SOMETHING ABOUT FRO-YO

I'm an addict.

I need it. Everyday.

I want it. Every minute.

WHITEAPPLE

Address:
Shop 11 / 501 George St.
Sydney NSW 2000

Hours:

10am - 9pm

I AM SO EXCITED!! A while ago, a frozen-yoghurt store opened up in the Regent Place complex and since then, I am a regular fro-yo consumer.

There is usually little foot-traffic in the centre- I've never seen a single customer in one of the fashion stores opposite- and Whiteapple is usually deserted. This is sad since not many are enjoying this lovely yoghurt and I've done my bit to try and promote the place (the store should really cut me a cheque). Since it's usually quiet though, it's nice that my friends and I get the place all to ourselves.

So what you do is choose the type of yoghurt you want (plain or green tea) then choose toppings ranging from fruits, nuts and others. I really love the green tea frozen yoghurt with strawberries and mochi.

But alas! Sadly, the only good thing about this place is the frozen yoghurt. Pretty much everything else on the menu is the suck. The smoothies are tragically lumpy; the lattes, albeit pretty, are flavourless and, I think I can make better cakes than the ones they serve. =(

So prices start from $4 and vary depending on the toppings you get.

ALFREDO'S

Ok, I know I haven't blogged for a long time but to be fair, when most of the people who come to your blog are looking for an African fetish porn site, I GET TO BE INCONSISTENT!

No piccies this time cause I was so hungry and taken away with the food!

Anyways, while wandering around circular quay in the middle of the night a while back, my friends and I stumbled upon a little alleyway with a few small restaurants. Intrigued by the cute Italian waiter, I decided to go back another time.

THIS WAS SERIOUSLY THE BEST ITALIAN I'VE HAD SINCE ITALY!!

MY GOSH it was excellent! My snapper fish was only second to the swordfish I had in Nauplion (Italy) and the ravioli, while questionable as it came out as a pastry sheet, was freaking delicious!

So go check this place out, it's next to The Basement in Circular Quay, you'll love it!

WILD WILD INNER-WEST

To my hyperactive imagination, it's somewhat like a western film.

A long stretch of road...two adversaries standing on opposing sides. Each are in similar dress and essentially the same in character. But there are differences. One is a little more lowbrow and, the other a little more pretentious. One is a more pleasing to the eye while the other is not as prepossessing.

It's high noon and they begin to itch for their guns but, in the end, either won't shoot the other. It's the love of the people they're trying to win...

And that's the story of George's and Sidnee's, two cafes that sit facing each other on opposite sides of Burwood Road.

I'm a George's girl but this entry is about Sidnee's.

My school buds went near and far for their tertiary education and most of them recently came back to Sydney in their winter break. We decided to catch up at a friend's place but some of us had lunch at Sidnee's cafe beforehand. I'd been there once before but was unsatisfied with the food and decided never to go back. Unfortunately, I was peer pressured into doing so. Whatever happened to, 'Just say no!' you ask? Well kiddies, as bad as Sidnees is, it won't mess with you like drugs will.

Sidnee's Cafe

Address:
53 Burwood Rd
Burwood
Sydney NSW 2134

Phone:
9715 7466

Hours:

Late Morning to Late Night

OUR ORDER: Chicken Caesar Salad ($15.90), Sidnee's Crepe ($14.90), Risotto Con Funghi ($14.90), Pollo Foccacia ($13.90) TOTAL: $59.60

Everything looked good but each dish had horrible flaws.

My crepe was the only dish with flavour. While the mix of mushrooms, cheese and bacon tasted good, it was soggy from top to bottom. Really strange to eat when I like my crepes crisp. The foccacia had better texture, being well toasted but the chicken was distinctly lacking in flavour, which was over-compensated by the salty fries. The same went for the chicken in the salad, which was something like wet leaves with dry, unidentified white meat in the mouth. As for the risotto my friend commented, "I've never had to pepper something so much in my life before."

Sidnee's is not a good restaurant.

BANG! BANG! Shots ring out and echo down the street but no duel has occurred. One cowboy has shot himself in the foot.

~

Understandably, not daring to try the desserts, we headed to my friend's place and decided to bake. This was no easy feat. We had underestimated the volume of ingredients we'd need and had to do everything manually since my friend had only basic utensils. But our superior baking skills and improvisation (did you know Milo can be used as chocolate substitute?) led us to make some rather delicious chocolate cupcakes with a choc ganache:

LAZY EATING

Lazy. My family is too lazy to cook so, we usually eat out or order in. When I used to live in Concord, there was this fantastic Italian & Lebanese place we used to order from all the time.

