Author: Ardi

Garyu Art and Dining

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Unfortunately, Garyu has closed its doors for good.

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Rating:

7.5 / 10 Taste: 7.5/10Price: $8.5 – $18 for lunch

Place: 7/10

Review:

Just in time for Easter, I present you Garyu Art and Dining. Garyu Art and Dining is located in the former site of Chikyu-Ya in Bondi Junction. For some reasons, the owner is still keeping Chikyu-Ya’s sign board outside the restaurant.

We went to Garyu for lunch as they have the daily lunch special for a bargain price of $8.5. Every day, they have a different daily lunch special. Since we came on a Friday, the daily special was Chicken Katsu. In addition to the usual main dish + rice dish, you will also receive salad with miso paste, miso soup, and three side dishes. The chicken katsu was nice and soft in the middle with crunchy, golden brown batter. It was definitely the best $8.5 meal deal you can get.

One of the more interesting items on Garyu’s menu was its One Plate Lunch ($11). The set didn’t include rice but you were given eight sushi rolls. You can choose between Salmon Avocado, California or Vegetarian rolls. You also needed to choose from Salmon Teriyaki, Kara-age Chicken, or Sashimi as your main dish. The non-optional part of the One Plate Lunch was its salad and miso soup. It was a seriously tough task to choose for just a ‘One Plate Lunch’.

There was a side dish worthy of a special mention at Garyu. It was their Okonomiyaki. It wasn’t like any ‘normal’ Okonomiyaki you found in any Japanese restaurants. These ones were shaped like a kebab stick and deep fried to perfection. The ingredients were just like any other okonomiyaki with squid and cabbage. How does it taste? Because of its shape, it actually had a lot more crunchy taste. Granted that it might not be as big as the normal okonomiyaki, but it was certainly enough to build your appetite.

The final verdict for Garyu Art and Dining

It was certainly value for money, having lunch at Garyu Art and Dining. Its daily lunch special is more than just rice and main dish.

Did you know?

Before Garyu opened in Bondi Junction, we were invited to a birthday party in its old site in Bondi Road. They had a special baby food for the occasion.

Details:

106 Ebley St, Bondi Junction NSW 2022

+61 2 9386 9534

Mar 31, 2013
Deep Fried Meatballs Recipe
I have been pondering about this for a while and I have decided to add a section in All About Food Blog dedicated to recipe. For my first post on recipe, I’ve decided to write about Deep Fried Meatballs. I actually got this recipe from the back of a premix flour and I know it’s not the ‘proper’ way to write a recipe, but I think it’s a good start. I am also not a chef, so the writing can be quite unorthodox.

We altered the recipe slightly to substitute Mackarel fish with Basa fish. I guess you can substitute the meat from the list of ingredients to whatever you like as long as you have the right weight for each.

So, what do we need for making this Deep Fried Meatballs?
1. 1 Litre Canola/Sunflower Oil
2. NILASARI Premix Bakso Goreng
3. 125gr Fresh Prawn
4. 125gr Fresh Basa Fish
5. 250gr Chicken Thigh Fillet
6. 2 Eggs
7. 35cc Water
How do we cook the Deep Fried Meatballs?

1. Blend all the meat together. You could use either a hand blender or a conventional one.

2. Further mix eggs, the premix, and water into the blend. The instruction specifies you to mix with hand mixer for this stage.

3. Prepare a wok filled with cold oil.

4. Dust your palms with any kind of flour. This will help prevent stickiness for the next stage.

5. Spoon out the blended dough and create a dough roll with your fingers.

6. Immerse the roll you have created into the oil prepared in step three.

7. Bring the wok to a low heat and fry the meatballs until golden brown.

8. You might want to lower the heat a little bit for your second batch as it would cook a lot quicker.

Some tips to make the perfect deep fried meatballs

First tip: Do not stuff the wok with too many meatballs

A bit of advice from a friend: If your meatballs shrink after you take it off the wok, it means you haven’t cooked them long enough.

Another tip for you: To reach the perfect golden brown, you need around 15 minutes of frying time.

Deep Fried Meatballs

What’s in the premix?

The box stated that for every 250 gr of the premix, it consisted of Tapioca Flour, Wheat Flour, Chicken Flavour, pepper and salt.
Mar 19, 2013
Kingsford Chinese Restaurant

Rating:

7 / 10

7.5 for the trinity!
Taste: 7/10

Price: $8.5 – $12 per person

Place: 5.5/10

Review:

This week’s review was arguably the hardest review I have ever done in my life. Kingsford Chinese Restaurant is iconic in many ways and I might be risking the wrath of hundred thousand UNSW students who had no doubt tasted the food in this restaurant during their uni years and beyond. This might be the cheapest restaurant you could ever get in Sydney! For the price, the food was arguably the best amongst the rest of ‘cheap’ restaurants in town.

