Category: Sydney

All About Food Blog is currently based in Sydney, Australia. It is obviously THE place to be if you want to find food from all over the world.

Jordons Seafood Restaurant

Update: Jordons Seafood restaurant is now closed

Rating:

7 / 10

Taste: 7/10

Price: $40 per person

Place: 9/10

Review:

As you might already know, Darling Harbour was the best to be when it comes to enjoying the night. Jordon’s Seafood Restaurant is located at the heart of it and right on the corner with 270^o view of the harbour.

We went thru the aquatic-themed menu and we saw vast assortments of dishes. If you’re stuck there and you don’t like seafood (why do u come in the first place?), you can still get steak or even vegetarian stuff. But today, the review will be all about seafood and we were interested in the items specially highlighted in a box.

Our starter was a simple Mixed Leaf (with Persian fetta, marinated olives, roasted tomato and capsicum). It was a nice and colourful salad.

For our first share plate, we ordered Sushi / Sashimi Combination (main size). When the platter arrived, we were pleased with how it was presented. On the plate there were 10 assorted sushi, 9 sashimi slices, seaweed and something yummy (that brown thing on the left corner of the plate). Upon our tasting, I discovered that the sashimi wasn’t as fresh as I’d like them to be (but don’t worry, they’re still edible).

Our second platter of the day was Jordon’s Deluxe Seafood Platter (for two). We were quite shocked with the size of the dish and thankful that we did not order the bigger one. It was a massive two-tiered platter full of seafood. We were advised to finish the top tier first since they were the ‘hot’ dishes.

We had a bowl of mussels, then a couple of marinated Balmain bugs laid on a big square of nori. Next to the bugs were some cooked oysters. We also got a whole lobster. In the middle of it were 4 sticks of deep fried seafood with fish and chips on the bottom. The lobster and the bugs were cooked perfectly. You could rip the meat off the shell without too much effort, but the mussels weren’t the best I’ve ever tasted. And that’s only for the first tier.

For the second tier, we have an assortment of cold dishes. You wouldn’t miss a couple of Blue Swimmer crabs sitting in the corner. Then there were four fresh oysters and some chilled prawns. On the other corner, there was a bowl of Singaporean Chilli crab with some fresh fruits. Lastly there was a bowl of marinated squid and mussels with cocktail and tartare sauces.

For most part, they were yummy. There was a strange note on the Singaporean Chilli Crab. I have never tried them cold and unfortunately I didn’t like it. If only the crab was freshly cooked then that tower would be great.

The final verdict: Jordon’s is the kind of restaurant that has much better settings and ambience than the food itself. It’s quite pricey if you compared the price per its taste, but if you add the scenery factor, then it kind of made sense. Nothing really stands out on this occasion but they were satisfying.

Did you know?

The restaurant is located in the prime location of Darling Harbour. Few restaurants beat its scenic harbour/city view. Darling Harbour is also known as one of the few places in Sydney which stores open until 9 PM for most nights. FYI, stores normally close at 5 or 6 PM on all days, but Thursday.

We chose this restaurant because of the Entertainment Book. This book contains 1000s of discounts on restaurants, amusement parks, cinemas, even Coles! They are only sold at participating foundation (I bought mine at Cancer Council) for $65 – portions of it are donated for the cause. I strongly recommend you to buy this book and have a bit of adventure yourself.

Location:

197 Harbourside, Darling Harbour, NSW 2000

Website:

www.jordonsrestaurant.com.au (Jordons Seafood restaurant is now closed)

Jul 5, 2011
Chikyu-Ya Japanese Cuisine

Update: Chikyu-Ya has closed its doors for good and I haven’t heard about the Chef reopening somewhere else / some time soon.

Rating:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8 /10

Price: $15-$20 per dish

Place: 7/10

Review:

This week, we’ll travel to a restaurant next to my office, Chikyu-Ya Japanese Cuisine. I’ve known this restaurant long before I started working here and it has been my personal favourite. I think they have the best Karaage in Sydney! (and.. no, I don’t get paid for saying this!)

