Iced Tea ($3.50) was super fresh, a bit sweet but not too sweet, and quite importantly, cheap. It makes a joke out of Hong Kong Bing Sutt charging $7 for a (delicious) iced milk tea.

VERDICT
I quite liked Hungry Paulie, and I’d like to take my parents to the Mascot branch once they feel safe enough from a COVID-19 to leave the house. There are plenty of things that I remember from my childhood on offer at Hungry Paulie that I think they would enjoy.

Hungry Paulie 愛呷囝仔 Eastwood
Shop 3/3-5 Trelawney St, Eastwood NSW 2122
0411 660 866

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Chinese

iBao (i包) Kitchen – Rhodes NSW Restaurant Review

I recently had the pleasure of being among the first to receive my COVID-19 booster vaccine at the WSLHD Sydney Super Dome Quodos Bank Arena vaccination centre, and took myself out for a nearby breakfast to celebrate. The focus of my journey, Shiweiju, was not open, and I settled on nearby iBao (i包) instead.

Similar to Shiweju, iBao (i包) serves a variety of Tianjin or Northern Chinese breakfast classics, in a no-nonsense setting. I ordered in English (much to the disappointment of the man working there) a number of dishes from my childhood.

The Soy Milk ($3), is made in the Chinese style, with a light and watery mouthfeel. It was served warm in a coffee cup, with a small amount of sugar mixed in. I don’t know whether this soy milk is made in-store or merely purchased by the jug and heated, but the uneven distribution of sugar towards the bottom of the cup implies that it is made fresh.

I was a big fan of the pancake rolled with crisp fritter ($6.80). The thin and pliable jianbing, cooked with egg, had a fresh and light taste. The tian mian jiang (sweet bean sauce) was evenly applied and not overpowering, and while the jianbing was filled with a strange fried fritter rather than the classic youtiao, it still added the same crispiness.

The pork bun ($2.50) is a classic Tianjin bun, typified by the goubuli baozi that dogs don’t care about. The exterior is soft and almost dangerously thick, but when matched bite-for-bite with the moist and pork filling the meat to carb ratio was perfectly adequate. These are quite cheap and filling, and appear to be well loved by local community, who bought them in larger quantities to take home and eat with their families.

COMMENTS
There aren’t that many restaurants in Sydney focused on Tianjin or Northern Chinese cuisine, and I’m very grateful for the ones that do exist. My one gripe would be the staff member who went out for a cigarette just outside the restaurant’s front door, with the wind blowing some of the smoke inside. Maybe it added to the authenticity though.

iBao (i包) Kitchen Rhodes
Shop 5/7 Rider Blvd, Rhodes NSW 2138
(02) 9029 1656