Hi Thai - Blacktown

I met up with a friend after work one day, and we decided to eat at Hi Thai, a recently opened Thai restaurant in Blacktown.

I was sooooo close to ordering my usual Pad Thai. To break tradition, I opted for the chicken Peanut Noodle instead ($13.90). This was chicken pieces with super thick rice noodles, topped with a HUGE heap of super rich, super tasty, super oily, super unhealthy, yet super yum peanut sauce, mixed vegetables and egg. This was extremely extremely yummy. But with every bite, I could tell the I was eating something that was doing my body harm. I felt as guilty as I would have been, eating peanut butter out of a jar - which I guess was pretty much what I was doing - eating peanut butter mixed with oil! *sighz* Never mind - a treat after a hard days work.

Chicken Peanut Noodle - $13.90

My friend opted for a heathier option. He chose the Tasty Pumpkin with beef ($13.90). This was thin pumpkin pieces with beef, egg, veges and mixed with oyster sauce. As it doesn't come with noodles, hence he had to order rice with it. His dish was much much healthier tasting and looking compared to mine. Unfortunately, it was less yummy than mine.

Tasty Pumpkin with beef - $13.90

Overall, this was an average Thai place. Not bad, not excellent - but Thai is good any day.

Ratings:
Food - 8/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 28/40

Hi Thai
On Four, Westpoint Shopping Centre
Blacktown
NSW 2148
tel: (02) 9831 2415

Cafe Sydney - Circular Quay

To celebrate our 8 year anniversary, my partner and I decided to dine at Cafe Sydney - a restaurant we've been attempting to try for over 5 years now. Why? Boils down to our laziness to book and the impossibilitiness of dining at this place without a book. So yes - after the much anticipated wait, our expectations of this restaurant was probably quite high. But on our way to the restaurant, both my partner and I had decided to talk it down - if it's better than Bilson's, it's probably OK.

So we arrived for our 8.30pm booking (after a super hectic day at work for both of us). We were tired, we were hungry - we just wanted to eat eat eat! Unfortunately, our table was not ready yet. As such, we were escorted to the bar area where we had our own sofa space. We ordered a couple of drinks as we proceded to wind down. My partner got a beer, I ordered the Guava Polava ($11). This was a refreshingly sweet and fruity mocktail of guava nectar and mango puree. It was actually really yummy. Very mangoey and icey - just the way I like it!

Guava Polava - $11

When we finally got seated at our table (at 9pm), we were met with a a friendly bubbly waiter, a fantastic view of the harbour bridge and delicious aromas stemming from food from tables around us.

Choices of entrees and mains abounded, making our decision-making process quite tough. But we plowed through and persevered.

We ordered a garlic naan ($2.50) as opposed to traditional bread rolls. The garlic naan came our fresh and warm. Smelt fantastically aromatic and was light, very slightly oily, and subtly garlicy. It was quite appetising indeed.

garlic naan - $2.50

We also decided on an entree to share. We chose the grilled scallops ($27). Three big ish plump scallops came topped with rolled white anchovy. Accompanying it was shaved fennel, cabbage and 2 ruby grapefruit pieces. There was also small clumps of pine nuts and a smooth creamy pile of white sauce. Fortunately, the scallops were nicely grilled and not over cooked. The shaved fennel and cabbage salad was fresh, but the grapefruit pieces were slightly too juicy to be complimentary. The pinenut clumps were absolutely gorgeous. However, the same could not be said about the white anchovy. The anchovy was super strong and super salty and super overpowering. Eating the anchovy with the scallop meant that you absolutely cannot taste the scallop - anchovy only. It's amazing how such a small clump of fish can be so dense and strong.

Scallops - $27

In terms of mains, my partner opted for the pork belly ($38) under the strong recommendation by the waiter. The pork belly was twice cooked, with a nice rod of pork crackling, and accompanied with caramelised pear, speck, pistacio and jus. The waiter described the meat as "melt in your mouth" goodness - and melt-in-your-mouth goodness was how this meat was. It was very flavoursome, sooooo tender, and a good mix of meat and fat. The crunchiness of pork crackling was demonstrated by the huge cutting and crunching noises made by my partner. According to him, this dish was good - but not awesomely WOW.

