Author: Ardi

The Malaya – Signature Menu
We were celebrating our friend’s birthday recently at The Malaya restaurant. The restaurant is located in King Street Wharf, near Darling Harbour Sydney. On this occasion, we chose the Signature Menu, it’s a banquet-style menu that costs $71 per person. Interestingly, this value doesn’t include dessert. You will need to add an extra $10 for 2 desserts.

Entree at The Malaya

Salt and Pepper Prawns – Prawns, battered, deep-fried and tossed in fresh chilli, salt, cracked black pepper and shallots.

Salt and pepper dish is a staple in most Chinese restaurants in Sydney. However, you can tell the Malaya’s dish was a cut above your usual Chinese restaurant. There was also a bit of kick from the sliced chilli.

Spanner Crab San Choy Bow – Spanner crab meat stir-fried with water chestnut, onion and shallots. Served in a lettuce leaf.

San Choy Bow is traditionally a second dish in the 2-course Peking Duck. In Malaya, instead of duck, they use Spanner Crab for the meat. Personally, I couldn’t tell the difference in taste between the two as the water chestnut and onion were pretty dominant.

Satay Beef – Singaporean style marinated pieces of beef, skewered, barbequed and served with a satay sauce made from fresh ground peanuts and chilli.

The satay beef was pretty delicious. If only I could get more skewers…

Otak Otak – White fish minced with chilli and spices, wrapped in a banana leaf and barbequed.

Otak otak is usually made from a fish called Tenggiri (or Spanish Mackerel). The fish wasn’t usually spicy, but instead, they have a spicy sauce on the side. However, this otak otak was blended with the spices and was the spiciest dish of the night. Just in case you are wondering, the banana leaf isn’t meant to be eaten.
Main Course at The Malaya

Coconut Beef Rendang – Indonesian style beef curry with an aromatic dry coconut base.

The Indonesian beef rendang was pretty decent. The beef itself was very tender. I love how they cooked the beef.

Kapitan Chicken – Penang style curry sauce made with fresh chilli and coconut milk served with lightly battered pieces of chicken thigh fillet.

The kapitan chicken was also pretty good. However, I wasn’t too sure about having two curries for main dishes. I’d probably enjoy it more if one of them was something other than coconut-based.

Szechuan Eggplant – Marinated eggplant stir-fried dry style with shallots, cashew nuts and dry chillies. Served on a bed of Chinese water spinach.

Szechuan eggplant ended up being the dish that I enjoyed the most at the restaurant. There were quite a lot of things going on in one plate and they were all fabulous.

Unlike the entrees, the main courses arrived at the same time and accompanied by a bowl of rice.

Desserts at The Malaya

We were wondering why the desserts were not included in the package. It probably turned out well as most people would already be full after the main courses. For those of us, still wanting desserts, we ordered a couple more to share. But then again, if you see the portioning, you’d probably get better value desserts elsewhere around Darling Harbour.

Assorted Sorbet – $12 – Coconut, Mango and Pineapple.

The three scoops of ice cream were pretty miniscule.

Sago Pudding – $5 – Sago and coconut pudding flavoured with palm sugar and topped with coconut sorbet.

Luckily, this was not the first time seeing sago pudding in a shot glass. The other occasion was in an all-you-can-eat restaurant in Indonesia. The portion of this dish was super tiny.

The final verdict for The Malaya

The signature menu at The Malaya restaurant was a pretty decent set. It must be noted that the desserts were forgettable.

Do you think I should go?

There aren’t many upscale South East Asian / Malaysian restaurants in Sydney. I think they are the only Malaysian restaurant with a harbour view in Sydney.

Rating for The Malaya:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $71 per person

Place: 8.5 / 10

Details:

39 Lime Street, King Street Wharf, Sydney 2000

+61 2 9279 1170

https://themalaya.com.au/
Feb 15, 2019
Rashays Darling Harbour

Rashays Darling Harbour Review:

At the end of 2017, we reviewed Rashays Punchbowl. Shortly after, they decided to revamp their menu and removed one of our favourites: loaded fries. There are a few in the menu that they kept, including chicken with their special sauce.

On this occasion, we went to the Darling Harbour restaurant. It is located in a prime spot, but they still face tough competition from the other steak houses around the area. Their biggest differentiation is the fact that their menu is all halal.

Big Daddy – $65.90 – Lamb rib rack, short beef ribs, 180gr New York Steak & grilled chicken with smoky sticky BBQ sauce and chips

Big daddy is one of the big attractions at Rashays. They put every (almost) every protein that they have on a plate. While the steak and the ribs were at their usual quality, we felt that the chicken was a little on the dry side.

