noodleoodle

We didn’t go to Emperor’s Garden for noodles, we got straight into the BBQ duck. It’s the real stuff. Fresh, succulent, flavoursome, melt off the bone. Lovely combined with a cool bottle of Chardonnay, and good value. We also went to their bakery outlet to get some of those Emporer’s puffs that mellie recommended. They were scoldingly hot and morish. We tested a few other pastries they have on offer here. They were all good. This is a decent place for a snack. You can buy take away via windows to the street at both these outlets. It’s something I can’t go past. I had to walk on the other side of the street so I didn’t buy BBQ duck and puffs three times a day.

Emperors Garden BBQ and Noodles - (02) 9281 9899 - 213 Thomas Street Haymarket NSW 2000

Emperors Garden Cakes & Bakery - (02) 9281 5989 - 75 Dixon Street Haymarket NSW 2000

At BBQ King we had BBQ pork and it was magnificent. Crackling and crispy with with a soft moist flesh in on the underside. This is something that is joyfully bad for you. BBQ King seems to have a big reputation. I thought it was a little expensive, but the servings were pretty generous. We had a fried squid dish that was monstrously large. Again the pork was really good. Chardonnay went down very well with this meal, (a little to well thanks to B Styles).

BBQ King - (02) 9267 2586 - 18 Goulburn St NSW 2000

I had an interesting bowl of noodle soup at Silk Road Chinese Restaurant. This is a Chinese Muslim Halal restaurant that has a slight Arabic influence. I thought this would be an interesting place to go as I’ve red that beef noodle soup has Muslim origins. The one they offered me looked great. It was steaming hot with a complex looking broth. plump looking handmade noodles, herbs, tomato slices, and braised beef. It tasted pretty good to, the egg noodles were really good. I’m very fond of the imperfections of handmade noodles, the irregular shapes are aesthetically very pleasing. I also find the textures nice to eat, especially when the noodles are still firm an not over cooked. I liked this place.

Silk Road Chinese Restaurant - (02) 9281 9658 - 13/8 Prince Centre, Quay Street NSW 200

Only a couple hundred meters from the previous eating halls is Dixon House Food Court. Choose one of the three entrances and descend into a sensory stimulation overload. (depending on time of day I suppose).

It was late afternoon and the place was packed, the noise a cacophony. I counted over twenty vendors in this dim wood paneled basement … and there’s a bar! I grabbed a Singha. E and I perused the food stalls. Of note were two Indonesian places and a Cambodian stall. God knows why we ordered a beef noodle soup from a Chinese joint. I guess I’m using this dish as a bench mark. I strangely see a link between all these soups. Each one filling a small gap in a giant beef noodle soup puzzle, which all leads to pho. (I’m getting ridiculous).

Anyway, with all the interesting food about, I was disappointed with this offering. It was of the thickened stock variety and not much care was put into it’s construction. Underneath a crude pile of ingredients was a block of egg noodles that hadn’t even been separated from it’s factory manufactured square.

It was good to have a Singha though, and E enjoyed the atmosphere. Soup was $7.50.

Dixon House Food Court - Corner Little Hay & Dixon Haymarket Sydney

Midmorning breakfast at the Sussex Centre food hall. The lunch rush hadn’t kicked in, but vendors were still busily handing out a steady flow of product. Due to the early hour, E and I decided to try the pho stall, Siagon Pho. We’ve sniffed out four Pho joints around Chinatown and three of them have Siagon in the title. Doesn’t look like well see any Pho Bac on this trip.

This particular Siagon Pho sells a range of rice dishes and offers noodle soup as combination or rare meat. I expect the combination would include a few bits of offal. Our rare beef was of a good standard, there was plenty of them being sold. I noticed a number of staff from other stalls eating here.

The proprietor seemed like a nice chap. I asked him what he thought difference between Southern and Northern Pho was. He noodled (nodded) enthusiastically as if this was a question he had often asked himself. He pulled out a strange electric tennis racket and swiped at a fly. It disintegrating in a zap of electronic flash. E and I ducked. “Sugar!” he said, and went on to tell me that Southerners like to add sugar to the stock in the cooking faze. He also said there was a particular spice that was integral but could not find the words in English, (maybe Star Anise). He told me to go to Cabramatta for pho Bac, I doubted we’d get there this trip. We finished our soup, he stalked more insect pray. Countless bowls of Pho were dished out.

The Sussex Centre food hall has a large variety of food stalls and a bar! There’s Korean BBQ, Malasian noodles, Chinese BBQ/noodles, Japanese Ramein joints and a whole lot of other stuff. I doubt there would be a dish over $10. Our Pho was $7.50.

Sussex Centre Food hall - 401 Sussex Street Sydney

I remember a food hall I used to go. It fed me when I was a student. Ongs, was on Little Burke, a dungeon really. Stairs descended into a low ceilinged maze, housing about a dozen or so Asian food vendors. It was good and cheap. It had a bar, which was a big draw card in those days. What’s changed?

Since the demise of Ongs there has been little of this kind of venue in Melbourne. In Sydney, they seem to be abundant. Our first expedition started badly. E and I had an altercation about our mode of transport. Eventually, I won, and got her into her pram, but in the confusion I forgot the directions.

