After going on my first official food crawl, I have to admit that I’m hooked. There’s just something really exciting – to me anyway – about the prospect of eating a huge variety of dishes with a large group.
Which is why when Jen of I Ate My Way Through organised a dinner at Naruone for foodies, I leapt at the chance, hoping that this innocent dinner would turn into an epic food crawl.
After all, when you have foodies together in a group, who knows what will happen?
Y’all know that I absolutely LOVE testing and posting up recipes on the blog, but I’m sure it’s not as obvious that each recipe that I put up goes through hours of research, testing, a myriad of different versions, and agonising decisions regarding how it should look.
I usually start with either a craving or ingredients that I have in my kitchen, and then do tons of research to try and find interesting things to create with it. Sometimes I try out a pre-written recipe to start off with, or sometimes I start throwing things together and go from there.
Well, once in a while, a recipe just doesn’t go quite right, or just plum doesn’t work out the way you want it to!
Recently, I had bought a whole bunch of brussels sprouts on special at the green grocers, but had some left over after using them as part of a roast. So what now?
I found this nice looking idea on Gourmet Traveller – a simple salad of shaved brussels sprouts, with toasted walnuts to add depth, parmesan to add flavour, and just lemon juice to dress it. Some versions of this recipe online also had olive oil to add moisture.
So of I went, to shred those tiny cabbage-looking sprouts. I do love a good slaw, in many variations, so I was similarly excited about this particular salad. After all, in my research, there were many who described it as a more delicate cabbage-y flavour.
Well, no matter what I did, this salad was dry, and had a somewhat astringent after-quality to it. Even adding olive oil didn’t do much in terms of lubrication. The brussels sprouts themselves had a light, peppery quality to it, similar to rocket, and that went quite well with the toasted walnuts and parmesan. But I couldn’t quite get around the texture issue. Adding more lemon juice made it super sour and seemed to accentuate the dry texture, and adding more parmesan just made it worse.
In all, it was a promising recipe, but didn’t quite work out.
How about you? Have you had any disappointing recipes that you couldn’t quite figure out?
Who doesn’t love fully loaded potato anything?! Roasted potatoes gives us such a beautiful, comforting, starchy base that it just begs to be loaded up with a myriad of toppings to add to the awesomeness!
Roasted potatoes can take many forms – you can have anything from the classic cut potatoes, the funky smashed chats for maximum crispy surface areas, to the fancy looking but very simple Hasselback potatoes!
Have you seen a sadder burger?
We had taken a long walk to Rhodes and were starving. Ribs and Burgers had been on my list of places to try for a long while, but some how – yes I know I’ve been living under a rock – I completely forgot that it was Good Friday, and that just about everywhere was closed for the holiday.
But we wanted ribs, and we wanted burgers, and WE WANTED IT NOWWWWWW.
Sydney certainly has no lack of dumpling joints. From Din Tai Fung to New Shanghai to Taste of Shanghai, a craving for dumplings need never go unsatisfied.
So when a new dumpling place opens up. it certainly needs something to set itself apart.
Tan Viet has been synonymous with crispy chicken for quite some time, and with good reason! With outlets at Cabramatta and Canley Heights, they provide chicken that is crispy not crispy because of any ‘aids’ like batters or breadcrumbs, but from it’s own…chickenyness.
Naturally, when restaurants in Australia seem to thrive on variety – have you seen Asian restaurants with a menu as long as your arm? – I just had to find out how anyone has managed to specialise in a particular thing to such a degree.
Bread is one of those things – you’re not guaranteed a result even if you are given the recipe. It takes technique, with the right recipe and the right conditions, to achieve the fluffy interior and crusty exterior that is the holy grail of white bread.
I’ve dabbled with bread on and off over the years, but I knew that I would absolutely get back to figuring this culinary puzzle out if it was the last thing I did!!
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| Goodness gracious great bowls of noodles! 1.5kg Pho Challenge at Huong Xua |
Three restaurants down, and three to go in the epic food crawl with Thang, Isaac, Amy, Christine, Jeroxie and Kate! At this point, we’re starting to breathe more heavily, and feeling that fullness that comes with a satisfying meal.
But are we done? NEVER!!!
We mosey along two doors down to Huong Xua – which means ‘fragrant home’ – home to the 1.5kg pho challenge.
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| Clockwise from top: Huong Xua signboard, poached chicken served with herbed salt and pepper and lemon, 1.5kg pho challenge, pork in betal leaf, deep fried spring rolls. |
But before we talk about the massive bowl of deliciousness, Huong Xua very nicely brought out other plates of food that were chef’s recommendations. Their cuisine is very much more that of Northern Vietnam, with lighter, more delicate flavours, as opposed to the hard-hitting flavours of the South.