Wagyu Scotch Fillet – $45 – 300g MSA, 450-day grain-fed black label wagyu marble score 4+ from Darling Downs, QLD. Served with garlic & herb butter, chips, choice of side

The wagyu scotch fillet is $10 more than the sirloin steak. I think it’s worth putting in $10 more for a better quality meat. We also swapped chips with mashed potatoes and add a corn cob as a side.

They also have a few off-the-menu steak cuts in store for those wanting a more premium quality meat.

Prawns – $14 – Crumbed prawns with tartare sauce

The prawn is supposed to be served as an entrée. However, we ordered this extra because we weren’t expecting the big daddy to be pretty small to be shared by 2 people.

Strawberry Bubblegum – $10 – Strawberry bubblegum & fairy floss soda float with vanilla ice cream

This is obviously the one kids would love the most!

The final verdict for Rashays Darling Harbour

The revamped menu probably gave their regulars a much-needed refresher. However, we still think the quality was pretty similar.

Do you think I should go?

If you are looking for an affordable and halal steak, then look no further!

Rating for Rashays Darling Harbour:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $25 – $65 steak

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

Harbourside Shopping Centre

Level 2, Shop 430B, 2-10 Darling Drive Sydney NSW 2000

13000 13000

https://www.rashays.com/

Feb 8, 2019
Restaurant Locavore
This week we will write about our experience in dining at one of the best in Australasia, Restaurant Locavore. This restaurant is sitting at number 21 in the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants for 2018. They were a few spots off the world’s top 100 list. To give you a bit more context, out of all of the restaurants in Australia, only Attica and Brae ranked higher than this restaurant!

This will be a super long review because they served us 7 main courses, 2 desserts, 8 ‘snacks’, 8 chocolates and 1 closing dish for a whopping 26-course degustation lunch. The official menu only stated 9 dishes, priced at Rp 1.200.000,- or equal to AUD 150.

They call it ‘Snacks’

Upon arrival at the restaurant they gave us a couple of very pretty flower arrangement that they called ‘Cana’. What we didn’t know that the flowers were all edible! They gave us a hibiscus spray, and kecombrang puree with drops of cricket oil. Super fancy and we were just starting up!
To shorten this review considerably, I won’t go to too much details on the snacks. Each and every one of them were masterfully prepared. The mango and bengkoang dish was quite sweet with a hint of spicy. The pumpkin leaf was pretty filling despite it being crunchy. Then you got the sophisticated black rice blini that had a million taste.

It got better from there, the mushroom custard was very yummy with the distinct flavour of native kelor leaves. Then they had BBQ mango. It was sweet and super smoky. The mango kombucha was a sweet addition to the dish. The tomato sorbet and tomato consommé was quite an eye-opening. The dish was hot and cold at the same time. It was super refreshing!

The last snack was pretty interesting. There were three condiments for the brioche bun: chili jam, cashew nut puree, and freeze dried leftover vegetables… yes, you read that right: they even reused their leftover vegetables! Awesome!

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Main Dish at Locavore

After what seems to be an eternity of snacks, we come to the first dish of the day. Cut the crab was the official name. They transformed the mud crab into a cold salad with jellied crab consomme. They then put a layer of pickled young papaya and bengkoang (instead of mango as the menu suggested). Grated bonito katsuobushi was put as a finishing touch.

We then have Foie Gras Kambing, aka Goat Liver mousse. To complement the strong taste, they introduced pickled wild berries. On top of the foie gras, they had rice flour cracker and a sprinkle of green veggies. They had two garnishes to finish off: first they grated smoked goat heart then sprayed the dish with Rosella kombucha vinaigrette.
The third dish, jagung bakar, paid homage to a snack that most Indonesian loves, grilled corn. The twist here is they use coffee-miso emulsion and coffee kombucha reduction! They also used charred baby corn and added a little termite powder on top of it.

My son loved it so much that they actually gave him an extra plate (and that’s after having most of mine as well)!

The next dish was supposed to be Cabbage and Bacon. However, we had it changed to a vegetarian version. For this, they gave us Banana blossom noodles. The ‘noodles’ were doused with white curry turmeric leaves, that tasted traditionally Indonesian with deep fried green leaves as garnish.

The Signature Dish

Their signature dish is Into The Sawah. Dish dish is a story of everything that live around the Ubud’s rice field. They consisted of the following: Heritage galuh rice porridge, 64 degrees duck egg yolk, snails, frog leg abon, fern tips, wild flowers.

