Great Century Restaurant - Dim sum galore!

I LOVE YUM CHA. I REALLY REALLY LOVE YUM CHA. Except I don't usually get to go Yum Cha. :(

I probably go......twice a year? That's because my Dad has a weekly ritual of going to Yum Cha with his friends, so when it comes to the weekend, he's all Yum Cha'd out! How rude! Determined to put a stop to this situation, I dragged a friend along (Actually, I don't think there was much resistance there!) for a bout of yum cha gorging at Great Century Restaurant in Bankstown.

The great thing about this place is that there is usually heaps of parking in Bankstown, the food is good, the portions are quite decent, AND you get 20% off Yum Cha Mon-Saturday! OH YEAHHHHHH BABY!

Despite getting a crappy seat by the fish tanks where most trolleys cannot go past, we still managed to get a heap of the dishes we love!

Siw Mai - Pork and prawn dim sim

I cannot go yum cha without ordering atleast one steamer of these. Luckily, I'm not with my nephew today, who will ONLY eat siw mai. He'll easily eat 4 steamers of these just by himself. And me, being the older Aunt, will need to give up a few of these babies to him because I'm suposed to. Hmpf. But today, it's all mineeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Har Gau - Prawn Dumpling, my second favourite!

Pork ribs steamed with black beans

Salt and pepper calamari

The first 2 times these came out, we couldn't flag the waitress down because of where we were sitting. By the time we got our hands on these babies, they were cold :(

Harm Sui Gok

These golden babies are crunchy and chewy at the same time. It's filled with pork mince, dried shrimp and mushrooms. There were actually 4 on the plate, but we were hungry!

Sui Gau

Standard won ton like dumplings. Quite nice, but not really worth the price. I think they put this down as an "Extra Special".

Whole prawn dumpling

This one had a whole prawn on the tail, wrapped with prawn mince and then the wrapper. Really nice, but I still like the classic Har Gau.

Chicken feet!

A second round of Siw Mai!

Teeheheheheeeeee! My nephew isn't here, so I get to have another steamer full to myself! Woohoo!!

The whole bill came to around $55. A bargain if you ask me! We didn't even finish all the food and ended up taking some of it home.

Great Century Restaurant
23 Greenfield Parade, Bankstown
(02) 9708 6354

The last of the feasting for awhile.....(plus a bit of a rant)

December was all about food. January finally rolled around where I tried to get back on track with eating right, going to the gym at lunch and basically going easy on the alcohol. Come February, my favourite Uncle was visiting from Hong Kong. This meant 2 things. Eating heaps, and drinking everything in sight. Thank goodness he's only here for 1 week!

One of the things we always do when my uncle visits is to load up on the seafood. He loves Australian seafood, we decided to go to Yummy Seafood Chinese Restaurant in Beverly Hills. This was a restaurant we've been to quite a few times, and is frequented by my parents and their friends. They were doing a special on lobster, which was the main reason for coming. They fished a 2.7kg lobster out of the tank for us, which we requested to be cooked with stock on a bed of e-fu noodles. We also ordered a few other dishes to go with it.

Peking pork ribs

Our night was going really well. We were enjoying each other's company, snacking on the ribs whilst watching all the other tables receiving their lobsters. Almost every single table had ordered lobster of some sort. Whether it was cooked or done sashimi style. Then our lobster came out and this is what we got:

Our lobster

If you have a closer look, those shreds of white stuff, is actually lobster meat. At first it looked like an eggy sauce was poured on top, but no. That was our $160 lobster meat disintergrating into the sauce. We asked the manager to check with the chef why our lobster was cooked like that. He took one look at it, lifted up a few pieces with a fork and watched it break apart and fall back onto the dish. He runs back to the kitchen and then gets another manager to talk to us.

