Category: Steak

All about food blog categorises Steak on its own since most steakhouses do not have association to a particular country in terms of the steak they serve.

El Sizzling Chorizo

Review:

This will be my first review for restaurants in New Zealand. Obviously, the first thing that I look for is meat! There is no better restaurant to test this out than El Sizzling Chorizo. El sizzling chorizo is an Argentinean restaurant that serves grilled meats with Argentinean chimichurri sauce. For the record, I love good chimichurri sauce!

The restaurant is located in an upmarket suburb of Ponsonby in Auckland. My friend in Auckland said that it was almost impossible to get a seat in this area for the weekend without queuing up for hours. They have an interesting open grill kitchen.

Their menu is pretty simple and straight forward: half meats and half booze! Well, you can choose the ‘vegetarian’ cheese option or a selection of side dishes. But the whole idea is to enjoy chorizo and meats! Oh, and prices are in NZ Dollars.

The first meat arriving at the table was the Beef Short Ribs. At $20, the 400 gr short ribs seemed to be a great bargain! It had the perfect balance of fat and meat ratio. Unfortunately, it was a little bit overcooked.

Short Ribs – $20

Our second dish was more of a ‘mixed grill’ called Orejano Platter. There were quite variations in this dish. You got one chorizo, an empanada, a strip of pork belly, one flank steak, one bread, and barbecued potatoes with yummy sauce. It was one of the best empanadas I’ve ever tasted. The barbecued potatoes were nice as well. The best thing is that you got all of those for only $35!

Orejano Platter – $35

If you wanted to get the feel of what the restaurant is about, you have to order this dish. However, if you would like to have the all meats option, choose the Parrillada. You get over 600grams of ‘a taste of different meats’ for only $30.

The last dish of the day is supposed to be an entree. However, there was a warning stated on the menu (cooking time approx 20 mins) and the waiter also mentioned a 25-minute wait time. The name is Sweet Breads with lemon and fries. The sweet breads were perfectly grilled and it was well worth the wait!

Sweet Breads with lemon and fries – $25

All of the dishes were also served with Mesclun salad. I must say that we love (with capital LOVE) the chimichurri sauce!

We ordered an organic wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, called Santa Ana Eco. However, the waiter pointed out that the ‘wine of Argentina’ is supposed to be Malbec.

Santa Ana Eco Organic Wine, Cabernet Sauvignon

The final verdict for El Sizzling Chorizo

El Sizzling Chorizo showed glimpses of a great restaurant. If they could stabilise its grilling time without tendency of being overcooked, they could be a really nice restaurant.

Did you know?

There are quite a few restaurants in the area, but the one worth mentioning is probably Burger Burger. Due to time and tummy constraints we cannot try it out this time.

Rating for El Sizzling Chorizo:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $20 – $35 for a main dish

Place: 8.0 / 10

Details:

4 Brown Street, Ponsonby, Auckland

+64 9 378 0119

http://www.elsizzlingchorizo.co.nz/

Nov 12, 2014
Belly Busters

Rating:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 6.5 / 10

Price: $115 for 3.5 people

Place: 7 / 10

Review:

As someone who enjoyed food so much, just hearing this restaurant’s name is music to my ears. Belly Busters is strategically located at the heart of Surfers Paradise and you would expect with big name like this, people would be enticed to at least try it out. That was exactly what we did…

On this occasion, two of our entrée used the same ingredients, wings. They were Buffalo Wings – Chicken Wings with a spicy tomato sauce – and BBQ Wings – Chicken wings with BBQ sauce. It was quite strange to receive two deep-fried wings dishes, one with tomato and the other BBQ sauce. If they said on the description that it would be deep-fried, I wouldn’t be as disappointed because they actually tasted okay for a deep-fried chicken. However, they definitely weren’t Buffalo or BBQ Wings as advertised.

For the main, I chose Rump n’ Bug – 350 gr rump steak topped with a bug covered in creamy garlic sauce. From the presentation standpoint, it was pretty good as they actually put an effort to decorate the plate. The steak was juicy but was cooked a bit towards the medium side, instead of medium rare. In addition to that, the bug was quite a letdown as it was not as fresh as I would like it to be.

