Category: Marrickville

Hung Cheung

Hung Cheung Review:

For daily commuter around Marrickville Road, there is a Chinese restaurant right in front of the Marrickville Town Hall. It stood out quite a bit as it is the last restaurant in the shopping strip in between two roads. The restaurant is called Hung Cheung and that’s our focus for this week.

Just like quite a lot of Chinese restaurants, they serve Yumcha in the morning and Chinese ‘fine dining’ in the evening with the likes of abalone and fresh seafood. We went there

Steamed Baby Abalone – MP – Ginger and Shallot

Considered as one of the finest ingredients in Chinese cuisine, well-established restaurants usually offer this on the menu. I like it to be cooked with ginger and shallot as it provides me with quite a fresh start to my dinner.

For that day, we paid around $10 for the baby abalone.

BBQ Duck (Half) – $21.80

In a new restaurant, we always come back to what we are most accustomed to. In a Chinese restaurant, BBQ duck would be one of them. Their BBQ duck was quite nice with the plum sauce on the side.

Fried E-Fu Noodles – $15.80

My son was expecting this to be the crispy version of E-fu noodles and so did I. Luckily he still wanted to eat it. The E-fu noodles portion was quite big.

Complimentary Desserts

It is always nice to receive a complimentary dessert from a restaurant. In well-established Chinese restaurants, you could always expect complimentary desserts of some sort.

The final verdict for Hung Cheung

Hung Cheung Chinese restaurant provided us with restaurant-quality Chinese food with decent options and complimentary desserts.

Do you think I should go?

Hung Cheung is quite an established business for people around the Marrickville area. There are not many (if any) Chinese restaurants with a similar offering in the area.

Rating for Hung Cheung:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $59.40 for three dishes

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

338 Marrickville Road, Marrickville 2204

+61 2 9560 4681

Feb 6, 2018
Coffee Tank

Coffee Tank Review:

I had a catch up for a brunch with a friend of mine who is also a coffeeholic, WPF. He suggested we went to Coffee Tank because he has never been there. It was just a stroll from our place. Coffee Tank is a relatively new coffee shop in Marrickville (more like in between Marrickville and Dulwich Hill).

They have quite the ‘usual suspects’ in a cafe’s menu. Looking around the restaurant, they are also pretty big on the vegan and organic bowl stuff.

Fill the Tank Brekkie – $19 – eggs, bacon, chorizos, mushrooms and haloumi served with toasted sourdough

This is the biggest dish on the menu. They put in quite a generous serving of everything. I guess they are focusing more on the quantity in this dish.

Morning Bowl – $17.50 – Kale, quinoa, mushrooms, haloumi, sesame-coated avocado, pomegranate and poached eggs

Kale and avocado have been popping up in Sydney’s cafe scene in recent years. Throw in pomegranate and quinoa and you get the trend of 2017 in one dish.

Benny Stack – $17.50 – English muffin, spinach, mushrooms, poached eggs and salmon topped with hollandaise sauce

Benny stack is one of the more traditional brekkie options at the cafe. You can probably measure how good a cafe is based on its eggs benedict. It is a safe bet.

The final verdict for Coffee Tank

We had quite an enjoyable brunch at Coffee Tank. However, I.

Do you think I should go?

Coffee tank seems to be the destination for people living in the area. However, they are facing a lot of competitions with the sheer number of brunch places in Inner West.

Rating for Coffee Tank:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 6.5 / 10

Price: around $20 per person

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

1/395 Marrickville Road, Marrickville 2204

+61 433 468 568

Jan 26, 2018
Eat Fuh

Eat Fuh Review:

“That’s not how you spell ‘Eat Fuh‘”. That’s what my little one said the first time we visited this restaurant… Everyone burst into laughter!

We were interested in dining at Eat Fuh in Marrickville because of the gigantic stockpot that can be seen from the outside.

Their menu is quite simple with a few different noodle soups, salad noodles, and rice dishes.

Fuh Noodle Soup – $16 – bone broth cooked with star anise, cardamom, cloves cinnamon, ginger, onions, served with thick rice noodles and garnished with coriander, basil, shallot and sprouts

Obviously, when you are at Eat Fuh, you must order Pho (that’s how most Australians write it ^_^). We ordered the large one with rare beef and flank. The regular version is $2 less and you can also have the chicken option.

If you want to add more types of meat like tendons and/or tripe and/or meat balls, you will need to add an extra $1

Beef stew noodle soup – $17 – lean beef and beef shin stewed with seasonal vegetables, ginger, lemongrass, star anise, cinnamon and served with chewy rice noodles, garnished with coriander, basil, shallot and sprouts

Beef stew is the one that piqued my interest. The taste was pretty strong. However, in this cold weather, the soup really warmed me up!

