Category: Newtown

A really vibrant suburb with a host of Thai restaurants

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
Dumpling King

Dumpling King Review:

Dumpling King is a Chinese restaurant located in Newtown, Sydney. The restaurant is quite unassuming and look pretty ordinary from the outside.

Shallot Pancake – $10.90

We always ordered shallot pancake in a Chinese restaurant because it has always been my little one’s favourite. The shallot pancake in the restaurant was pretty huge.

Pan Fried Chicken and Cabbage Dumplings – $12.50 – 12 pieces

I guess when you are in a place called ‘Dumpling King’, the only thing that mattered was the dumplings. They have a few different options for the dumplings and our choice went to the chicken and cabbage, pan fried. 12 dumplings for $12 is not a bad deal at all!

Shandong Chicken – $19.90 – Crispy Skinned Chicken in a delicious brown vinegar and shallot sauce

Shandong chicken is my staples when eating at a Chinese restaurant. We received quite a decent portion. However, the chicken was still sub-par compared to their dumplings.

Stir Fried Handmade noodles with lamb – $14.90

The other menu that we felt we had to try was the handmade noodles. Their noodles are actually pretty good and not too oily.

You could also have beef and chicken for the noodles.

The final verdict for Dumpling King

$12 for 12 dumplings is a good value, regardless of its taste. However, the dumplings at Dumpling King were pretty big and tasty.

I would be pretty happy if we were only ordering the noodles and dumplings the next time we visited the restaurant. Those two stood out above the rest.

Do you think I should go?
If you are around the area and are in need of a good dumpling, then by all means!

Rating for Dumpling King:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $11 – $20 per dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

194 King Street, Newtown 2042

+61 2 9557 2188

Dumpling King on facebook

Nov 5, 2018
Loaded by BL

Loaded by BL Review:

I’ve been attending a few short courses at Sydney Uni in the last couple of years before I realised there was quite an interesting burger joint just around the corner from where I was taking the classes. The restaurant is called Loaded by BL. BL is an acronym for Bar Luca, one of the well-known bars in CBD.

The interesting thing about Loaded by BL is that instead of many pictures of burgers, you will face a large blackboard with lots of texts. These are the different combinations you can have for their burgers.

Step 1: You start off with 10 different bases that you can get. It ranges from $4 – $8.
Step 2: You will then need to figure out whether you need extra meat from the 11 different things that you can choose from. The price range is $3 – $5.
Step 3: Add your cheese (from 10 different options). Some of the bases will include the cheese. In that case, your first one will be free. Otherwise, the cheese will cost between $2 to $4.
Step 4: This step is if you need optional extras or special configuration, like gluten-free bun. They have 29 different things ranging from 50c to $4.
Step 5: Get your sauce. There are 15 different of them. The first one is free, but if you need extra, it would be $1 each.

If the options above too challenging for you, they provide eight premade ones for you to choose from.

Cheeseburger – $8 – Beef pattie, choice of cheese, choice of sauce

Combo – $4 – add fries and drink

You can make any of your burgers a meal (that is adding fries and a can of drink) for an extra $4.

The Blame – $16 – Cheeseburger, poutine, maple bacon & maple aioli

Bar Luca calls this ‘Blame Canada’ with the overabundance serving of maple aioli and maple bacon. In Loaded by BL, the burger is simply known as ‘The Blame’. You will need to blame it once you step on the scale!

Tater Tots – $5 – with maple aioli

I was quite happy with the size of my tater tots. For $5 you get a big box of it with an extra sauce.

The final verdict for Loaded by BL

It is always fun building your own burger. Loaded by BL gives you that opportunity. Just be careful you don’t stack it up too high… or the bill will follow.

Do you think I should go?
It might be a bit confronting in your first foray into Build-Your-Own burger. However, once you get the hang of it, this place is pretty cool.

Rating for Loaded by BL:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $8 – $16

Place: 8.5 / 10

Details:

170 – 172 Missenden Road, Newtown 2042

+61 2 9565 5276

Loaded by BL

Aug 2, 2018
Solo Newtown – Brunch

Solo Newtown Review:

When you heard the name ‘Solo’, most of you would probably associate it with the word ‘single’ or with that Star Wars movie that everyone talked about (for probably the wrong reasons). However, Solo Newtown is an Indonesian restaurant based in Newtown that took its name from a city in Indonesia, Solo – shortened version of Surakarta. Surakarta is a city filled with rich history and traditional cuisines. We have written about the city of Solo and its culinary options last year.

Their menu is separated into three different lot: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As we visited Solo Newtown at around lunchtime, we were ordering from the breakfast and lunch menu. Their breakfast menu is quite a full-on Australian breakfast menu with only bits of Indonesian influence. Conversely, their brunch/lunch menu is more like an Indonesian lunch with nasi goreng, lodeh, and gado-gado as part of the selections.

Nasi goreng – $14.90 – made with spicy basmati rice, tempeh, vegetables and topped with fried eggs

Nasi goreng, or fried rice, is almost a staple in quite a lot of Indonesian restaurants. One thing really stood out for me was the use of basmati, instead of jasmine, rice for the nasi goreng. As a result, the fried rice was quite a dry one, but probably easier to style on the plate.

