Tounoya (Eastwood, Sydney)

These days Eastwood is seriously buzzing as a food hub. And it has been happening in the past few years. Now it is a suburb predominantly filled with Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese eateries. For example there are 6 outlets selling BBQ duck, pork and other Chinese roast meats. And counting..

Recently a friend of mine mentioned there was a new Japanese restaurant in Eastwood replacing what was the shoe warehouse. I strolled by one evening and could see effort was made in furnishing the restaurant.

I decided to check it out for dinner with some friends and made an effort to book a table. A decision I made when I realised there was a queue to get a table during my stroll.

To the right of the restaurant are booths with a tablet on the wall for ordering our meal. To the left is a more open area with tables that can take a large group of people. The rear of the restaurant are 2 Karaoke rooms for those who want to exercise their vocal chords on a night out!

We were seated in one of the booths and was engrossed looking at the dishes on the very small screen. So we resorted to asking for a menu and then ordered on the tablet. Absolutely convenient!

Soft shell crab salad - the soft shell crab was nicely crunchy and topped with a slightly tangy Mayo sauce.

Unagi don - sorry but I didn't get a chance to take a photo but young B devoured the unagi and left all the rice for her Dad. I can only imagine how delicious it was.

Yakitori and Pork Belly grilled skewers - this was ordered from the Grill section of the menu. Of the 2 meats I preferred the Yakitori chicken, there was a nice and smokey flavour to the meat.

Sushi and sashimi mix platter - nice presentation. I found the sashimi of scallops, tuna, salmon, ocean trout, and eel to be quite fresh.

Papparich Parramatta (Parramatta, Sydney)

As most of you would know, Papparich is a chain of Malaysian food outlets around Australia and Asia Pacific. The first venue I dined at was the Chatswood branch which was their first restaurant in Sydney. Till today, I think there are queues just to get a table. And that opened over a year ago.

Recently, they opened in Parramatta and the food blogger in me had to check it out. On my first visit I met up with Mel from The Adventures of Miss Piggy and her husband Dave. It was nice catching up with Mel after such a long time and as usual we were busy taking pics of our dishes before we took a single bite.

Deep fried chicken skin - we had to order this, especially since I had yet to try this wonderfully crispy, addictive dish. Yum! I couldn't stop popping one in my mouth every few minutes. Dangerous!!

Nasi Lemak with Beef Rendang - a very popular dish which was ordered by Mel and Dave. Turns out this is one of their favourite dishes to order when at Papparich!

Biryani Rice With Red Chicken and Sambal Prawns - this is one of my favourite dishes to order and it did not disappoint. I do like the flavours of the Biryani rice which was infused with various spices like onions, cardamom and cloves. It makes this rice so much more interesting and full of flavour. The red chicken had a slightly sweet yet slightly spicy flavour. And all this served with a rather large pappadum.

Cho Cho San (Potts Point, Sydney)

The name itself calls for attention. When I first read about Cho Cho San, it was the name of the restaurant that caught my eye. And after reading many positive reviews, I was keen to check it out.

A few weeks ago, there was an opportunity to have lunch here and it was nice that we could actually book a table for lunch.  As opposed to get there early and queue up for a table! When I stepped into the restaurant, my first impressions were bright, light, clean, and modern! I felt excited to be here! The great lighting in the restaurant brought a big food blogger's smile to my face! :)

What's so interesting about Cho Cho San is none of the people at the helm are of Japanese origin and yet the menu is Japanese focused with a modern interpretation.

The menu is divided into Small dishes, Raw bar, Hibachi grill, Others, Sweets and Feed Me Please.

From the Small dishes section, we chose:

Silken tofu in tomato dashi - super smooth tofu with a delicious, flavourful yet subtle dashi. Very elegant broth but so good!

Tempura pumpkin - the pumpkin was soft and sweet with a contrasting texture of the crunchy tempura batter.

Fried chicken - a generous plate of what I would say was a very popular dish with us. The mayo went so well with the fried chicken.

Prawn bun - I wish I could have had more of this. A warm and toasted bun which cradled a beautiful mix of sweet prawn meat which had touches of mayo. Yum to the max! More please! :)

Gia Hoi (Eastwood, Sydney)

Many moons ago I lived in the suburb of Eastwood. I knew every single restaurant, cafe and grocery shop around Eastwood. At that time I would frequent my favourites and knew of the new venues opening up.

