RESTAURANT REVIEW: MR WONG BY MERIVALE (DAN HONG, JOWLETTE WU AND ERIC KOH CHEFS)

Last night, I celebrated my friend's birthday at Mr Wong.  This is a newly opened restaurant by Merivale on Bridge Street.  I have seen Facebook advertise Mr Wong and have read mixed reviews of this place.  My take on it was that the food was pretty good.  It kind of looks like a warehouse with wooden chairs and tables surrounded by old looking lampshades and fake peony flowers.  Even the toilets were traditional old style.  The restaurant is big - it stretches from one side to another on two levels.  Still because I decided to go there for my friend's birthday the day before I couldn't get a booking so we go there around 6.15pm to place our name down for a 7.45pm seating.  We finally got our tables around 8.00pm.  We were starving however food came out relatively quickly and the waiters were always polite unlike other chinese restaurants.

Mr Wong restaurant

The atmosphere was amazing and they had a bar for those who come early and are waiting for their tables.  Establishment was just around the corner too so can always go there for a drink too.  My friend and I ended up waiting for hours and we didn't even end up at a table but a sit down bar table with high chairs.  We were disappointed because spacing is difficult but we managed.  Due to the long wait the food had to be great otherwise we would never come here again.  Thankfully the food was good.  It was slightly salty but still flavoursome and we can tell the quality of the ingredients were fresh and good.  I've tasted chinese restaurant food before and it just doesn't taste great and leaves this MSG aftertaste.  We ordered four dishes on the night - a five spice tofu dish, kung pao chicken with crunchy shallots, peanuts and sichuan chillis, five kinds of mushrooms stir fried and steamed fish with ginger and shallots.

The tofu can be ordered as small or large.  You can smell and taste the five spice and the tofu was soft on the inside and crispy on the outside.  Thought, there wasn't much of a crunch but still crispy.

Five spiced tofu with chillis and coriander

The kungpao chicken was spicy because of the sichuan chicken and added peanuts gave it an extra edge to the dish.  Though spicy it wasn't too hot and the shallots were nice too.

Kung Pao Chicken with shallots, peanuts and sichuan chicken

I loved the five mushroom dish.  The mushrooms were so soft and it was tasty too.  It seems like a simple dish but definitely exceeded expectations.

Five mushroom stir fried

The steamed fish did not disappoint either. Normally you have the whole fish at chinese restaurants but here, we had soft fillet fish cooked to perfection.  Very light in taste so need to immerse in the soy sauce and shallots.

Steamed fillet fish with coriander and soy and vinegar sauce

I think Spice Temple was too spicy for my liking and Billy Kwong was too salty so I prefer Mr Wong over these two restaurants.  My old time favourite is Jimmy Liks so I am yet to return and Mahjong Room is also lovely too.  Overall I would rate Mr Wong as 8/10 (Same as what SMH had scored but the Urbanspooners and other readers don't seen to be that impressed).  For SMH's review of Mr Wong, you can read the article here by Terry Durrack: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/restaurant-review-mr-wong-20120827-24vga.html.  Apparently the crab dish look really good, pekking duck and live lobster are also a must.  The dumplings are colourful be a bit on the expensive side.  Last time I had green and orange dumplings were from London and what do you know, the dumpling chef is from London!

Mr Wong
Address: 3 Bridge Lane, Sydney, NSW 2000
Ph: (02) 9240 3000
Opening hours: Lunch and Dinner - Thurs to Sat until 2 am
Website: Mr Wong website

WEDDING LOCATION REVIEW: THE DECKHOUSE, WOOLWICH

On Sunday 23th of September 2012 I had the privilege of attending a wedding at the Woolwich Deckhouse.  Beforehand, I've never heard of this place and am glad that I had the opportunity to experience the food and ambience of the Deckhouse.  As the name suggest, there is a deck that overlooks the harbour and you can even see the harbour bridge and skyline.  There's a cafe there that you can enjoy food on a casual weekend or during weekdays.