We entered Chinatown blindly looking for food courts. Without much trouble we found ourselves on the top floor of the building that houses Paddy’s Market. Here there is a complex of more than a dozen mostly Chinese vendors selling a vast range food stuffs. Knowing nothing about any of them, we chose randomly. Golden Towers Seafood Noodles. Glossy photographs behind the counter spoke to us, and it wasn’t a conversation about seafood.

It was Beef Noodle Soup. This one came with pork wontons and braised brisket. The soup had a great tasty stock. It made the previous one I’d had, (cattle-meat-noodles), seem as it at come from a can. Included was Chinese greens, E polished most of these off, which surprised me, she eats mainly pork these days. Our noodle soup cost $7.50.

In the under pass on the way home we had to stop and watch a busking classical violinist. I was seriously paranoid that some journalist was doing a story on how we are all uncultured yobbos. (Today Tonight also copied this story that very day). So in case of hidden cameras, we had to nod some appreciation and chuck in a bit of cash. E really enjoyed it and cracked it when I made her leave.

Market City Food Court - Level 3 2-13 Quay St Sydney

According to Wikipidea, beef noodle soup or cattle-meat-noodles, is common through out East Asia and Southeast Asia. Apparently the Vietnamese Bo kho, is a version of this Chinese dish. It was first made by the Ethic Chinese Muslim group, Hui. I had a bowl at Blue Sky this week.

I plan to eat many of these soups. It seems that it’s a very popular dish in many countries. Loved enough in Taipei to inspire the annual Taipei Beef Noodles Festival. The one I had at Blue Sky was not fantastic, I’m hoping to find better.

The soup consisted of a dense beef stock, that seemed to me considerably flavour enhanced. It was slightly thickened with rice flour or something similar. This didn’t help it’s over all look, making it seem a little congealed. The egg noodles were nothing to rave about. They were of the common commercial dried Singapore variety. The bowl was stacked with large chunks of cheapish stewed steak.

The most interesting part of the soup were a number of Star Anise pods in the stock. These were surprisingly pleasant.

The Beef Noddle Soup was $7.00 with a tall glass of tea. Good value.

Blue Sky Chinese Restaurant - (03) 9663 9888 - 7 Waratah Place Melbourne 3000

It looks as if the Labor Party is planning an election victory fueled on noodles. This comes from comments made by the new Labor hopeful, and former ABC presenter, Maxine Mckew.

A report in The Australian last Wednesday, suggests that the location for the new Bennelong Labor party electoral offices will be chosen based on its proximity to noodle vendors. (The basis for all good decision making.)

Yesterday afternoon she was off to inspect prospective electoral offices. “I hope I can find somewhere in Eastwood,” she said. “It has heaps of wonderful noodle bars.”

With noodles behind Maxine, Howard is in real trouble indeed.

It’s fun to take kids to eat pho. Restaurants seem to be really accommodating, (well I haven’t been kicked out of one yet). There’s alway kids chairs and no one seems to get too upset when kids do kids things. Toby and I took our girls for a soup today. Unlike Toby and I, they didn’t seem that interested in the pho, more busy coping each other doing naughty things. They did put back a bit of rice vermicelli though.

I got an email from Claire. She asked a question that I’d like to generally pose to all. (Also, I’ve never used the pull quote style, it’s pretty nifty.)

My question for you is this - do you know anywhere in Melbourne that does awesome Hanoi-style pho?
I went to Hanoi last year and fell in love with it… I can’t quite put my finger on how it differs, but it’s bloody marvelous!

If anyone knows of a restaurant that does Northern style Pho Bac, please let us know.

So, I got the name wrong. It’s Noodle Kingdom. They’ve been around for three weeks now. I visited with high expectations, given this regal title. They ushered me to a small table next to the alley kitchen. I assume there’s tables upstairs, cos you could only fit a half dozen people here. I ordered a noodle soup and was given a tall glass of warm tea.

The soup took longer than I expected, which is not that long. Seeing my apprehension, a waiter came and explained that about every ten bowls of noodles, the noodle maker whips up a new batch. Did she say, “noodle maker”? Then there was a large bang as dough was stretched out and slammed down on the bench. I watched him do this about a dozen times. Each time the dough was stretched and pulverised, it separated into longer and thinner strands. Finally transforming into long shinny noodles.

A small cluster of these was then submerged into a boiling vat, stirred with chopsticks and lifted into my bowl. They tasted wonderfully fresh and chewy. Not over cooked. I’ve got to say I was impressed with all this, and will be going back on the strength of these freshly made noodles. More soon…

Phong Son - CNR Swanston & Lonsdale Streets

It was good to drink some Chinese tea late in the afternoon. It was after the lunch rush, so I had some space to let my mind wonder… and then my pho arrived 15 seconds later.

It was ok. I felt it was a little watered down. I had to pad it out with Hosin sauce. Not really up to Mekong standards. There was lots of other stuff on the menu though, so I don’t suppose they were pretending it was their specialty. The chairs were really ugly, but the people were friendly.

Afterwards, I went for a scout around town looking for future lunch locations. I’m going to try to get to a couple of chinese noodle places up on Russell Street. One of them has the brazen title, Noodle King. We’ll see about that hey!