Vanilla creme brulee with vanilla ice cream and strawberry – $10

They had quite a nice little theatrics when serving the creme brulee. They actually charred the brulee with blow torch in front of you!

You can have an option of Caramel or coconut pandan for brulee or sticky date pudding.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVGnqPmjcMj/?taken-by=aaf_blog

The final verdict for Eat Fuh

Big portion and hot soup are the perfect combination for this cold winter days. Eat Fuh delivered a nice dining experience.

Did you know?

I’m not sure whether it’s substantiated or not, but one comment on Zomato mentioned about the use of MSG in their soup at Eat Fuh. MSG has no adverse impacts on me, but if you do have the allergies, I guess you need to stay away from it (or ask not to have msg, if possible?)

Rating for Eat Fuh:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $14 – $17 per portion

Place: 8.5 / 10

Details:

274 Illawarra Road, Marrickville 2204, Sydney

+61 2 8385 3459

Eat Fuh on Facebook

Jun 23, 2017
The Henson

The Henson Review:

In the last few years, we have seen a trend in Sydney where pubs tried to transform their image to a more family-oriented establishment. One of the more successful pubs to have transformed their image is The Henson in Marrickville. They transformed the back of the pub into this family-friendly garden with a spacious place for the little ones to play games including ball pit.

This week’s review of the Henson actually came from our two visits to the restaurant: one in the afternoon and one at night time.

‘K.F.C.’ Haloumi w smokey BBQ sauce – $8

The Haloumi cheese was shaped like chicken nuggets. It was looking okay-ish until we tasted the smokey BBQ sauce… whoa!

Avocado and Lime Smash – $6 and White corn chips -$4

We were planning to just order the avocado and lime smash. Then, the lady at the counter asked us whether we wanted the chips to go with the avocado. I guess it was pretty reasonable to have the chips!

½ Kilo Buttermilk Chicken Wings, verde picante – $17

The buttermilk chicken wings were the reason why I wanted to visit the Henson in the first place. In the picture below it looked like a regular chicken wings. However, I think it was the salsa sauce that got everyone hooked… just like the smokey BBQ sauce for the Haloumi cheese… better yet, mix the salsa with BBQ sauce!

‘Knuckle’ Sandwich – $19 – wagyu brisket, fennel slaw, swiss cheese, smokey mayo on rye + chips

I had the sandwich on my second trip to the Henson. I think it was the perfect lunch meal. It wasn’t the ‘traditional’ pull-apart brisket but it was more of a soft-textured beef. It was pretty good, but the sandwich was a tad small for me.

Dirty Bird – $26 – ½ flame grilled ten spice free-range chicken, yellow rice & raw slaw

My wife ordered the dirty bird. It was quite big and quite frankly too spicy for my taste buds. It’s also quite rare to have yellow rice in Sydney.

There is quite an extensive list of kids menu at the Henson. The two dishes below were from that list.

Beef Burger w/ cheese + chips – $10

Macaroni with Sugo Sauce + cheese – $6

Milkshake – $4 (kid’s size) – Salted Caramel, Real Vanilla Malt

The picture below is for the adult-sized milkshake.

The final verdict for The Henson

The Henson is a great pub restaurant to go to if you have small children in the party. We think that the finger food was a slightly better value than the main meal.

Did you know?

You should try their mulled cider ($6)… it’s a pretty good drink to be enjoyed in winter time! Also, there is a condiment called Tamari… get that! So Good!

Rating for The Henson:

8.0 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $14 – $30 per main dish

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

91 Illawarra Road, Marrickville NSW 2204

+61 2 9569 5858

http://www.thehenson.com.au/

Aug 9, 2016
Pho phd

Review:

PHD in Marrickville is named one of the best pho restaurants in Sydney by Noodlies.com and chopinandmysaucepan.com. This time we didn’t go to PHD, but rather its spinoff that is located just a few blocks away, called Pho phd restaurant. As the name stated, the restaurant specialises more on its pho.

Milk and Soda with egg yolk – $4.50

I must say that this drink is not for everyone… especially when thinking about egg yolk was dunked into your milk and soda! It is really an acquired taste.

There is a drink in Indonesia that is pretty similar to this called STMJ with milk, egg yolk, and honey and substituting soda for ginger.

