The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
Looking at these photos from our meal at Ladies & Gentleman Cafe six months ago I wasn’t particularly excited, but then looking back at the notes that I took from our visit it looks like the taste and quality of the food was more impressive than its visual appeal alone. Allow me to try and represent faithfully what I was thinking of when I ate there.
This Porky Belly ($18) sandwich, in particular, did not look exciting from the photos. The visual side of things is decidedly boring, but my notes from our meal reflect that it was actually very good. I’ve made reference to the fatty and soft soy caramelised pork belly, the crisp and tart apple, and soft and sweet Japanese milk bread with the crust cut off – just like my mum used to never do, because who can afford to waste a crust?
The Ladies and Gentleman Rice Bowl ($22) with teriyaki salmon was also very good, with a runny onsen egg perfectly coating the sushi rice, delicious miso eggplant, and softly cooked salmon all adding up to a variety of different tastes and textures in one bowl.
All I have written down for the Taiwanese deep-fried pork chop ($8) is “Pork chop is just my gf secretly took me to hot star”.
Thoughts Past-me thought it was very good. Reliving those previous photos and notes, I guess Asian-fusion brunch is right up my alley. Future-me might even go back.
Hearing-to-eating time at this restaurant was around 18 months, waylaid by COVID-19 closures, my partner finishing up in Wollongong and moving back to Sydney, and then finally facilitated by a trip down the South Coast to Shoalhaven for my work.
These Buffalo chicky nuggz ($13) were excellent. More like actual pieces of fried chicken than nuggets, these are made of proper pieces of chicken breast rather than mystery mincemeat. The pieces were big, juicy and moist on the inside, with a pleasantly sour and not too spicy buffalo basting on the outside. The side of blue cheese dressing that it came with was alright, though didn’t have such a strong blue cheese taste, really more of a creamy thing. Overall these were huge, however, and excellent. They triggered me to fry my own chicken at home whilst writing this review.
The Cuban pork bites ($12) were the first dish that I had heard about from SoCo, and the actual reason that I had been keen to visit. Though I had been keen, I ultimately didn’t love them. I found them a bit dry yet oily, and not so tasty. While the bowl looks small, the fact that it is full of pork belly means that it is actually quite a substantial entree. If you can only choose one though I’d strongly favour the Buffalo chicky nuggz instead.
I’d never had or even seen gumbo on a menu before, and so we had to get the SoCo Gumbo ($31 including $6 for prawns) to cross that experience off the bucket list. It was a rich and dark stew with a bit of beery bitterness, filled with vegetables, chicken thigh, house-smoked andouille (pork sausage), and a few big prawns. It was really ok, a good experience to have had, but not mindblowing in a way that I would think that I’d eat it all the time. My partner did surprisingly enjoy the andouille, which was a bit unexpected for a woman who does not usually eat parts of the animal that are not muscle.
The gumbo was served with two pieces of cornbread that deserve their own mention. Incredibly heavy, rich, and reasonably sweet these drenched in oil breads were more of a deep fried dessert than a carb in the regular sense. Very tasty, but definitely only in moderation. I can definitely see myself dying an early cardiovascular death if I were to keep eating these.
I thought this bathroom had quite a witchy vibe. My partner didn’t agree.
Overall not bad, pretty-good, worth a stop-by. I wanted some burgers but we just couldn’t eat any more. There really aren’t that many places to get Gumbo and other specifically Southern dishes in NSW and I think they have carved out their niche well. Do note that the restaurant is tiny, so if you’re set on eating here it’s best to call ahead.
My partner was HIGHLY DOUBTFUL that there’d be any possibility of good Asian food in Campsie. We’d have to go to Burwood, she said, for anything yummy. Boy was she wrong.
The Stir-Fried Pork Belly with Salted Fish on Hot Plate ($23.90) was a very tasty dish that also comes as a cheaper and smaller combination with rice, which we foolishly chose to have its own. It had good but strong salty flavours, though probably not something I’d want again. I’m more of a red braised pork belly fan than a sliced pork belly fan.
The House Chilli Chicken Nasi Lemak ($18.90) was excellent. I must be honest that with my limited understanding of Malaysian food I did not know that this was essentially going to be just fried chicken with condiments. This was a huge serving of fried chicken, with wonderfully umami rich chilli sauce, served with rice seasoned with little anchovies and peanuts. Everything about this dish was so fragrant and delicious that it’s clear why this is one of Malaysia Small Chilli Restaurant’s signature dishes.