I must say the food here was fantastic.  My only criticism was that food was spaced over a long period of time.  Entrees were served then you would have to wait for another hour before mains were served followed by another hour or hour and a half until dessert was served.  If you are starving and you don't want your guest to starve I suggest either having a word or choosing another reception location.

Entree served were prawns and scallops.  I adore scallops and am allergic to prawns.  The scallops were cooked perfectly and had a nice sauce and aroma.

Scallops with potato cream topped with prosciutto

Next up mains were choices of steak and barramundi fish.  The barramundi fish was superb.  It was soft and melted in the mouth and had a subtle citrus flavour.  There was so potato mash at the bottom too which was nice and creamy.  I didn't have the steak and was thankful because it was overcooked and dry.

Barramundi fillet with potato mash and cucumber slices and citric sauce

Steak with asparagus, potato gratin and pie

The last course of the meal - dessert is always my biggest highlight.  There was a choice of chocolate fondant that simply melted as you spoon it and vanilla panna cotta.  I was sick of chocolate after the eight textured cake from Quay restaurant.  The panna cotta was divine.  It was smooth and you can really taste the vanilla from the vanilla beans.

Chocolate fondant with vanilla ice-cream

Vanilla panna cotta with pineapple and cream

Reception decor at the Deckhouse

The Deckhouse
Website: http://www.deckhousewoolwich.com.au
Address:
End of Clarke Road, Woolwich Dock
New South Wales
Cafe no: 9817 4394
Office no: 9817 6401

PATISSE COOKING CLASS: CROQUEMBOUCHE (SEP 20th 2012)

Last Thursday night, I went to Chippendale for the Croquembouche masterclass held by Vincent Gaden from Patisse.  A croquembouche is a French dessert that looks like a tower made from choux pastry filled with creme patisserie.  It looks and tastes amazing!

Both Simon Food Favourites and Not Quite Nigella have already been to the Patisse Croquembouche masterclass a few years back.  Any cooking or baking class is not particularly cheap so probably best to use a voucher from Cudo, Travelzoo, Ouffer, Livingsocial, Ourdeals, Groupon, Spreets etc.  However, you won't find any of the famous ones on offer as yet as they are popular as it is.  I would love to do a macaron class but they are closer to $200 and at $3.00 each on average I can get over 60 macarons and I don't even need to clean up the mess.   Going to the croquembouche class was worth the $185.  Croquembouches can costs up to $150+ for a lovely decorated one and when you find out the amount of effort that is involved in making and assembling this "crunch in a mouth", you will happily pay for the well made cake.  I got a voucher worth $25 to see Masterchef live and they offered us wine and a lovely dinner - a crunchy baked quiche probably worth $20 so class is about $140 but you get to take that cake home with you.  The Masterchef live worth $25 is just a bonus that you wouldn't normally get though.  The best thing about the class is that you won't have to do the cleaning up and they have all the utensils required for the croquembouche.

So would I recommend this class? Definitely!!! Vincent Gaden is seen on Masterchef a few times now and it's nice to be able to learn from a Masterchef.  They have macaron class and souffle classes as well.  I haven't quite mastered souffle but it's really easy so I wouldn't recommend paying $185 just to learn how to make it but a croquembouche is a lot more difficult than souffle.

I love the angel hair part the most when it comes to making this dessert.  It just looks amazing but unfortunately with the humility, the caramel can melt so its usually created two hours before an event and served up.  Also, need to put the croquembouche in the fridge if you make it the day before.  You learn other great tips in class too such as how to pipe the choux pastry and fill it with cream as well as how to assemble the croquembouche using caramel.

I love the end result and my masterpiece creation.  Class was like 4 hours long and assembling takes at least 45 minutes for 50 choux pastry.  I needed 51 as the last one formed top of the tree.  For weddings, it would be beautiful to use flowers for decoration.  Here we were given rose, lavender, chocolate balls, hundreds and thousands sprinkles and icing sugar.  I think too much would be overdone but too little means your croquembouche is too plain and boring.

