China Noodle King

March 7, 2006

Well, I'm on the road again. We're on spring break this week, and right now I'm typing this from a hotel in Prague. We got here on Saturday and are actually getting ready to board a train to Budapest for the second leg of our trip. Been having a lot of fun, and some suprisingly good eats. But anyway, onto work...

Another cheap college-budget place we frequented a lot in Sydney was China Noodle King, on the main George Street strip at the edge of Chinatown. It turns out that it's pretty easy to find delicious, freshly-made Chinese noodles in Sydney, and the Noodle King as we called it was our favorite. The decor is sparse but the food is delicious (the noodles moreso than the dumplings), and the location is extremely convenient.

pork pancake - A$4 One of the best items on the menu (not to mention one of the best deals in Sydney) is this pork pancake. It's actually more like a pork sandwich, with fatty, oily pork in between two wonderful pancakes that are crispy on the outside and doughy on the inside. It's the perfect thing to split with a friend.

stretched fried noodles with pork and vegetables - A$7.8 The noodles, though, are the main event. They come prepared in a plethora of different ways, but I liked them best fried. This is pretty much as basic as it can get, but the noodles have a great slightly-chewy texture to them, and the portion is huge. We went to Noodle King all the time; the value there is pretty tough to beat. They also have bottled green tea and other Chinese drinks in their fridge - the perfect accompaniment. I recommend this place highly.

Cafe Mint

March 1, 2006

One of the lowest-priced places to receive relatively high marks from the Good Food Guide this year is Cafe Mint. The place is a pretty tiny restaurant on Crown Street in Surry Hills, a bustling area with numerous restaurants and stores. They call their food modern Mediterrannean, with a strong influence from Africa and the Middle East. It was quite a bit of work actually getting into the restaurant. The first time we tried to go there was a 2 hour wait (they have a first come, first serve, walk-ins only policy - I quite dislike this way of running a restaurant), and the second time we tried they were closed (they close on Saturday, of all days, unless you book a special function). On the third try, they quoted us 30 minutes, so Dan and I went over to a bar around the corner for a beer while we waited. Eventually, we got a little table in the back. The restaurant really is quite small and cramped inside, but there is fairly lively crowd, and every table seems to be always be filled.

large mechoui plate - grilled chicken, lamb kefta & merguez sausages with bread & tzatziki - A$16 Service, though friendly, was a bit inattentive and agonizingly slow, as is often the case in low-mid priced restaurants in Sydney. After having to wait a bit for our table, we were ravenous as we watched other people's food go by. When this plate of apps came, we wolfed it down pretty quick. It was quite delicious - the chicken was moist, flavorful, and tender, the kefta was extremely fragrant, and the sausage had an unusual but very interesting taste.

potato & roast garlic ravioli with spicy lamb mince, pinenuts & mint yoghurt - A$14.5 It was this dish (which was raved about in the Good Food Guide writeup) that really caught our eye and made us want to try this place. The description had us salivating. It turned out to be quite disappointing. While the ravioli and lamb mince were actually pretty good, the yoghurt element (which is sort of hidden under the lamb in the photo) really overpowered everything else. Too bad, really - it could have been a great dish.

saffron gnocchi with chorizo sausage, olives, tomato & roast capsicum - A$15.5 We decided to try this gnocchi, which turned out better. The gnocchi were off a more doughy consistency than potatoey. The chorizo was delicious, and almost reminded me of a spicy version of Chinese sausage (lap cheung). Capsicum, if I haven't mentioned it before, is the Australian term for bell pepper - I don't like them much usually, but they were okay here. Still, the whole experience was a bit disappointing. I guess the description of the ravioli dish had us thinking it would be a surefire hit, and the dominating yoghurt was a total letdown. Add all the waiting during every aspect of the meal, and Cafe Mint just didn't seems worth the trouble.