Not knowing that the house chilli chicken nasi lemak was essentially fried chicken, we also ordered the Chicken Wings with Shrimp Paste ($14). No one stopped us. I wish they had. There is less chicken than the Nasi Lemak, with less fun taste. Definitely not a double up we needed, and not even a double up we finished.
They didn’t ask how much sugar we wanted in our Iced Teh Tarik (Malaysian Iced Tea – $4.50). It was not too sweet, just as it should be. Excellent.
OTHER COMMENTS We had a good meal in Campsie, and hopefully opened my partner’s eyes to eating out in our suburb a little more, without having to travel elsewhere. I’d come back, possibly for their curry chicken, which my Malaysian friend BCSY has recommended.
UPDATE, VISIT 2
I wanted Malaysian food again, but was too shy to go back to neighbouring Ipoh Dynasty for the third time in a week.
This Hainan Chicken Rice ($17.90) was actually very good, perhaps the best I’ve had in recent memory. I loved how fragrant and oily the rice was, it being more delicious and more of the focus of the dish than the chicken itself. I’d definitely get this again from here.
The curry chickensignature laksa ($17.90) was ordered following my friend’s recommendation to try their curry chicken but with us not willing to order a full dish of just chicken itself without any roti available on the menu. This laksa was really pretty good, with a huge serving size, a rich creamy broth, and a really large amount of chicken that we struggled to finish, all at a good price. It even had pieces of potato in it. How crazy. Two carbs in one.
Malaysia Small Chilli Restaurant Campsie 148 Beamish St, Campsie NSW 2194 (02) 8068 2433
I don’t know why it’s taken me 9 months to write this review. I don’t have any particularly good excuses, apart from the fact that we had eaten at so many places on our short trip to Melbourne that I had felt a little bit burnt out by all the reviewing, leaving it up to now, when I’ve run out of other things to procrastinate on, to do.
As it’s been nine months, this should not be considered a particularly comprehensive, or even useful piece of writing. It’s more just a few thoughts that I still remember pieced together from notes I jotted down during the meal, and some pictures to prove to myself in later years that I did indeed eat here on the 19th of April 2022.
We started the night with a number of snacks. Featured in the foreground here is oyster, coconut curry vinaigrette, shallot, pepperleaf, prepositions are of course not needed in high end cuisine. I enjoyed this deliciously creamy oyster, with its hint of curry flavouring. One of many creamy oysters we had that trip.
The next snack to discuss is this cracker of carrot, macadamia satay, sunflower, kakadu plum, with a good crispiness and a flavour that I think reminded us of tom yum, unless that was about the oysters.
The caramelised trout, green mango, muntries, prawn cracker was strongly reminiscent of the classic Chinese canned fish known as fried dace with black beans, commonly made by Nanmen Bridge company and sold in a yellow and red oval tin.
The ‘otak otak’, spanner crab curry, finger lime, rice crisp was yummy, and even though there was plenty of curry it was still easy to appreciate the sweetness and crabbiness of the crab.
The buttermilk roti, Sunda’s vegemite curry, a lauded secret item that you have to know about to order as a $20 supplement really wasn’t all that. The roti was very cripsy but hyper oily, but the flavour of the vegemite was at least pretty mild. We were advised that this was a must-not-miss at Sunda, but really I think you can miss it relatively safely. Not game changing.
This heirloom tomato, white sesame, davidson plum, pomelo salad was very fresh, so much so that I jotted down at the time “So fresh, hits of 2021” (I don’t know why specifically 2021, it was 2022 when I had this meal). There was a bit of a yellow curry-like (we found later that it was the white sesame curry paste) paste at the bottom of the tomatoes that had a night sweet and lightly spicy flavour., and some mouthfuls were a bit like white sugar on tomato, a common Northern Chinese snack dish.
The pork belly, rainforest tamarind, rhubarb, daikon radish was a pretty good entree. The meat was extremely tender, with the meat bits having great mouthfeel but unfortunately with too great a fat to lean pork ratio. The meat, “marinated with rainforest tamarind, coconut sugar and pomegranate molasses” as per Khanh Nguyen’s social media was very tangy, and in fact a bit too tangy for us. The lightly pickled daikon radish sheet, thin to the point of translucency, brought the tang back down a notch into mild enjoyability with a hint of sweetness.