So what’s the catch: Service! In this place, the owner is the queen. If you ever expressed your discontent to her, the most she’d reply would be ‘Meh’. I guess she doesn’t need snobbish customers when people still line up for her food. So, anyone from owner to waiters/waitresses doesn’t really care about you.

Anything else you need to know? The restaurant is tightly spaced on the first floor. If you come with seven or more people, the second floor is pretty spacious. You might also want to dry/clean up your cutleries as they might not be properly dried.

Let’s get down to business. Why do people want to come to this restaurant are they still willing to queue outside? It’s because of the trinity; the three dishes that 90% of visitors would at least have one of them.

The first one was the infamous Sang Tung Chicken ($11). I particularly liked this one because of the portion and also the sweet taste. They were seriously overabundant and tasty. The top part of the dish was actually boneless meats and the bones spread out under them.

We called the next one Long Bean Belacan ($11). On the menu it was called Braised Green Bean with Malaysian Chilli Sauce. Don’t worry; it’s not a spicy dish! Belacan is a fermented shrimp paste that usually comes with chilli and garlic. This was one od the few vegetable dishes I didn’t mind eating.

My favourite would be the Salt and Pepper Calamari. It is officially named Deep Fried Calamari with Pepper Salt ($11). It was the most awesome(est!) Calamari I have ever tasted. They were incredibly crunchy but still soft in the middle. Hint: Don’t eat this without rice!

Since we had a bit more people, we ordered two more dishes: Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup and Stir Fried Rice Noodles with Beef. The soup was so-so but it only costed us $3.5. The stir-fried noodles dish was acceptable for a dish under $10.

The final verdict for Kingsford Chinese Restaurant

Kingsford Chinese Restaurant provided the best tasting food for its price. There are three staple foods: Salt and Pepper calamari, Sang Tung chicken and Long Bean belacan. If you want very fast service, order those three and nothing else! Oh, and try not to complaint too much…

Why do I give a seven?

I feel that I need to justify my scoring system here.

Kingsford Chinese Restaurant might not give you the perfect dining experience. It might on the other be your worst nightmare if you were a difficult and picky customer. However in terms of quality and what you get for your dollars, it was an exceptional value.

Details:

426 Anzac Parade, Kingsford NSW 2032

+61 2 9663 1728

Mar 7, 2013
Ribs and Burgers

Rating:

7.5 / 10 Taste: 7.5/10

Price: $10 – $29 per main course

Place: 7/10 (well it’s still a food court, even if it’s a nice one!)

Review:

My love for anything ribs landed me to Ribs & Burgers. The restaurant was opened at the same time of the launch of the renaming of Star City to The Star. The Star branch of Ribs and Burgers is located at the café court. It restricted me from giving a higher point as the ambience is pretty much ‘food court’.

Straight off the bat, my eyes were directed to ‘The R&B Succulent Ribs Range’ and saw the Lamb Ribs for only $22 (with a choice of chips or cabbage salad)! To be honest, I was quite sceptical about it at first, considering most ribs places would charge in excess of $35 for a plate of ribs. My worries subsided as soon as I saw the wooden board with two racks of lamb ribs. From the taste department, they were also not beaten when compared to our regular ribs joints! Simple and delicious!

If lamb was not your culinary preference, you could have an option of Beef Ribs ($21) or Pork Ribs ($29). Both are still equally affordable, but instead of two racks, you only got one rack. Seriously, two racks of these would be overkill! For this, I only tasted the beef ribs. It was too thin to my liking, but it packed the same punch as the lamb ribs.

For a cheaper alternative (and less ribs) you can choose the Korean Ribs, a great value of $14 and you can choose between Beef or Pork ribs, cut and basted Korean-style. $14 ribs… seriously!

As the restaurant was named Ribs and Burgers, tasting the burger was a must! My choice went to Wagyu Burger (225gr, $18) from their ‘R&B Butchers Choice Burger Range’. When I saw the burger, it was big and appetising! The lower bun looked quite crushed (presumably by the heavy wagyu beef meat). The burger was a bit pink in the middle, because of the wagyu beef, so you might need to ask for a ‘well done’ if you dislike medium-grilled meat. Chock-full of goodies, including crunchy onion rings, I think the burger would be more than enough for lunch but barely met my requirements for dinner. It was a nice alternative if you didn’t want to eat the heavy ribs.

Ribs & Burgers also served the kids range with a complementary side of chips. We ordered Beef Burger ($7) for this one and I think the size was quite okay.

The final verdict for Ribs & Burgers

We were actually quite surprise that Ribs & Burgers delivered fantastic dishes! Best-priced ribs you can get for a weekend outing with friends and family.

Did you know?

You might want to go to Ribs and Burgers Neutral Bay branch for the restaurant experience.

