Tag: stir fried noodles

Categories
Chinese

Xin Jiang Hui Min Hand Made Noodle Restaurant (新疆回民手工拉面) – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

To take my mind off some disastrous performance in a practice examination, my friend and I had lunch at this Uyghur Chinese restaurant on Burwood Road towards the top of the street where a number of Uyghur restaurants are.  It was a no-fuss, very straightforward ordeal where we chose a number of the most popular options from the menu.

 The XinJiang Style Stir fried noodles ($24.80) were quite good with tender beef, noodles that were ‘jin doa’, and a slick of oil coating every single mouthful (but in a delicious manner.) The flavours were good and there was a nice variety of vegetables and a balance of flavours, textures, and components.

 The stewed beef with vegetable ($24.80) was delicious and tasty. It came loaded with glass noodles, however it probably would have been good with extra rice, given the sheer quantity of gravy. Despite the fact that some extra rice probably would’ve been optimal, it was however just fine without it, not too salty, and not neccessarily needing a second carb to dilute the flavour. The beef was fatty and flavourful, without too much gameiness or agriculural scent, and the vegetables a mind-trick into pretending we were eating something slightly healthy.

The lamb skewers (4 for $16) were pretty good when they were fresh out of the grill, not too spicy and in fact probably could have actually used a bit more spice. Sadly my friend is a white man and we wonder if that may have affected the amount of spice that was laid onto these skewers, but we wouldn’t want to assume for sure. It’s sad that these skewers did get a bit less appealing towards the end of the meal, once the heat had been radiated away to the environment. It is not physically impossible to avoid degradation of lamb skewer quality throughout the course of a meal, by the application of a heated plate or using a heating element, for example, a candle under a plate, however this was not in practice in this restaurant, or to be fair any other Chinese restaurant I’ve been at. The Koreans have this down though.

Overall
I felt the meal at Xin Jiang Hui Min Hand Made Noodle Restaurant was quite good and quite a reasonable price for the amount of food that we got. We left quite filled and with leftovers that continued to taste good after a trip to the microwave.

I would recommend this restaurant to a friend or colleague.

Xin Jiang Hui Min Hand Made Noodle Restaurant (新疆回民手工拉面)
193 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
(02) 8971 5876

Categories
Chinese

Hong Kong Cafe 港夠味 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

A few years ago my partner actually walked into Hong Kong Cafe 港夠味 Burwood, sat down, and then got back up after I decided this was not where I wanted to eat. More recently we were lured back by our friend PMR, a former Burwood local, for a pretty normal lunch.

Pictured is the free soup, something that our friend PMR has never been offered in the 10+ times he dined here with his HK Chinese girlfriend. It was honestly pretty good – much better than the paid soup.

This is a borscht-like paid soup, with two slices of garlic bread. I did not enjoy this, but I did enjoy ticking off borscht as something that I have now tried and no longer want to try (although I suspect the Hong Kong cafe variety may not be as classical as others). The bread was quite good, though.

The iced milk tea was not too sweet – not bad, but not phenomenal – feelings that apply to many of the dishes of our meal.

The club sandwich is a go to for my friend, who has told me about this particular sandwich multiple times before us going here. Whilst initially unenthused, I must admit that they were actually surprisingly pleasant, despite being intensely unspecial. No single part of these sandwiches was worth writing home about, but together the softly toasted bread, the iceberg lettuce and tomato somehow melded with the egg and spam and beef to create a mild in salt but heavy in umami taste in the mouth. Though not something I’d travel for, I agree with PMR that it’s a reliable choice for the undiscerning man.

The braised beef with rice was pretty good, complete with all essential components including bits of tendon and other connective tissue, fascia. The meat had a good flavour, and the rice was essential as a vessel of flavour and sauce. If it hadn’t come with rice we might have stupidly ordered it without, so I’m glad that choice was taken out of our hands this time.

The stir-fried beef noodles/gan chao niu he/干炒牛河 was actually very good. Good amount of beef, good wok hei aroma, soft noodles, and healthy amount of bean sprout and chives. Given all the other stuff we ordered we weren’t able to finish it, but my partner enjoyed the leftovers for lunch at work the next day.

The mixed meat baked rice came surprisingly not as a baked rice but rather as mixed meat slices with Portuguese sauce on top, rice on the side and some almost certainly microwaved chopped vegetables with two pieces of broccoli.