One of the good things about this restaurant is the simple menu. You are not faced with the dilemma of choosing from 100s of things. Simple pictures of dishes that you’d expect to get are shown there and another list of ‘Today’s Special’.

For the entrée, we went for the Sashimi. 12 generous cuts of Salmon, Tuna, and Kingfish were arranged beautifully with sides of seaweed, pickled ginger and wasabi. The Sashimi were as fresh as getting it from Fish Market, comparable to expensive Japanese restaurants.

For the main course we ordered three different dishes. The first one to arrive was Mini Udon and Karaage combo. Two small bowls, Chilli Karaage and Shiitake Udon, were the perfect dish for carbs-minded people. The udon was flavoursome and you can put chilli powder on it to enhance the taste.

The second one was my Karaage with Teriyaki Sauce (dinner size). Generous servings of karaage deep fried into golden brown of perfection. The teriyaki sauce created an added glossy effect and sweet taste. What I like about it was the crunch and the taste that came afterwards. For small eaters, there was also a friendly donburi size or even an entrée size.

The last one was French-inspired Demi-glace Hamberg. It was another classy display of plating. The hamberg was so tender and juicy. It was a dish that was seriously worth considering if you fancy beef more than chicken and/or fried stuff.

As a proof that I’ve always enjoyed their Karaage, here’s my happy face after eating it…

The final verdict for Chikyu-Ya Japanese Cuisine:

What else can I say? Karaage! They have sauces according to your preference: Teriyaki, soy-vinegar, chilli and even curry! You can ask for the entrée, dinner, or donburi size. In addition to that, the Hamberg was also nice.

Did you know?

Some of my friends prefer their curry dishes. They said it was one of the better Japanese curries in Sydney. Unfortunately, I am not a big curry fan.

This restaurant is very famous amongst Indonesians. Discounting myself as one, there is always a group of them in the restaurant every time I visited the place for dinner.

Location:

106 Ebley St, Bondi Junction, NSW 2022

They don’t seem to have one but this is the closest that can give you detailed information for the restaurant: http://www.sydneycafes.com.au/chikyu-ya.html

Jun 21, 2011
Madang Restaurant

Rating:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8 /10

Price: $15-$30 per dish

Place: 7/10

Review:

This week, I will take you to one of the famous Korean restaurants in Sydney, Madang Restaurant. There is always people waiting in line at ANY dinnertime except when they just open or possibly late at night (they open past midnight). Sometimes the queue can be quite intimidating and it can also be seen as an indicator of how good the restaurant is.

We ordered five dishes – with the free-flowing Kimchi – and I think it was a little too much for the five of us. Had I been able to withdraw one of my orders, I would really have difficulties in choosing one. Unfortunately this review will have a freely translated dish’s names.

For our first dish of the night, I remembered the Korean name since this was the only dish that I constantly ordered here. It was Ggan Pung Ki (Deep Fried Chicken with special Korean sauce). I really like this dish – sweet and crunchy what else do you want? On top of that, the serving was really generous. Then came the Soft-Shelled Crab. Smaller in size when compared to the first one, the crab was cooked perfectly. The yellow sauce created a different dimension to the crab.

The next dish to arrive was also a ‘staple’ order in Korean restaurants, Seafood and Shallot Pancake. The pancake was flavoursome and jam-packed with seafood. Everything was perfect but one minor detail, it wasn’t crunchy enough for me. I know it might be a personal taste, but I like my pancake slightly crunchy. We also ordered the always-challenging Cold Noodles. It was noodles dipped in ice-cold broth with vegetables, eggs, and beef slices. Very rarely people would love to eat this dish. I quite enjoy its uniqueness.

For the big main event, normally you can choose between barbecue and soup. This time, we opted for the soup – Beef and Mushroom Soup to be exact. No less than four different types of mushrooms were served along the beef, vegetables and glass noodles. I believe in wintertime, this was the perfect dish to warm up our night. Its gigantic size might proof a little bit intimidating for some people. I love the different textures of mushrooms in this pot.

The final verdict: Every dish served that night was flawless. They weren’t mind-blowing, but enough to warrant a better than average score. In regards to the dishes,The chicken would standout against the rest.

Did you know?

