FoodieChat

Just in time for summer, another fine addition to the Haymarket dining scene – the third opening in less than a month!  Meet Fresh is apparently all throughout Taiwan, but the Sydney branch is its first foray into Australia, reflecting the rapidly adapting and adventurous palates of the locals; and the cravings of our visitors and students!  Opening week saw long queues daily – but don’t be daunted, it moves quite quickly.

Located on the corner of the main drag of the pedestrian part of Chinatown (corner of Liverpool and Harbour streets), next to Mamak, it is famous for its taro pearls.  Syrupy bases of shaved ice are topped with all manner of asian specialiaties including Azuki beans, mung beans, lotus seeds, tapioca pearls – the combinations are endless, and you can also have silken tofu based desserts too.  And both can be served hot or cold.

The famous taro pearls are also served with sweet potato pearls.  Steamed taro/sweet potato is rolled with glutinous rice flour and served in syrup.  I don’t know if it was my serve, or because of the hot business on that day, but my pearls were slightly too chewy and not sweet enough.

Shaved ice, pearls, beans, and the taro/sweet potato pearls with azuki beans peaking at the back – a refreshing summer’s treat. And bowls so huge – don’t eat lunch first, as it is a meal in itself!

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I stumbled upon this place by complete accident.  Walking over to Marigold, I noticed this completely open kitchen with food displayed in the window to make mouths water and pedestrians stop in their tracks.    And I certainly wasn’t the only one.  In front of the glass display of food and chefs was a long queue crouching beneath a solitary outdoor heater.  Mental note – MUST TRY!  

Well, try I did.  And it was even better than I expected.  From the window I actually had no idea what type of food it was – it was definitely Asian – in fact, it turned out to be Thai.  Home Thai – as in home cooked style food.  But I don’t know whose home has such amazing food every night – maybe a palace?  It was so hard to pick what to eat, but guided by the photos in the extensive menu, and sneaking glances at what arrived at other tables, we settled firstly on the Pad Thai. Did I mention this place is cheap??? $10.50!!  Authentically with sugar, peanuts and chilli powder on the side, fresh and cooked beansprouts.  And not oily but also not gluggy!  Did I mention the staff all use ipads to take your order?  A bit too cute – because it failed on our occasion and the waitress didn’t want to hand write our orders cos it wouldn’t go through.  Luckily it went back online after around 10 minutes. Oh , and also the waitresses wear LV side satchels.  Were they also from Thailand?

Highly recommended: the banana flower salad, topped with 6 gigantic prawns. It was text book perfect. Crunch, salt, sour, spicy all in one bite through fresh chillis, fish sauce, coriander, peanuts – YUM.  And the prawns were so generous.  Served on an artfully carved leaf too.

We finished off with two desserts – $6.50 for this mango (Fresh!) with sticky rice and coconut cream.  Umm… not sure if the kitchen mixed up the sticky rice, because it was salty  They also have sticky rice as a rice choice too.  So not really a fan of this dish.  Perfect texture of rice though.

And definitely couldn’t go past the dessert sampler. A steal at $5.50!  Banana fritters and various sticky rice and coconut puddings.

Another word of warning – don’t wear nice clothes, cos you will STINK afterwards!  But it is SOoooo worth it.  I can’t wait to go again.   Awesome food, and well priced too.  The Haymarket dining scene is looking up and lifting up in standards!

This is no ordinary sausage sizzle.  Fetes and festivals are characterised by a charity gristle sausage smothered in sauce on a thin piece of no frills white bread. onions if you’re lucky.  This works great – yummy, cheap, maximum profits.  However, when festivals turn foodie, such a charity treat is no longer enough – not when you can get gourmet sausage rolls.  Enter the chorizo roll, or for an even more upmarket gourmet version – the chorizo and garlic prawn roll!!!   For $10, you get a halved chorizo grilled on the BBQ, and half a dozen of garlic prawns smothered in spicy tomato sauce.  And garnished with fresh parsley.

The dude at the grill – the master BBQ-er has perfected the rhythm of turning, cooking, filling, passing.  I’m sure it’s a hot and smoky job, but we appreciate you!  The result is the most amazing juicy (huge) mouthful.  These guys also make an appearance the Entertainment Quarter markets in Moore Park.  But I sure am hoping that they will turn up at tomorrow’s Burwood Festival. I am counting on it!

Two trusted independent sources, a third overheard and verified – Jimmy Lik’s is very good.  Must try. Hmmm… Longrain or Jimmy Liks?  Both are kinda modern asian with a twist, both are actually quite a bit more expensive than traditional Asian food!  OK, Jimmy Liks it is.  It’s in Pott’s Point, on a very quiet street.  Issue number one. Parking – or lack thereof.  We circled the Cross, Potts Point, everywhere is only 1 hour parking!  And on both sides of the street – diligent parking inspectors, so no sneaky overtime parking!  The paid carparks were a bit too far.  Lucky – 20 minutes circling later, some parking outside the school.   We found the restaurant, heaters blazing outside, two entrances – one to the bar, and one to the restaurant.  In the restaurant, communal dining is the go.  Which is great for groups, but slightly awkward for the two of us.  Their method is to seat couples side by side on the long communal table, NOT opposite.  Which lead me to say to the (very hot stranger in front of me): “Despite the fact that I would love to gaze into your eyes all night, I don’t know you, so would you mind if we swapped?”.   Hot guy agreed, and we swapped.  Oh dear. All the staff found this highly confusing, as all night, we got each others’ food served to us wrongly!  And pity, hot guy’s hot girlfriend came along eventually too. D’oh! hehehe.  Anyway, awkward seating aside… the food was quite good.  We tried the corn fritters.  (Have you noticed I have a thing for corn fritters?).  I expected breakfast style pancakes, but instead, 6 round puffs slightly bigger than golf balls.  They stick together with their batter, and are served with an assortment of vietnamese herbs, and a home made sweet chilli sauce.

We also opted for a sticky crispy skin duck with tamarind and orange ($33).  Viet style duck a l’orange I guess?  It was very sweet and sticky, and yummy, but bits of it were a bit too deep fried till they became like duck jerky!  But the garnishes were so beautiful and fresh, and the sauce very fragrant.

Regrettably, we thought we knew better than the waiter.  He (wisely) recommended that we opt for something different than our caramelised beef rib, as all our dishes were sweet.  He was right!  It would have been good to order something with a different element (salty for example), as the flavours were quite similiar.    Not so generous this one, but lip smackingly delicious all the same. Read the rest of this entry »