Snack Bars - Take a Seat and Have Conversations

Snack Bars - Take a Seat and Have Conversations

Reserved Snack Plates

Reserved Snack Plates

(This post is not a commercial add, therefore, clear prices and store details won't be mentioned in text.)

Sometimes when catching up with friends at a random time, and then don't feel not likely to have an early dinner. Well, how about going for some snacks and drinks, finding yourself a seat and talking things to friends!!;) Taiwanese snacks, such as desserts, herbal jelly, tea are quite popular in Sydney.

Taro Red Beans Crushed (Highly Recommended)

Taro Balls Tofu Pudding (Highly Recommended)

 Meanwhile, Taiwanese snacks bars or shops are easy to find (e.g. ZenQ, Meet Fresh, Chatime). However, not only Taiwanese snacks should be mentioned in this post, because we cannot ignore Chinese snacks, Thai snacks, Hong Kong Dim Sum, Spanish Tapas, Malaysian Satay, and so on. 

Lemon Ice Tea

Winter Melon Tea

Fin Soup Served with White Pepper Powder

Fish Ball Served with Curry Sause

Lemon Ice Tea & Ham n Egg Served with Noodle Soup

 That is always a such  big deal of enjoyment when having genius conversations with friends, but long time talking is going to become boring:( So, that's why people love to have snacks and drinks. As you can see, snacks can make you stay away from greedy and thirsty, can keep you in a good mood, and can help you save money from those big deal meals. 

Spicy Crab Meat Xiao Long Bao

Poached Pork Dumplings in Chili Oil (Highly Recommended)

Prawns n Green Bean Dumplings

Spicy Szechuan Rice Noodle

Homemade Sweet Orange Peel (Highly Recommended)

Homemade Sweet Orange Peel (Highly Recommended)

Homemade Sweet Orange Peel (Highly Recommended)

Homemade Sweet Orange Peel (Highly Recommended)

Tips: Although, most highly recommended snack bars or shops are franchise stores, but I would like to recommend people try some private stores if you are searching for unique and cheap stuffs.  

Food Court - There is no way to get starving!!!

Food Court: There is no way to get starving!!!

((This post is not a commercial add, therefore, clear prices and store details won't be mentioned in text.)

Drove a Adelaide's friend to airport, he was saying "There's no way to get starving in Sydney, coz food courts are almost everywhere lol". Yeah, what a good point. To recall the previous times in Adelaide, that seems to be really few food courts located in Adelaide's CBD and some of those large shopping centres. But here in Sydney, I'd like to say why so many food courts!!:P However, honestly, after tried a large number of food courts in Sydney, I just had some really good experiences. There is a multicultural food court at Chinatown (30 sec walk from Meet Fresh Store), which I highly recommend people to have a try. Basically the cheapest food court at CBD with huge choices included Northern/Southern Chinese cuisine, Japanese cuisine, Indonesian cuisine, Singaporean cuisine, and Malaysian cuisine.

Rice Plate Served with Yellow Ginger Sauce

Hoi Nam Chicken Served with Rice

Two Japanese shops are quite well known in this mentioned food court, which serves Ramen and Bento separately. The Ramen shop was reported on one of Sydney gourmet food magazine with positive reviews few years ago. Unfortunately, the Ramen shop was under construction processing in recent weeks, therefore cannot post photos of it:( Another Bento shop serves good quality dishes, and always becomes the most popular shop in this mentioned food court. Karaage Don, Katsu Don and Curry plates are the MUST TRIES.

Karaage Don (Chicken with Mayo Sauce #Highly Recommended)

Gyu Don (Beef prepared with Teriyaki Sauce)

On the other side, food courts at Macquarie Shopping centre and Macquarie University campus are the good places to go for MQ people. There is an Asian food court located at MQ campus, which serves Cantonese cuisine, if you like typical noodle soup or rice dishes, you will love that place. Hokkien Noodle and Nasi Goreng are highly recommended at this Asian food Court.

Hokkien Noodle

Nasi Goreng

However, food courts can be found at mostly every shopping centre, no matter at Chatswood, Burwood or Parramatta in Sydney. Food courts offer people a huge number of choices for their daily life:)

Hoi Nam Chicken Served with Rice (Prepared in Chinese way) 

Tips:

Some food courts may provide tablewares on table, make sure forks, knives and spoons or chopsticks are really cleaned. Food courts are normally crowded, and find seats can be really challengeable, therefore, take away is a smart act. 

Sydney Fish Market

Sydney Fish Market

(This post is not a commercial add, therefore, clear prices and store details won't be mentioned in text.)

Fish Market is a kind of "Must to Go" place through most of Australia tour guide in Asian countries. a huge amount of seafood, which are fresh, cheap, and attractive. For most of Fish Market visitors, they are normally aiming for seafood platters, due to there a numerous workshops which offering customer seafood meals with good quality and cheap price. "Fish n Chips", "Lob n Crab", "Prawns n Oysters", no matter what do you like, just grab a deal!
Hang out with girlfriends or boyfriends, have a family party, Fish Market can be a smart choice to go. Grab any seafood platters, have a nice experience! 

Calamari Rings (Squid)

Oyster 

Fresh Oysters & Cooked Prawns Served with Lemon and Sauce(Highly Recommended at Fish Market)

Grilled Calamari & Salt n Pepper Squid

Grilled Dishes

Seasoned Whitebait & Grilled Prawns

Prawns Kebab

Oysters Served in Two-way

Grilled Snapper Served with Chips

Seafood Platter for 2 People (Highly Recommended at Fish Market)

Tips:
There are about 4 stores serve different types of seafood platters, so do not just stay at one shop and get yourself stuffed. Seafood workshops are normally closed around 4.00pm, therefore, the price will be reduced at that moment. For the healthy concerns, soft drinks, beers, liquors, milk are definitely unrecommended with seafood. BTW, too many chips are generally served with all meals, this can be a such big disappointment for those seafood lovers!!! 