Thai-style Fish Cake – $10 – Tasty marinated grilled fish paste on prawn crackers, served with sweet chilli sauce

I think $10 for four fish cakes and crackers is a bit steep. It tasted just like any other fish cakes.

Crispy Skin Chicken with Tomato Rice – $13 – Crispy skin chicken Maryland fired to crispy golden brown served with our special dipping fish sauce

Despite being the dish that I ordered, I failed to remember how it tasted. It wasn’t particularly bad and wasn’t particularly memorable either.

Pho with Medium rare beef and combination (Extra Large) – $19 – Pho dish served with tender medium rare thinly sliced premium beef in beef broth and combination of beef brisket, beef balls and beef tripe.

The regular-sized pho is actually the cheapest amongst other pho restaurants I have reviewed in this blog. However, I was more interested in the extra-large pho. It was seriously large!

The final verdict for Pho phd Restaurant

Despity being the younger sibling for the famous PHD, Pho phd restaurant failed to live up to our expectations. The exciting novelty of extra-large pho was quickly subdued by indifference.

Rating for Pho phd Restaurant:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $12 – $19 for the pho

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

260 Marrickville Road, Marrickville NSW 2204

02 9090 2869

http://phophd.com.au/

Oct 20, 2015
Sakae Japanese Kitchen

Review:

One evening, we cannot decide which restaurant to go for dinner. So, we have to ask for a help to our friends, collectively known as Zomato. I saw one restaurant in Marrickville that pretty stood out. It was a Japanese restaurant, named Sakae Japanese Kitchen, which had a rating of 4.3. Marrickville is universally known for its Vietnamese restaurants. So, we were pretty curious about this Japanese restaurant.

The restaurant looked unassuming from the outside and the décor was quite minimalist. The staff was very friendly and we were happy to see that none of the mains cost more than $20 on the menu.

Salmon Nigiri Sushi – $4 and Salmon thin roll – $4.50

Obviously these two are the indicators of a truly great Japanese restaurant. Our little one finished it and we were pretty pleased about their size and taste.

Beef Tataki with Sakae special sauce – $9.80 – Thinly sliced rare beef

$10 for this beauty? We’ll take it anytime! Seriously tho… portion was big and taste was great!

Natto thin roll (6 pcs) – $4.00 – Japanese traditional fermented sticky soy beans

I ordered this out of curiosity. Natto is one of those things that need an acquired taste to enjoy. This was my first exposure to natto and I could understand why a lot of people hate it. Personally, I don’t mind the taste and managed to adjust my palate to accommodate the ‘natto’ taste.

Agedashi Eggplant & Prawn Wonton – $7.50 – Deepfried eggplant and prawn wonton in Agedashi sauce

This dish was on the ‘special’ section. It is the lesser known sibling of Agedashi Tofu and another ‘first try’ for me. I actually liked how they combined the eggplant and prawn wonton. You just need to add rice for the dish to be a ‘complete dish’.

Yakizakana Entrees – $9.80 – Grilled half mackerel lightly salted

We ordered this because of the picture on the menu was pretty inviting! Despite being pretty interesting, the mackerel lost out in the battle to become our favourite dish.

Sakae Special Sashimi – Scampi – $5.80

Scampi sashimi at special price? who wouldn’t want that! What’s the catch? You have to order it with a main meal.

Spider Roll – $7.80 – Soft shell crab and vegetables with mayonnaise

The spider roll was pretty big. They were generously sprinkled with fish roe.

Mixed Katsu Don – $12.80 – Specially cooked fish, prawn and pork cutlet with onion and egg on top of rice

Katsu don is generally the dish that I use to fill up my tummy in a Japanese restaurant, considering that the sushi and sashimi are generally enjoyed in small pieces.
In Sakae Japanese Kitchen, the katsu don was pretty big and the mixed katsu don was even better with a variety of cuts on a plate!

Note: You can swap the tonkatsu with chicken katsu.

Tempura Udon / Soba – $14.80 – Noodle with tempura prawns and veggies.

I did not order the dish and had no capacity to try it either. It looked pretty good tho!

The final verdict for Sakae Japanese Kitchen

Sakae Japanese Kitchen was a pretty small restaurant with incredibly friendly staff! The food was cheap, the portion was pretty big and ,most importantly, the taste was surprisingly good.

Did you know?

Sakae has two other restaurants in Eastwood with a slightly different concept: as a Yakiniku House and Japanese Dining Bar.

Rating for Sakae Japanese Kitchen:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $10 – $18 per main dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

303 Illawarra Road, Marrickville 2204

02 9559 7873

http://www.sakae.com.au/

Aug 25, 2015