The senior manager comes up to us and apologises, saying that the chef is really busy tonight rar rar rar.....and (I'm paraphrasing since this was going on all in cantonese) "can we just live with the dish". Excuse me??? "Live with the dish"??? If this was any other dish that cost $30, we wouldn't even have complained. We would've eaten what was good and left the rest. THIS dish was going to cost us close to $160.!We weren't going to just "live with it". We asked if he could cook us another lobster, and he exclaims that he's barely making any money on this lobster as it is! Honestly, if you can't afford to do a special without making a profit, then you shouldn't be doing a special at all. Just because you're doing it at a special price, doesn't mean you can serve us turd. When we told him this was not acceptable, because we're paying for a lobster dish, and we're basically not getting any lobster as everything has disintergrated, he starts yelling "WELL WHAT DO YOU WANT THEN!?".

To be fair, we offered to pay for 50% of the dish. I mean, they did use the lobster, just that they massacred it. Upon hearing this, the manager stood there thinking for about 3 seconds and went "Well, if you're only going to pay for 50%, you might as well not pay!". He yanked the dish off the table and almost throws it at another waiter whilst screaming "THROW THIS IN THE BIN!".

Having worked in a restaurant and knowing heaps of people in the restaurant business, we know its stressful when its busy. But what they brought out to us was a joke. It was clearly not restaurant quality. Even the standard housewife can cook something better at home, it was THAT bad. If Gordon Ramsay was there, he would've throw the plate half way across the restaurant. Heck, after the managers performance, I would've thrown it half way across the room if they didn't take the dish from us. Needless to say, we did not enjoy the rest of our meal one bit. Even when the other dishes came out, we had already lost our appetite to eat. We left most of the food untouched, paid and left.

I can tell you, we won't be back for a VERY long time, and neither will our friends and relatives. And considering the way word spreads, neither will our friend's friends.

To make up for this huge disappointment of a meal, we went home and drank 4 bottles of wine! Woohoo! The only bad thing was that we had to get up early the next day to hit the Sydney Fish Markets. I was definitely going to make up for the seafood debarcle that happened last night!

We get to the Fish Markets for brunch. Having left the restaurant without really eating the night before, being hungover and haven't had breakfast, I got straight into action! We grabbed a table and set off in groups of 2 to buy food!

Part of the spread

2 Doz Sydney Pacific Oysters - served with lemon or Tetsuya oyster dressing

Calamari rings

2 x Oyster mornay and 6 x grilled scallops in half shell

1/2kg salmon sashimi

2 whole crabs

2 whole lobsters

I also grabbed 1/2 kg jumbo king prawns, a packet of abalone sashimi, uni (sea urchin), seaweed salad, grilled barramundi with chips and fish cocktails! This was really for 3 people. My mum ate 1/2 of the barramundi and some seaweed only. My dad had a few fish cocktails and 1/2 a lobster. The rest was shared amongst me, my uncle and aunt! We were so full we almost had to be wheeled out of there! We finished almost everything except 1 crap, the seaweed salad an calamari.

My sister, hearing about our dinner the night before, went out and bought another 2 dozen oysters and a kilo of prawns for our BBQ dinner that night. (Not realising we were going to the fish markets, and the day before my mum had bought 1kg of prawns for snacking on at home!).

Later that night, we headed over to my sisters place for a BBQ. (She had asked if we wanted to BBQ at our place or her place, of course her place I said! No washing up for me afterwards! LoL). We decided to split up the food prep as she had already marinated the chicken and bought the sausages and seafood. Me and my uncle got together to do the red meat. I did a lamb chops with garlic, rosemary and red wine. He marinated the world's BEST pork chops I've ever eaten! I really hate pork chops as I find them dry and tasteless. His pork chops were moist, succulent and melts in the mouth! Oh yum!!

Some of the stuff cooking on the BBQ

I ended up manning the BBQ stove most of the time and didn't really get to take much photos. Here's a few.

Pork and chicken sausages and grilled chicken wings

Grilled garlic prawns - done by my uncle

He also did his favourite garlic oysters!

Close up

Hot damn! These oysters were amazing! He simply put them on the grill in the shells, and DOLLOPED on a heaped teaspoon of chinese crushed garlic. (Lee Kum Kee brand) As the oyster cooks, it bubbles on the grill. When we took them off the grill, the oyster was hot, but still smooth and creamy on the inside. Sooooooo good! And, we didn't have to worry about vampires! lol

At long last...Tetsuya's!