The Star’s café court used to look very dark and boring. The refurbishment made The Star looked pretty vibrant now. The list of restaurants occupying its directory list includes a three-hat, a one-hat and several other highly regarded restaurants in Sydney.

Details:

The Star, Café Court

Level G, 80 Pyrmont St, Pyrmont NSW 2009

+61 2 9518 8825

http://ribsandburgers.com/au/

Feb 25, 2013
Wow Bulgogi

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Unfortunately, Wow Bulgogi has closed its doors.

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Rating:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 7/10

Price: $50 for the set

Place: 6.5/10

Review:

This will be a very short review of Wow Bulgogi Korean restaurant as we didn’t order individual dishes, but instead we ordered the BBQ plate set menu.

One of the bonus points of eating in Korean restaurant is the complimentary side dishes that they gave you. In Wow Bulgogi, there were five of them! Four of them were given as share plates that consisted of kimchi, marinaded tofu, mashed potatoes, and pickles and a plate of Korean coleslaw. They were all pretty okay with the tofu slightly better than the rest.

For the BBQ set menu, they have three options; easily named Special BBQ Set A – C. The set price starts from $50 and it is not advisable to choose set C unless you have more than two people. Just to let you know, you need to grill the meat yourself.

We ordered Special BBQ Set A and it consisted of marinaded beef ribs, marinaded beef with Korean traditional soy sauce, pork belly, ox tongue, and beef thin skirt. They were only lightly seasoned and didn’t capture my interest.

I was actually more interested in the dish we ordered for our son, steamed egg. It was nice and fluffy. There was another dish that I liked – but the name escaped my mind (such a slacker!!) – They were deep-fried nori rolls with glass noodle inside.

The final verdict for Wow Bulgogi

Wow Bulgogi restaurant is okay for an everyday dining, especially with five side dishes. However, there was nothing to warrant special recommendations to visit the restaurant if you are on the other side of the city.

Did you know?

There was a Korean restaurant in Rosebery that we used to go to that had very similar BBQ set menu. We went to Wow Bulgogi because we thought we would get similar quality dishes.

Unfortunately this restaurant has now closed down.

Details:

174 Anzac Parade, Kensington NSW 2033

+61 2 9697 9282

Feb 15, 2013
Sky Phoenix

Rating:

7 / 10 Taste: 7/10

Price: $20-30 per person

Place: 7.5/10

Review:

If you read my review on Kam Fook restaurant, this review is almost too similar to it. Just like Kam Fook, Sky Phoenix also serves Yum Cha, is located in one of the best shopping centres in Sydney, has identical price structures, and (most importantly!) friendly service.

We always start our Yum Cha session with prawns: prawn dumplings (har gow), prawn siomay (shu mai, shaomai – however you want to pronounce it) and prawn rice noodles. They are the three not-to-be-missed dishes when I tried a new yum cha restaurant.

I also liked to order Beef Sticky Rice. The sticky rice was wrapped in lotus leaf. It was one of the dishes that could fill up my tummy pretty quickly. From the outside, it might not look appetising. However, it was very dense and heavy with egg yolk, mushroom and meat wrapped inside the sticky rice.

If you like deep fried stuff, there are lots of options in Sky Phoenix, including whitebait. This time, tho, we ordered Taro Dumpling and the all-too-standard Spring Rolls. Taro dumpling is an interesting little dish. It was mashed taro deep fried with mushrooms, egg yolk and meat fillings.

Our only green of the day came from Steamed Gai Lan with Oyster Sauce. As a matter of fact, I could not find any other green vegetables other than this one.

If you still need more carbs after all those dishes, these next three would guarantee you leave with full tummy. Fried noodles are the obvious fast choice or you can also try carrot / turnip cake. However, my most favourite is Fried Rice Noodles with peanut, sesame and hoi sin sauce.

The next two dishes you would most likely need to order (or skip altogether). They were chicken feet and beef tripe. The good thing about it was the dishes were made to order, so more often than not you get nice tasting chicken feet. They were soft with a hint of sweet and chilli sauce.

In addition to the usual suspects (Mango Pancake and Mango Pudding), our desserts also consisted of Dou fu fa. Indonesians have different names for this dish, with the most common being Kembang Tahu or Tahu Tauwa. They are layers of silken tofu, served warm with sweet ginger syrup.

The final verdict for Sky Phoenix

If you want to eat Yum Cha without having a sense of rushed, Sky Phoenix is the place to be.

Did you know?

Yum Cha, directly translated from Cantonese, means ‘drink tea’. According to Wikipedia, this ritual of morning or afternoon tea is usually accompanied by eating dim sum dishes.

Details:

Level 6, Shop 6001 Westfield Sydney, 188 Pitt Street, Sydney 2000

+61 2 9223 8822

http://www.phoenixrestaurants.com.au/sky-phoenix/about

Jan 31, 2013