Madang’s BBQ is also an option you should seriously consider. The dishes were slightly more expensive than the options in this review and for me personally, I have another place cheaper that I can go to for a nice Korean BBQ.

Location:

371A Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW 2000

Jun 15, 2011
Saap Thai Restaurant

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Unfortunately, Saap Thai has closed its doors for good.

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Rating:

7 / 10

Taste: 7 /10

Price: $10-$15 per dish

Place: 7/10

Review:

This week we are going to review one of my favourite Thai restaurants in town and it is surprisingly the first Thai restaurant I’ve ever reviewed (I think Blue Ginger doesn’t fall to the category of ‘pure’ Thai). Another surprise that I found was that Saap Thai Restaurant actually opened till midnight (possibly to counter some Thai restaurants near the area that open till quite early in the morning!).

One of the great traits of Thai food was that they are fully customisable. You can swap veggies, beef, chicken, pork, and seafood with no problem and the original taste of the dish will still be there. I wrote the following in the order of our preference and sense of completeness.

The first dish to come at our table was Chicken Pad See Ew. In a few words, it was sweet soy sauce rice noodles. It was a nice serving of one with slightly too much oil. Then came Stir Fried Beef in Cashew Nut. This one had a more vibrant flavour with combination of vegetables and mushrooms. Unfortunately the rice bowls came after these two dishes, so we had to wait a bit to start eating.

After the rice came my most favourite (not purely) vegetable dish in the city, Deep Fried Morning Glory Salad. This dish was so good that we decided to order for a second plate before the night ended. It was basically deep fried morning glory with an authentic Thai-style sauce and topped with seasoned minced beef (or pork) and fried shallots and coriander. Although it looked red, it wasn’t actually spicy.

The next dish caused a little bit of confusion in our group. It was Som Tum Goong – loosely translated to Green Papaya Salad with Prawns. For chilli haters like me, I said this dish was really mild (as compared to the next two), but most people in the table agreed that this one was the hottest of them all. Regardless, the dish was really refreshing. The dish was actually the traditional Thai salad dish with amazing combination of flavours.

If you don’t like chilli, I suggest you to avoid the last two dishes. Green Curry Duck was possibly the hottest curry on the menu. It might look pretty harmless from the outside, but it surely can work you out. The last dish of the day was Steamed Fish with crazy hot sauce. The sauce was actually the Thai’s sweet fish and peanut sauce, with overabundance of chilli. It was nicely decorated, but too hot for me.

The final verdict: I know I don’t give a high rating on this one, but this is actually the most affordable (and nice) Thai dishes you can get in town. I give a much higher rating for its Deep Fried Morning Glory. I think this dish was brilliant. I could not find any vegetable dish better than this one around the city (you can take out minced beef).

Did you know?

Thai restaurants are always infamous for their hospitality. I have yet to find a restaurant that disappoint me, in terms of waiters/waitresses’ politeness to customers. There are massive senses of modesty and it was really pleasant.

Location:

378 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW 2000

Jun 3, 2011
Lime Street Cafe

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Unfortunately, Lime Street Cafe has closed its doors.

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Rating:

6.0 / 10

Taste: 6.5 /10

Price: $30 per couple

Place: 7.5/10

Review:

This week, we were fortunate enough to score one of the ‘deal of the day’ websites. It was a $30 per couple meal for the value of $70 at Lime Street Cafe. At first we were puzzled on the kind of food we’d had, but it turned out we could order anything from the menu up to the value of $70. That really drove our interest through the roof. The food themselves seemed reasonably priced for a King Street Wharf restaurant.

We ordered three appetisers and a salad. The first to arrive was Lightly Fried Calamari with rocket salad. It was too similar to my homemade deep fried calamari on a bed of rocket with a slice of lemon. Then we had Marinated Lamb Skewers. Although the skewers were pretty small, it was complemented with nice sauce.

The next tapas didn’t look as appetising. It was Prawns, chorizo and rocket with balsamic dressing. The chorizo was really dry and the salad was almost identical with all the sides of the day. Luckily, the prawns were to die for; it was cooked really perfectly. Similarly, Chicken Caesar Salad looked a bit of ordinary but it was the best tasting out of them all so far.