Croquembouche with red angel hair

Details of how this is made can be found @ Not Quite Nigela's website Step by Step Guide

A video and further details from Simon's Food Favourite's Croquembouche Patisse Masterclass

Patisse is no longer a cafe but a cooking school only and they have high tea pop ups and are at Pyrmont Farmer Grower's Market every first Saturday of the month.

Patisse Cooking School classes are found on their website and they are now at Chippendale, previously at Waterloo.

Patisse Cooking School
Ground Floor
67-69 Regent Street
CHIPPENDALE  NSW 2018
PH: (02) 9690 0665
E: info@patisse.com.au

RESTAURANT REVIEW: QUAY RESTAURANT, CIRCULAR QUAY - PETER GILMORE

Saturday night was an interesting night at the Quay.  After waiting six months, two of us were getting excited as the morning arrived.  First time trying a three chef hat restaurant and listed as number 29 out of 50 top restaurants around the World so as a food lover, you wouldn't miss this opportunity.  Did it live up to my expectations? Yes the food was great and the highlight of Quay, I must say would have to be pork other than the guava snow egg signature dish.  Peter Gilmore takes pork to another level (a Masterchef saying).  It was cooked to perfection: tender meat, crispy skin.

Menu

Menus

My friends and I tried the four course dinner menu - two entrees, one main and a dessert dish.  At first I thought I'd be hungry still if I just had those dishes but it was certainly fulfilling.  If you're not full, unlimited sourdough with four different selections available.  I think there was white, wholemeal, polenta and can't remember the last one, it could be wholegrains.  To cleanse our palette, we were served a amuse bouche that was really refreshing.   It was raw native freshwater marron with pomelo, young almonds and green mango.

Amuse bouche

The first entree I chose was the fragrant jasmine poached chicken, shaved hand dived scallops and smoked white eggplant cream, pea blossoms perfumed with Korean virgin black sesame oil.  I must say This is a cold dish and the chicken tasted pretty ordinary.  As Caramel Egg pudding suggests - it does taste like an asian cold dish called pulled chicken.  There was a white crispy vegetable that scallops that were shaved into strings intertwined to give a different texture but wasn't that special.  I did however, love the soft fresh scallops that melted in my mouth.  I don't think I've tried such sweet fresh scallops before that were raw without the fishy smell.

Fragrant jasmine poached chicken, shaved hand dived scallops and smoked white eggplant cream, pea blossoms perfumed with Korean virgin black sesame oil

My next entree choice was the lobster covered in golden tapioca and looks a bit like caviar but not as salty.  I must say this dish sounds really exotic but it's pretty ordinary.  I think because squid isn't that tasty and I only really liked the lobster velvet.  That was creamy and smooth.  The best fresh lobster is from Masuya on O'Connell Street in Sydney, it is so sweet and fresh there.

Gentle poached southern rock lobster, hand caught Tasmanian squid, golden tapioca and lobster velvet

Other dishes my friends tried looked nice but I didn't get to taste them so couldn't comment.  The only thing I do add is that the congee of Northern Australian mud crab was really fragrant. I could smell it as I walked around to take a photo of it on the other side of the table.

Congee of Northern Australian Mud Crab, fresh palm heart and egg yolk emulsion

The sashimi entree looked like a snail without the shell.  It looks pretty delicate put together.

Sashimi of corner inlet rock flathead, Tasmania trumpeter, salt cured wild oyster cream, black lipped abalone, raw sea cabbage, green raddish, nasturtiums, warrigals and periwinkles.

If you're chosing a main dish, you must have this pork selection from the menu.  The pork is simply divine as I first mentioned.  The skin has maltose which gives it a sweet crispy skin a bit like a toffee coat.  The meat just falls off so easily.  The cauliflower cream was great and there's a bit of sweetness and sourness from the prune that accentuates the taste of the pork.  People normally cook baked apples with pork but prunes was used this this case to make it different but nice.  There was an overload of prunes so hopefully you'll like prunes.  The waiters did tell us to smell the pork but it was that strong like the one at Quarter 21.  It's on the other table next to us but you could smell the trail.  It was beautiful so this was nothing like that.