Pork Belly - $38

I opted for a 'food addition' special of the night. The john dory ($42) came with black-coloured squid and prawn ravioli and small cubes of zucchini and chorizo. The john dory fillet was nice and tender. The skin was unfortunately not crisp and overall, the fish was slightly too salty. The ravioli pasta shell was a bit too thick and chewy - slightly too little squid and prawn mix for the thick pasta shell - the proportion was not quite right. In terms of the zucchini and chorizo cubes, they were pretty average. No complaints. The bisque sauce it came with was also OK.

John Dory - $42

In terms of sides, we ordered the mashed potato ($8) and the rocket and parmesan salad ($8.50). The mashed potato was very average. Not creamy enough and not fluffy enough - slightly too dense. Tasted also slightly like my packet deb mash (which I actually love). It just wasn't as awesome as mash ought to be at restaurants. The rocket and parmesan salad, on the other hand, was really pretty good. The rocket was fresh. There was a good amount of balsamic vinegar, and the parmesan cheese was pretty greatly complementary to the rocket.

mashed potato - $8

rocket and parmesan salad - $8.50

After all this food, my partner and I were both stuffed. We eyed the dessert menu and eyed the time and decided against getting dessert. Not that it wouldn't have been good- but nothing popped out as awesome 'eat me now!' dessert.

Overall, the food was not bad. The ambiance was absolutely wonderful, dim-litted, romantic and with a fantastic view. The service here wasn't the most attentive, but he was definately cheerful and friendly enough. I believe we had a good time and a decent meal to celebrate our 8 years of being together :)

Ratings:
Food - 7.5/10
Service - 8/10
Ambiance - 9.5/10
Value for money - 8/10
Overall - 33/40

Cafe Sydney
Customs House 5th Floor
31 Alfred Street
Circular Quay
Sydney
NSW 2000
tel: (02) 9251 8683

Medusa Greek Taverna - Sydney

On a long-overdue catch up with high school friends, we dined at Medusa in the City. I had my reservations about eating here because 1. it's in the city and I work super far away from the city and 2. it's greek food (and I've once been told by my Greek friend to never dine at a Greek restaurant as I don't eat lamb, feta, eggplant, pumpkin, sweet potato etc etc - ie. I don't eat any of the staple Greek ingredients).

Anyway - here I was. I was ready for anything.

Being a group of 9, we ordered the set menu ($50 each). We got 2 Mezze plates to share. The Mezze plate comprised of tarama and tzatziki dip, grilled halloumi cheese, dolmades, country-style sausages, olives, and a plate ful of pita breads. We were instructed by the waiter to attack the halloumi first - before it gets cold. Of a firm and chewy texture, it was mild yet tasty. The taramosalata is an authentic fish roe dip -pinkish in colour and really quite tasty and yummy. It wasn't too strong and it wasn't bland. The Tzatziki (which is yoghurt, cucumber and garlic) was likewise quite palatable.

Mezze plate

To be completely honest, I was not brave or game enough to consume the dolmades. Dolmades are the vine leafy green things with rice and minted yoghurt inside. As my partner described it as "it's alright" - and he actually likes Greek - I thought it was a bit too much of a risk seeing that I don't think I like vine leafs or rice or yoghurt. The country style spicy sausages were also untasted by me... partly because I was a bit hesitant about what type of meat it may be made of and partly because by the time I wanted to get to it, it was all gone :P The last part of the dish - the olives, were virtually untouched by the whole table. Not because they were bad olives. But mostly because we were all not huge fans of olives.

Mezze plate

We were also served with a greek salad. There were tomatos, cucumber, spanish onions, capsicum, and olives, sprinkled with oregano and topped with a block of feta. Drenched in olive oil, it didn't have too much taste. But I like cucumber - and it was fresh.

Greek Salad

There was also an entree of prawns bathing in thick tomato broth, baked and topped with crumbed feta to share. This was actually OK. The tomatoey stuff was very very rich and thick. The feta wasn't overpowering. However, the prawns were a little mushy-ish. Maybe a bit overcooked? or it could just be because it was soaking and baking and bathing in the tomato too long?

Prawns

Bread accompanying the prawns

In terms of mains, we had a choice between 5 dishes - 2 lamb dishes, 1 vegetarian dish, 1 eggplant thing, and one chicken thing. Interesting enough, there was an ingredient in each of these dishes that I do not eat. Hence, I picked the least threatening ingredients.

