Categories
Asian Fusion Café Italian Korean

Firestone – Eastwood NSW Restaurant Review

We were baited to Firestone by the promise of some truly delicious looking Korean-Italian fusion food on their social media accounts. It turns out all that stuff was on an old menu. This is what we found instead.

I will start with the best dish of the day, the Truffle Mushroom Risotto ($21.90). This vegetarian dish was packed full of different types of mushrooms and truffle oil. It was creamy and umami, and even though it was vegetarian I did not miss the meat at all. Additional sliced or grated truffle was on offer for a supplement, however we declined. While it wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, this dish was very good. I can recommend it.

The Chilli Dog ($12) was chilli only in so far as the sauce was chilli. There was no chilli con carne component, which is what you would expect to get if paying $12 for a hot dog named “chilli dog”. A no go.

I was really not a fan of this miso salmon benedict ($18.90). Unlike most miso salmon dishes on the streets of Sydney, this particular miso salmon was raw salmon, thick-cut, marinated in miso and mirin. It had a too-fishy flavour that kind of repulsed me. The rest of the eggs benedict was absolutely fine, but the salmon left a taste in my mouth that I can still recall to this day (about two weeks down the track).

This iced soy taro latte ($7.70) was solid. Not too sweet. Quite refreshing.

Standard teal cup large soy cappuccino. ($5.50) .

VERDICT
A tough sell. Perhaps their Hornsby branch has a more enticing menu.

Firestone Eastwood
62/80 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW 2122
(02) 8387 3624

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Chinese

Coffee Trad3rs – Castle Hill NSW Restaurant Review

Another weekend, another brunch. This week’s victim was Coffee Trad3rs, a large, family friendly cafe with plenty of interior decoration and a pan-Asian inspired food menu.

This short rib burger was pretty good, if simple. The beef rib was tender and plentiful, though without much variety in flavour throughout the dish I did get a bit bored towards the end. The chips were freshly fried and good.

This miso salmon soba salad is the latest in a string of recent miso salmons for me. Excitingly, this was served with soba and a light salad rather than the standard rice. While the salmon didn’t do that much for me (I thought that the miso-ness of it was a bit too subtle), I really enjoyed the fresh salad and the cool soba, which had a great slippery mouthfeel.

Not one to say no to fried chicken, my girlfriend had to order the Taiwanese fried chicken cubes. This was similar in concept to large fried chicken but served in bite sized pieces, I imagine to fit the needs of the various children around the place.

Some kind of white drink.

I thought about not including a review for this item due to not having a very good photo for it, but I just have to mention the milk tea swiss roll cake. The flavour of this creamy swiss roll perfectly simulated that of a pearl milk tea, with the light and delicate sponge melting into the mouth almost as if it were liquid. It is a top tier dessert, to be sure.

SUMMARY
I think that most of the food at Coffee Trad3rs is quite reasonable, and there is a certainly a broad Asian-fusion menu with constantly evolving specials on offer. If you’re in the area I’d definitely recommend giving them a go – if you’re far away though, I wouldn’t necessarily say drive across the city for it. Overall good. Avoid if you hate families and kids.

Coffee Trad3rs Castle Hill
1/8 Victoria Ave, Castle Hill NSW 2154
(02) 9894 7876

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Korean

CNR58 – Concord NSW Restaurant Review

Brunch that is slightly Asian is my favourite kind of brunch, and CNR58 brought the slightly Korean goods to the table this mother’s day just passed.

The Miso Salmon Eggs Benedict was a commination of things that I generally like, but don’t necessarily go together. This particular miso salmon was my third or fourth in recent times, and compared to its competitors in the Western Sydney sphere I found the salmon to be cooked well, but underflavoured. The miso on offer was really just a hint, and I feel that a stronger flavour could’ve added a lot, especially in view of the similarly low-taste pile of sliced cucumber. The eggs benedict side of the dish, on the other hand, were faultless. Arranged in two separate toast islands for the couple that loves to share, the eggs were poached to a runny perfection often sought but rarely seen. A dish half good half middling (does that make it three quarters good?)

The Chicken & Waffles was a very surprising dish. Having seen all the Korean staff manning the restaurant I had expected some combination of Korean fried chicken and waffle. What I got instead was chicken in more of a tempura batter than the classic Korean fried chicken batter, with a sweet maple-tabasco sauce that made the entire meal highly reminiscent of Chinese restaurant honey chicken. Apart from the unexpected sweetness of the dish the bacon was well cooked, and the waffle had a far nicer texture and flavour than my other most recent waffle experience at 3 Ronin.

I thought the Chicken Sausages were uninspiring.

VERDICT
We actually went to CNR58 in seek of their lunch menu, only to find out that it only starts at 11AM (nowhere online is this suggested to be the case). The dishes I had for breakfast were in the grand scheme of things only OK, but I would still go back to try their promising looking lunch and dinner offerings.