They boiled the duck egg yolk at exactly 64 degrees for 1 hour. That resulted in some kind of state between solid and runny.
Gurita Bakar is our penultimate main course. They twice-cooked the main ingredient, the octopus (or gurita): boiled and then grilled to perfection. They also introduced Mexican-inspired mole using a traditional ingredient, kluwak. Enhancing the taste, they used the sourness of belimbing wuluh and freshness of timun tikus with the pickled spring onions.

Quail, or Burung Puyuh, was the last main for the day. They used two parts of the quail: the quail breast, roasted to perfection, and the leg that was barbecued and glazed. They used smoked pumpkin and charred pineapple gel to complement the dish.

Desserts at Locavore

Looking at the menu, the desserts sounded pretty traditional. Bubur tape is a fermented rice porridge and boni is a traditional fruit from Bali.

Traditionally, bubur tape is warm. At Locavore, the dish was served at room temperature, except for the palm sugar ice cream. Interestingly, the ice cream wasn’t really that cold either!

In addition to the porridge and ice cream, they also have fermented black rice foam (that purple blob in the middle). Probably I would have liked this more if it was a tad sweeter.

If you are wondering about the yellow shavings at the top of the ice cream, that shaving was sugar cured egg yolk!

Boni or blood berry is a native fruit of Bali. They also have pomelo, or what the locals called Balinese orange. They also used pickled rose petals and hibiscus leaves as garnishes. The resulting dish was this complex dessert that was sweet, sour, crunchy, cold and quite heavy – especially being the 17th dish of the afternoon!

After Desserts at Locavore

We were almost packed up for the afternoon before the restaurant manager mentioned there were still a couple more dishes to go. Some members of my group almost gave up upon hearing the news.

The first ‘surprise’ was eight pieces of chocolate in different textures. They used a traditional game board called ‘congklak‘ to serve them. Some of the more notable ones were coffee rice cookie, kaffir lime krokant and dried pineapple dark chocolate.

We finally came to an end with the Mangosteen ice cream. Served on a coconut husk, the dish consisted of fresh longan, coconut flesh, nata de coco and coconut cream with lime skin shaving as garnish.

It was incredibly refreshing and tasty. Somehow we forgot that it was the 26th dish that we had that day.

Drinks at Locavore

They do have drink pairings for the lunch service, but we didn’t go for them. We opted for the normal drinks and cocktails on the menu. One of them was the ‘ashes’ that involved dipping burned cassia bark into your drink!
The final verdict for Restaurant Locavore

Restaurant Locavore is without a doubt the best restaurant in Indonesia. It is comparable to, or probably even better than, most high end dinings in Australia.

The staffs were super friendly and super attentive. The massive plus is that the restaurant welcomes children as well! – I must say it’s super rare for a fine dining restaurant.

Do you think I should go?

Definitely!

Rating for Restaurant Locavore:

9.5 / 10

Taste: 9.5 / 10

Price: Rp 1.200.000,00 + 21% tax ~ $150 degustation menu

Place: 9.5 / 10

Details:

10 Jalan Dewi Sita, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

+62 3619 777 33

https://www.locavore.co.id
Feb 4, 2019
Ippuku

Ippuku Review:

We went to Ippuku just before our new year holidays. Ippuku is a brand new cafe in Rosebery that serves Japanese-style food and drinks. Back then, they were only open for breakfast and lunch. However, they have since expanded their opening hours to dinner service as well.

They don’t have many food options, however I think it could already cater for most of their customers’ need. They also have a selection of dishes from their display cabinet.

Karaage – $8 – Japanese Fried Chicken with Kewpie Mayo

One of the tests of a good Japanese restaurant is their Karaage. The karaage here was pretty decent.

Nippon Poke Bowl – $18 – Atlantic Salmon, Seasoned Sushi Rice, Toasted Sesame Seeds, Kale, Cucumber, Edamame, Pickled Vegetables. Served with Miso Soup

I was quite surprised to see this menu… or at least why it was called this way. The poke bowl was very fresh and the plating was pretty lively.

Tofu Balls – $18 – Poached Egg, Organic Red Quinoa, Crispy Kale, Smashed Avocado, BBQ Grilled Broccolini + Harissa Yoghurt Dressing

One thing on the menu that we were very interested about was the tofu balls. The description that they had was very intriguing.

The tofu balls ended up being the dish that we liked the most. It was a complete dish with crunchy, sweet, savoury elements. It was also pretty filling.

Latte

The final verdict for Ippuku

Ippuku is a decent little cafe at the heart of Rosebery. They are also reasonably priced

Do you think I should go?

