Tan Viet Noodle House - Cabramatta

The best crispy skinned chicken in Sydney?
Possibly...

It's so good that it's super crowded on weekends... and my partner drives from Mascot to come here for lunch (yes - on a super extended lunch break). I just had to try.

Tan Viet Noodle House

Despite the line, we luckily did not have to wait too long. A good majority of people dining here ordered the crispy chicken with egg noodles either "wet" (ie. with soup) or "dry" (ie. without soup - more like a stir noodle with sauce). My partner said that the "wet" noodles are good... and so, this time, we tried the "dry" noodles.

With it, my partner ordered also a iced white coffee.... and it was HEAVENLY~ Coffee-lollied and sweet and strong and just delicious. A bit too much ice, but I guess it made it cold enough.

Iced white coffee

And I have to say, the chicken did not disappoint. Super thinly skinned but soooo stupidly crispy and fresh. Not too much fat content stuck to the skin either! Also, the meat itself was sooo tender and soooo succulent and soooo juicy and soooo tasty. It was pretty ridiculously good for chicken that you get in Sydney. Now I kind of get why my partner drives to Cabra for lunch LOL

Crispy skinned chicken with noodles -$12

"dry" noodles
crispy skinned chicken
bean sprouts

So at Tan Viet, we're talking slightly overlly asianated. Slighly noisy. Speedy service (but don't expect too many smiles). And pretty awesome chicken! :)

Ratings:
Food - 9/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 8/10
Overall - 30/40

Tan Viet Noodle House
3/100 John St
Cabramatta
NSW 2166
Tel: (02) 9727 6853

Taste of Sydney 2011

As I was purchasing tickets for the Taste of Sydney festival this year, I realised something horrendous... I haven't blogged about last year's Taste of Sydney festival - reason being, I had put my partner in charge of photo taking... and he still hasn't given them to me.

So this year, I was determined to take my own photos. Again, heading for the evening session on the Saturday, we were met with quite a large crowd of fellow hungry food forages. We tasted many a things - from wine to sauces to dips to salmon to icecream - and all were pretty awesome! But in terms of things we used our crowns (the official currency of the festival) for, it was the following:

From memory, I think we had like 4 different wagyu beef dishes last year... this year, fish (salmon and trout varieties) seemed like the new black. Our first pick was from Berowra Waters Inn. I have to say, we smelt this in the cooking from outside the festival gates... and hence we just HAD to have it. They had a seeminly awesome selection of oyster beignets, slow cooked ocean trout, and cheese. I have to say, both the oysters and the trout looked amazing... but we opted for the trout (12 crowns). And trout did not disappoint. It was simply falling off my fork and melting in my mouth. AMAZING texture, amazing flavour - especially when dipped in the french onion soup puree. Accompanying the simply gorgeous (I can eat millions of) trout was a peppered oxtail 'croustillant' which was really, just a fancy juicy beefy spring roll type thing - and that was pretty awesome to... but in my mind, it was the trout which stood out.


We walked past Croquembouche Patisserie and initially, was enticed by the eiffel tower look-a-like thing. After a second of checking the place out, it was their selection of tarts, macaroons and petit fours which enticed me. Even though I had pretty much not eaten anything substantial yet, my stomach was telling me - "dessert time". And so I was coerced into picking a chocolate fondant (2 crowns) and it was simply decadent! Smooth, super rich cocoa mass denseness with a substantially good contrasted biscuity-cakey type base. Topped with just rich chocolate ganache... Mmm... Goes straight to the top of my cravings list :)



Now onto more main meals. I saw this super colourful arrangement from Otto and decided I had to have it. A Regal King salmon carpaccio (10 crowns) with orange bits, shaved fennel, salmon roe, baby herbs and crispy salmon skin, doused in a citrus and chardonnay vinegar dressing... it looked a million dollars. Tasted interesting too. Fresh. Yet the crispy salmon skin was like eating intensely salmon-flavoured chips - slightly hectic. The salmon itself was rather delicious :)



