'Thanon KhaoSan' - Pitt Street

Had a lunch voucher for this place so we decided to give a try on Friday afternoon to celebrate my mid term break. We often order from the Bondi branch and it's always good, so you can only imagine my delight when I saw that the city branches menu is twice the size and they also do lots of the Thai desserts, and even have a tuktuk in the restaurant... It felt like home!



I was squealing with glee and welling up a bit when I realised they had all my noodleshop lunch favourites: KHAO KHAA MOO, KHAO MOO DAENG, KHAO MUN GAI, GUAY TIEOW GAI, LOOK CHIN, KANOM JIIN ....wow! And even sangsom, although it's insanely overpriced.

I had the 'Khao khaa moo' (directly translates as = rice leg pig) one of my absolute favourites in Thailand and always a hit with friends when I brought them to my favourite noodle shop in Koh Chang ...it's a tender roast pork leg that comes served with all the fat in a sweet star anise gravy served with the usual pickled cabbage, steamed greens, spicy vinegar naam jiim (sauce) and half a boiled egg with rice on the side. It was pretty good... Tender, falling apart meat, loads of sweet blubbery fat (which I wouldn't usually eat but I made a pretty good attempt), and enough of the pickled cabbage and greens to last through most of the rice... อร่อยมาก!! $8.90

Gustin had the 'Khao moo daeng' (= rice pig red), which is another favourite of mine, it's a pork loin fillet that is roasted until the outside turns red (you often see this hanging up from a hook in a noodleshop glass cabinet and its also really good in bamee noodle soup with dumplings and 'hooa cha tao'**) The red pork is thinly sliced and served over rice with this sweet BBQ gravy, cucumber slices, half boiled egg, and bowl of broth - to my absolute delight the broth had 'hooa cha tao' in it which I convinced Augustine to let me have... Yessss. It was all pretty delishbags too but the meat was quite fatty and I was slightly disappointed that there was no sliced sweet Chinese sausage with it, as it's usually served in Thailand. $8.90 also (I think)

(Gustin was disgusted that they put 'half boiled egg' on the menu instead of 'half a boiled egg' and hours later he brought up the fact that he felt really swindled that they only gave him half an egg hahahah).

We also had some wontons with pork and some chicken wings to share and a couple of singhas and all in all it was a pretty impressive and will definitely be back for more of their noodleshop fare next time I'm in the city for lunch - although I was so full I couldn't drink much beer afterwards, I did manage to fit a Portuguese egg tart from the Chinese bakery a few doors down on Pitt Street.... YUMMMMMMM


** 'hooa cha tao' is like some kind of Asian turnip but I've only ever tried it in Thai noodle shops, they use it to make the broth and sometimes you get a chunk in your noodle soup which I consider a major treat! I don't know what the vegetable looks like uncooked though or what it's called in English so if anyone knows the stuff I mean, please message me because I would love to make noodle soup with it.

Location:Pitt street Sydney NSW 2000

Happy birthday Grill'd!!! ...Happy birthday everybody!!

Headed down to Grill'd (healthy burgers) this evening on the corner of Crown and Oxford Street in Darlinghurst for their 1st birthday BOGOF (best abbreviation ever btw: Buy One Get One Free FYI). The place was buuusy, done up with loads of balloons and party stuff and had a nice lively vibe.




We were in the mood for chicken burgers so we both went for the 'Zen Hen', which has satay sauce and shredded carrot, with that amazing crunchy lettuce of theirs and a side of the amazing fries with herbed mayo and loads of Tabasco mixed with ketchup. It's like they double-fry the chips they're so crunchy and coated in a herby sea salt... Freaking delish. Major burger boner!!

They even put a little cupcake on the side for us for their birthday! Awwwwwwwesome.

Http://www.grilld.com.au/

Excelsioooorrrrr!!!

So we ended up in the Excelsior on Foveaux street in Surry Hills. It's right around the corner from Gus' place on Belmore and we had been there on our drunken Friday night escapades a few weeks ago and had a great time. It's been recently taken over by the people who run the Beresford on Bourke St... And the back is converted into a Mexican restaurant which is full of pinata's and Mexican style decor, but in a cool way.

It was fairly lively even for a rainy Tuesday night. Mikey had the steak and I had the fish, which was delicious! Not sure what kind of fish it was but it was meaty, tender and crispy skinned, served with a spicy salsa verde and some kind of celeriac salad which worked really well with the flavour of the fish and lots of spicy piquant sauce on the side which made my eye sockets sweat a bit... Yumm. We also shared a hotdog which was covered in a mountain of fluffy shredded cheese and only $7!

Awesome little spot for midweek craic.

Location:Foveaux street, surry hills, NSW

Golden Century Late Nite Chinese

So after Ry-ry's leaving party last night we jumped in a cab down to Golden Century Chinese in Haymarket (Sussex St), which is open til about 4am and the food is amazing! When we arrived aims and clauclau already had a table full of these amazingly sweet giant scallops in garlicy oyster style sauce with veg, a platter of roast sweet duck with pink crispy skin and tender meat along with all them trimmings for hoisin duck pancakes, heaps of fried rice which was perfectly made - chewy, oily, salty and fragrant. Followed by some battered chicken in sweet and sour sauce and loads of Jasmine green tea and tsingtsao beer to boot... I foresee myself ending up there most nights out in the city from now on.

Cocoa oat bran heals what ails me

Really hungover this morning and in work, the only thing that makes this better is finding things to put in my face.... First up, cocoa oat bran - I keep a bag of it in my handbag at all times lately.... Just take a ziplock bag, fill it with oat bran, cocoa powder (green and blacks is my favo), sultanas, and anything else you like (sesame seeds, chopped dates, nuts of any kind...etc) then you always have breakfast with you, all you need is hot water and/or a microwave. AND IT'S SUGAR FREE AND HEALTHY so let's hope it works it's magic on this hangover ASAP.
Signing off"........ splatttttt!



***UPDATE: all of a sudden, about 3 hrs after eating this oat bran delight and thinking it would help the hangover cause - I started spontaneously erupting with exorcism vomit. I don't think the oat bran was to blame but by Jesus, it was not such a pleasure to force out backwards. At one stage I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror in work, veins bulging out of my temples, nose bright red, gasping for breath with tears running down my pulverised face and I vowed never to drink on a Friday night with work in the morning again. Thank god there was nobody else in work and I was just there to answer calls, I couldn't have coped otherwise. On the upside though, I got paid $40 an hour to lie on the couch groaning for 6 hours.