When the pizzas came, we barely had a room on our table for them. We ordered Pizza Pesto Chicken and Marinara. Unfortunately, both of them really looked and tasted like Pizza coming out of those pizza chain restaurants. The pesto looked more like clusters of green goo with no visual on the chicken. Thanks to the squids, the Marinara looked a bit more presentable, but it was still on par with those ordinary pizzas.

Our table was even more crowded when Seafood Risotto arrived. Yet again, it looked really bland and the risotto tasted like… well… steamed rice. Fortunately, we remembered the prawns’ taste from the previous dish and it was still the same. I really have no comment for the last dish of the day, Beef Lasagna. It’s just another ordinary dish. Not bad and not good…

The final verdict: Granted that we did not have to pay full price for these dishes, but the taste just did not deliver. The first three dishes created the illusion that the nights were going to be a ‘great deal’ but eventually the Pizzas and pastas were sub par.

Did you know?

It’s worth checking all those deal of the day sites, granted that you might get a sub par experience once in a while, but it’s really worth to find out how they are with half the price, rather than paying the full amount.

Location:

60 Lime Street, King Street Wharf, Sydney, NSW 2000

Website:

May 26, 2011
Kam Fook

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Unfortunately, Kam Fook has closed its doors for good. In its place, there is another Yum cha place called Zilver.

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Rating:

7 / 10

Taste: 7 /10

Price: $25++ pp

Place: 7/10

Review:

This is one of the hardest reviews I’ve ever made and also one of the toughest to predict in terms of the price. I present you Kam Fook. I will review their Yum Cha, which literally means drinking tea (with the accompaniment of Dim Sum dishes). Just like any good yum cha places, be prepared to wait for quite a while if you are not early enough.

In a Yum Cha session, there is a little piece of paper on the table for the waitresses to stamp your orders. Waitresses will come with their trolley to your table offering you little dim sum plates. There are a lot you can choose from and unfortunately they only provided brief description in English. So you would need to be really familiar with the dishes you really wanted or it might be a challenge for you. I will try to cover as many dishes as possible in this review, but most importantly, none of these were bad.

Starting from the basic availability in Yumcha, we ordered Steamed Prawn Dim Sum and Siomay (Shu Mai). These dishes are always available in any restaurants and if you tasted a hint of disappointment, I suggest you pack up straight away. These are the dishes that shouldn’t go wrong.

These next two might rather be unusual for Westerners, Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf and Chicken Feet. It was one pretty messy dish in sticky rice. This one was kinda like Bakcang (or Rouzong) or sweet sticky rice with stewed meat and egg yolk. I’ll skip the chicken feet explanation and only say ‘Yummy’.

From the deep fried department, we ordered Whitebait and Prawn Dumpling. I always need some crunchy stuff when eating, thus this completed our experience.

For the staple food, we normally ordered Fried Rice Noodles with Peanut (and possibly Hoi Sin) sauce and Green Vegetables. Rice noodles were my personal favourite, lightly fried and went really well with the sauce.

There are also special dishes trolleys. On this occasion we ordered Pipis in XO Sauce. You might especially want to skip these dishes (including Peking Duck, Oysters, etc) if you don’t want your bill to skyrocket. I suggest you ordered one or two as a highlight for the day.

One thing that we never miss is the dessert. It has always been Mango Pudding and Pancake. They could’ve done better than just to put the pudding on a plastic cup, but nevertheless that’s the common ‘practice’ in a Yum Cha place.

The final verdict for Kam Fook:

Granted that the price might be a little bit more expensive for some of you, but Kam Fook presented the best thing a Yum Cha place is seriously lacking, Great Service – i.e. u don’t get kicked out as soon as you chew your last bite. I would also contest the term ‘pricey’ since I believe most Yum Cha places charge that amount with significantly less quality and crappy service.

Did you know?

Little did we know that Kam Fook obtained one hat chef for the SMH’s Good Food Guide in 2004. I guess that explained why they charged above average meal.

Location:

Shop 6010, Level 6, Westfield Shopping Centre, Bondi Junction, NSW 2022

May 19, 2011