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when we went to newcastle on christmas day in 2013 we wanted to try something local. so we got off the train at the station and looked around.

newcastle was a dead city on christmas day.

the first shop that we saw was open was delicious fine foods, located at hunter street mall in newcastle. interestingly quite a few people seemed to be in the same situation as us; up and about on christmas day hunting for food. it was packed.

for christmas day, delicious fine foods operated on an extremely limited menu. a few burgers, a few chickens and coffees. the wait was very long; we waited 30 minutes for 2 burgers and chips. no sauce was served, and to get it you have to ask the kitchen for some. each burger and chips combo costed us $15. Looking at their website, it seemed that the average price was about $10, so it was much more expensive on christmas day.

was it good? it was just average. i got their thai chicken burger with chips. it was just okay. wasn’t exciting. it was also quite dry.

c got a steak burger. it was better than the chicken burger, but also nothing exciting.

it was christmas day, the place was busy, and that might have caused the decrease in the quality of the food served. on the bright side, when we boarded the bus in newcastle, it was prettily decorated with christmas decorations. ymmv, especially if you go during a non-crazy period like christmas day.

here today i will be talking about the stag, mayfield. the stag is a pub located in mayfield close to newcastle cbd. the entrance to the pub is through a carpark. upon entering we were greeted with a nice clean spacious pub with pretty decorations. there were a lot of reference to bhp mining; newcastle being a mining town in the past! the interior of the pub was great:

don’t forget to check the specials board! when we went there we’ve already decided on our meals from their online menu (handy!) but i would’ve like to have tried something from their specials board.

i ordered the 400g certified angus rump medium cooked with vegetables and idaho potato. the steak was way too tough despite being ordered medium cooked; it was simply almost cooked through! the sides were really tough. tiny portions at the middle were nice and pick but that’s about it. the vegetables were ordinary, some beans and brocolli. however, the idaho potato was great. it’s cooked with its skin on and was warm and fluffy. i would order the potato by itself. the price was a too expensive for what i got: $24.50!

a friend of mine ordered the twice cooked pork belly @ $25.80. now this was superb. the pork belly was soft on the inside and  crunchy on the outside. it was very tasty! the grilled prawn was delicious as well. the chilli on top was nice and sweet. overall a winner, and represents way better value than my angus rump.

the prices for the pub are quite high; think $15 to $30 dollars. i would go if i am in the area again, but wouldn’t go out of my way to visit.

this is the final of the perth series. again i visited these places during a conference in perth. we went here for our final dinner before departing back to sydney.

i present to you.. kung fu kitchen! the name is great, and my friends picked this over an all-you-can-eat korean buffet. can you believe that?

kung fu kitchen serves northern chinese food. for the record most of the chinese food you get in australia is southern chinese / hong kong style food. so for my 2 northern chinese friends, the food served here really reminded them of home.

here’s a photo of the interior before it got full. we were in at about 6 pm or earlier, wanting an early dinner and rest before flying back to sydney. the rule here is you do not get served at the table. sit down, look at the menu and go to the counter to place your order. the hamburger pancake i really wanted to try was out of stock!

the key to really enjoying food here is to be adventurous. i wasn’t. at all. i ordered a spicy wanton soup and some oyster sauce vegetables. the spicy wanton soup was really spicy. the spicy level was put-in-your-mouth-and-choke level. thank goodness for the oyster vegetables, which wasn’t spicy at all, so i could alternate in between.

now my friends were more adventurous, in fact i believe this is their everyday food back in china. they ordered a bean curd thingy, pig tripe, pig ears and chicken ribs. the bean curd thingy was okay, but i do find it tasteless and not to my liking. pig tripe and pig ears i swallowed a piece of each and didn’t really try to taste anything. chicken ribs had no meat!

shame on me for not trying. honestly the place must be doing something right, at about 6.30pm or so it was jam packed with people, some were waiting about 30 minutes to get a table! my take here is that if you are willing to try, the place must serve something great; if you are picky like me stick to southern chinese soy sauce or xo sauce. oh and sweet and sour pork.

botanical cafe is located in kings park near the city of perth. to get there from the waterside, you will have to hike up a hill. the two of us young men took a long time to hike up the hill whereas an old lady who had been running up and down the hill overtook us like twice (up, then down, then up). needless to say we were pretty exhausted when we reached the top.

after walking around the place, including the war memorial, we stopped by botanical gardens for a quick brekky. friend ordered a coffee and i got the day’s special; some burger with bacon, rocket and egg, which comes with a free pineapple juice. if memory serves it was $12.

the cafe was pretty and clean. you can dine inside, but the draw really are the seats outside. you get the view of the park and of the city skyline.

The burger itself looked amazing. a nicely fried egg, crispy bacon and fresh rocket and crunchy bun. pineapple juice, well, was just pineapple juice; i wanted to swap or pay more for a coffee but i wasn’t allowed to change the special. so yeah i was stuck with juice. the burger was great though.

here’s a parting shot from behind the cafe:

hello, cheryl here! it’s been way too long haha!

anyway, since coming back from malaysia last year, i’ve been a little obsessed with tonkatsu ramen. after doing a bit of research, i decided to try the tonkotsu ramen at gumshara. they are located in china town at ‘eating world’. my brother has been there a few years ago and he said he liked it (he hardly ever likes anything, everything is just ‘alright’ or ‘okay’). one of the many things gumshara prides themselves in is not using any msg.

so t and i were starving by the time we got there. we ended up ordering garlic tonkotsu ramen noodle, bbq pork ramen and an additional bowl of noodles which was a bad idea as we found out later. they had a little note on the menu under each ramen telling customers how thick the soup is. the garlic tonkotsu ramen was mid-thick and the bbq pork ramen was thick.

