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Chinese

Fuzhou City (福州城) Yummy Street Food – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Firstly, I think it’s important to recognise that this restaurant, to a Western outsider like myself, is just known as Yummy Street Food. However, to the cultured few who are able to read Chinese, it’s Fuzhou City Yummy Street Food, meaning that this restaurant serves specifically Fuzhou regional cuisine, which is not immediately apparent to the average Aussie bloke and wasn’t even apparent to me until I was writing this review.

We ate at Fuzhou Yummy Street Food one morning, in a packed restaurant where we had to sit next to a fridge behind a corner. We had a collection of small eats, which I will now describe one by one from what memory I can muster up.

The first thing we received from our order was this deep fried triangle that is really just known as a triangle cake 三角糕 ($3) in Chinese. It is a simple wedge of glutinous rice with a little bit of seasoning and unidentifiable vegetable inside, with a mild flavor a sense that it wasn’t fried in particularly fresh oil and an unenjoyable absence of a warm temperature.

This five-spice roll 五香卷 ($13.80), visually similar to a deep-fried lor bak, was not as good as what I’ve had at for example Malaysian restaurants of a similar nature. In my opinion the filling was quite loosely packed, poorly structured, with more vegetable than meat and with a less crispy bean curd wrapper than you would think from looking at it. It was, overall just not what I was expecting, which likely reflects more on my lack of understanding of Fuzhou regional cuisine than the quality of the food itself, but still this is my blog of my own personal views and I just didn’t enjoy it that much.

The Fuzhou pork wonton soup 肉燕 ($10.80) was interesting, and I’m glad I was able to try it, even though I didn’t enjoy it that much. Basically these little pork wontons are made with a wrapper made of pork skin rather than flour – quite a keto friendly dish and it’s just so deeply Chinese to make an entire dish out of pork. Contrary to the five spice savory roll these wontons were densely these wontons were densely packed with meat. I enjoyed the flavour of the soup, though ultimately I didn’t love the one thing about this dish that actually makes it special – the pork skin wonton wrapper. Despite the novelty that it provided, I guess I didn’t like the texture of it and how it felt like I really had to bite through the wrapper to get to the filling.

Another thing that we had and I didn’t love was the sweet and sour pork ribs with potato in garlic sauce 醉排骨(配土豆)($22.80) , which was not only uncharacteristically expensive for this restaurant but also majority potato as opposed to majority pork. The pork pieces were too highly battered, and the flavor too sweet rather than a balanced sweet and sour.

We also had a hot soy drink no sugar (无糖豆浆 热) ($3), which is what it is and I find it difficult to rate the same drink at a hundred different restaurants in Burwood.

Overall Neither of us particularly enjoyed our visit to Fuzhou City Yummy Street Food. While ordering we thought that there were many things we’d like to try on a subsequent visit however following our meal. I feel it is unlikely we’ll ever return. They really need to add “Fuzhou City” to the English signage.

Fuzhou City (福州城) Yummy Street Food
135 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW 2134
0424 008 633

Categories
Chinese

Mr Stonepot – Eastwood NSW Restaurant Review

Incepted by Goldthread’s YouTube videos on xiao long bao and claypot rice, my partner and I made our way to Eastwood’s Mr Stonepot with a view of having both. While we found out tonight that stonepot is not quite the same as claypot, we still had quite a nice time trying out somewhat novel and not quite traditional items on their menu. Service was rapid, and we were able to experience the full spectrum of having our number shouted out at the front door as well as completely silent service from our waiter – two extremes that would probably displease most Australian diners but were probably part of the restaurant’s focus on hyper-efficiency.

The pork ribs in blueberry sauce ($8.80) sounded quite fancy and promising, but ended up just being sweet and sour pork served in a tiny bowl on a much larger plate, dusted with icing sugar. The blueberry flavour was not readily apparent, and really only noticed when the dish had cooled to room temperature. Non-special.

The xiao long bao (8 for $9.80) at Mr. Stonepot are both cheap and good, though after watching the above-linked video on xiao long bao perhaps they were a bit overdoughed on the superior aspect. Nonetheless, the taste was really clear and porky, earning my partner’s prized rating of “probably the best [she’s] had recently”.

The apple flavour smoked cumin lamb ribs with rosemary and chilli and onion ($19.80), true to its name, featured all of those flavours and ingredients. The lamb ribs were actually extremely tender and well cooked, falling off the bone and consisting also of a delicious, molten layer of fat and skin surrounding the meat. Whilst the rosemary was on full display, the chilli, apple, smoke, and onion elements were only accessible through the detritus at the bottom of the dish – easily missed if one were to eat just the ribs themselves. These were quite exemplary ribs, even if the smoke flavour was a bit irritating.

The Singapore style barramundi ($19.80) was an entire barramundi cooked in the Singaporean sweet chilli style and served in a sizzling stone pot. Whilst this photo probably fails to capture it, I was very impressed by the sheer size of this dish, having paid more for single fillets of barramundi numerous times at Sydney’s cafes. Though an extremely generous serving for price, I can’t say that I was a big fan of the Singaporean sweet chilli flavour in this particular dish, and wish it were offered with a different sauce or base.

The abalone black truffle rice with abalone sauce ($7.80) was one of only two stonepot items that featured rice, ordered in a vain attempt to fulfill our desire for claypot rice. The unfortunate difference between claypot and stonepot, as we were quite to realise upon gleaming the menu, is that claypots are inherently porous, helping to add the crispy outer layer to rice. This rice, cooked in a stonepot, did not have such a crispy exterior layer. Only two pieces of abalone were present in this rice bowl, suitable for the price paid though disappointing to the mouth. The black truffle, second item of note in the dish’s title, was nowhere to be found, with only very standard mushroom slices and a whiff of what was probably truffle oil over real truffle itself identified. Despite these misgivings, this is a perfectly adequate fried rice style bowl for $8.

OTHER NOTES
The couple to our right had received a bug in their order of jellyfish, and on informing their waiter received an apology and a promise that they would take the dish back to the kitchen and remove the bug. Said couple was not pleased.

The couple on our left arrived 3 minutes before the kitchen closed at 8:30PM, was told strictly that they had 3 minutes to make their choices, following which the maitre d’ returned and ripped the order form and menu out of their hands. This didn’t seem to bother them, though, as the wife of the party had come in actively eating a grocery store brought ice cream, and then continued to eat lollies as she waited and a full prepacked salad once her food came, tell her husband “I’m trying to lose weight, I have to eat salad with each meal.”

VERDICT
If you are into loud environments without much social distancing, abrupt service, pretty good Chinese food, and a strict adherence to the kitchen’s last order time you will love Mr Stonepot.

Mr Stonepot Eastwood
205 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW 2122
(02) 9804 8688