HAWKER LANE - CHATSWOOD, SYDNEY

Hawker Lane
Westfield 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!

We'll be posting a number of write ups over the next fortnight of different places we visited there and the food we had - so stay tuned.

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 Markets

Hyde Park South
Sydney 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.

 

Next visit was to the well known Melbourne establishment of Wonderbao.

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!

KOREAN COOKING SCHOOL - SYDNEY CBD

Korean Cooking School
Korean Cultural Office
255 Elizabeth St
Sydney

We haven't eaten at a lot of Korean restaurants but last year we were invited to a Korean Banquet arranged by the Korean Cultural Office and we got to see and taste the real deal - and loved it. Well we were invited back again - this time to experience the Korean Cooking School they run there under the watchful eyes of Chef Jay Lee who's pedigree is so impressive - having worked at Tetsuya's, est. and Sokyo and he was also the first Korean to be an Australian Young Chef  finalist. Classes here are small and intimate with only six people in each session. Jay is not only an impressive chef he's an entertaining guy as well - we loved his stories as much as we loved the food!  

The chilli pork was an amazing dish. Mlady isn't a huge fan of pork but she loved this dish. I had to agree as it was my dish of the night - and so easy to prepare as well (at least it looked easy as Jay did it all). This is one we're definitely going to have at home.

The sweet potato noodle salad was a lovely dish. Neither of us had ever tried sweet potato noodles before.

They are extremely hard before being cooked - I tried to bite through one and failed miserably!

Nevertheless once cooked and combined with all the delicious ingredients Jay had there, it was very tasty.

Our third dish of the night was braised beef rib. If you like slow cooked beef that is so tender it falls off the bone then you'll love this.

It was Mlady's equal favourite dish of the night, surprisingly being equal with the pork!

Whilst it was basically beef rib, potato and carrot the cooking process and the extras added while cooking moved this from a good dish to a great one.


We also had a selection of kimchi that Jay had prepared earlier. Kimchi is a selection of fermented vegetables that are served as side dishes with Korean food. These were great but my favourite was the fermented mulberry leaves as I grew up with a mulberry tree in my parents backyard and never knew the leaves could be eaten by anything other than silkworms! The stuffed zucchini was a favourite of most of the other people in our group.

Our other main dish was seaweed soup which combined seaweed, thinly sliced beef and sauces into another lovely dish - but still not as good as the pork (sorry Jay!). 

We really enjoyed our visit to the Korean Cooking School. It's right in the middle of the CBD so it's easy to get to from anywhere in Sydney and it goes for 2 hours which of course includes eating what is made! Jay Lee, apart from being a fine young chef, is also extremely entertaining! This guy would be a huge success on TV with his personality and stories! (Please note we want a commission if this happens now!!!).


Big thanks to Jay Lee for a fun and delicious evening. Thanks also to Jason (from Quay) and Shirley who assisted him. Special thanks to Irene - Cultural Event and Media Relations Manager at the Korean Cultural Office for inviting us.

Shirley, Jason and Jay Lee

KOREAN BANQUET - KOREAN CULTURAL CENTRE, SYDNEY CBD

Korean Banquet Showcase
Korean Cultural Office
255 Elizabeth St Sydney

The Korean Cultural Office recently held a Korean Banquet Showcase for media and food industry people and of course a few foodies like us to highlight the variety of food available on the Korean menu.

We were lucky enough to be invited and it was an amazing night providing a great insight into the Korean culture as well as their amazingly fresh and tasty food.

We really didn't know a lot about traditional Korean food before this event.

Yes, we'd eaten at several Korean BBQ places - who hasn't - but as expected there's so much more to the food than this!

The hospitality was excellent and the whole event ran so smoothly. We started with drinks and three delicious canapes - mu ssam (pickled radish with seafood), yeon geun jorim (soy braised lotus root) and yachae twigim (root vegetable twigim).

We then sat down for our twelve course Korean Banquet - expertly prepared under the guidance of food personality Heather Jeong. Heather works with Maeve O'Meara from SBS Food Safari, does cooking demonstrations in schools and also works on SBS Kitchen Conversations with Jenna Yoon.

She is also a cooking teacher at the Korean Cultural Office - yes you can get Korean cooking lessons here as well!

The room we were in was beautifully decorated. They'd really gone to a lot of trouble to make this a special evening - and it showed.