My Kotopoulo Tis Santorinis was a spinach, goats cheese and roast pepper stuffed chicken smothered with Santorini wine sauce. I'm not a fan of goats cheese and was able to squish all the filling out without it infusing into my chicken too much. I think that the cheese and the mushy roast pepper was a bit... um... overpowering. But I think that's how the Greeks like it? Nevertheless, the chicken itself was pretty tasty. The wine sauce was smooth and creamy. And there was yummy mash potato underneath it (which I could eat after I filtered out all the huge cubes of sweet potatoes which were luckily not mushed).

Kotopoulo Tis Santorinis

My partner opted for the Arni Souvlaki which was lamb skewers with tzatziki, herbed chips and spicy salad. He said that it was alright... but not excellent. He prefered the souvlaki from Stalactites (in Melbourne) and as the souvlaki here couldn't beat that of the famous 24 hour fast food joint - well... yeh. Anyway, lamb aside, the herbed chippies were really quite awesome~! :)

Arni Souvlaki

Another main that was ordered on the table was the Mousaka (as well as the vegetarian version - Mousaka Me Lahanika). The Mousaka is potato layered with eggplant and topped with eggplant and smothered in beef mince and bechamel sauce then baked like a lasagna. I had originally wanted to order this - but I asked the waiter if it would be possible to take out the eggplant and the answer was No! Even IF the eggplant was taken out, the eggplant flavour will still be infused throughout. So when it came out, I was super relieved I did not order this. So super eggplanted.

Mousaka

The last main of 5 was the Medusa's Arni Sto Fourno which was a whole slow baked lamb with roasted lemon potatoes and vegetables. It looked decent and no complaints originated from my friend. So I can only assume that the meal was fine.

Medusa's Arni Sto Fourno

For dessert, we each got a Galactobouriko and a Baclava. Both desserts were sitting ontop of a pool of syrup. The Galactobouriko was nice and warm. The puff pastry was crisp and completely gorgeous - the custard on the inside was something I didn't adore though. Hence, I simply just ate the warm outer crust :) The Baclava was super super sweet. A bit too sweet. Most of us could not stomach this.

Galactobouriko

Baclava

In addition to all this, a few of us also ordered the Greek coffee. This came in a small cup. Strong and slightly too sweet. Near the bottom was residue. As it was so sweet I thought that the bottom residue stuff may have been of the chocolate variety. Boy was I wrong. Warning - DO NOT TOUCH the muddy murky brown stuff at the bottom of the cup. It tastes like sand and mud. And it definately ought not be eaten/drunk. The waiter definately should have warned us about it earlier!

Greek coffee + mud residue

All up - this dining experience was better than I expected. BUT - it wasn't overly awesome either. If you wish to dine here, remember to book in advance - apparantly it's always booked out!

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 29/40

Medusa Greek Taverna
2 Market Street
Sydney
NSW 2000
Tel: (02) 9267 0799

Chatswood BBQ Kitchen - Chatswood

Chatswood BBQ Kitchen

For a cheap late dinner in Chatswood, my partner and I decided to dine in a honky style cafe. Having a few to pick from, we opted for a neat, clean looking one with people still inside.

Being seated, we were stuck with a HUGE HUGE HUGE menu. There's rice, there's noodles, there's curries, there's stir fries, there's noodle soups, there's bbq stuff, there's seafood, there's just soooooo much choice! I was seriously mulling over it - such a hard decision.

In the end, my partner decided on a chicken fillet and grill eel rice ($12.80) + ice coffee (which I stole) and I chose the cuttlefish ball seaweed thickened thin rice noodles (no clue what I'm talking about? Let me explain in a bit).

My ice coffee is strong - just the way I like it and slightly just a bit too much on the sweet side. Like a super sweet asian coffee lolly. YUM.

ice coffee - $1.50 (when added onto my partner's meal)

My partner's chicken was sitting on top of a pool of tomatoey paste and was really tasty and tender. I didn't try his eel - but it looked normal. My partner gobbled down his meal and was thoroughly full after - so I can only assume it was decent.

Chicken and eel rice - $12.80

As for my cuttlefish ball seaweed noodle soup - it was slightly dissappointing. The photo of it showed WAAAYYY more seaweed so when I looked down and saw one measly quater of a slice of nori paper, bits of preserved chinese veges, black fungi, corn and chinese cabbage, I was slightly dissappointed. The cuttlefish balls were also of the store-bought variety. Now onto the noodles. This is the thin rice noodle - but slightly thicker, smoother, more floury like (or ricey like) and more soggy than the normal thin rice noodles. Not too bad - but I prefer my flat rice noodles. Overall - this was okay, filling, but not WOW-like.

