How awesome are food blogger meetups?? This one was organized by the lovely Wendy of Obesebaby, and the dinner was courtesy of Food Morning Sydney.
Wendy, Mel, Sara and myself got to eat and Sitney Thai in Parramatta, which is mah ‘hood!! I really love finding out about good places to go near home – it’s great for that sudden, “let’s go somewhere for dinner” decision!
And you know what it means when there are four food bloggers? FOUR TIMES THE FOOD!!!! (And we share and care, so it’s great! Tee hee.)
We could choose four entrées between us, but two of them had to be chosen from the following: spring rolls, curry puffs and satay chicken. We chose the Spring Rolls and Curry Puffs as, as per Miss Piggy’s suggestion, curry puffs are trés bad for you.
For our other choices we picked Duck and Herb, which is really yummy duck mince, artfully seasoned and scooped onto little lettuce leaves. This dish was an absolute winner, and something that I would order again in a snap!
We also ordered Tung Tong, or Moneybags, as they are better known. The inside was hot and steamy (watch your tongue!), and tasted strongly of, well, carrots. Not that it’s a bad thing, but for some reason I couldn’t really taste much else in the stuffing.
The Spring Rolls were very sweet, and the dipping sauce, even sweeter. I personally have quite a sweet tooth at times, so I didn’t mind it, but it was sweet enough to be definitely noticed by everyone.
The Satay Chicken was…I’m sorry to say that it was just a little lacklustre. The chicken was not too dry, but not quite as moist, and the peanut sauce was just a bit creamy for my taste.
We ordered Pad Thai, Soft Shell Crab Som Tum, Massaman Beef Curry and Pepper and Lime Leaf Stir Fry as our mains. The Pad Thai was ordered as the benchmark, and was well, ok. Not too moist, but also not particularly moreish. Although, it is really good that it was not overly sweet, like some of the other Pad Thais I’ve had. The Massaman Beef Curry was quite good, though not a dish for sharing. The sweet potato strips were incredibly moreish, and the beef had a deep, meaty flavour, but the pieces were quite large and hard to split amongst us.
I have a weakness for Som Tum, which is a papaya salad flavoured with lime juice, chilli, palm sugar and dried shrimp, all lovingly pounded in a wooden mortar and pestle. I love it’s salty/sweet tangy goodness, and will most certainly order it whenever it’s available. The addition of Soft Shell Crab just sold this dish for me. The freshness of the salad perfectly balanced the creamy crispiness (I know it’s an oxymoron, but if you’ve had soft shell crab you’ll know what I’m talking about) of the crab. YUM!
The Pepper and Lime Leaf Stir Fry was also good, although just a little strong on the pepper for my taste.
And the culprit? Long strands of pepper fried with the juicy chicken and crunchy veggies. And while they make a pretty picture, don’t eat them unless you have an absolute love for pepper.
We were absolutely full after this, due to the rather large serving sizes, and actually forgot about the dessert!!
A warm, creamy salty/sweet mouthful, the Rockmelon with Sago and Coconut Milk was a mixture of tastes and textures. The sago has a texture quite similar to tapioca pearls that you can find in bubble teas, although less chewy and way smaller.
In all, it was a really good dinner. Thanks again to Wendy for the invite!!!!
We ate at:
277B Church Street
Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 9633 3226