However, I have to say, Regal king salmon - which has a much more intense flavour compared to atlantic salmon - tastes better when cooked (or lightly seared). According to our later watching of Matthew Kemp (Restaurant Balzac) demonstrating his cooking of his seared regal king salmon with pomegrante, mint and feta salad (10 crowns), this is due the the fatty content that is in the New Zealand origin fish. All I can say is that when the fat is melted just a bit, it gives off ZOMG AMAZING flavours (or maybe it's because they cook it well?). These king salmon skewers were pretty damn delicious!


To me, it was dessert time again. I remember tasting absolutely amazingly creamy and rich icecream from the New Zealand tent last year, and surely enough - they were here this year again! Kohu Road icecream is apparently purchasable at any grocery store in NZ... but in Sydney, it's slightly harder to locate. We were given free sample tastings... vanilla (super rich, you can even taste the vanilla beans) was one of my partner's favourites, my friends liked the golden syrup, I thought that cookies and cream was pretty awesome... but after a very long deliberation, I decided to have a scoop of espresso and a scoop of dark chocolate. Both flavours were intense. Intense in a good way. Due to it's melting nature, I gobbled it up in no time and went hunting for the next lot of food with my partner :P




Wagyu beef burger (originally from Becasse store back in the day), currently offered from Charlie & Co is something I think we ordered all 3 taste of sydney festival's we've been to (12 crowns, 10 if you're a HSBCer). I have to say, the very first time I had this thing - it was gorgeously juicy, novel and eye-opening. The second time was good too. This time - I think I've had too much exposure to awesomely juicy beef burgers (maybe just a tad spoilt) and this burger, still amazingly juicy and tasty and yum, lacked a bit of creativity. The weird thing is, I didn't even pick to order this this time - it was my partner (and he was unimpressed with it the first time around). Men are weird. ish.
My partner's last dish of the night was from Four in Hand - the confit pork belly, squid, chorizo and chickpea (10 crowns). The pork belly was deep fried, yet kind of tender. Lots of tomatoey stuff and bits of chorizo, squid and chickpea just kind of swimming. My partner seemed to like this... I didn't enjoy it was much. I don't think I like my pork belly deep fried... or maybe if they deep fry it, it has to be thicker? I'm not sure, but it was a bit too crispy and dry for my liking, even though it was swimming in the choriza chickpea mixture.


So there you have it, our taste of sydney festival experience. I have to say, being a HSBCer, getting a free drink and a free chill out area was pretty cool - you get to enjoy the VIP area without paying VIP. The food and the exhibitors this year was also pretty good - and yes, I think this is the year of Regal King Salmon (can't get enough of that stuff LOL)

Pane e Vino - Concord

Brunch time!
This time, we took off to Pane e Vino in Concord - which is a cafe by day, restaurant by night.

Pane e Vino

I had a huge coffee craving and hence, coffee was definately on my agenda. My capp was average. Not bad, good amount of foam and chocolate powder but... I don't know. Sydney coffee still lacks the strong aroma-ness of asian coffees (say, Viet coffee) and the creamy richeness of Italian coffee (or even Melbourne coffee). Nonetheless, the coffee wasn't bad.

Cappuccino

Foodwise, my partner opted for the "breakfast in concord" ($14.50). This was 2 poached eggs sitting on top of a huge paella of richly herbed tomatoey baked organic cannellini beans. Bits of bocconcini and fresh basil were scattered throughout and 2 bread slices (slightly burnt) was served on the side. To me, this was eating a fancy version of baked beans on toast with eggs... except the beans were more richly bathed in tomato sauce. Didn't appeal to me too much. My partner said it was average - I think he would have liked a bit of meat on it :P

breakfast in concord- $14.50

I chose the "concord express" ($7.50) which was 2 eggs cooked however I wanted (in my case, poached) and served with in-house baked bread. A load of extras were available (mushrooms, tomato, sausage, hashbrowns, bacon, beans spinach). I decided to add chicken sausage ($3) and a hash brown ($1.50) to mine. The sausages didn't look too appetising - wrinkly weird orangey-yellowish colour - BUT tasted awesome! My eggs were cooked perfectly - just the right amount of runniness. My hashbrown was a bit too crusty. And my bread was good. So all up, I enjoyed my brunch :)

concord express - $7.50 (+ sausage $3 + hashbrown $1.50)

