Saturday, July 08, 2006

A Sydney Food Post!

okays. for those who read my blog, ull know i headed up to sydney a couple of days back and i gathered some food reviews of places i went so here it is!


Tuesday Breakfast
I flew a budget airline at 9am that morning so I didnt really have time to make and catch any sort of breakfast before I left for the airport at freaking-far-Avalon. So here's what I did: I bought food on board the budget flight! Was feeling peckish although I later suffered from motion sickness, so I got myself a cookie!

Surprise surprise!

Jetstar sells the premier range of Emporio Arnotts cookies! There was only one flavour which was triple chocolate chip and because I was so excited that the flight sold premier brands of cookies I decided to blog about this as well. Haha.

But frankly the cookie was really nice. Melts in your mouth and not too sweet. Perfect if you had a cuppa beside you as well.

Rating: 7/10. =)

Tuesday Lunch:
the moment i arrived, my friends whisked me to yumcha! the restaurant was opposite The Peak Apartments at Market City.

Marigold Restaurant.
Can you read this?

Yumcha there was realllieee good! It's the best one i've had thus far and its better than the reallie expensive ones in Melbourne! Complete with the cantonese waiters and waitresses with trolleys and pushcarts, they had a delectable variety of yumcha dishes to choose from. there were even trolleys that made fried carrot cake for you on the spot!

Let's see what we had..

We ordered:
- Siew mai and har gao
- Char siew bao
- Char siew soh
- Vegetarian mock meat roll
- Fong zhao (Chicken feet)
- Steamed pork spare ribs
- Fried noodles
- Pei dan porridge
- Fried yam balls with prawn
- Paper prawn with mayonaise
- Lor mai gai (Sticky rice)
- Beancurd
- Mango pudding
- Mango crepe

I think that should be it although I believe there was more though coz we were stuffed after that!

Helping ourselves to the food..

And wah lah! Almost gone!

The service there was really good with friendly staff peddling their food to each table. Tea was refilled promptly like almost every 5-10 minutes. I wasnt sure which session we caught because we went to eat yumcha at about 1pm. The trolleys continued going around even though they had already passed us once or twice, which was good because in some places in Melbourne you actually have to grab the chance when the food is there coz it only comes once. So like for desserts, you have to grab it even though you havent even had your fill of the salty food yet.

The har gao was okay because their prawns werent big enough for me, hee.. but their char siew bao and char siew sohs were really good! the char siew was really well done and it was dark red and not artifically coloured like those bright red ones you sometimes get in chinatown or cheap chinese places.. and the meat wasnt too fatty with only one or two pieces of fat in the bun itself.. the lor mai gai (sticky rice) was pretty yummy too given that i hadnt had lor mai gai in a while now..Pei dan porridge was also tasty.. i didnt have to add any pepper in it and it was tasty enough! =)

But the highlight for me here would have to be the desserts. We tried the mango crepes which were new to me. I wasnt too sure about what the crepe was made of, whether it had mango in the batter or it just consisted of egg yolks and flour but inside.. it was heavenly.. there was cream and mango pieces inside the crepe which was delectable when you bit into it.. you know like how doughnuts have cream in them and it oozes out after you bite into it, this was the same.. the cream had a tinge of mango flavour in it as well which made it really nice.. The beancurd was really good as well, as it was really smooth and it wasnt all too sweet. There was a slight tinge of ginger in the sugar syrup but I didnt notice it until we almost finished the bowl. One of the better beancurds I have had in Australia but of course it cannot beat the ones we have back home..

The best dessert in the house was the mango pudding. This mango pudding is heavenly upon heavens. If I thought the mango crepe was good, this was excellent! Its the best mango pudding I have had so far and the milk on top made it even niceeerrr..

As you can see from the picture, the layer of milk was on top and the mango pudding and real bite-sized mango pieces in it! the pudding itself had mango puree like stuff in it so it was really mango-y but it wasnt sickeningly sweet to that extent.. you could finish up the whole thing on your own! =)

Rating: 7.5-8/10. The service there really made the difference. It was the first time I've come across such good service for someone who doesnt speak cantonese but english at a yumcha place in Australia..

