Chinatown Noodle Restaurant, Sydney

On one of my first visits to Sydney, a co-worker brought us to a tiny Chinese restaurant that he called “Hole in the Wall”.  This was not actually the name of the restaurant, but it turns out, he didn’t even know the name of the place.  Hole in the Wall it was, and, the name was apt.

This experience was years ago, but I still remember it vividly.  Swarms of people.  Huge wait for a table.  Ridiculously cramped.  Plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling.  Awesome dumplings.  It turns out, the place is called “Chinese Noodle Restaurant” and there is a sister establishment, “Chinese Noodle House” just a few doors down.  They are both packed all the time.

On my recent trip, we wanted to get good noodles and dumplings, but didn’t want to deal with the craziness that is these locations.  But we heard rumors that there was another branch, in Pyrmont … just a few blocks from our office.  And, even better, it wasn’t supposed to be crazy busy.

We had to check it out.  So, one day for lunch, we sought out “Chinatown Noodle Restaurant” (yes, the names of these restaurants are amazing).  The dumplings were indeed great, and we returned a few days later.

Inside.

The decor was more modern than the Chinatown locations, and sadly, no grapes were hanging from the ceiling.  It was spacious, light filled, and airy.  Fans were set up around the room to provide some airflow.  A very different ambiance from the Haymarket locations!

But, definitely the same place.  Service was pretty awful, once our original order was taken, we weren’t ever paid another moment’s attention.  I wasn't able to order more water.  I was never able to get a share plate.  But the food was delivered immediately as it was ready, piping hot, as it should be.

Condiments.

Chinatown Noodle Restaurant is a very casual place, complete with a plastic menu.  They are cash only, and you pay at the register when you are done.  Simple.  And, it turns out, delicious.  The menu is Northern Chinese, and fairly extensive, but we had eyes only for the dumplings and noodles, the two famous items.

Condiments on the table were soy sauce, vinegar, and chili, to make up your ideal dumpling dipping sauce, which I of course did.

Silverware was real chopsticks, not flimsy wooden disposables.

Pan-fried Pork and Chive Dumplings (half order).  $6.

We started with the signature dumplings.  Available in 4 varieties: pork and chive, pork and Chinese cabbage, beef and shallots, or egg and chives.  Then you have the choice of preparation: steamed, boiled, or pan fried.  We started with the classics, pork and chive, pan fried.  Go big or go home.

They were piping hot, delivered immediately out of the pan.  Even after a few minutes, biting into one squirted liquid that would burn you if not careful.

The dumplings were fantastic.  Doughy, but in a good way.  Perfectly crispy on one side.  Yes, they were oily.  No, they weren’t healthy.  But wow they were satisfying.  The filling inside was generous, minced pork and tons of chives, probably about in equal proportion, which made them quite flavorful.

We returned a few days later, and ordered the pork and Chinese cabbage and the beef and shallot, also pan fried.  Except, they gave us pork and chive again instead of the beef and shallot.  The pork and cabbage were nearly indistinguishable from the pork and chive, except the flavor was more muted since cabbage isn't as sharp as chive.

I really enjoyed these, and would certainly get more, and would love to try another variety, perhaps even the veggie ones?  I’m curious how the healthier steamed or boiled options are, but, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be nearly as delicious.

Available in a half order (6) for $6 or full dozen for $9.80, very reasonable.

Steamed Pork and Chive Dumplings (half order).  $6.

On our return trip, we decided to get the same pork and chive dumplings, but steamed this time, to compare the styles.

The filling was the same, the wrapper was the same, but, because they were just steamed, the wrapper was a bit gummy, and I didn't really care for it.  Yup, it turns out, crispy and fried is really just so much better.

I'm glad I tried these to see how the cooking method effects the taste, but I'd certainly go for pan-fried in the future, unless I was really wanting a lighter, more healthy dish.

Steamed Northern Style Pork Buns (half order). $6.

We also ordered pork buns.  Available steamed or pan fried, we went for steamed.

I was expecting something entirely different.  It turns out, all I know of Chinese buns is BBQ pork buns.  These were pork, but ... not BBQ!

Pork Buns: Inside.

The dough was fluffy and light, but not sweetened like I am accustomed.  The filling was … porky.  It was just pork.  Overall they were fine, but really not what I was expecting, or, wanting at the time.  Maybe the pan fried ones would be better?  I really can’t picture what those would be like.

Ojan and the other diner both said that these were fairly authentic.

Available as a half order of 5 for $6 or a full order of 10 for $9.90.  Again, reasonable price.

Bejing Spring Pancake, beef. (half). $6.60.

"w/ egg, sprouts, Chinese cabbage, and beef"

Next up, Spring Pancakes, available in chicken or beef.  Ojan and the other diner picked beef.

I didn't actually have this, as I was stuffed at this point, but it was also totally not what I was expecting.  For starters, I thought that a pancake would be ... flat.  Like a pancake.  Ojan summed this up quite nicely as a "Chinese burrito".