Heritage Belgian Beer Cafe

February 23, 2006

I mentioned when I was talking about Una's that there are a ton of European-style beer/food places that focus on a large variety of beers paired with no-nonsense meat and potatoes. One variation of these restaurants is the Heritage Belgian Beer Cafe in the Rocks, sister restaurant of Epoque in Cammeray. Heritage has a huge selection of Belgian beers, from the standards like Stella or Hoegaarden (one of my favorites) to ones I've never heard of (Bush Amber - 12%!! alcohol). Also, in addition to the steaks and schnitzels that are common at these types of places, Heritage specializes in moules frites, arguable Belgium's national dish. They serve mussels 8 different ways. The restaurant is quite big, with a decent-sized bar in the front and a slightly poshed-up beer hall feel. On weekend nights the place is bustling, filled with people both eating and drinking.

mussels with vegetables and white wine - A$20.5 The mussels come in these cool (and huge) mussel pots, which I'd never seen before but would see again soon in Vancouver. The menu advises you to keep the shell of the first mussel you eat, and use it as a pincher for all the other mussels, followed by a big NO KNIVES AND FORKS warning. The method actually works pretty well. The mussels themselves were great - plump, tasty and plentiful. They had some other interesting flavors, too. Dan had the "Tintin au Congo" (coconut cream, lemongrass and chilli), which had a nice hint of coconut with a surprising amount of kick.

fries with aioli The accompanying fries with aioli were pretty good. The fries were a bit thicker than I like, but were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The generous serving of aioli was addictive. The place isn't particularly cheap, but given its location in the Rocks, it isn't very expensive either. It's definitely a good spot to have a beer and a bite to eat.

Cafe Otto

February 17, 2006

Back when I talked about Mores Cafe, I noted the ubiquity of the Australian jack-of-all-trades cafe restaurant. And a few people have told me I sounded kinda bitter by the end of the review because of the phenomenon. Well, there are a few that have some decent food - Cafe Otto is one such place. It's just one of the many cafes on Glebe Point Road, and while the service is pretty slow and the prices aren't the best, they make some pretty good grub.

ham, cheese and shallot crepe with grilled tomato, hollandaise, grilled Turkish bread - A$10 Few things to clarify. In Australia, shallots don't refer to the small onions we call shallots here. They actually mean green or spring onions, aka scallions. Not that there's anything wrong with green onions - just don't be fooled. Also, the hash browns on this plate cost me extra, and were kind of a ripoff. The crepe itself was actually delicious, and I guess if you douse anything in Hollandaise like that, it'll be good. But the thing was too frickin' small, and even after sopping up all the sauce with that Turkish bread, I was still a bit hungry. Other than that, it was a good breakfast.

penne with tuna, onion, extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest, parsley and black pepper - A$17.9 In true Australian cafe style, the menu is broad, and covers pretty much all the categories you can think of. They've got a few more interesting pastas than most places though, and this tuna penne I had once for lunch is one of them. This thing was actually quite good - surprisingly proper al dente, a nice olive flavor, and a bit of kick. Simple, but tasty, and I'd eat it again in a heartbeat. Sadly, at A$17, the value wasn't particularly good. Otto definitely has some service issues to work out, too. Sometimes it was fine, but sometimes food took unbearably long. Slow service was actually a problem at a many of the low to middle-end places I tried. I think Australians are just a loooot more patient than we are... Despite that, I went to Otto a few times when I felt like having some Australian-cafe food. It was nearby, the food was pretty consistent, and so I just rolled the dice on the wait.

Tsukasa

February 14, 2006

Japanese food in Sydney is pretty interesting. An odd, takeout-style sushi has developed that I've never really seen before. Basically, there are a bunch of mall-style stalls (in malls and also on the streets) that mass produce sushi rolls. They're filled with all kinds of random things, from tuna to tempura to beef teriyaki to tonkatsu. They're pre-made and stored in a deli-style display fridge, and cheap as dirt. You can buy like 3 rollls for $6, etc. I tried them once or twice, and to nobody-'s surprise, they're basically crap.