Their deep fried spring rolls uses rice paper instead of egg wrappers, causing it to puff up in a way that reminds me of the most delicate of pork rinds. Carrot and woodear mushrooms add texture to the filling, and the dipping dunking sauce provided was so much lighter and thinner than most Southern Vietnam sauces that I’ve been exposed to, and contained pickled radish and carrots.
The poached chicken reminded me of the Hainanese Chicken that is signature to Singapore, except that it was much leaner and more delicately flavoured. The typical accompaniment to this dish is a wedge of fresh lemon, and a salt, pepper and herb mixture that is deceiving in its simplicity. The salt had a dill aroma to it, bringing out facets of poached chicken I’ve never tasted before. There’s something curiously comforting about it. If you prefer, you can also get a ginger sauce to go with your chicken instead.
But the main attraction has got to be the Pho challenge.
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| Photo courtesy of Thang from Noodlies |
500g of beef is first stir-fried with celery, garlic and onion for flavour, then added to 500g of flat rice noodles, and then topped with hot beef broth. The bowl is larger than the size of my face – and I have a pretty wide face – and I can’t stress how much food it actually contains. For reference, an average Australian portion of food is about 750g. So this bowl could probably feed a small family.
If you think you can down this bowl of Pho – all the ingredients and soup – in 11 minutes, you get to eat for free, and keep the bowl! The current record’s for 6 minutes, so good luck with it!! I believe in you!!!
And just when we felt like we couldn’t eat a single bite more, we headed down to Chi and Co. The concept behind Chi and Co. is that the owners wanted to bring the trendy style of Surry Hills to the west, and offer something that is a bit different to the rest of Canley Heights. They offer a fusion of Thai, Malaysian and Vietnamese cuisine, and have built up the restaurant in an old industrial warehouse, keeping the original exposed brick walls and open ceiling. Trés chic!
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| Clockwise from top: sign that greets you as you enter the front door, Seared Scallops, Chi Chi’s Tapioca Shot, Pulled Beef Slider, Spanner Crab on Betal Leaf |
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| Clockwise from left: Lemon and Thai Basil Cocktail, Mocktails, Lychee-tini, Liquid Pavlova |
One step into this trendy bar and you’re instantly transported to Surry Hills. It was like teleportation travel it was so cool. We were first welcomed with a variety of drinks, fruity and nicely balanced. Well, from what I can tell from my little sip of each. The most interesting of the drinks to me had to be the Lychee-tini. A sweet lychee liquor fills the bottom of the glass, topped with a fragrant foam on the top. And you know me, I love a good foam.
And because there were some of us who couldn’t drink – *ahem* me included – they also very generously presented us with a selection of cocktails as well.
I had the Coco loco, which had fresh coconut, lychees and strawberries. Even though I don’t like coconut flavoured things, I absolutely LOVE fresh coconut and coconut juice. And this was absolutely my kind of Mocktail. Refreshing and not too sweet, this was actually quite thirst-quenching, which helped immensely all the food that we’ve eaten so far.
There were also the bite sized cuteness on plates! The Spanner Crab on Betal Leaf had a rich toasty coconut sauce over the top that slightly masked the natural sweetness of the crab, but was still quite morish. The Grilled Scallops nicely showcased fresh juicy scallops, and the Pulled Beef Sliders used tender wagyu beef sandwiched between soft, fluffy sweet mantou buns to create an interesting fusion of cultures and flavours. The Tapioca Shots were creamy, and the palm sugar syrup over the top made it rich and sticky sweet. Perfect to finish a meal if you have a sweet tooth.
At this point, we were rolling along, clutching our full bellies. But there was one more stop to go, and being full will not stop us!
Holy Basil was our 6th and final stop, and out came a massively large serving of their signature Fried Ice Cream. A wedge of vanilla ice cream is coated in a thin crispy crust, sitting atop a dark syrup, and garnished with toasted coconut and a sprinkle of icing sugar. And just when we were prepping ourselves to share the portion, out came five more.
Yes. We had one of these babies each. Bowled over by the generosity and the sheer amount of food, I don’t think we actually finished the whole thing. Well, except Isaac, who powered through it all. Much more appropriate to the mood – I felt – was the strawberry smoothie, with its fresh fruit flavours adding a much needed finishing note to a full lunch on a hot day.
Above the absolute feast that we had that day, what really struck me was the friendliness and hospitality of everyone. They were all so proud of the cuisine and the food, and really welcomed us like family. It’s definitely opened my eyes to certain dishes that I wouldn’t otherwise know to order, that are so much more special than the usual fare.
Hidden foodies gem? I think so! Definitely would love to go back some time soon.
Note: Tammi of Insatiable Munchies and the other bloggers mentioned in this post dined as guests of Fairfield council and the restaurants listed.