Ninth Taste

Mamak

malaysian roti and satay

The culture of Malaysia is best experienced through its vast array of culinary delights. In the heart of every Malaysian exists a passion for food, exemplified by the thrill of seeking out the best in town. Mamak captures this enthusiasm by ensuring our recipes are authentic, exactly as you would find in the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

Mamak's doors open at 11.30am.  We came at 5 to noon, and we had to wait for about 10 minutes for a seat.  From tweeting my foodblogger friends the night before, they said the line gets much longer around dinner time, so remember to come about half an hour earlier than your expected time and you'll be fine :)

Teh ais - Iced Milk Tea - $3.50 
It was a pretty warm day, so I opted for this rather than the recommended classic teh tarik aka Malaysian sweetened tea with a frothy topping.  I reckon I should've just either chosen teh tarik or not at all.  This was a decent drink, made from milk tea powder, and I believe EasyWay does it better, just because the degree of sweetness is just right in the EasyWay milk teas.  

Roti teleur - Classic egg roti - $6.50
Hand modelled by my lovely friend Anton :) Soft and fluffy, due to the egg yolk that's been scrambled and scattered as little bits throughout the light roti.  Man those dipping sauces are addictive!  You could do the dipping like how you'd dip a small piece of bread, but if you're gonna down those delicious dipping sauces, you should hold the two opposite ends of the piece of roti and make a small scoop-like  shape.  Even better, you could follow Fouad's Lebanese bread eating guide to make a scoop!

Roti planta - A rich buttery roti - $6.50
Much prefer this one over the roti teleur. The butter leaves a lovely aroma and lightly salted taste throughout the roti - butter's just one of those ingredients that can make a dish so much better eh, slightly sinful but it was a small serving between the 8 of us, though I do remember taking much more than my share's worth... :) It's best to eat this while it's warm, because the butter liquefies and makes the roti a tad soggy and hard to rip if you leave it for a while.  And yep, heaps of those same delicious dipping sauces! Peanut, satay, and a bit of chilli satay on the side.

Mee Goreng - spicy wok-tossed hokkien noodles with eggs, prawns, fish cake slices and fresh bean sprouts - $11.50
A slight feeling of disappointment came upon me when I realised this wasn't the good ol' Migoreng made restaurant-style.  Maybe that was because I was turned off by the name "maggi goreng", the next noodle dish on the menu, which was in fact the "Migoreng made restaurant-style" that I would've loved to try.  Nothing outstanding, not much prawns or fish cakes either, and slightly spicy.

Nasi goreng - Malaysian-style fried rice with spicy sambal, eggs, prawns, french beans, assorted veges, topped with fried shallots- $11.50"Dad. Why did they build the Great Wall of China?" "That, that was...during the time of the Emperor Nasi Goreng.  And, ah, it was to keep the rabbits out. Too many rabbits, in China.” Everyone remember that hilarious BigPond ad? Well, that ad came out when I was about 10 years old, and that was the first time I heard the phrase "Nasi Goreng", and now, thanks to Mamak, I finally understand what that guy was talking about :P !! It should really be nicknamed "the better version of fried rice", for it's coated evenly with sambal sauce (aka a chilli based Malaysian sauce) and so it's soft and moist; a great dish.  

Ayam berempah - Bite-size chicken pieces stir-fried with whole spices - $16
There was a weird powdery gritty texture to the outside of the chicken pieces, but the dish was well seasoned, not quite outstanding. The servings were much much more than bite-sized, and there were 8 pieces for us to share as well :)

Ayam goreng - Malaysian-style fried chicken. Marinated with herbs and spices and full of flavour - ($14 for 4/$4 per piece)Light crisp batter, but slightly oily. Sorry, nowhere near as crunchy as Arisun, but the soft tender chicken and the lovely marinade make up for it. 

Chicken satay - Grilled over flaming charcoal for that authentic Malaysian flavour. Served with a sweet and spicy peanut sauce - $16 for dozen

Whoa, step back and watch this delicious magic unfold!!  A huge bowl of peanut sauce and small bite-sized chicken skewered grilled to perfection, a must-try once you come to Mamak! 

Eighth Taste

N2 Extreme Gelato

Location: 43/1 Dixon St, Sydney, NSW 2000

The first I heard of N2 was last year, in november, in a timeout sydney magazine. The magazine gave great reviews on the shop, and I came here with high expectations, especially after hearing all my friends talk about how good the gelato was, but sadly, was disappointed. We were there around 8 pm on a Saturday night, and surprisingly the shop was completely empty, so luckily we didn't have to queue up for too long. However, once we ordered, the shop quickly filled up. 

The flavour range was really interesting- they were all easter themed since it was the easter long weekend. They ranged from 'the passion of the christ' (chocolate and passionfruit) to 'salted jesus juice' (salted cola and red wine). I'm not really a chocolate kind of person (:O), so I went for something safe- lemon lime bitters. The process of making the ice cream was really really cool, and the service was pretty fast (5 mins)- we were the first in line.

Lemon Lime Bitters($6)

There's blueberry cheesecake, mango, and sour cream chocolate flavoured gelato :) And that white one in the back of the 4 cups is "cocoa nibs"; little choc pieces in a creamy vanilla gelato, oh yummm!!