For the next main course, we ordered T Bone n’ Garlic Prawns – 400gr T-bone steak topped with garlic tiger prawns in a creamy garlic sauce. Just by looking at the pictures below, you can see that the prawns were quite insignificant. The T-bone was also quite well done (instead of medium).

I guess when you ordered steak you might want to choose one below your expected level on how they cook the steak.

The final verdict for Belly Busters

Being at the heart of Surfers Paradise, Belly Busters will not need to do anything to advertise the restaurant. However, despite its big name, the restaurant under delivered on the taste department.

Details:

Centro Surfers Paradise, Cavill Mall, Surfers Paradise, QLD

07 5538 2355

Mar 3, 2014
Meat Market South Wharf

Rating:

7 / 10

Taste: 7 / 10

Price: $20++ main course

Place: 7.5 / 10

Review:

For our second Melbourne review, we went to a steakhouse called Meat Market South Wharf. As a reminder to readers, steakhouse faced quite a tough challenge in convincing me as I am very particular about my steak and I love to grill a steak at home!

Meat Market South Wharf has an interesting concept of an open kitchen. It was quite impressive that there were only three people inside the kitchen!

We were not going to order any starters, but our waiter warned us it would take around 40 minutes for the steak to arrive. Our choice fell to the House Made Dip ($16) – Olives, Feta, freshly baked buckwheat sourdough. This description omitted the most important piece (and the yummiest) of the dish, pumpkin dipping sauce.

We did quite the unthinkable in a steakhouse by doing a shared dish for our main courses. We did it because of this sole reason: Meat Sharing Platter ($90) – chef’s selection of today’s cuts to share, mixed leaf salad and a selection of sauces (we chose peppercorn jus and blue cheese butter). It was a plate of three different cuts (if I’m not mistaken) – scotch fillet, eye fillet, and dry aged beef – for a combined size of 500gr. The presentation was quite appetising and the extra sauce and butter added a nice dimension to the steak.

Another interesting point here was the absence of potatoes (and their variances) from the plates. It might not be good news for a big eater like me as you would need to fork out an extra $9 or $10 for each of the companions. There were quite a few options here, but our choices went to Crumbed Onion Rings ($9) and Hand cut chips, spicy ketcup ($10). I always loved a good plate of onion rings and this one hit the spot for me. The chips on the other hand, I wasn’t a big fan of.

We also ordered the Catch (or fish) of the day. It was grilled salmon with beetroot sauce. The salmon was perfectly grilled but the plate looked quite barren with only a handful of vegetables and well-decorated spoonful of beetroot sauce.

The final verdict for Meat Market South Wharf

It took quite a long time (that’s after the waiter’s telling us it would take a long time) for the steak to arrive at Meat Market South Wharf. The steak itself ticked many approval boxes (including presentation), but there was really nothing sparkling about our experience there.

Details:

53 South Wharf Promenade, South Wharf, Melbourne

03 9008 8953

http://www.meatmarketsouthwharf.com.au/

Dec 12, 2013
Steak Hotel by Holycow

Rating:

8 / 10

Taste: 8/10

Price: $10 per person

Place: 8/10

Review:

For regulars who like to skim-read: Okay… before I started the review, go back and have a look at the price above. That is NOT a typo, $10 for a 400gr steak! Unless you are a profesionnal Steak griller, I don’t think you can get any better deals than this!

The other amazing thing about Steak Hotel by Holycow (I went to the one in Sabang) is the fact that they have a children playground! It’s incredibly rare for a restaurant in Indonesia to have a children playground (except that golden arch brand 🙁 )!

So, thumbs up for the couples @Dimas_Subagio and @sophia_hage who recommended this @Holycow_Radal. The biggest question then arises: How can their steak stack up against other steakhouse or even an Australian steakhouse?

Let’s see what they have to offer, starting from (of course) the 400gr steak, (strangely named) The Holy! Steak Authentic PART2. ‘Be ready for a big portion of a steak’, that’s their promise on the menu. Whilst it’s true for most Indonesians, they’re certainly not big for Australians – considering we can find a 1kg slab of meat in many restaurants in Australia. Personally, the size should be good enough. They didn’t offer rarity of the steak as they said it should be ‘perfectly cooked’. When the steak arrived, it was more on the medium-rare to medium region.