Of course, there are proper Japanese restaurants as well. At the top of my list of places to find was a good, solid, sushi counter - something like Ino back home. Unfortunately, it appears sushi counters aren't exactly all the rage in Sydney, and I had a hard time finding places that actually focus on sushi. Most of the restaurants seem to be the normal across-the-board Japanese food restaurants, often with just a few so-so sushi options. Luckily, I did eventually find a few sushi-centered places. Tsukasa is one of them. Known best for its simple sushi bar offerings, the restaurant is a pretty simple-looking place in East Sydney. The front of the room has a sushi bar (which was full when I went, sadly), with a decent-sized dining area in the back. Dan and I got a table, but I ordered sushi anyway...

tekka maki, uni, salmon belly, kingfish, ocean trout belly, toro

unagi avocado maki The whole plate, ordered a la carte, was A$26, which I guess isn't too bad. I was pretty stumped by the sushi list at first - they have a bunch of stuff we don't really see. Kingfish appears to be an Australian species of yellowtail - some kind of hamachi or kanpachi. It was very tasty, with a nice, slightly bouncy texture that reminded me more of kanpachi than hamachi. Ocean trout is also very common, and at times pretty easy to confuse with salmon. In fact, I'm not even sure I remember which one is which in the photo. They taste somewhat similar as well, though I actually think I liked the ocean trout at Tsukasa more. The uni was bad, which I would later find out is not unusual in Sydney, and the tekka was standard (I ordered it before I realized they had any toro). The piece of toro was alright as well, but hardly anything special. The unagi roll was on par with what you'd find at home. I ended up only going to Tsukasa once, but in hindsight I probably should have gone there more. I was too busy exploring other restaurants, and it wasn't the easiest place to get to from where we stayed. The place had pretty good, solid sushi for a decent price.

Almustafa

February 9, 2006

You don't find Lebanese food much here at home. Of course, there's Reef, but Reef is one of a kind. Not so in Sydney, where there is apparently a pretty big Lebanese immigrant population. The result is that Lebanese restaurants are actually quite common. I remember one block near Surry Hills that has about 6 in a row. Closer to where we stayed is Almustafa (sorry for the lack of photo) on Glebe Point Road. Almustafa is very different than Reef - it's much more of a restaurant, with proper sit-down service and an emphasis on ambiance. The atmosphere is dark and exotic, and they even have a belly dancer on some nights (not when I was there, unfortunately) and a hookah lounge in the back (also not my thing). Accordingly, they charge real restaurant prices. They offer banquet menus for groups at around A$30 per person, though we decided to order a la carte.

hommous - A$8 We started off with some hommous for the table, and it was pretty good. The bread, though looking a bit dry and lifeless in the photo, was actually warm and very delicious. A$8 is a bit much for hommous, but at least it was a pretty big plate. It had a nice bean/olive oil mix.

falafel - A$15 Falafel was just okay, and again, a bit pricey. More fried than the Reef version. Also, notice the pickled turnips that you also find at Reef - must be a Lebanese thing!

cauliflower, lightly frid and topped with tahini - A$11 To my surprise, this was a star. I'm glad the fine SED ladies wanted to get this, because there's no way I would have ordered it on my own. The cauliflower was fried just enough to have a nice tender texture, and an ample amount of butter made it lusciusly rich. We shoulda gotten 2.

chicken shawarma - A$16 We went the safe route with a couple of shawarmas. I was eager to see if they resembled Reef's shawarmas, which are different than the typical rotating-big-piece-of-oddly-geometric-meat that you find at kebab and non-Lebanese Middle-Eastern places. As it turns out, this preparation was almost exactly the same as Reef, complete with the dollop of white garlic sauce on the side. It was tasty, but overall I think Reef's version is better.

lamb shawarma - A$22 The lamb shawarma, also similar to Reef's version. This tasted great, though it was quite expensive.

shish barak - homemade pastry ravioli filled with lamb, pine nuts and onion served in a bowl of lightly herbed yoghurt sauce, with white rice on the side - A$22 Now this was something I'd never seen before. It's too bad you can't see the stuff under, but they were kinda like little lamb dumplings. Hard to describe - they looked like big gnocchis I guess. They were fairly doughy with a nice bite of ground lamb inside. The dish was quite good, but the yoghurt sauce was quite overpowering. It was almost soup-like actually, and made for an interesting congee-like concoction when mixed in with rice. Interesting dish.