Once we were seated we were entertained by some traditional Korean drumming which was so amazing.

The drum sticks were moving so fast that we could barely see them!

So this is the menu we had the pleasure of experiencing for the night.

It wasn't a small range - not when you have three canapes, twelve courses (there actually were that many despite the list at the side) and another twelve side dishes on a separate table!

The courses were hobak juk (pumpkin congee shots), seasonal hwae (Korean style sashimi), haemul pajeon (seafood pancake) tang pyeong chae (savoury bean jelly with soy and sesame), bo ssam (slow cooked pork with chilli radish), gyerja chae (salad with mustard dressing), japchae (stir fried sweet potato noodles with beef and vegetables), bul dak (fire chicken), nurbiani (beef fillet with pine nuts and garlic chives), mul mak guksoo (cold soba noodle soup) and finally assorted ddeok with sujeonggwa (Korean rice cake with cinnamon punch).

The evening was also enhanced by an informative and entertaining talk from the Director of the Korean Cultural Centre.

He explained a lot about Korean food and their dining culture and kept us all entertained with his light and informative presentation.

He then introduced Heather Jeong who gave us a great cooking demonstration.

We left the Korean Banquet Showcase very full, thoroughly impressed and with much more appreciation of Korean food, which is extremely healthy and tasty. We're now going to search out more Korean food and even experiment at home with Korean cooking as every guest was generously given a goodie basket of Korean sauces and food.

Special thanks to everyone at the Korean Cultural Office, the Director and Irene Kyung-soo Woo who invited us.

GAMA KOREAN BBQ BUFFET RESTAURANT - TURRAMURRA, SYDNEY

Gama Korean BBQ Buffet Restaurant
1/1380 Pacific Highway
Turramurra, Sydney

Gama is upstairs facing onto the highway at Turramurra and it's sometimes a bit hard to see it here. Nevertheless it's worth visiting for great Korean BBQ - actually the best we've had in a long while.

Owner Hong has been exporting Aussie meat to Korea for decades and this certainly shows in the quality of the product he has available here - it's excellent.

The $33 all you can eat option here is worth doing. It's a good price for a lot of good food, especially for a family function. We were there for J's birthday.

There's a lot to choose from as well. The meats include pork, beef, chicken, squid and prawns, and many come in several varieties of cuts and marinades. There's something for everyone here. The idea here is to go and choose your meats and then take them back to your table to cook on the BBQ in the middle. The hotplates are decent here too. Some places have very open mesh grills with small pieces of meat that often fall through. Not here. The hotplates only have small slots and the meat is in large pieces although suitably thin to easily cook.

There are also sides to get as well. Some are vegetable options like the spicy but very tasty kimchi whilst others are pre-cooked like the tempura vegetables.

Gama is named after the pots used for Korean cooking - which come in a variety of sizes. Gama Korean BBQ Buffet Restaurant has a similar variety - except it's eating options - and its good. We enjoyed it and would go back again.

SYDNEY MADANG - SYDNEY CBD

Sydney Madang
371 Pitt St
Sydney

Tucked away down an alley off Pitt St is the quaint Sydney Madang restaurant. Its quite pleasant inside although the subdued lighting for some may seem like dim lighting for others.

Its a Korean BBQ place among other things so each table has the necessary apparatus for cooking built in.


I was lunching with D, N and Z and we decided not to BBQ that day.


We ordered several dishes and afterwards some condiments arrived, including the sauce for the seafood pancake and two bowls of rice.

The Jjin Mandoo - steamed dumplings - were recommended so they were high on our list. We decided on a large serving (t10 of them) for $16. They were delicious - so fresh and light.

Next was the Haemul Pajan - seafood and shallot pancake. We chose the small serving for $11. This was really nice too. Crisp on the outside and light on the inside with plenty of seafood. The sauce that went with it was nice without being to memorable.

We then had Chicken Teriyaki Jungsik - teriyaki chicken down one side of the plate with shredded cabbage down the other side topped with a light creamy mayonnaise. At $14 a serve it was reasonable value. The chicken was tender but none of us were totally won over by the cabbage.

Finally we ended the meal with Bui Go Gi Jungsik - stir fried beef in traditional Korean sauce - for $13. There was no doubt that the beef was tender but the sauce was nothing memorable.

Sydney Madang is nice but squeezed in the heart of Thainatown its got tough competition nearby which we all agreed we prefer.