Noi Due

Address:
40 Tennyson Road
Mortlake
Sydney NSW 2137

Phone:
9743 5329

Hours:
Tuesday - Sunday from 5pm

OUR ORDER: Veal Schnitzel w/ Steamed Vegetables & Mushroom Sauce ($15.50), Fettuccine Carbonara ($13), Lamb Kabbabs ($16), Warm Prawn Salad ($15), Lebanese Bread ($2) TOTAL: $61.50

The other night, after almost a year of ordering delivery from this place, my brother and I, for the first time, sought out the restaurant. In tradition however, we did not eat-in. We did the take-away thing.

The strange thing about this place is that half the stuff on the menu that I've tried is fantastic! Sadly, the other half is like the result of my home cooking after I get distracted and forget that I've left something on the stove...

Generally, anything that's barbecued or off a skewer from this place sucks and the desserts are plain and overpriced. Select dishes however, like the soups, schnitzels, pastas (sans the spaghetti) and prawn salads are delicious. I'm told the place has great pizzas as well but I've yet to try one.

The veal schnitzel is made with tender beef and is best with the mushroom sauce. I don't know if it's cause we only ever get delivery and the steam is trapped inside the box..but the batter is never crisp, which isn't nice. The carbonara is good but nothing special about it. The lamb kabbab was off a skewer so...nuff said. It's really the prawn salad that is excellent. That dish is something special. Salad greens with capsicum and celery (I don't like celery both others do), sun-dried marinted tomatoes, avocado, chopped roasted peanuts and prawns...really, it is like a raging party in my mouth. Delicious! I could eat it every day. It's mainly for that salad that I order from Noi Due so often. If the rest of the menu had such spectacular dishes, this restaurant would be the hub of the inner west. Well, that and if they fixed up the interiors.

Inside, it's bare, cold, and with a layout that divides the large area into a somewhat cramped space that demolishes the restaurant's potential to attract more eat-in diners. With its cheap furniture, it somewhat reminded me of a kids' cafeteria. The ambience could definitely be improved by a little interiors work. They could knock down that dividing wall and give the place some colour instead of the white floors and walls. A proper door to the kitchen would be better than the plastic flaps they have now. Since it seemed like the kitchen wasn't that busy or exciting, a window to allow patrons to show the chefs cooking probably wouldn't be a good idea.

OK, enough with my little interior decorating rant...all in all, great food with the mains at a reasonable price but Noi Due is definitely a take-out/delivery place. It was great to snuggle up on the sofa with my food and watch the Wizard of Oz on the widescreen tv and not have to worry about the dishes.

NOSTALGIC TASTES

Last week, I was in Cabramatta and met up with a friend who I don't see as regularly as I'd like these days.

Tan Viet

Address:
Shop 2-3/100 John st
Cabramatta
Sydney NSW 2166

Phone:
9727 6853

Hours:
9am-7pm/7 days

MY ORDER: Criskin-skin chicken with tomato rice, $10 and 3 colour drink, $3.50. TOTAL: $13.50

This place makes the best crispy-skin chicken! My parents rarely make breakfast and I'm usually not hungry in the morning but, back when I lived close to Tan Viet, I'd wake up in the morning and the scent of their kitchen would make my stomach growl.

The restaurant is famous for it's crispy-skin chicken with dry egg noodles but I prefer tomato rice. Other restaurants tend to make tomato rice more like fried-rice, with egg and more oil, but Tan Viet puts more tomato in it, giving it a deeper and richer flavour.

The 3-colour drink was something I didn't really care for it. I like the bean; I like the jelly and; I like the rice & bean pudding but together it was a little strange.

After lunch, we headed to Laurence Cake Shop (44 John st) to buy cake boxes for a baking project. They don't sell them but we didn't leave empty handed! There are a lot of bread-shops and bakeries in Cabramatta and out of all of them...in fact, out of all the places in Sydney, Laurence has got to have the best egg tarts. ($1.20)

Some places make it with too much pastry so it feels dry in your mouth and others have old ones for sale that are damp and stale, where the custard's grown a funny top layer..yuck. The egg tarts at Laurence's are always fresh and have a good pastry to custard ratio. =D

To wash it all down, in Cabramatta style, we headed to the BKK centre's shake shop. They sell fruit shakes and something called '7 choices' which is a mixture of desserts like that in the 3-colour drink but, as the name suggests, with 7 variants. There used to be shops like this all over Cab but this is the only one left. My two favourite drinks from this store are avocado shakes and strawberry shakes. The avocado one while fantastic tasting, is really fattening so I went with the strawberry. Here's me:

He he, hanging around Cabra, eating foods whose tastes are authentic to the area and hanging out with old friends really brings me back to the happy old days!