Tuesday Tea Time!
Yes we had tea. Of coz you could tell by this time we were on an eating mission in sydney. we were at bondi beach and walking along the street when my friend introduced me to this:

Looook..

Ta dah! Fried Mars Bar!

I know i know.. you may go 'eEEEewww.. Fried mars bar???' I did that too and couldnt figure out how they would make such a thing.. well, I didnt get to find out how they actually fried the thing but when i tried it, it really tasted good! the icing sugar on top made it sweet with the crispy batter and when you sink your teeth into it, mars chocolate flows out! you know how the mars bar is layed with chocolate, caramel and some soft nougat? this is the same! so its really quite an interesting combination.. but its not something you'll have on your own after a full stomach though.. haha..

Rating: 7.5/10 for the fried mars bar.

Tuesday Dinner:
Hoookays. I cant believe how much food i managed to gorge on the entire day of tuesday but im glad it was only for tuesday. haha. lets see. for dinner we had korean! at this place called Seoul Ria along George Street in the city of Sydney!

Seoul Ria, with authentic korean waiters and waitresses as well a head korean mistress in charge of the place

We had a window seat and this was what we saw if we looked out of the window!

We ordered a soup dish, chicken and pork bulgogi on hotplates, fried glass noodles and stew rice.
Lookie here..

Rating: 6/10

Hmm.. my previous blog about korean food was much better than this place, but I guess why i would pass this review was because of its location and ambience.. It was a really nice and busy restaurant where you can see people hustling and bustling around with food for the customers. each table also had a buzzer where you pressed it and your table number would come up on the display near the cashier and notify whoever was free to attend to that table. cool huh.. it looked busily organised.. haha..

Wednesday Lunch
Location: Pancake on the Rocks at Circular Quay

Pancake on the Rocks - very much like Melbourne's very own pancake parlour. Except ours is better. =p

What I had with the girls:
- Chicken Caesar Salad
- BBQ Pork Ribs
- Hot 'N Tropp Pancakes

Here we see the salad on the right and the pancakes with the melting chocolate icecream on the left.

The salad was really good. One of the better chicken caesar salads I've had around with well-marinated chicken pieces as well as a sufficient amount of dressing among the leaves, croutons and bacon bits. A boiled/poached egg was missing though but the cheese in the salad made up for it.

The pancakes had grilled bananas, walnuts and chocolate icecream with cream on it. The pancake itself was abit too thick and it wasnt sweet enough unless you took a bite of the bananas as well. Abit disappointing but nevertheless it was sufficient as a dessert.

Our BBQ Pork Ribs.

It was served with wedges and sour cream and salad greens on the side. The sauce was pretty good but the ribs were so tiny in size! The ones in Cafe Cartel in Singapore are even larger than the ribs here! So, a no-no if you're a ribs lover and you decide to come here. Best choice here was definitely the caesar salad.


This was a pancake ordered by one of the guys. It was chocolate pancakes with chocolate fudge and strawberries. I tried a mouthful of the chocolate pancake and my verdict? Pancake parlour's chocolate pancakes are nicer in tasty chocolate flavour than this one.

Rating: 6.5/10.

Thursday Brunch
Sydney Fish Market was the last stop in Sydney.

I had a lobster and shared sashimi with chengy. The sashimi was really gooooooodd. Fresh and refreshing. It was the first time I had tasted good maguro.. in the past ive always only had salmon sashimi and i decided to give this a go anyway.. and it turned out really yummy~~ oishii~

The lobster on the other hand was ok. So-so. It had melted cheese and cream inside the half lobster shell. Wasnt fantastic but i guess i had too high an expectation. =p

Rating: 7/10 for sashimi, 6/10 for the lobster.

On the way back
Krispy Kremes!

I bought three boxes back. Hahaha. My first time buying Krispy Kremes!

Enjoying it now and i've picked up some favourites. I'm sure everyone has their favourites like Strawberries & Cream and Custurd or Original but so far I really like the Chocolate & Cream doughnut. Yummmmmieee~ =D

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