There are quite a few cafes at Rosebery. However, this cafe was the only one dedicated to a Japanese cafe menu.

Rating for Ippuku:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $10 – $18 per dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

1/1-3 Dunning Avenue, Rosebery 2018

[email protected]

https://www.ippuku.com.au

Jan 30, 2019
Chinese Dumpling Master

Chinese Dumpling Master Review:

If you think you have seen a deja vu with this post, you can be forgiven. We reviewed a very similar Chinese restaurant that championed dumpling and also located in Newtown last month.

Chinese Dumpling Master is located more on the Enmore side. The restaurant itself was quite small. You usually won’t miss it because there is always a queue to dine in at the restaurant.

If you look at some of the menu items below, you will understand why.

Chicken, Onion & Coriander – $12.8 – Pan-fried Dumpling

When you named your restaurant ‘Chinese Dumpling Master’, the odds won’t be too high for people to order dumplings. They have quite a few options for the dumpling. We chose the chicken, onion and coriander on that day. You could also have the dumpling boiled, steamed or pan-fried.

The pan-fried dumpling was a tad too oily. However, the taste was spot on.

If you order a dozen of the dumplings, it would only cost just a little over $1. Even at $7.80 for a half portion, it works out to only be $1.30 a piece… a bargain!

Xinjiang Fried Noodle with Beef – $13.8

Just like the dumpling, the noodle was also pretty oily. The portion was pretty generous, considering it costs less than $15.

Shallot Pancake – $8.8 – 8 pieces

Strangely enough, the one that I would expect to be super oily, turned out to be the least of the dishes that we ordered on the night. The pancake was very nice and crunchy. However, I think I would rather get more dumplings than having these pancakes as the dumpling was actually cheaper than the pancakes.

The final verdict for Chinese Dumpling Master

Chinese Dumpling Master offered good dumplings with very reasonable price. However, you will most likely be forced to wait for a table unless you are eating an early dinner there.

Do you think I should go?
If you can afford to wait, then yes. However, there are a few Chinese options around the area that has a similar offering.

Rating for Chinese Dumpling Master:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $11 – $16 per main dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

Shop 2 /63-71 Enmore Road, Newtown 2042

+61 2 8959 5725

Dec 13, 2018
Holy Duck

Holy Duck Review:

Personally, I have never been a big fan of going to Kensington Street. Finding a parking can be quite challenging. Public transport is probably the best option. So, when a friend suggested us to have dinner at Holy Duck, I was actually quite intrigued at the prospect of coming to Kensington Street. It was the end of winter and it was raining that day.

The menu had quite a few ducks on but they also served some of the usual Chinese dishes with a twist.

Crispy Rice Balls – $12 – with seasonal salad & Shanghainese sweet & sour sauce (4 pcs)

The crispy rice balls were a decent dish to start the night. They put a generous serving of salad. The rice balls were crunchy and soft at the same time. It was delightful.

Signature Crispy Duck – $68 – whole duck served with steamed pancakes, hoisin sauce, cucumber & shallots

Signature crispy duck is probably the dish you would want to try in a restaurant called Holy Duck. The duck came with the usual sides: steam pancakes, hoisin sauce, cucumber and shallots. However, unlike your usual Chinese restaurant, the crispy duck was very crispy with very tender meat.

If you are not in a big group, you might want to try the quarter or half a duck instead.

Seafood Ee-fu Noodles – $29 – cooked in lobster bisque garnished with butter, ginger & shallots

The seafood ee-fu noodles was meant to be ordered for our little one. However, after reading the ingredients and looking at the actual plate on the table, I think we also want to try it!

It was quite a big plate of noodles with quite a lot of seafood on it… and did I mention it was cooked in lobster bisque?

Steamed Chinese Greens – $17 – with oyster sauce.

Steamed Chinese greens is a dish that we always tried to order for our ‘green’ plate. Just like the other plates, the portion was quite generous.

Handmade Pink Salt & Black Sesame Egg & Spinach Tofu – $19

The egg and spinach tofu came up last and by that time we were already quite full. I think we ordered a tad too much. The dish itself was pretty good.

The final verdict for Holy Duck

Holy Duck’s signature crispy duck is the thing that made our trip to Kensington Street worthwhile.

Do you think I should go?

If you like duck, I’m sure you are going to enjoy their Signature Crispy Duck.

Rating for Holy Duck:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $40 – $50 per person

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

The Old Rum Store, 2-10 Kensington Street, Chippendale

+61 2 9281 0080

http://www.holyduck.com.au/

Nov 29, 2018