Berkshire pig jowl, maltose crackling, prunes, cauliflower cream, perfumed with prune kernel oil

I tried a bit of the pig cheek which was an entree and the meat was as tender in this dish too.  I loved the crispy artichoke that came with the dish. It had shaved scallops in this dish again and that scallop again is so soft and sweet to my liking :)

Smoked Confit pig cheek, shitake, shaved scallops, Jerusalem artichoke, Juniper bay

There's no denying that my favourite part of every meal is the dessert.  Famous through Masterchef, the snow egg is a bit hit.  My friend L said that the snow egg is too sweet and she didn't like it.  For me, I'm not into meringue but I do like guava and having shaved iced with guava juice was refreshing.  Interestingly enough we were told to tap the egg before we cracked it.  Inside you can see egg-like yolk.  Rather interesting and tastes great! It wasn't sweet at all and apparently depending on seasonality, sometimes you don't get guava egg but some other flavour.

Guava Snow Egg

Cracked Guava snow egg with meringue and custard inside

Besides the guava egg, the ethereal sheets were divine.  It was special because the textures were thin but crispy and there's flavours of chocolate and caramel all mixed to bring delight.  I didn't have this dessert but even having one piece was enough to make me love it.

Ethereal sheets

8 Textured Chocolate Cake 

8 Textured Chocolate Cake

This cake was so rich in chocolate that I can't eat chocolate for a while.  There's a recipe on the Masterchef website for this cake but after having tried it, I don't think I'll want to make it but I may try and make the Quay Snow Egg as that tastes better.

Petit Fours

So there you have it, the entire - four course meal for $165.  We had additional coffee or tea and complimentary petit fours.  I couldn't finish it because the eight textured cake was enough to send me to  on chocolate avoidance.  I had the Darjeeling tea in a interesting teapot whilst my friends had coffee.

Darjeeling tea and coffee in a flask

Overall the experience was good and the food was filling even though the portions were small.  The service was friendly but the place needs a bit of a renovation.  There's still outstanding views as it boasts the iconic Opera House outside the window sill.  As one lady puts it, I had to rebook the restaurant the other night as some cruise ship was stationed at the Overseas Passenger Terminal blocking the marvellous views.

Summary Review of the Quay:


Food Review: 8/10


Ambience Review: 7/10


Service Review: 8/10


Price: $$$ (expensive)


Overall Review: 8/10




The Quay
Upper Level, Overseas Passenger Terminal
5 Hickson Road
The Rocks NSW 2000
(02) 9251 5600
Website: http://www.quay.com.au

RESTAURANT REVIEW:  THAINAMIC, CANLEY VALE

Last Monday I caught up with a friend I haven't seen for 7 years. Yes, its' been that long.  We had to rearrange seeing each other twice so even though I was sick that day, I managed to make my way to Canley Vale to have some Thai food.  One Friday when I ate at Red Sichuan next door to Thainamic, the restaurant was packed.  For a Monday the restaurant wasn't empty so food was assumed to be pretty good.  Compared to Thai Paragon though, I think it lacks taste.  The red duck curry I had seemed hotter than I'm used to.  It wasn't that creamy and didn't smell great.  My friend however loved her Penang Chicken Curry as it wasn't as hot and she thought it tasted good.

Red duck curry

Chicken penang curry

We had desserts after our meal.  The servings look small but was definitely filling.  They had more duck pieces than usual in my curry so it made me full but I wanted to try and compare the fried ice-cream to Holy Basil.  I must say I prefer the ice-cream at Holy Basil and the sides with the coconut was a lot better at Holy Basil too but it's not too bad and is a great alternative say if you don't want to wait in line for too long as Holy Basil is always busy.

Chocolate icecream

Fried icecream

Overall I think there's better Thai restaurants I've tried in the past but nevertheless, was just a good meal on a winters cold day so a bit of spice is always welcome.

