The standout Q Big Brekkie had house hot smoked salmon, hickory smoked chicken, house made bacon, soft slow poached and baked beans with fennel seeds.
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HAWKER LANE - CHATSWOOD, SYDNEY
Hawker LaneWestfield Chatswood
Chatswood, Sydney
Hawker Lane is an amazing oasis of restaurants underneath the massive Westfield in Chatswood. You feel like your really in another world here as you pause from your shopping and enter this den of tastes and sounds and delicious smells from the great range of restaurants that are spread across this sprawling area.
The biggest challenge here is what to choose. Our suggestion is to grab a table first - there are plenty of them but they go fast., If you miss out don't fret, they turn over quickly so it won't be long. Then do a lap of honour - to check out whats there. Even if you know what you want, it may well change once you see the great variety here. Of course you can get food from multiple places which works exceptionally well. Maybe a starter or three from some places, a few mains elsewhere and then of course desserts! We were there to try their goodies as part of a media event. Being greeted at the door with beautiful coconuts from Kayter and Co was a delicious start - they certainly knew how to keep foodies happy! With our coconuts piled high with cake, marshmallow, chocolate and biscuits it looked amazing - and so many people kept coming up to us wanting to know where to get them. Hands off - their ours!
Then where to start. We looked around and sampled food from so many places. It was a dance from fried chicken, to skewers, dumplings, Malaysian, ramen burgers, sushi, drinks, sweets, roti wraps etc etc etc. Here's just a few of the names you'll find here - but wait - there's more!
Of course you can visit and try for yourself - and we highly recommend this.
This is one place worth a long slow visit - or several in fact - to get across the massive range here!
Sir and Mlady visited Hawker Lane as guests of Westfield Chatswood. Special thanks to Julia Murray of Sibling Agency for this invitation.
BAO STOP/WONDERBAO/GELATO MESSINA - NIGHT NOODLE MARKETS, HYDE PARK, SYDNEY
Night Noodle MarketsSydney CBD (October Annually)
On a quick visit through the massively successful Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park this year the first visit was to BaoStop Sydney. They had some great combinations. I tried the lobster regou boa - it was amazing. There was heaps of Singapore chilli lobster in it too and great flavours. It had spring onion salad added and it was all put into a sweet bun finished with five spiced watermelon radish chips.
The mob behind BaoStop don't have a permanent home yet - but hopefully they do soon because their food is great.
This place is located in Melbourne's CBD and is hugely popular there - and as a result they were equally busy here in Sydney with everyone wanting to see what their food was like.
I had a twice cooked pork belly gua bao which came with pickled carrots and daikon, cucumber and it was dressed with hoisin sauce.
Oh yum. This was great too. The baos at these markets were certainly a highlight.
We're visiting Melbourne soon and fully intend to drop by and try some more of the Wonderbao range!
Final stop on a whirlwind visit was to the Gelato Messina stall. Yes it probably isn't an expected fit with Night Noodle Markets but these guys got into the swing of things with some crazily inspired Asian influenced gelato that as usual wowed the visitors there.
I had a huge Street Hawker. It had a thick and rich lime and chocolate brownie as its base, topped with peanut gelato, coconut and caramel jam, big chunks of fortune cookie clusters and a giant peanut cookie protruding from it all. These desserts were massive and great value.
Next year we'll try to visit more places - but we'll certainly be back at these fantastic noodle markets!
I had a huge Street Hawker. It had a thick and rich lime and chocolate brownie as its base, topped with peanut gelato, coconut and caramel jam, big chunks of fortune cookie clusters and a giant peanut cookie protruding from it all. These desserts were massive and great value.
Next year we'll try to visit more places - but we'll certainly be back at these fantastic noodle markets!
TEMASEK - PARRAMATTA, SYDNEY
Temasek
71 George St
Parramatta, NSW
We were going to a show at the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta so it gave us a great opportunity to try out Temasek, which had been on our wish list for a while.
Its a little bit hard to find as its down a laneway, but having spotted the name on the sign (shown) it was then a lot easier.
Whenever you're eating Malaysian or Indonesian it's hard to not order roti - so we did order it. Two serves of roti were the first thing to arrive with a dipping sauce. I have to admit to being a real roti fan - good roti that is. This was certainly good roti - nice and flaky with rich full flavours. Very nice. The roti canai cost $2.20 a serving - so $4.40 for the two we had.
We decided on a mixed entree. The mixed entree comes with two spring rolls, one curry puff and a crumbed prawn. As there were four in our group we ordered four mixed entrees - so we certainly had a lot of these things to eat. They were nice too. Good flavours, nicely crisp without being cremated and they all disappeared - always a good sign. At $7.50 a serve it cost $30.00 for the batch of four.
Why wouldn't you order nasi goreng when eating Malaysian/Indonesian? It was tasty - a nice mixture of flavours that combined well - with an egg on top to - well - top it off. This dish cost $14.80.
The beef rendang was certainly a good sized serving - but was actually a huge disappointment. The meat was extremely tender - not a bad thing - but the cuts of meat were full of fat. In fact some pieces were almost all fat while others were at best 50/50. If it had just been one or two chunks of meat like this it would be understandable or at least excusable. However there weren't any pieces that lacked huge chunks of fat. It was a huge pity. The flavours of the sauce were actually nice too - such a let down. The beef rendang was $19.80
The lemongrass chicken (or Serai Chicken) was a bit hit and miss in the sense that some liked it while others didn't. Personally I thought it was decent but most of the others didn't see it this way. Maybe it was a taste thing but we all have similar tastes so it was hard to understand. This dish cost $18.80.
All in all Temasek was ok. I wouldn't rave about it but there were some decent dishes and some average ones and one dud. It may be better on another occasion but who knows.