Service is not the most attentive, but they get by. The food seems to be fresh - they do their best. And ambiance-wise is pretty good. Chillaxy open cafe.

Ratings:
Food - 7/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 7.5/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 28.5/40

Pane e Vino
50 Mortlake Street
Concord
NSW 2171
Tel: (02) 8765 8818

Crust

I don't know why but I've had a HUGE craving for pizza for quite a few weeks now. So on the weekend when my partner asked me what I wanted to eat, I said - PIZZA! And being nice, he agreed to it.

Mentally flicking through the pizza joints available, I decided to test out Crust - the gourmet pizza takeaway place that's become immensely popular in the recent year (but we'd both yet to try).

Crust Alexandria Store

They had quite a decent menu so it took us a while to decide what pizzas we wanted. But in the end, we'd opted for the Meat Deluxe ($16 for medium, $20 for large), and the Philly Steak ($16 for medium, $20 for large).

Crust

Thin yet not too thin pizza base, crunchy on the edges, soft in the middle, smothered with bbq sauce, and topped with smoked ham slices, pepperoni, Italian sausage bits, chicken fillets, ground beef and bacon and cheesed up - that was our Meat Deluxe. Yes. It was an awesome load of meat, meat and more meat. It tasted absolutely delicious on the base of bbq sauce.

Meat Deluxe - $16 (medium)

I had originally wanted to try their wild mushroom pizza (which was mushrooms of all types) to balance out the all meat pizzaa but was met with the aweful stare from my partner which implied "are you serious?". So I succumbed and opted for the philly steak. The philly steak tasted completely different to the meat deluxe. For one, it was tomatoey and not bbqy. And it had rocket on it - adding some greenery. It also bought along quite a strong taste of capsicum, both fresh and roasted. The pizza had loads of topping of black angus roast beef slices, caramelised onions, mushrooms and a delicious twizzle of dijon mustard. It was pretty awesome! Different awesome to the meat deluxe - but awesome nonetheless.

Philly Steak - $16 (medium)

I normally eat maybe around 3 slices of pizza? But here - I swallowed up a WHOLE pizza. Yes - I was quite disgusted with myself, but it also meant that the pizza was deliciously enticing enough for me to eat it whole :P

Ratings:
Food - 8.5/10
Service - 7.5/10
Ambiance - ? (we took it home - so ambiance was great~ )
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 23.5 + ?/40

Crust Pizza (Alexandria Store)
486 Botany Rd,
Alexandria
NSW 2015
Tel: (02) 9690 0233
http://www.crust.com.au

Koi - Woolwich

The moment we stepped in, I felt as though I had entered a different realm.

Tranquil. Calm. Serenity. Soft music playing in a slightly darkened, cooled room. Zen.

Now this is life. I felt as though all my tension, all my stress, everything that worried me was no longer an issue whilst I was here. So for all those stressed out, tensed out, busy Sydney-siders who complain of being anxious and depressed - get your weekly dose of Koi and you'd probably be fine (for atleast the period of time that you're here).

Small Jap garden in the restaurant

We were quickly and quietly escorted to our table in the corner. Undisturbed tranquility. He efficiently handed us the menus, was open to questions, and allowed us ample of time to figure out what we wanted. Whilst the menu was not super duper huge, it was adequate and ample enough to make us feel stumped for a few minutes.