Summary Review of Thainamic


Food rating: 6.5/10


Ambience rating: 7/10


Service rating: 6.5/10


Price: $$ (affordable)


Overall rating: 6.5/10




Thainamic
Shop 4-5, 47-49 Canley Vale Road
Canley Vale  NSW  2166
PH: (02) 9727 7798
Opening Hours:
Sun to Thurs 5-10pm
Fri to Sat 5-11pm

SEAFOOD COOKING SCHOOL REVIEW: WITH GULLIAUME BRAHIMI

Today is Bastille Day - the French public holiday and I get the pleasure to watch a French chef, Gulliaume Brahimi from Gulliaume at Bennelong.  Gulliaume is a real charmer with a sense of humour who can definitely entertain the audience during his cooking demonstrations.  Sometimes you can get bored just watching and learning someone cooking but you get to learn new techniques and ask away questions so for $155 for three meals, it was worth it.

Seafood cooking school with Gulliaume and Kristy the assistant

We made three dishes that are on the entree menu at the restaurant.   The easiest of them all is the scallops with herb butter.  Cooking and preparation probably takes about 10 minutes.  6 minutes to melt butter and chop up the herbs to mix with the butter and then baking them in the oven for about 4 minutes.  The herbs used were chives, chervil, french tarragon (Gulliaume emphasised that french tarragon is better than the ordinary ones because of the texture and smell), flat-leaf parsley.  Garlic and butter were also essential ingredients.   The herbs are finely chopped and not processed through the blender.  I found that baking it in the oven for 4 minutes was a little bit too raw for my liking, maybe just another minute would be perfect as suggested by the recipe by my cooking group decided to do 4 minutes at 200 degrees celcius instead.  Gulliaume suggested to allow the scallops to be translucent not overcooked so timing of when you take it out of the oven is important.  With the extra herb butter that is left, you can wrap it like a sausage using glad wrap and re-use for steaks or as garlic bread.

Scallops with herb butter

Scallops with herb butter

Next we made the red mullet with cavolo nero, chestnuts, olives, grapes, anchovy oil.  I never tried cavolo nero before.  It is an Italian cabbage and can be found in Leichardt.  Can probably substitute this with cabbage if you can't find it at the grocery stores.  This dish requires a bit of effort because you need to roast the chestnuts and almonds and blanch grapes and cavolo nero.  You also need to chop brussel sprouts, chives, anchovies and bake ligurian olives.   My team believes that if you don't have the dressing the red mullet would have been bland.  The red mullet was just seasoned with salt, nothing else.  When it comes to cooking the red mullet, you would need to press hard against the pan as the fish starts to shrivel when you cook it, and it won't lay flat.  Cook the skin side first until it goes golden brown then you can flip over to the other side but only for about 10 secs or so because the fish will be overcooked otherwise.  I kind of left it too late but the fish was cooked overall.  Red Mullet has quite a profound taste and its best to cook it the day that you bought it.  A fresh one will have a firm translucent texture.

Red mullet with cavolo nero, chestnuts, olives, grapes and anchovy oil.

Our last dish was prawn ravioli.  I think this has got to be my favourite mainly because I'm not a fan of brussels sprouts and I can't have too much butter from the scallops. The tomatoes were so rich and sweet and goes will with the cute cucumber balls.  The lemongrass oil is very fragrant and you can actually add more to enhance the flavours when making the oil.  The prawns were fresh and whipped cream was great.  When plated, the dish looks sensational.  The interesting part of this was that pasta was not used but wonton wrappers for the ravioli.  Gulliaume mentioned it lasts longer than pasta and the texture is a lot better than using pasta.  I'm definitely going to try and make this dish as some other couple in the team made this exquisite dish.

Prawn Ravoili with tomato,cucumber, finger lime, lemongrass vinaigrette

After a long two hour demonstration, it took us as a group two hours to complete the three entrees before we set up to dine.  At this point you can also purchase a signed copy of Guilliaume's book as well - one called Gulliaume for $75 or the French Safari with Mauve for $55.  I bought one for a friend who loves cooking and eating.  She's the one that introduced me to the love of food.  The French Safari is really easy to follow so thought I'd get the one for her as simply to follow is better than having complicated recipes to make.