I did try a bite of the pancake wrapper, and thought it was like a thinner version of naan. It had a nice sweetness and chew to it.  I could imagine liking this, if they had non-chicken or beef options.

Price was $6.60 for this "half" order or $9.90 for a full order, which seemed quite good, as these were sizable wraps.

Stir-fried Handmade Noodles w/ Pork. $10.80.

And finally, noodles.  I don’t really care for noodles, so I opted to just split Ojan’s and have a few bites.  He had the choice of chicken, beef, pork, lamb, veggie, or seafood.  He went for pork.

The noodles were hand cut, all assorted sizes and shapes.  They were well cooked, soft and tender, not gloopy, etc, but as expected, not really my thing.  The dish was fairly oily in my opinion, but Ojan said it wasn’t quite authentic, as it wasn’t oily enough.  I did like the variety of other ingredients in the dish, including cabbage, onions, peppers, celery, and tomato.  The tomato is super strange to me in a stir fry, but Ojan said that was authentic too.

The noodles, like everything, were delivered piping hot.  Ojan’s dish of noodles came several minutes before our dining companion’s, which can be awkward etiquette-wise as you want to dig in and not let your noodles get cold, but not be rude, but really, this is how it should be.  Wok to table in seconds can’t be beat.

I think that these were good, if you like this style of dish. I don’t, so it wasn’t my thing, but Ojan said he was very satisfied.  Price was $10.80, which was fine for a huge dish like this, although he pointed out that in China, this would be $0.50.

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Pocket Bar, Darlinghurst

One night on our recent trip to Sydney, we were looking for a place to hang out, have a few drinks, and nibble on some food.  It had been a day filled with eating, so we weren't looking for a huge meal.  Of course, I had done research into just about every category of meal possible, and had a list of interesting sounding bars to check out, ones that would serve great cocktails and have good food.

I quickly selected Pocket Bar, located just a few blocks from the hotel I was staying at.  It seemed like the perfect fit for the evening - convenient, casual, but promised to satisfy our tastebuds.  And indeed it was.

The cocktail menu was several pages long, encompassing all different styles of drinks.  The drinks were on the pricer side, about $20 each, but they were all well crafted and made with fresh ingredients and garnishes.

The food menu is themed around "street food from around the world", so it spans just about everything from fish tacos to ceviche to tamales to gyros, all appropriate finger food, but far more interesting than your standard bar menu, so there was certainly an appeal for me.

The service was friendly, although a bit lacking.  We often ran out of water, or fresh drinks.  The food came out as it was ready, which is great, as it was all very hot when it arrived, but the timing was a bit crazy.  One dish arrived, then it took at least 10 minutes for another, then perhaps 20 more minutes for the next, and our final dish, though it had been ordered right when we first sat down, took well over an hour.

The vibe was certainly hip, and the servers were some of the trendiest people I saw in Sydney.  I tried to get interior photos of the unique space, but the low lighting made it impossible.  Although it was full, it was never annoyingly crowded, and our group was able to set up shop on a large couch, a thrown-like armchair, and assorted stools, a comfortable semi-private area.  It really was perfect for lounging, which is what we needed after a long day.

Overall, it was perfect for the night we wanted to have, and both the food and drinks impressed.  Not fine dining obviously, and everything was pricey, but I'd return.

The Ginger Scot.  $22.

"From the isle of skye we take talisker 10yo, full of dried fruit, pepper & smoke, and mix it with apricot brandy, lillet, & a touch of lemon juice."

My first drink, selected because, well, I wanted whiskey, and the ginger sounded refreshing.

It was good, but not nearly as smokey as I was hoping.  It was quite drinkable, nicely balanced, but I wasn't in love with it.  I appreciated the huge slice of ginger as garnish.  $22 seemed very pricey though.

Mocktail. $10.

Ojan asked for a non-alcoholic drink, and the server asked what flavors he liked, and this appeared.

We aren't really sure what it was, and when he asked the person who brought it to us, she had no idea.  It was fruity, and we were worried it might have watermelon, so I didn't try it.  The garnishes were sure impressive.

His next drink was much better, another mocktail, and that time he asked for something grapefruit inspired.  It came with a huge slice of grapefruit and a sprig of basil on top.  It was a bit too sweet and fruit-juicy though; it would have been a great brunch drink, but wasn't quite right for the night.  A little more soda water, or perhaps ginger beer, and it would have mellowed out nicely.  I think the bartender was used to having alcohol to cut the sweet better.

??

Two others ordered this, I didn't catch the name.  It had gin and cucumbers, and came served in this huge vessel.  They were asked how many glasses they wanted, told that it could easily serve 1, 2, or 4 people, depending.  2 seemed just right, as they were both able to have a couple glasses.  I didn't try it, but they loved it.

Crispy Mac n' Cheese Balls with housemade bourbon and bacon jam. $12.

The first item to arrive, before the drinks even: crispy mac n' cheese balls.  With bourbon and bacon jam.  Fried. Cheese. Bourbon. Bacon. Yes.