baklava - A$8 We ordered a few baklava, which came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Nice, nutty, pistachio flavor, though still a tad sweet for me. It didn't have the overwhelming syrup that many versions do though. So I'm a little torn about the second Lebanese place I've ever tried. The atmosphere is cool for the right occasion, but not really my thing. The food is good, but I can't get over the fact that I can get just as good stuff at Reef for half the price (or less). So I guess that Almustafa would be a nice place to go to once in a while... but I'm glad I have Reef in my backyard to go to regularly.

Saigon Saigon

February 4, 2006

Often in Sydney we'd just walk down nearby Glebe Point Road in search of something to eat. This tactic succeeded with varying consistency, but one of the good spots we found was Saigon Saigon. Cheesy name notwithstanding, the place actually serves up some pretty good basic Vietnamese fare. The menu isn't fancy, but the setting is nice (a little more upscale than your typical hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese place in the US), with very friendly and efficient service.

goi cuon - summer rolls with prawns, chicken, mint and vermicelli - A$9 A very good rendition of this standard Vietnamese app. These had great pieces of shrimp, and a nice mint kick. Not pictured is a A$2 bowl of "crispy crackers," which were some kind of homemade prawn chip. Very tasty and addictive.

house fried rice with prawns, chinese sausage, chicken and mixed veggies - A$12 Aren't I adventurous? Well, for some reason that night the fried rice appealed to me, and I'm pretty glad I got it. Admittedly, A$12 is still pretty expensive for fried rice, but this stuff was really good! A good mix of meats paired with some slight heat from the chilies left me quite satisfied. Oddly enough, the place doesn't have pho. I wish I'd made it back to try their bun though - I never got the chance. The place was a bit expensive compared to how much we're used to paying for Vietnamese here, but I didn't feel ripped off. The nicer ambiance and quality of food made up for it, I guess.

BCB Bakery

January 31, 2006

Don't have time for a long post, but here's a quick tidbit. I thought I'd mention a small place near our accomodations called BCB Bakery. Somehow I thought I had a ton of pictures from this place, so I never bothered to take new ones when I went back. It turns out I actually never even took a pic of the storefront, so my apologies. My Google-fu can't find any evidence of its existence, but rest assured it's there, near the corner of Broadway and Mountain. It's a cute little French bakery which appears to be run by some Japanese people. It turns out they have some great bread (then again, the bread in Japan is great too), and make some pretty nifty sandwiches.

sandwich with ham off the bone, cheddar cheese, grainy mustard mayo - A$6.8 They make a variety of sandwiches using their delicious mini baguettes, and this simple ham and cheese was my favorite. Some nice meat, cheese, and tasty mustard is all this great bread needs. They also have a great goat cheese/coppa/walnut sandwich, and according to Jainy, a nice vegetarian one as well. The side salad with a simple vinaigrette was fine for A$2. They also make a variety of crepes - I think that's a nutella crepe in the background. But they cost more than a sandwich, are tiny, and didn't look all that great, so I'd stick to the baked goods. They also have some nice pastries, namely some nice croissants and brioches. There were many kinds of little tartlets there too, but I never tried any since I'm not big on sweets. It was a pleasant surprise to find bread this good nearby, though.

Kopitiam

January 27, 2006

So my first couple of weeks at school have been busier than expected. The weather is getting seriously cold here, but I'm still glad to be back. It'd been a solid 8 months since I'd seen my Boston friends, so I've had a lot of catching up to do. Still a lot of people I need to hang out with.