Dining room

The Seafood Cooking school has daily classes.  You can find them on their Sydney Seafood School website.  Popular classes get booked out quickly so make sure you book in advance.  I wanted to do the Justin North class but given that his restaurant's last day was Saturday 14th of July, I don't think he'll be going to teach at the Seafood cooking class.  I'm kicking myself for not going to eat at Becasse before it shut down.  Oh well, at least I managed to eat at Quarter 21.   A lesson learnt, try and eat at the recommended restaurants before they close down.  You'd think that if it's good that it will continue to operate but some things do happen in life as it's not all rosy.

THAI PARAGON RESTAURANT REVIEW: MOSMAN, SYDNEY

Thai Paragon is located in the heart of Mosman near the main street of shops next to La Banette, a french bakery store owned by vietnamese people.  The service here was pretty mediocre.  They sit you down and bring out the food with no hassle.  The settings are very traditionally thai with elephant sculptures and Thai lamps.  The restaurant had a special with Groupon and my friend could buy Pad Thai or Green Curry for $5 and we also ordered more food from the menu.  Green curry is supposed to be hot but this green curry was more mild with creamy coconut and was sweeter than usual.  I prefer this dish but if you're into traditionally hot food, you won't like this at all.  It is described as assorted vegetables (mainly green beans and broccoli) with green chill paste, topping with lime leaf, fresh chilli and basil.

Chicken Green Curry - $16.90

The Pad Thai was sweet but also sour from the tamarind sauce.  I could keep eating this dish.    It is described as thai's famous Thai style rice noodle with tamarind puree, egg, fried tofu, bean spouts, garlic chives, crushed peanut, lemon and dried chilli, and chicken on the side.

Chicken Pad Thai - $16.90

Other two main dishes we chose were a plum duck and soft shell crab salad.  The menu had photos of the dishes which is great as you could see the lovely presentations especially from the plum duck.  It is a roast duck served with a blend of plum sauce spiced with garlic, cinnamon served with shitake mushrooms and bok choy stir fry (asian fat bum green).  The duck plum sauce was sweet and duck was not crispy but skin was really nicely cooked.

Plum roast duck - $26.90

The soft shell crab was amazingly soft and really tasty on the inside and very crispy on the outside.  It looks like it was baked and shrivelled but it was so delicious.  I didn't quite like the paw paw side salad as it was a bit too hot for my liking.  The crispy soft shell was dry cooked with salt smoked dried chilli, chopped shallot, dried red onion and garlic served with papaya salad.  No wonder it's so flavoursome and tasty with dried red onions, garlic, shallots and chilli.

Crispy soft shell crab with papaya salad - $15.90

Before our mains we also ordered an entree, Thai fish cake for $6.90 for 4 pieces. It was pretty nice but I think fish cakes are pretty standard across many restaurants.

Home made fish cakes with sweet chilli dipping sauce

The food at this place is one of my favourites for Thai so far.  Even though other restaurants boast and claim their Thai food is better but I like this place because the food is hot but bearable and I like their specialty dishes - such as the soft shell crab with papaya salad and roast duck plum.  They have other dishes that on chef's special such as lamb in garlic and pepper sauce, and sweet chilli deep fried barramundi.  However, I haven't been to Newtown for some time so there's probably better Thai food places out there.  Though the ambience is Thai and the food is really nicely presented and still pretty generous, it gets the thumbs up from me.

Summary Review of Thai Paragon:


Food rating: 7.5/10


Service rating: 7/10


Ambience rating: 8/10


Price: $$ (affordable)


Overall rating: 7.5/10



Thai Paragon - Mosman
143A Raglan Street
PH: (02) 9960 4247
Website: Mosman Thai Paragon website
Opening Hours:
Lunch Fri to Sun 11.00am to 3.00pm
Dinner Mon to Sun 5.00pm to 10.00pm

Note: There's also another chain of Thai Paragon in North Strathfield too.