I should have ordered that, but instead I ordered the much smaller Wagyu Sirloin (medium-rare). It wasn’t that much more expensive and had a bit more taste to it, but (again) only half the size. Both steaks were served with a side of chips and trivial green veggies and a tomato. They also have three kinds of sauces that I suggest you to try them all.

After you are finished with your main meal, if you tweet to the twitter handle (@Holycow_Radal), you will get a free dessert! They are famous for the Tiramisu, but when we were there, they didn’t have it and had a mini cupcake instead.

The final verdict for Steak Hotel by Holycow

Steak Hotel by Holycow surprised me in many ways, but the facts that they served decent-sized steak on a local price and had a playground on the premise really did it for me.

Did you know?

Once upon a time, Steak Hotel by Holycow had a twin sibling Holycow! Steakhouse, however they were no longer related.

If you are interested in learning more about it, Rayns Raymond drew an interesting comparison between the two in his blog.

Details:

Lt 5, Gedung Seremanis

Jl KH Agus Salim No 16, Jakarta, Indonesia

+6221 31906420

@holycow_radal

http://www.hellocarnivores.com/

Jul 11, 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
Sizzler

Rating:

7 / 10 Taste: 7/10

Price: $28-$37 per main course
(+ unlimited salad bar)

Place: 7.5/10

Review:

Two years ago I reviewed its ‘alleged’ copycat in Surabaya, called American Grill. I finally got the chance to review the self-proclaimed legendary salad bar’s restaurant, Sizzler. We visited Sizzler St George in Kogarah. The venue was incredibly spacious and was perfect for a pretty big group. The only downside is you can’t book in advance.

So, how does it work? When you enter the restaurant, the menu pages are printed on the wall for easy viewing. When you ordered one of the main courses, you are entitled to unlimited and free access to their ‘legendary’ salad bar. You can choose to have the salad bar only for $24.50. I will explain about it towards the end of the review. You can also order refillable drink for $3.95. You are entitled for either hot drinks (coffee and tea) or soft drinks (including water).

Since I am a big fan of rump steak, my obvious choice was Steak & Big BBQ Garlic Prawns combo ($37). It was a smallish (200 gr) rump steak grilled to your liking with a side of mashed potato with (luckily) three big grilled prawns and mushroom sauce. I was quite content with the steak despite of the size. Alternatively, you could also order Steak with Salt & Pepper Calamari ($31). Instead of the prawns, you were served with a handful of calamari. It is a nice alternative if you dislike crustaceans.

The heaviest dish on the menu is the T-Bone Steak. It was listed on the menu as 500 gr, although part of it is the weight of the bone. It also came with complimentary sides and sauce.

There is also a rather special menu (more expensive than regular rump, at $34 ^_^): Royal Blue Rib Eye. The description stated grass-fed MSA royal blue rib eye. I wasn’t really sure what the difference with the rump steak was. It, did, however came with sweet potato fries, steamed broccolini and a choice of sauce.

Now, let’s talk about the legendary salad bar. You will be offered cheese toast as soon as you’re comfortable on your seat. There is one giant table full of food in the main salad bar. In this part of the bar, you can get fruits, salads, condiments, and, my personal favourite, jacket potatoes. If you need more carbs, there is also the pasta and soup area on the salad bar.

The dessert bar isn’t as big as the main salad bar, but it sure is pretty famous amongst ladies and kids. In addition to the desserts in the picture, you could also get soft ice cream and all kinds of jelly beans, marshmallows, chocolates to go with your ice cream. You can be as creative as you can be with the dessert.

The final verdict for Sizzler

Sizzler is definitely one of the more cost effective all you can eat restaurants in Sydney, although technically the all you can eat portion is only the salad bar.

Details:

Cnr Princes Highway & Jubilee Avenue, Kogarah

Phone: +61 2 9553 8657

http://www.sizzler.com.au/

Nov 18, 2012