In any case, I'll finally continue with my Australia posting. Another one of my favorites throughout the semester was Kopitiam in nearby Ultimo, just down the street from the University of Technology, Sydney. This was a gem from the SBS Guide. Like I mentioned before, Sydney has a ton of Malaysian and Singaporean restaurants. Kopitiam was one of the best - simple, down to earth, cheap, and just delicious. The decor and service are pretty bare, but the food is great.

roti canai - A$3.5 Kopitiam's version of roti canai was more pancakey than the one at, say, Aneka Rasa. Very hot and crisp on the edges, with a nice doughiness inside. Paired with the awesome chicken curry dipping sauce, this dish was a must-order for me during every meal. I totally got my roommate Dan addicted.

nasi lemak - A$8.8 Their nasi lemak, using more of that great chicken curry, was also quite good. Though the curry is the star, I enjoyed the condiments - sambal, a boiled egg, peanuts, anchovies and cucumber. The rice was a little disappointing - I'm pretty sure it was just white rice, and didn't have that subtle fragrance of coconut to it. Still, a good rendition if you like nasi lemak.

Hainan chicken rice - A$8.5 The real reason to go to Kopitiam though is the Hainan chicken rice. They only serve it on Sunday, and I tried to get to Kopitiam on as many Sundays as possible. The chicken is beautifully tender, tasty, and perfectly sauced. The chili sauce on the side was awesome, though I'm not sure it was chili exactly because it had a combined tangy, slightly sweet, slightly hot flavor. And the rice... oh man, the rice is great, and I'd happily eat it plain. Kopitiam also makes good versions of char kway teow, Hokkien noodles and laksa. I don't have any photos cuz I was always too busy ordering the chicken rice... Dan will attest to the char kway teow's excellence though. And Kopitiam's teh tarik was the best rendition of iced milk tea I had in Sydney. I got one with every meal, and I usually got one to go afterwards... :)

Paul's Famous Hamburgers

January 18, 2006

Well, I've started my last semester of school at BU. I just got back to Boston, and after being away from my apartment for 7 or so months, I'm finally starting to get settled back in.

One of my first weekends in Sydney was spent doing something very typically Australian: surfing! Even though I grew up in California, I'd actually never gone surfing before. I guess I do live in the non-surfer part of Cali. Anyway, over in Australia I signed up for a weekend surf camp. Although I only managed to get up on my board for seconds at a time before wiping out completely back into the water, I had a ton of fun. More importantly for the site - on our drive over to surf camp, we stopped at this little place off the highway that claims to have Sydney's best burgers. Paul's Famous Hamburgers are supposedly known nationwide - at the very least, this article in the Sydney Morning Herald proclaims it one of the 50 foodie things to do.

the works burger - A$6.2 You guys will never guess the standard toppings in an Australian burger. There, "the works" means cheese, ham, a slice of beetroot, a slice of pineapple, and a fried egg. Yeah, pretty weird, huh? I was intrigued, and of course I had to order it. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. There is a beef patty underneath that pile there, somewhere. The burger itself was ordinary at best - neither the meat nor the bun came close to the quality you can get back in America. As for the toppings... well, they were okay, but I wouldn't be in a rush to order the works again. I prefer sauteed mushrooms and onions... Later, I saw that beetroot was absolutely standard on Australian burgers, and no different than lettuce or onion or tomato. It's actually a pretty good burger topping, as it adds a nice refreshing element with a bit of tang. The egg and pineapple, while almost always available, didn't come standard. I didn't have too many burgers in Sydney, as I quickly discovered they aren't nearly as good there as they are back home. There are at least some things Americans still do best. :)

Una's

January 12, 2006

One interesting food standard in Australia is the schnitzel. My fellow Australian study abroad alums will all know what I'm talking about. Schnitzel, essentially, is a German/Austrian breaded cutlet (in Australia, they say 'crumbed' rather than 'breaded'). Most traditional is the wiener schnitzel, which is made with a thin piece of veal. A common variation uses pounded chicken breast. In Sydney, the schnitzel (and particularly, the chicken schnitzel) has for some reason become an absolutely standardized item. You find it everywhere, right next to the burger and the spaghetti bolognese. Many crappy places will use a mass-produced frozen schnitzel, which is basically the same as the stuff that pizza/sub places in the US use for their chicken parms. Actually, now that I think about it, they're pretty much exactly the same. I feel confident saying chicken schnitzel is the Australian equivalent to the chicken cutlet of a chicken parm in the States; if anything, the schnitzel in Australia is even more common and standardized. Of course, despite the frozen schnitzels being served all over the country, you can also find the real deal. There are quite a number of restaurants who will spend the time to make it properly. In fact, there's a pretty large segment of German/Austrian/Belgian restaurants that focus largely on beer and beer food. I'll cover several of them in the coming weeks.