MOB-MADE

I never took notice of the tiny noodle shop adjacent to Strathfield Station but was smacked with a heavy sense of familiarity when, a few nights ago, I decided to try the place. The wooden tables and benches, the respectful and well-dressed man quietly reading that day's newspaper in the corner, the flour-dusted workbench and, women with their heads wrapped in kerchiefs and aprons around their waists... I couldn't place my finger on it at first but after I found myself expecting a bunch of conspicuous-looking men to charge out of a would-be back room , I thought how this Korean hand-made noodle shop would be the perfect setting for a gritty crime film.

Hand-made noodles

Address:
5 Albert Road
Strathfield
Sydney NSW 2135

OUR ORDER: Handmade noodles with Pipis, $10; Rice noodle with sliced egg and kimchi, $10 (free kim chi side dishes). TOTAL: $20

When you're watching Asian films about mobs and gangs, the head mobster is usually seen conducting his criminal business under the facade of a family-run restaurant, which is either luxurious, with lavish foods or modest, with basic dishes. This restaurant was the latter.

I quite liked the flavour of the dishes, especially the hand-made noodle, however, the place was pretty much ordinary. While every dish on the menu was inexpensively (and conveniently) priced at $10, there was little in them aside from the noodles. I'd eat there again but probably not anytime soon. The sob story really is that the best part of this restaurant is probably the way I identify it with movies I've seen.

The place is only a noodle-house so to finish off our meal, my friend and I trotted down to Gelatissimo, which has a fantastic new chocolate range. Here's me eating the chilli choc flavour ^^ ha ha, yes I know I look retarded.

UTAMU

(deliciousness)- swahili

I was walking around Newtown after uni a while back when I noticed an African restaurant. Being a lover of food and a lover of travel, it's only natural I be a lover of exotic foods.

Le Kilimanjaro East African Eaterie

Address:
280 King Street
Newtown
Sydney NSW 2042

Phone:
9557 4565

Opening hours:
Daily
Lunch: 12 - 3
Dinner 6 - 11

Monday was my second time eating at Le Killiminjaro and while enjoyable, was unfortunately, not the best time. I went for lunch with a friend but the dinner ambience is definitely better. Watching the shop-fronts attendants sauntering about in their traditional garb, with the dim lighting and rhythmic drum music playing just loud enough to almost nullify the chatter and buzz of the other patrons adds a level of mystique that...well, just makes food taste better. As it were, on Monday, there was soft, soothing music and ours was the only occupied table. Oh dear, did someone drop a pin?

OUR ORDER: Lamb tajini, $10; Accara (fried black-eyed beans balls), $6; Asparagus, $6; Ginger drink, $1.50; Flatbread, $2; Cous cous, $1.50 TOTAL: $27

(don't you love the wooden bowls?)

What's amazing about eating here is the texture of things. My tactile sense went a little crazy as I was running my hands over the bristly wooden bowls, rolling the cous cous around on my tongue and loving the light tingle left on my lips by the African spices and ginger drink.

Not to be outdone, my taste buds were having their own shindig. While the food is flavoursome, it isn't saturated in flavour but is a lovely blend of spices. Further, the dishes on the menu are complementary. So, while eating my lamb tajini, I can sample accara without having to cleanse my palate in between.

THE SOB STORY: What annoyed me greatly when I first trialed the restaurant was that the menu was a far away, too-dimly lit board on the wall with words that were unfamiliar to me- sossou-gorigiguan (a tuna dish)? Am I reading that right?
As an amateur critic, the only poorness I sensed in the food was the dryness at times, which made the food rough on my mouth and made me drink more than I usually do during meals.

Food can't provide satisfaction only through taste but also the interplay of other human senses and emotions. Chocolate wouldn't be as enjoyable if not for the way it gently melts in your mouth or if you eat it sitting alone in your room. Emotions and ambience created by the things we see, smell, touch and hear come together with taste so that food becomes a delight.

tutaonana