This is the sort of thing that sounds like it should be amazing, but generally never is.  It was ordered by one person, who intended it to be his meal.  But, it arrived so much ahead of the rest of our food, that everyone else ended up uh, helping him eat it.

It really was quite good.  Inside was very creamy, oozing mac and cheese.  Far more successful than I ever imagined.  The outside crust was cripsy, crunchy, and although very oily and fried, it worked.  This was heavy, and cheesy, and fried, in all the best ways.

As you can imagine, the balls were gone in seconds, and a subsequent order was aptly placed.  Everyone agreed they were far better than expected.

The star however was the bourbon bacon jam.  OMG.  Again, something that SOUNDS like it should be good but never lives up.  But in this case, it lived up.  And then some.  Super bacony, loaded with chunks of bacon.  Slightly sweet and mapley.  It was, hands down, the best thing we had that night.  I wish they'd bottle it up, I'd certainly buy it, and slather everything in it.

Cassava Chips with Salsa Huancaína.  $9.

I have a thing for cassava, so I was thrilled to see cassava chips on the menu.  They arrived piping hot.  As in, one person claimed he burnt his finger tips in picking one up.

The "chips" were Australian chips, aka, thick fat fries, not thin crispy chips.  They were clearly quite fresh, but they didn't have quite the starchiness I was hoping for.  Somehow not really enough cassava flavor for me, they really just seemed like large fries.  And, they were quite oily.  Good bar food, yes, but not quite what I was wanting.

The huancaína salsa wasn't the right accompaniment.  It seemed like just slightly spicy cream cheese.  I would have liked a rich aioli, or a thinner mojo sauce perhaps, but just not this.

Luckily, we had plenty of bacon jam, since we ordered multiple rounds of the mac and cheese balls, and we had vegetarians amongst us.  The cassava chips dunked in bacon jam were tasty, but still not exactly what I wanted.  But a great excuse to eat more bacon jam.

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Brioche Grilled Toastie. $18.

"Slow cooked beef short rib, blue cheese sauce, sesame, chives, sriracha, rocket and caremelised onions, served with fries"

Another dinner ordered the brioche grilled toastie, which came with a generous serving of fries.  We all devoured the extra fries, dunking them into the bacon jam.  Really, I dunked just about anything into the bacon jam.  And once I ran out of things to dunk, I just ate it by the forkful.  Did I mention that it was seriously tasty stuff?  I was addicted.

Anyway, the fries were thin style, not really that crispy, a tad bit soggy, and somewhat reminded me of McDonald's fries.  I don't mean that in a bad way, just in that they were thin and salty, and although they didn't seem like anything special, they were tasty enough.

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Pork Steamed Buns: caramelized pork belly, cucumber, hoisin, and shallots. $16.

Another dinner ordered the pork steamed buns.  For some reason, these took forever to arrive.  We had consumed everything else, and even ordered, received, and finished another order of mac and cheese balls, and his buns still hadn't turned up.  We enquired about them several times.  Finally, they appeared, a large order of 3.  Since he had been munching on everyone else's food, he wasn't all that hungry at this point, and offered them up to the table.  He said they were good, but they didn't taste like they looked.  Ojan had a few bites, and agreed.  They both kept saying how they just didn't taste as expected.  Finally, even though I was stuffed, I tried a few bites too.

Indeed, there was something strange here.  The bun was soft, fluffy, good enough.  There was something that seemed like an onion tomato jam.  And some other strange sauce that I couldn't identify.  And there was a lot of baby spinach.  And the "pork belly" didn't seem crispy, nor fatty really.  Since I didn't order the buns, I hadn't read the description, and didn't realize how off it was.  I pulled out the menu to re-read it, confused as to what I was tasting.  Where was the hoisin sauce?  There was a sauce, but it certainly wasn't what I'd think of as hoisin.  And cucumbers?  Hmmm.  And why was there spinach?

About this time, I saw another item on the menu: Vegan Tempeh Steamed Buns.  The description: bourbon tempeh, smoked vegan cheddar sauce, baby spinach, shallots and tomato chilli jam.  Doh.  We clearly had the vegan buns.  The "pork belly" was tempeh, and all the other toppings matched up.  Within moments, a server came rushing over with a new set of buns, saying "those are the vegan ones!"  Doh.  The strange sauce was the "vegan cheese", and even once I knew what it was, I kept trying it to figure it out, and never liked it.

So now we had 6 buns, and everyone was stuffed.  Yet we had to try the new item too, right?  The new ones had the same fluffy buns, but this time, were actually filled with crispy pork belly.  Nicely prepared.  Smothered in hoisin sauce, perhaps a bit too much, but, it seemed fitting.

We all liked the pork ones more, but agreed that the tempeh ones were tasty, and both Ojan and I said that it was probably the best tempeh we ever had, generally being tempeh haters.

Of course, you can probably guess what I did with the extra buns.  Yes, I removed the tempeh, and stuffed them with bacon jam.  Now THOSE were the winning buns!

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