I'll start with my favorite of the bunch. Una's (hmm, website used to show me a menu but isn't cooperating right now) is a German-Austrian restaurant with a bunch of German beers and some real down-to-business grub. The original location is in Darlinghurst, which is a good ways away from where I was staying. Luckily they've expanded to two other places - most recently to Ultimo, a block and a half away from our front door. The interior is basic, with mostly wooden furniture and decor, and I think about the time I left Sydney they were opening a bar upstairs. They have a wide selection of beers and spirits, but as you all know this is Arthur Hungry, not Arthur Thirsty, so I kept going back for the food. And go back I did - I think I went 8-10 times during my stay (combination of dinners and Sunday breakfasts), making it my #1 destination in terms of visits. Una's certainly wasn't the most refined or sophisticated restaurant I went to, but for convenience, value and quality, it was easily one of my best bets.

deep-fried Camembert with cranberry sauce - A$7.9 The main dish portions at Una's are absolutely huge (you'll see in a second), so it was a rare occasion that I got anything from their fairly enticing appetizer list. Though there are a few things I wanted to try (crumbed mushrooms, country pate), I only got an app once during all my visits. It was near the end of my trip, and I just couldn't resist not trying their deep-fried Camembert. Delicious, and surprisingly not-greasy considering it's fried cheese. It was kind of like a really nice version of a mozzarella stick - a nice, mild, Camembert flavor without the overwhelming rubberiness of a mozzarella stick.

jaeger schnitzel with rosti - A$17.4 Una's claim to fame is on this plate. They make both wiener (veal) and chicken schnitzels, and both come in bare bones versions. But they also make the jaeger schnitzel, which is a veal schnitzel covered in a delicious mushroom sauce. Their schnitzel easily ranks among the best in the city. Yeah, it's crunchy on the outside, meaty and tender on the inside, but I think it may be the mushroom sauce that really puts this thing over the top. It gives the schnitzel a nice counterpoint to the meat, which I think can get repetitive on its own. Also, if you didn't look closely enough, Una's gives you TWO cutlets. Needless to say, this is one of the biggest plates of food you can find. At $17 bucks Australian, it will easily feed you for a second meal. Another important part of this plate are those potatoes in the background. It's rosti, which is a common side dish at these German/Austrian places, and comes with most of the main dishes at Una's. From what I can tell, rosti is basically a German version of hash browns. I've had rosti a couple of times in random restaurants in the US, but I've never had anything (labeled rosti or otherwise) as incredible as these. Simply put, I think Una's has achieved the pinnacle of potatoes in hash brown form. It has something to do with the perfect balance of crispiness on the edge and hearty potato in the middle, paired with what seems to be the extremely liberal use of butter. The rosti is also excellent for mopping up excess jaeger sauce. The schnitzel at Una's is great, but it was really the rosti that brought me back so many times.

German meatloaf, creamed spinach, rosti - A$15 Una's also has a chalkboard on the wall listing various specials on different nights of the week. I didn't write down the price of this, but it was around A$15. I had seen this on the board during one of my meals at Una's, and made it a point to go back and try this on the specific night. Overall, it was really good. You can't really see the meatloaf under the jaeger sauce, but it was extremely meaty and very flavorful even on its own. As expected, it wasn't the spongy cafeteria meatloaf most people imagine. Again, the portion was absolutely huge; I ate half and was totally stuffed. The creamed spinach was a little disappointing - too much cream, not enough spinach. Of course, there was always the rosti to fall back on.