Cuttlefish ball seaweed rice noodles - $10

Ratings:
Food - 7.5/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 7.5/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 29/40

Chatswood BBQ Kitchen
308 Victoria Avenue
Chatswood
NSW 2067
tel: (02) 9419 6532

Shan Cheng Hot Pot - Haymarket

Feeling like hotpot whilst out in the city. Lucky for us, there's plenty of hot pot places for us to choose from. The one we chose this time was San Cheng Hot Pot - filled with people - with pretty much every one of them speaking mando. Made me feel as though I was in China :(

Shan Cheng Hot Pot

We sat down and had a good list of things to choose from. One thing was the soup base. I don't do chilli, and my partner does chilli extreme. The perfectness of this split pot is that my partner could have his super extra chilli side and I could have my chicken stock non-chilli soup side.

soup base

In terms of dunking ingredients, I ticked off a variety of "balls" - cuttlefish balls, beef balls, tofu fish - beef tripe, oysters, fatty beef slices, chinese cabbage, bean curd, king oyster mushrooms, corriander and white raddish. Yes - a whole heap of food.

Food-wise, everything was frozen, including the four oysters ($10) which were pretty fail. So hint - don't do seafood here. But everything else, we pretty much do frozen stuff for hot pot anyway so it didn't matter too much.

In terms of the soup-base, my side was pretty good and tasty. My partner's super hot hot hot side was seriously... super hot hot hot! My partner was almost dying from the hotness (and trust me, he takes chilli really well).

cuttle fish balls

beef balls

tofu fish

beef tripe

oysters

beef

chinese cabbage

bean curd

king oyster mushrooms

corriander

white raddish

Overall, food at this place is OK. The soup base was also OK. My partner almost died eating it, but he was also super addicted to it that he couldn't stop eating it (even though it was killing him). The atmosphere here wasn't great - unless you like the feel of being in a super crowded city in China. Service was average and pricewise, our bill came to around $80.

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 6.5/10
Overall - 25.5/40

Shan Cheng Hot Pot
Shop 8a, 363 Sussex Street
Haymarket
NSW 2000
tel: (02) 9267 6366

Guylian Cafe (2) - The Rocks

Guylian Cafe was visited by my partner and I one evening. We thought we'd so something different so we parked at Milson's Point and then walked the bridge over to the Rocks (parking for 2 hrs = $12).

After a long leisurely stroll, we ended up at Guylian Cafe for a coffee. But ofcourse, with the option of a dark chocolate shake, why settle for just coffee? The dark chocolate shake a nice, soothing sweet drink for the night. However, because I'm a big fan of thick shakes and not milk shakes, and because the drink wasn't as dark chocolatey as I would have liked, this drink didn't quite hit the spot. Better than nothing though.

Guylian Dark Chocolate Shake

My partner just ordered a large latte. Pretty small for a large - thought I. But it did have a nice heart-shaped coffee art on it. The coffee was strong enough, but I don't know - compared to Melbourne coffees, all coffees in Sydney seem watery and less smooth. This one also had a slightly wierd bitter aftertaste. Hmmm... So I guess coffee in Melbourne tastes awesome, but lacks coffee art whereas Sydney coffees tend to look better, yet lack the awesome coffee factor.

Large Latte

Well - I'm not even going to put the prices of these drinks on because 1) I've forgotton the price 2) it's definately not as cheap as the price they advertise on their website 3) I remember that the prices were quite a bit expense compared to what they are worth. To top it all off - by the time we left, we decided to cab it back to Milson's Point. So the moral of the story? Don't park your car on the other side of Sydney when it's late at night! :)

Ratings:
Food - 6.5/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 5/10
Overall - 25.5/40

Guylian Cafe
91 George Street
The Rocks
NSW 2000
tel: (02) 8274 7500

Cadbury Dairy Milk - Fairtrade Status

Happy Easter!!!

Hope the Easter Bunny bought you all lots of awesome yummy chocolate easter eggs!!! :)

I got lots of easter eggs at work - and to top it all off, this block of Cadbury Dairy Milk was waiting for me at home - for FREE!!! in celebration of their newly gotton Fairtrade status.

So now we can all chomp on this chocolate and know that the cocoa farmers are getting their fair pay =)