Sunday 20 November 2011

Lynn Shanghai Cuisine, 199 Castlereagh Street, Sydney

Not Lynn's Shanghai Cusine, just Lynn Shanghai Cuisine. . . Wonder what Lynn is? Anyway this is a kind of newish dumpling place in town, so I thought I'd check it out with my girlfriend this week. It has received good reviews, it's reasonably priced for Asian food and I hadn't had dumplings for a while. It's in The Castlereagh Club but you don't have to sign in, just walk on through. I never knew this club exisited, the decor is quite sparse and minimal, colour of choice, red of course with a glass enclosed kitchen where you can see the chefs make the dumplings. Although the bench comes up over where their hands are so you just see the top half of them. . . so you can't really see the dumpling being made. . . . . .

Ordering is done by ticking the dish you want on a piece of paper. To start off with we ordered the "Famous Shanghai steamed pork dumplings" - 7.5/10. Pretty good with a bit of broth inside, the texture of the outside was perfect, not too thin and not too thick and floury. Thought I'd start rating the dishes I eat too. I started it in my last Thai post but kind of forgot to rate the rest of the meal as I was too excited about writing my first food post lol!


"Pork and shrimp wontons tossed in a spicy sauce" - 8/10. These were great, a bit slippery but the filling was very tasty, right balance of meaty and shrimpy, and the sauce was mildly chilli. I added some of the chilli sauce to it which had white sesame seeds all the way through it in a thick red oily concoction. I hadn't seen or tasted that before, I should've taken a pic of it, it was very hot! I apologise for the bad pics. If I am serious about this blogging thing I will think about carrying my camera with me everywhere I go but then again am I going to be brave enough to whip it out in front of everyone when dining out??? I suppose I am Asian, so it's kind of expected.


I felt like the hot and sour soup so I ordered it but I was very disappointed!! 2/10. It looked good with shredded meat and bamboo shoot but the taste was not right at all. I should've known by the colour of it, they should of had a picture of it on the menu. Too watery and totally not enough of the hot or sour flavours! They really need to fix this as a good hot and sour soup really builds up the apetite and then people would order more food!


We also got the "Sauteed eggplant with minced pork in chilli garlic sauce" - 7/10 a popluar Chinese dish, it was quite tasty, eggplant was nice and soft but the flavour was not as strong as I had hoped. My mum makes a good version of this with more tomato and a thicker gravy sauce thing, cooked in a hot pot.

 
Then we had the "Sauteed string beans with bambooo shoots" - 7/10, nice simple vege dish. We didn't finish these last 2 dishes as we ate our meal with a bottle of white and by the end of it we were struggling big time.


The front of house was Chinese of course but had a thick Aussie accent that was so prominent my friend and I had a chuckle about it as it was more Aussie than an Aussie found in the Woolies carpark of say, Minto. All waiters had great English despite the accent! The service was great although we did feel rushed at the end despite it only being just past 10pm! Actually just looked at the website it says they cloe at 9:30pm! Now that's a problem. . .

Besides that I would recommend this place, especially for someones birthday as there were 4 rounds of Happy Birthday being sung, including the staff, my friend and I felt a bit left out! Hahaha!


 Lynn Shanghai Cuisine on Urbanspoon

Sunday 13 November 2011

Love = Chloe S/S12

I love Chloe! One of my fave international designer labels, along with quite a few others that I will blog about in the future.

So the women behind Chloe over the years from Stella to Phoebe, Hannah and now Clare Waight Keller who are all graduates of Central Saint Martins has totally and utterly continued the femme French chic roots vibe with cool "it girl" tomboy touches this season. Here are a few pics of keylooks from the latest Spring/Summer 2012 runway show. I am loving the nude with coral and the all important white.


I wish I could have all these pieces but for now I will let these looks inspire my new summer wardrobe that I am yet to start. I am looking to buy something investment. Something great to wear to a nice xmas dinner or possibly New Years. Something to say woop woop I have a full time job again and can splurge every now and then!

Sunday 6 November 2011

House Thai - Northeast Street Food - 202 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills

House Thai - is a relatively new Thai place in Sydney.  It has no stir fries or the usual red, green and Panang curry on the menu.  It is based food from the Issan region in the North Eastern part of Thailand. The same chef that opened Spice I am another epic Thai joint opened up House and has made it different enough that it doesn't matter if you have Thai for dinner 2 nights in a row as the tastes are very different.

I love it as it is open from 11:30am daily til late.  No closing after lunch and waiting til 6pm for dinner, therefore no queues and the bonus is that it is a big place that is behind  a pub.  So my husband could get a beer and bring it back to the restaurant area, a big bonus for a guy. 

We ordered the Kor Moo Yang - grilled pork belly with Jim-jam dipping sauce - 8/10, the grill flavour is amazing. 


Followed by a Tom Mua Tum which is a spicy soup with slowly cooked beef, lemongrass, ginger, basil, mushrooms, lime leaf and chilli. Served in a brass pot with a jelly like heating device thing underneath to keep it piping hot. It was a beautiful balnce of sweet, salt and sour. Not heavy at all and very refreshing for a warm Saturday evening. The beef was fall apart delcisiousness with just the right amount of fat left on.


Then we had the "house special" Steamed Chicken Curry - which was totally different to what I was imagining. It came out wrapped in banana leaf and when we opened it up it smelt so good! It was like a steamed rissole. Bits of chicken with lemongrass, chilli and I think it was dill and a whole heap of other spices and herbs. It was relatively small serving, but it was enough for us.  Mmmmm!





I am definitely going back, so many more interesting things to try such as the Mackerel dip with veges.


  House on Urbanspoon
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...