Viennese paprika chicken with rosti - A$18.4 Well, this is the lighter alternative to a deep fried veal cutlet: chicken breast! Who am I kidding. Don't go to Una's expecting you can get a light, healthy dinner - you'll just be lying to yourself. Unless you want to eat just a Caesar salad and go home. (Don't get me wrong, my friend Ben ordered the Caesar salad once and it was good. Just don't expect to be able to restrain yourself to just that when you go...) Anyway, I was a bit afraid of the chicken breast, but my friend Greg ordered it once, and after trying one bite I liked it enough to order it the next time I went. The paprika sauce is nice - a bit milder than the jaeger, and quite delicious. The chicken is shockingly tender considering it is white meat. Overall, a good option. And so those are a few of the choices at Una's. Between me, my roommate Dan, Greg, Ben, and a few others, we worked our way through a good portion of the menu. Everything is pretty much a safe bet, and you know you'll be getting a ton of food for what you're paying. Finally, going through my pictures, I seem to have failed to take a picture of Una's breakfast. Sunday morning breakfast (for us, this usually meant about 1-2pm) accounted for about half of my meals at Una's, and it's there that you really get the best deal. For under A$8, you can get a HUGE plate of eggs, your choice of ham/bacon/sausage, some nice piece of roasted tomato, some toast, and most importantly a big pile of rosti. In Australia, bacon isn't quite like what we get at home. It's not cut into strips, and includes a lot of lean meat. It tastes more like Canadian bacon than American bacon, but it's not quite lean all the way through, and is also usually cut bigger and not exactly round. Either way, I didn't really like it, and so I usually got ham. The Sunday morning Una's was routine, and the perfect cure for long, rough Saturday nights. Watch out for the 10% Sunday/public holiday charge, which is a normal practice in Sydney that seems really weird to us Americans. Still, even with that 10%, the Sunday breakfast at Una's was a sweet deal. As you may have guessed, I loved Una's. It's a college student's dream.

Ploy Thai

January 10, 2006

It didn't take me long to buy a copy of the SBS Eating Guide to Sydney. SBS stands for Special Broadcasting Service, which is a major network in Australia. Each year they publish an Eating Guide that contains a wealth of information about restaurants in the city. This guide is casual, and covers a lot of cheap, hole-in-the-wall type places. Arguably, the more important guide is the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food Guide, which is more about serious fine dining. The Good Food Guide has a 20 point rating system, with special "Chef's Hats" for the city's best restaurants. The Good Food Guide Chef's Hats are the Australian version of Michelin stars - fine dining establishments all strive for them, and just a handful get the coveted 3 Hats.

Given my budget, I found both guides equally useful. While the SMH guide had all the fine dining info, the SBS one had lots of affordable places and tons of ethnic cuisine. This next meal at Ploy Thai was definitely an SBS suggestion. While I'm at it, let me also plug Grab Your Fork, a great Sydney food blog with a ton of pictures and information that I used liberally during my trip.

Anyway, back to Ploy Thai. One thing that struck me quite immediately in Sydney was the abundance of Asian food. Sydney obviously has plenty of immigrants from all over Asia. Most notably, there seem to be a good deal more Southeast Asian restaurants than we have in the US. I mean sure, we've got our fair share of Thai and Vietnamese, but Sydney has a ton more Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean places - I guess the geographical proximity really has an effect. Ploy Thai is a little place on George Street, which is the main street that goes through downtown Sydney, connecting all the way from Circular Quay (the water) up to Sydney University. The inside is bare, to say the least, though clean and comfortable enough. But it was the random bits of Thai writing on the mirrored walls (admittedly mixed in with some English stuff) that signaled to us we were at the right place.

chicken laksa - A$10 Laksa?? I know you're wondering why the hell I ordered laksa - a Malaysian-Singaporean soupy curry-like noodle thing - at a Thai place. Yeah, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have. But basically I saw laksa written on the wall, and it'd been a LONG time since I'd had any, so I just went ahead and got it. That and, I guess I didn't want to trouble the waittress by asking for a translation for all that cool Thai stuff. But anyway, I'd find out later that laksa is everywhere in Sydney. I guess it's sort of like pad thai in America. You can find laksa in Malaysian/Singaporean places, Indonesian places, Thai places... just about anywhere. And the version I had at Ploy Thai was delicious, as un-Thai as the dish may be. The soup was incredibly fragrant, and had a rich, slightly sweet flavor. The chicken, though white meat, was still very tender. The noodles buried underneath were yummy. So I don't regret my decision too much. Then again, I also would've like to try some larb or something. Oh well... life is too short.