That was then. Now I don't go to Eastwood much and this is mainly due to horrendous parking and burgeoning crowds that converge at Eastwood on the weekends. It can be quite off-putting and I tend to stay away unless I have to be there.

Which is the reason I didn't even realise that Gia Hoi had opened a branch in Eastwood. And according to the web, it has been opened for about 2 years. Sigh! Now this is what I would term 'slow as'!

So my checking out begins over 3 visits.

Bun Chao Tom - Grilled minced prawns with rice vermicelli. The minced prawn cake were thinly sliced and served over a bed of rice vermicelli with a side of fresh bean sprouts, pickled carrots and shredded lettuce. The dish was served with nuoc cham. Yum! I have a weakness for this dish. Loved how fresh the vegetables were and the prawn cake was full of flavour.

Bun Bo Hue Dac Biet - Special Pork and Beef with Rice a Vermicelli Soup which is hot and spiced based. I honestly cannot recall if I have ever tried this dish before but I have fallen in love with Bun Bo Hue.

Cabramatta Crawl April 2014

I am sure all of you have occasional cravings for certain types of food (and you don't have to be pregnant to experience this!). This can beset you at any point in time. Well, lately I have been craving all things Vietnamese and I don't even know why! My good friend CW and I have been planning to do a Cabramatta Crawl since February of this year. Yes! You read right, February! :-)

We finally managed to make it work. No heat wave, no prearranged social engagement and most importantly no track work planned that weekend. Yay! I was looking forward to satisfying my cravings!

The plan was to eat through our hit list but share the meals so we didn't fill up too quickly. We started by having breakfast and pho was our choice.

Pho Tau Bay has reputedly the best pho in town. I don't recall having been here before and it was quite a tiny little restaurant. We got there before 10 am and was lucky enough not to have to wait for a table. As we sat down, a man came up to take our order but we were not given any menus. It was quite funny because I didn't know what to call the dish outside of the word 'pho'. CW was fast thinking enough and said 'the special' please. We ordered a large bowl so we could share. I asked CW whether she knew what the special meant and it was an assumption it meant all parts of the beef like tendon, tripe, beef balls and thin slices of beef. To be absolutely sure, I went searching for the menu. There was a board near the front counter and to my relief the special was exactly what we thought. Phew!

Well, what can I say about the pho? The broth was packed with flavour, yet not unctuous. I didn't feel I was drinking heaps of fat. As a matter of fact I felt I was drinking spoonfuls of goodness! A beautiful bowl of noodles, beef, tendons and a great broth which was lifted by the spikes of spicy chilli slices we consumed. So good!

We then decided to give our tummy a little break and walked around the shops. Along the way, I had a feeling of being back in Malaysia. Seeing familiar ingredients such as fresh tamarind, packets of instant coffee, shelves of biscuits and confectionery. And even a coconut grater!

And the abundance of street food, seafood and fresh vegetables and herbs make us consumers so spoilt for choice!

Our second stop was at Tan Viet Noodle House. There were queues to dine here. We came at the right time, only 2 were ahead of us in the queue. But later on I saw about 10 people deep waiting to get a table.

Albee's Kitchen, Kingsford (Sydney)

The first time I heard about Albee's Kitchen was a few years ago. Their famous curry puffs (or karipap) were part of a friend's contribution to a social gathering. To my delight I found a slice of boiled egg in the filling. I was pleasantly surprised at that. It is not often you find curry puffs made with a boiled egg as part of the filling.

Ever since then, I was aware of this Malaysian restaurant but did not have an opportunity to check it out until now. The original restaurant is located in Campsie but a few months ago, they expanded their business with a new outlet in Kingsford.

Our Malaysian lunch turned out to be a feast! Their menu is very extensive and it can be quite overwhelming reading through all the list of available dishes. We made a concerted effort to order dishes not easily available at other Malaysian restaurants. That turned out to be a good strategy!!

Here goes!

Curry puffs

Photo from my take away serving

Pandan chicken

Kuching Style clay pot noodles

Favourite dish!

Salted fish with bean sprout

Butter cereal chicken