Add New York Pastrami – $6

If you require more meat, they give an option to add a plate of New York pastrami. It was quite an interesting add-on to a plate of fried rice.

Beef Rendang Jaffle – $14 – Beef Rendang, spring onions & cheese

The one thing that really caught my eyes was the beef rendang jaffle. One element that stood out here was the cheese. I know it’s the ‘traditional’ way with jaffle. However, it has never been a staple in rendang. What you get is this crispy, cheesy, spicy, heavy jaffle. It’s a great way to fill up at lunchtime.

Also, this would certainly appease the needs of that masterchef judge for a crispy rendang.

Latte – $4

There is one item on the menu that is quite interesting: turmeric latte. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling too adventurous for it. Instead, I ordered a normal latte.

Others

Their dinner menu has a lot more Indonesian-influenced dishes. They have things from Indonesian grilled chicken, beef ribs, and other delicacies.

I will probably visit them in the future to review their dinner menu.

The final verdict for Solo Newtown

Hat’s off for the guys at Solo Newtown! They dare to transform traditional Indonesian cuisine to a more contemporary look. I’m not sure if the ‘purist’ will like it as much as we do though.

Do you think I should go?

Indonesian food is probably not as famous as Thai or Japanese in Sydney. However, if you want to try Indonesian flavour in dishes you already recognise, Solo might be the one for you.

Rating for Solo Newtown:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $13 – $22 per main dish

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

415 King St, Newtown 2042

+61 2 9550 5684

http://solonewtown.com.au/

Jun 19, 2018
Saab Wer Thai Esan

Saab Wer Review:

We went to have lunch in Newtown on the weekend. Our choice went to this bright pink restaurant that is closer to the University of Sydney than the Newtown station, Saab Wer Thai Esan.

Their lunch menu is super cheap (by Sydney’s standards). Most of the dishes are $7.50. You will need to pay more for seafood or duck meat. Just like most Thai lunch places, you order the dish you want with the meat of your choice.

Soft Shell Crab – $7.50

It was quite a generous portion of soft shell crab. It was also not disappointing taste-wise.

Laad Na Mee Krob – $7.50 – Crispy egg noodles, Chinese broccoli, egg and gravy sauce with chicken

This dish is known in Indonesia as Ifumie. It is a combination of thick egg soup and crispy egg noodles. It was one of my favourite dishes growing up in Indonesia. The difference in this dish was in the noodles. Instead of the usual thin egg noodles, we got a bowl of massive egg noodles.

Beef Thai fried rice – $7.50 – with eggs and vegetables.

The obvious safe option when you are trying a new restaurant. Their portion was quite big for the price.

The final verdict for Saab Wer Thai Esan

Saab Wer Thai Esan is a good place if you want to have fast and painless lunch with acceptable quality and big portion.

Did you know?

There are a lot of Thai restaurants in Newtown, especially along King Street. Most of them offered similar range of dishes. Saab Wer Thai Esan chose to compete for price-sensitive customers.

Rating for Saab Wer Thai Esan:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $7.50 – $11 per lunch main

Place: 6.5 / 10

Details:

105 King Street, Newtown NSW 2042

+61 2 8580 1345

http://www.saabwer.com.au/

Nov 3, 2016
Brewtown Newtown

Review:

This week’s review came from a cafe famous for its Brewnuts, you might probably know it more as cronuts (for those of you who really are clueless: a love affair between croissant and doughnut). The cafe is called Brewtown Newtown. The location was actually rather obscure and not in the main street. However, it did not deter food lovers to line up just to get a seat in this place.

These days, I am not so keen to line up for food. When I got a Friday off, I went to the cafe for lunch and got the seat pretty easily. The café’s décor is the trending warehouse-y one.

Latte (espresso with milk) – $3.50

I always have a soft spot for establishments that roast their own coffee. You can just tell its freshness!

Cronut

As mentioned above, this was the sole reason why I was so interested in going to Brewtown Newtown in the first place.

They have quite a selection of cronuts, but we still like the original cinnamon cronut.

Toasted sandwich – $14

The Australian-style steak sandwich came with caramelised onion and beetroot. It looked a bit more like a gigantic bruschetta than a sandwich.

Toast and homemade jam – $6

Because of that ‘peanut butter jelly’ song, we ordered the toast and jams for the little one. He totally skipped the peanut butter and just concentrated on the jelly and sourdough.

Elvis burger – $16.50 – Ground Beef, Savory brewnut, Canadian bacon, gruyere and mayo served with chips and relish

Little did I know that apparently this was what made people lined up: a savoury-version of the cronut!

The chips and relish were really good. Then on the same plate, you also got a cronut burger. It is just too ridiculous to put it in the same sentence!

The final verdict for Brewtown Newtown

Cronut, coffee and burger. These three are the things people look for in Sydney these days and Brewtown Newtown has them all… and they did it quite brilliantly.

Rating for Brewtown Newtown:

8.0 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $12 – $24 main course

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

6 – 8 O’Connell St, Newtown 2042

02 9519 2920

http://www.brewtownnewtown.com/

Nov 25, 2015