Mores Cafe

January 8, 2006

Okay, so it's been a while. I've fallen into all-out lazy vacation mode since my trip to Vancouver, and it's been tough to get off my ass and start the task of recapping Australia. I'm finally doing it though. It's time I get back into the Arthur Hungry swing of things, and I'll start it all from the beginning. Eating my way through Sydney was, like eating in any other city, a long learning experience. When you move to a new city, the eating scene is strange and mysterious. People have weird words to describe different things. They put different toppings on stuff. The city has odd trends, and different standards. I landed in Sydney without doing much research (I know, that's a bit odd for me), but I figured I had a lot of time to figure stuff out. The only place I really knew I wanted to try before I got there was Tetsuya's, the country's most famous and supposedly best restaurant. Other than that, I started with a blank slate. So with some 50 or so posts about Australian food, I'll hopefully be able to slowly show you what I learned about eating in Australia - the nuances, the trends, the standards. It was an interesting experience for me, to say the least.

My first meal out was at Mores Cafe, one of many little cafes along Glebe Point Road in Glebe. In Australia, addresses are all broken down into neighborhoods, so only a small section of what is largely considered to be Sydney will actually have a Sydney address. The student housing for my program was just across the street from Sydney University, at the intersection of three neighborhoods - Broadway, Chippendale, and Glebe. Glebe is an interesting place just a few minutes walk from where I stayed, and has a long main street with cafes, restaurants, and shops of all kinds. We (my roommate Dan plus new friends Ben and Greg) were lured into Mores because they had a A$10 pasta special. The decor was simple and casual, and I would soon learn that Mores was one of hundreds of simple cafes with menus I'd quickly get sick of.

garlic bread - A$3 This garlic bread was pretty standard fare, but I should note the type of bread used. In Sydney they call it Turkish bread (or pide bread), and it's used pretty much everywhere from restaurants to pizza/kebab joints. I have no idea if it's actually Turkish, but it's actually pretty good for what seems to be a very mass-produced bread. It's basically a little round white loaf that can be cut into strips like for this garlic bread, or horizontally acrosse to make a sandwich. It is great for toasting or grilling, as the outside because nice and crispy while the inside stays doughy. Another thing I found out though is that in Australia they like often charge you for bread, even if it's an extremely basic kind.

fettuccine carbonara - A$10 I saw a carbonara for A$10 (it's about 1 Aussie dollar to 75 US cents) - just one of many pastas on the discounted pasta list. I'd discover later that these generic pastas are served everywhere. Usually, places will have a list about 10 long where you can mix and match noodles with sauces like carbonara, boscaiola (a very common sauce in Sydney), marinara, pesto, and so on. This pasta wasn't great. It definitely wasn't authentic, with its liberal use of cream, as well as the use of ham rather than pancetta. (I'll leave the discussion of bacon and ham in Australia for another post; for now I'll just say Australian bacon isn't quite the same as American bacon). Still, the pasta wasn't overcooked, and it made for a pretty good cheap meal, though as you can see it was an eggy/creamy mess. It didn't look quite as bad in person, actually. And since I hadn't gotten sick of standard Australian-cafe style pasta yet, I was pretty happy with it. Mores is a good example of Sydney's most typical restaurant. A simple, fairly cheap, usually sit-down place with a list of sandwiches, pastas, and a few other random items. These places are really formulaic and get pretty repetitive after a while, so you won't see me going to many of them. Rest assured that they're ALL OVER THE PLACE, and very easy to identify with a quick look at the menu. The mix-and-match pasta list (see: boscaiola) is usually the first giveaway. Mores was actually a pretty good one, as they managed to avoid the common deathtrap of overcooked noodles.