when i got my bbq pork ramen, i shot my hand and reached for the spoon to taste that thick collagen-y broth I’ve been longing to taste the whole day. it was amazing… it wasn’t super salty or strong as i had imagined. it was just right…amazing. i enjoyed putting a strand of noodles into the spoon and getting a spoon of the broth. i thought i could eat it forever…

however, disaster soon struck. we were both halfway through and we looked at each other. we immediately realised we over-ordered… it didn’t help that our friend had ordered a huge dry pot for us to share. you can see the unfinished ramen and the huge dry pot here!

we have been defeated. we ended up taking away most of the dry pot, took away the additional bowl of noodles that we barely touched and left about a third of the garlic tonkotsu ramen behind. i felt so sick. the thick broth that i so loved half an hour ago became so sickening… next time we go to gumshara, we’ll probably just get one ramen and the additional bowl of noodles and share between the two of us. we really enjoyed gumshara but we definitely overestimated ourselves!

this is the second of the perth series! we dropped by this place called charm after a visit to the perth mint. of all the attractions in perth the only one i was interested in was the perth mint; the gold pouring was an interesting show which a tourist should not miss!

anyhow, we were looking for a nearby lunch spot and charm stood out. it was bright and cheery and clean.

well how did the food fare? i ordered 2 dishes, an omelette rice called “charm’s special omelette” and prawn tempura. the food came with the standard korean complimentary side dishes.

the omelette was pretty and came with a side of salad. however, there wasn’t much in the rice and the rice was really soggy. i was expecting something similar to nasi goreng pattaya back in malaysia…

the tempura, on the other hand, was yummy! too bad there were only 2 pieces, and if i remember correctly it was 5 or 6 dollars!

food was quite expensive for what we got, but i guess it is a standard pricing across perth. i wish the rice wasn’t quite as soggy though, the tempura was great!

hi all,

went to perth recently for a conference so will be posting up a few places i ate at over at the west. we landed there at about 12 pm local time, which meant that we were starving; it was 3 pm in sydney! after a small debate about where to eat we decided on arirang, despite friend wanting chinese (which we did have a few times after). it’s quite nice inside:

arirang is a korean place, which offered reasonable lunch menus and was about half full when we entered. we quickly settled on ordering a lunch menu each, 2 friends had a bulgogi and a honey chicken each and i had a bibimbap. each menu came with a miso soup, kimchi and namul.

the bulgogi beef and the honey chicken was decent (interestingly the honey chicken was picked by the guy who wanted chinese). bibimbap was very good, wonderfully flavoured meat and runny egg. the soup and kimchi rounded off a very satisfying meal.

prices for the set menu ranged from $13.90 to $14.50. expensive by sydney lunch standards, but apparently perth is more expensive?

my second post of the day! well it’s to try to reduce the back log of posts we have.

this one is all about silver dolphin which is located in cardiff rsl. now cardiff is a newcastle suburb, so it might be a bit difficult for sydneysiders to visit. is it worth it? well have a look and see the variety of dishes available! i should note that this visit was made during the chinese mid-autumn festival, so food may be different on a normal day.

well now, let’s begin. plenty of food here so i won’t be describing then one by one, they’re your standard yummy all you can eat buffet grub.

deep fried food:

potatoes and other hot stuff:

chinese stir fries:

roasts, sausages, eggs and dumplings (interestingly located at the same one counter):

the prawns (a must have at any buffet):

dessert items:

there! hopefully you are salivating at the food; the garlic prawn with veges was my favourite dish, although not featured above. the only dessert i had was ice cream; it certainly doesn’t look too grand, but a good ice cream is hard to pass up! yes they also have the choc fondue.

well folks, the buffet was a decent one, nothing stood out as amazing. go if you are in the area, otherwise sydney has lots of all you can eat buffets to choose from.

finally, when you are all full up from gorging youselves, why not head up for a game of slots (standard gambling warning here).

hi all! it does seem that c and i slacked off quite a bit; we’ve been back from malaysia for quite a while and haven’t yet typed everything (and our last post was in october)!

here’s a japanese restaurant in kuala lumpur called senya izakaya, which is located jalan p ramlee. the interior was quite nice. here’s a photo of the chefs, although it seemed as if our food didn’t come from this particular kitchen; in fact, the kitchen from another part of the building served our food. if memory serves, that is.

all orders are taken on futuristic technology:

 

i ordered a delicious bowl of noodles (have no idea what the name is) but googling around it seems like a tsukemen ramen. basically it came with a thick broth on the side, and you dip your noodles in it. absolutely fantastic.

c, not being too hungry, ordered a wagyu stick and a agedashi tofu. she wasn’t particularly excited by the taste of the wagyu (she’s a wagyu connoisseur) but seemed alright with the tofu. as i am writing this and she’s at work at the moment, accept those words as coming from a knowledgable third party source.

friend ordered a plate of grilled  pork belly to share. this was also fantastic and highly recommended for your visit!

and you cannot go to a japanese restaurant without getting a schooner of asahi.

overall? lovely, yummy and convenient!

edit: it now seems that the food we got was from menya musashi and not senya izakaya. how confusing, but since we ate at senya itself the post name stands =)

hi all, a short post on the daily kopitiam, kuala lumpur. daily kopitiam is located at pavilion shopping centre on level 4. the restaurant promises clean premises with air conditioning comfort while maintaining the taste and quality of local malaysian cuisine.

old photos adorn the walls.we ordered one curry mee to share. it came in a few minutes, nice and hot. the noodles were firm and curry was tasty! it comes with fishballs, chicken meat, beans and yummy tofu puffs. if you love spicy food, add the accompanying sambal for a delicious treat!

short post? stay tuned for the next one, which will be written by c!