I remember seeing seared scallop carpaccio ($19) when I google imaged "Koi" and hence, that's one option that I picked. A nice plateful of thinly sliced scallops, lightly torched and almost swimming in a pool of soy butter, it looked and smelt quite fantastic. The only problem is, the buttery emulsion slightly overpowered the subtle sweetness of the scallops and yeh... kind of all we tasted was the butter... but it was on pretty awesome scallop texture :P

seared scallop carpaccio - $19

One of my partner's awesome picks was the sashimi (medium sized - $39). 15 pieces in all, there was beautifully cut and arranged salmon (raw and lightly seared varieties), tuna, kingfish (lightly seared on top), dory, and cod. This looked soooo pretty. It came with a slight smudge of lightly wasabied mayo. The sashimi was super super fresh. All the fish was perfectly sized and led to taste sensation. It was OMGosh. *drools*

mixed sashimi medium (15 pieces) - $39

We had also decided to order 2 types of sushi rolls. The soft shell crab roll ($16) and the california roll ($16). To be honest, I didn't expect the two sushis to come combined on one plate, much less arranged like a work of art. The soft shell crab roll comprised of crunchy tasty soft shell crab, fresh cucumber, avocado, tobiko, and just the right amount of mayo. One word - YUM. The california roll was different to what I expected. I had my mind set on that imitation crab stuff (seafood extenders) but what I got was sweet creamy crab meat with mushy tasty avocado, crunchy cucumber and tobiko. Pretty much - melt in your mouth sweetness (if that's even possible for a savoury piece of sushi).

soft shell crab roll - $16 and california roll - $16

Upon getting the bill, we were served with some Koi chocolates. Served on a chilled wooden plate, the Koi chocolates were gold coated, bitter-sweet dark chocolate, cold yet still melts in your mouth and a good amount of cocoa solids. Smooth and appetising, I could definately eat multiple fishes.

Koi Chocolate

Service here was pretty impeccable. The waiter didn't write ANYTHING down, remembered it all and could recite it back to us. So I guess next time, maybe we should trick him a bit and order really random stuff with random requirements and see what happens. Whilst we were at the restaurant, a patron on another table revealed that they were an employee from Sake (at the Rocks). Why would an employee from another well known popular Jap restaurnat come dine at a Jap restaurant in their break? (possibly says something awesome about this restaurant). In all honesty - this restaurnat is definately worthy of the 1-hat.

The door of this restaurant looks pretty amazing. Slightly hidden and zen-like already. Make sure you don't miss it! :)

Koi

Ratings:
Food - 9/10
Service - 9/10
Ambiance - 10/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 35.5/40

Koi
102 Woolwich Road
Woolwich
NSW2110
Tel: (02) 9817 6030

Chocolatte - Randwick

Ever been to a place where you thought it would be awesome - and then was dissappointingly let down? It happens. It's horrible.

But not this night. Out of the blue, I had been craving coffee. Being around the Randwick area, I had remembered that from our uni times, there had been a chocolate cafe close to the chicken shop in Randwick. I think that this place had changed names and owners several times since I've been at uni, but luckily, the chocolate cafe still existed on this night.

To be honest. It looked dicey. Super dice in fact. No aircon, some of the lights didn't work in the cabinets, the tables were largely unwiped, and the seats were pretty much all broken (e.g. the "leather" had ripped from several seats, revealing only the ugly yellowish spongey insides).

Chocolatte

After much deliberation (and some urge to run from the place) I decided to order the 'mocha crush', and my partner ordered the 'coffee milkshake'.

When it came to the table, it looked like just the ordinary drink. But ZOMG it was JUST to my liking. It was awesome! Icey, coffee-flavoured with a hint of chocolate, not too sweet, not too milky, it was like perfect!

mocha crush

My partner likewise enjoyed his coffee milkshake muchly. It was a tad sweet for my liking, but with the cream on top, it was milkiness and light coffeeness. I was so impressed that I had even wanted to order a cake from the place and my partner was about to order another of these drinks... but on second though, we'd decided against it. Why? No clue. Cos we really should have :P

coffee milkshake

All up, I was impressed. Wow. Such a dicey shop. Slightly dicey looking asians making coffee and chocolate drinks. But oh so yum. There's also a range of chocolate dishes at this place (e.g. waffles, fondues, cakes, etc) for you to try if you wish.

