Mamak (Chatswood, Sydney)

Back when I was in uni (a long time ago!) in Sydney, I used to despair ever finding decent Malaysian food outside of home cooking. These days it has become a rather popular cuisine and you can find Malaysian food in food courts and restaurants all over Sydney. And in Melbourne, there are heaps more!

Mamak opened up a few years ago and its first outlet was in Chinatown. It started life as a stall at the Friday night markets in Chinatown and became so popular the owners felt compelled to open up a permanent restaurant. Let's just say it was a decision they will never regret!

The Chatswood branch opened up about 2 years ago and it is located at the Chatswood Railway Exchange food zone. By the way this whole area is becoming such a food hub.

My post covers 2 separate visits. The first was a dinner I had with a friend and the second was a recent lunch.

Roti canai - served on the traditional metal tray with portions of dahl, curry sauce and a side of chilli sambal. I found the roti to be light and fluffy. It was of a better standard than my first try of the roti at the original Chinatown outlet many years prior. My friend was also very pleasantly surprised at how good the roti was!

Kari ayam - a rather nice chicken curry with servings of chunky potatoes. It surely would go well with some boiled rice but we had ours with the roti. Yum!

Nasi Lemak with sambal cuttlefish - one of my favourite dishes when I get takeaways from Mamak. For those of you who are not aware of this dish, it is coconut rice served with sliced cucumber, sambal, lightly fried peanuts, fried and crispy anchovies, with a boiled egg. In this case I requested for a serving of sambal cuttlefish too. So good!

West Juliett (Marrickville, Sydney)

When I read about new and upcoming cafes in the inner west, I am reminded time and time again of how many places I need to check out. There is a part of me that knows I am constantly trying to catch up but not very successful at it though! :(

Even though West Juliett has been open for over a year, I have yet to try it out until now. It was a Saturday and lunch time. My friends and I agreed to meet at around noon but fortunately for me they arrived earlier and put their name down for a table. By the time I got there, lo and behold they were already seated. Now I call this sheer good luck as there were many people hanging around waiting for a table.

After poring over the menu, I took a look inside the cafe and realised how very popular this place was. It was absolutely buzzing and packed with people!

Salad of Lamb shoulder, ripe tomatoes, freekeh, basil, tahini yoghurt, and chilli oil. It looked so fresh and the lamb was tender and delicious.

Grass fed burger, lettuce, cheddar, Dijon, tomato, pickles, mayo and relish. Impressive way to serve a burger, a knife stabbed in the middle of the burger is one way to attract attention! It was a very good burger, the meat patty was nice and pink and juicily tender. And the bun was soft and pillowy.

JM had the burger too but he had a bacon added to the burger and he loved every bite of it!

Paper Plane Cafe (Parramatta, Sydney)

I think I mentioned in previous posts how food trendy Parramatta is becoming these days. One of the main reasons is this café. Since it first opened a few months ago, it has been packing it in.

Paper Plane Café is located in Horwood Place, off the main streets of Phillip Street and George Street. After seeing so many photos of the food on Instagram, I had book marked it on my list.

My first visit was breakfast on a Saturday morning. I had the Truffled Eggs which was scrambled eggs with truffle oil, tomatoes, mushrooms on organic sourdough with a side of rocket parmesan salad.

I wasn't sure if I would taste any truffle but I was wrong. The earthy flavours of the truffle oil was prevalent throughout the eggs. It certainly made the scrambled eggs a whole lot more interesting.

On my second visit, my friend and I visited for lunch. I certainly liked the look of the lunch menu which is only served from noon on the weekends. We were lucky enough not to have to wait too long for a table.

Emma's Snack Bar (Enmore, Sydney)

A recent opportunity came up to check out the newly revamped Emma's Snack Bar. It used to be Emma's on Liberty and shut down for a while to undergo an interior and menu revamp. Since re-opening, there has been many positive reviews on social media.

I have always found eating Lebanese food to be very communal. It brings out the desire to order many dishes and share amongst the group. Emma's Snack Bar is such a place.

We booked for 6.30 and got there slightly early. At that time of the evening I would have anticipated it would have been half empty but I was wrong. It was quite full of people, mainly families with young children.

Here is a list of our feast!

Homous - a different spelling to what I was used to. But our focus was on the taste! Freshly cooked chick peas crushed with tahini, garlic and lemon. Yep, it definitely tasted good and we kept going for more with our pita bread.

Garlic dip - pure garlic dip blended with extra virgin oil. AF wanted to try this so we did! Not as garlicky as we anticipated, it had an interesting whipped texture.

Baba Ganouge - smoked eggplant on open fire with tahini. Oh boy! We could taste the smokiness and this was seriously so good. The smokiest baba ganouge I have ever had and it was yummy! Big thumbs up!

Fried Potato and Coriander - hand cut garlic potato and fresh coriander. Honestly didn't know what to expect but it surpassed all our expectations. Super crunchy roasted potatoes with delicious garlic and coriander potatoes. It was a surprise hit dish for the group.

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.