The less good of our two mains was the bannockburn chicken, thai sausage, gai lan, bush apple. The gai lan was pretty good, cooked to a normal degree that you might find in any Chinese restaurant, not extraordinarily special. The chicken wrapped within it was moist and tender, delivered over the course of four or five separate slices, enough volume we thought. The Thai sausage had much ginger flavour. The bush apple went unnoticed. This was not an unreasonable main, but paled in comparison to our other choice.
Though people sing praises about their vegemite roti, I think Sunda’s true star dish is their koshihikari congee in a burnt onion broth with pickled cauliflower, confit egg yolk and paperbark oil. I’ve never enjoyed a congee as much in my entire life. This was such a warm and wholesome bowl, with a high degree of creaminess, soft delicate rice grains, and an almost potato mash-like soupy quality. The texture of the carbohydrate was creamy and the taste was mild, but the pool of broth surrounding it was absurd in its complex mix of sweet, salty, and sour flavours. The crispiness of the mushroom, cauliflower, and greens added great textural variation, whilst the opulent slow egg brought it all together with a third. Such a standout.
The gem lettuce, blood lime, shallot, nasturtium salad was truly an experience in whatever. Some of the leaves were a bit better, we did not enjoy. Unlike lilies, the nasturtium appear to be non-toxic to cats. Would you pay for your kitty to have dialysis?
I think this is the coconut sorbet with pineapple and kaffir lime granita, coconut jelly, desert lime jam, coconut yoghurt and sprinkled with candied green peppercorns. I didn’t love it – I think the pineapple was too pineapple for me.
The our take on pavlova, lychee, pandan, pepperberry was my preferred dessert, my more enjoyed part being the pepperberry ice cream. I am also fond of the Van Diemens Land Pepperberry & Leatherwood Honey ice cream that is available in tubs from some supermarkets though, and I did not think restaurant this was particularly superior. Neither of these two desserts really stood out.
We finished with petit fours, lamington pandan caneles with davidson plum. I am proud to announce that in the time between eating at Sunda and writing this review I now know how to pronounce “canelé” after being schooled by a guy at a bakery in Dulwich Hill NSW.
Quick verdict: We paid $130pp excluding drinks but including the vegemite roti, and I think it would be easy to recommend going back. We already had accommodation, and it would’ve been annoying to move between hotels, but when we ate at Sunda there was a promotion where you could book a night in hotel together with your meal for an extremely cheap price. Might be worth doing for Melbourne suburbanites looking for a nice South-East Asian fusion dinner.
The first thing that I noticed on my trip to That Katsu Guy’s market stall at Wentworth Point two weekends ago was that, contrary to my expectations, That Katsu Guy wasn’t one Japanese guy cooking katsu. It was actually just a local Aussie guy and his wife, and while in most situations that would normally be a red flag, it was absolutely not a problem in this circumstance. Reid and Prema Green cook up absolutely delicious, authentic, and innovative Japanese dishes from within the confines of a moveable market stall, so good that they have attracted the nod from celebrated local Japanese chefs like Yuta Nakamura of Gold Class Daruma.
Veteran readers of this blog will know that I went through a big bacon and egg roll phase back in 2020, and That Katsu Guy’s breakfast sando ($11) can kick it with the best. Sandwiched between two layers of soft shokupan is a panko-coated and deep fried combination of a soft and gooey egg, cheese, and bacon. This katsu “patty” is then sauced with a balanced amount of a combination of tonkatsu sauce and mayonnaise and served to the hungry customer. Katsu bacon and egg is not something I’ve had before, and I think is a good fusion of Western and Japanese cuisines.
Also part of our lunch was this Kakuni Pork Belly Kushikatsu ($8), a braised pork belly that was coated in panko and deep fried and skewered. The meat had a great melt-in-the-mouth quality, and again saucing was used conservatively and appropriately. Great.
COMMENTS My only regret is not having more of their food, but having waited quite a while for the first set of food in the midday sun I didn’t feel like going for a second round. Next time.
That Katsu Guy C15/1 Campbell Parade, Manly Vale NSW 2093 0405 092 872