Ratings:
Food - 9/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 28/40

Chocolatte
56 Belmore Road
Randwick
NSW 2031
Tel: (02) 9399 6644

Hogs Breath (3) - Northmead

Valentines Day!
I was just seeing one of my clients out when I got a special delivery from a random woman with a huge big big box :) Opening it up, I got 11 (yes, 11) long stemmed roses LOL. I think they left one out. Nonetheless, it's the thought that counts :)

my valentines day surprise (1 of 2)

For a late late dinner (cos we both finish work late), we had decided to eat at Hogs Breath in Northmead. I remember that we ate here years and years ago for our first anniversary. Back when we were young, Hogs Breath was already a super cool and awesome "restaurant".

For this particular night, the restaurant was PACKED full of people. Service was somewhat lacking and the food was slightly slow. According to the waiter, it was because the restaurant "forgot it was Valentines Day" and hence, had the same amount of staff on as they would any normal Monday night. What amused my partner more was that their famous prime rib ("slow cooked for 18 hours") was actually sold out. No Steak at a Steak place?!?!?! My partner was unimpressed.

We ended up ording a finger food combo ($19.95). This came with three types of potato skins (chilli con carne, bacon and cheese, and tomato and basil salsa), 3 vegetable spring rolls, 3 crumbed chicken tenders and salt & pepper calamari. All this food was accompanied by sweet chilli and honey mustard sauce. In all honesty, I think I remember that the finger food combo used to be more awesome way back then... but I guess it's not TOO bad now. The spring rolls are fat and plump and filled with mushy veges all encased in a crisp spring roll pastry outing. The potato skins were average. The chicken tenders were a little too deep fried and the salt and pepper calamari was decent. I love the honey mustard sauce and the sweet chilli is just normal sweet chilli sauce.

finger food combo - $19.95

As they "ran out" of their "famous" prime rib steak, my partner opted instead for a cheeseburger ($12.95). It had a slightly too glossy bun, a grilled beef patty, cheese, lettuce, beetroot, tomato, onion and BBQ sauce. This came with curly fries. My partner kind of took it apart, ate most of the burger fillings and left bits of the overlly glossy bun all over the plate. From the looks of his faceGrilled beef patty topped with sliced cheese, stacked with lettuce, beetroot, tomato, red onion rings and smoked BBQ sauce. Seared with our own Hog’s Breath blackened seasoning.

cheeseburger - $12.95

I was tossing up between a few items on the menu but at the end, I decided to be reminiscent and ordered what I ordered years and years ago - the chicken and ranch salad ($14.75). I remember that this salad used to be AWESOME. It did, however, disappoint on this night. Did I say that the chicken tenders were slightly too burnt from out appetiser? Well, the crumbed and fried chicken breast strips on my salad were WAY WAY WAY too burnt - super dark brown to almost black. The rest of the salad (ie. the potato chunks, mixed greens, cheese and bacon bits) were all actually quite nice. I think I'm a fan of cheese with almost anything :) The rance dressing just takes the unhealthiness of this salad to the next level. Haha.

Chicken and ranch salad - $14.75

I'm not sure if the quality of this place had gone down over time or whether I've just grown up. Maybe both? But I swear, the food here used to be better back then :P

Ratings:
Food - 6/10
Service - 6/10
Ambiance - 6.5/10
Value for money - 6.5/10
Overall - 25/40

Hogs Breath Northmead
The Junction
Cnr Windsor & Boundary Rds
North Parramatta NSW 2151
Tel: (02) 9890 8333