While I’m certain that I asked for baked rice and not this non-baked rice, both my partner and my friend proceeded to gaslight me about this for the rest of the meal.

Points weighing against this dish included the abject lack of effort made to hide the fact that these vegetables more likely than not came pre-diced from a bag from the freezer aisle, though apparently this is fine and expected. This incorrect dish also required us to manually cut up the large slices of over-tender meat into bite sized pieces, making it difficult to share. (the over-tenderness making it difficult to differentiate between the animals of pig and cattle).

Despite these complaints, I must admit that the flavours of the meat, sauce, and rice mixed together quite nicely. It just wasn’t what I asked for and I was too shy to say anything.

UPDATE 25/10/2025
I walked past on today, the day of publishing. It’s been internally demolished. I hope something cool will open in its place.

Hong Kong Cafe 港夠味
123 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134

Categories
Chinese

My Aunt’s Handmade Noodles 胖姨儿手工拉面馆 – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

We waited in line for about 20-30 minutes, after 8PM on a weeknight, for a couple of bowls of pretty good noodles. Luckily, our time in line was not wasted, with a supply of complimentary plum juice and an Anki MCQ deck of recent vintage. In retrospect, this line is also probably where I got a viral URTI just before my exam, leading to a practical learning point about the hypothalamic set point.

The Biang Biang Noodles, Four-in-One 四合一面 （宽面）($17.90) were pretty good, coming as a large portion with a perfect ratio of topping to noodle. The noodles were ultra broad and chewy, though could only be moderately coated by the sauce unlike some other highly-coated competitors. While this was a good bowl of noodles, and somewhat of a staple that can be eaten over and over again, I would hesitate to really elevate my praise of it to that of one of the greats.

The Lamb stir fried shredded noodle cakes 羊肉炒饼丝 ($20.90) was an absolute mountain of a plate. Loaded with shredded noodle, lamb, egg, and a bit of vegetables, it was all stir fried together to achieve a level of yellow-brown normally confined to UK cuisine. The flavour was subtle on first bite, but as I began to eat more and more mouthfuls it seemed to build upon itself, like amiodarone inhibiting its own metabolism, until a high tier of umami enjoyment was achieved. For those wondering, the lamb was not very ‘lamby’, and game-hesitants need not avoid.

The lamb stir fried noodles were only made better through the addition of the bonus toppings, chilli oil (which was delicious, and not very spicy) and evil green garlic (known to me for many years from the short videos of recipes involving water specifically from the Mississippi River, but not tasted until now), which added a nice tang and cut through the oiliness of the dish.

A bean curd side was also included, though it was not fantastic nor something I would’ve paid for.

Overall I had a pretty good meal, although again I have to wonder why a restaurant would offer a 5% discount for cash payments. Has this always been happening or have I only begun to notice it recently?

Categories
Malaysian

Rickshaw Food – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

I stood outside this restaurant pondering the menu for a brief few seconds before a somewhat elderly lady sitting on a bench told me that I should go inside and have their lunch special. At that point I felt too in-it to back out.

We had the curry chicken with egg noodles ($17.80), which came in a lunchtime special with a ice milk tea, pictured below. These noodles were excellent, with a strong peanut flavour (would it be more accurately described as satay curry noodles?), in its thick flavourful sauce. The chicken was juicy and delicious, and the portion provided was overall quite large. Absolutely satisfied with this choice.

I can’t tell you anything about this ice milk tea, which I did not have any of. My friend seemed satisfied.

The seafood dry laksa ($17.80) was not bad, though was not on the lunch menu and thus did not come with a drink. The noodles were thicker than that of the chicken noodles, and this dish’s sauce was also good though less so, and not something that actually reminded me of ‘laksa’. The mussels were very clean.

The Malay fried chicken wings ($15.80) came extremely hot, and burnt my friend’s fingers. They took a long time to cool down to an enjoyable temperature. Once tasted, I found the external skin to be crispy and tasty, however the internal meat I felt was lacking of flavour.

The satay chicken skewers ($16.80) were a bit odd, with the satay much more in the dipping sauce than in the chicken skewers themselves. The satay dipping sauce was very good, however.

Overall
Overall the meal was good, and I would definitely recommend the chicken curry noodles with its thick delicious sauce.

I’m a bit concerned about the 7% discount for cash payments though. Is that legal?

Rickshaw Food
8B/27-31 Belmore St, Burwood NSW 2134