Life works in a funny way. I was having a bit of a whinge to my friend when we were at Bistro CBD saying that I really wanted to go try Tetsuya's, but most of my friends aren't that interested in spending that much money on a meal. She suggested that I should ask PP to go, and I almost had to stop myself from smacking my own head! Of course! PP is the most likely candidate who will be interested! Over the next few days, I kept reminding myself to email PP, but I kept forgetting. As I was walking to work one morning, I kept saying to myself "Email PP. Email PP. Email PP". My phone goes off and I get an SMS from PP saying that he has a booking at Tetsuyas and did I want to join them! Of course I called back and started screaming that I wanted to go! The date was in 2 weeks! And I think that is one of the best things. I didn't have to wait 3 months to get a booking, because it was already booked!

I had a quick look on the net to see how to get to Tetsuyas. Now, I've seen the map of where Tetsuyas is located, and I've seen photos of the outside of Tetsuya. What I didn't realise (until I was on Google St View), was that I had walked past Tetsuyas over a hundred times and never knew!!! This meant I had no problems getting there after work where I met up with PP and friends.

We walk up to Tetsuyas gate which automatically opened for us. We're greeted by a team of waiters/waitresses before being seated. They even offered to put my bag in the cloak room. For those who want to keep their handbags with them, they provide you with a little hang bag holder that hooks onto the table. We've got a table right next to the window where we get a great view of the gorgeous garden before ordering a round of cocktails to get us started.

Sloeberry Bomb

Yin Sling No. 2

I ordered the Yin Sling No 2. My definition of a perfect cocktail is that there is a perfect balance of ingredients, and this cocktail was perfect. You can barely taste the alcohol in the cocktail, which makes it extremely dangerous as I was perfectly happy to keep throwing these back all night! Alas, we had chosen to do the wine matching with our degustation menu.

Before our first course, we were given a choice of a sourdough roll or a crusty italian roll. Not being a fan of sour dough, I went with the Italian roll, which was freshly out of the oven and still warm to the touch.

The sour dough and my bag number

The crust was crunchy, and the inside was warm and fluffy. I then proceeded to SLATHER the famous Tetsuya truffle butter all over the bread before consuming with gusto! I am generally not a butter eater. Usually I eat 1/4-1/2 a slab of those butter patties you get with one roll. But this was no ordinary butter. This was Tetsuya butter. The butter was whipped together with truffles, ricotta, olive oil and a touch of caramel. I was eating the butter like it was the cream on a warm scone.

The GORGEOUS truffle butter

Enjoying the butter one bite at a time....

Finally, our first course arrived.

Cold Corn soup with a saffron and vanilla ice cream

Everyone had a spoonful of the soup before sitting there goggle eyed staring at each other. OH. MY. LORD. This soup certainly didn't come from a can! It was smooth and velvety, lucious but light. The cold soup contrasted with the extra cold ice cream giving me an explosion of flavours! I swear my brain spasmed for awhile trying to process what I had just put into my mouth. It took me awhile to come back down to earth, and one of the first comments I remember hearing was "So are we going to make another booking before we leave tonight?".

Smoked Ocean Trout and Avruga Caviar...

...served with a glass of 2003 Clover Hill Blanc De Blancs, Piper River, TAS.

Oh my...wasn't this a pretty dish? It was almost a shame to eat it! But under the instructions of our wonderful waiter, we were told to mix everything together and enjoy all the flavour together. Cutting into what looks like a raw egg yolk revealed what looked like a cooked egg yolk!

Apparently the egg yolk had been frozen, and as it defrosts, it gives a texture almost like a perfectly cooked egg yolk. All the ingredients on this dish were in perfect harmony, wonderfully complimented by the glass of Clover Hill it was paired with. I loved savouring the caviar by popping them one by one in my mouth. An absolutely stunning starter which I would love to make one day.

Leek and Crab Custard...

...served with a glass of Hakkaisan Sake Junmai-Ginjo, Nigata, Japan.

This isn't really a custard, but a steamed egg/Chawamushi. Except it was the best Chawamushi IN THE WORLD! The egg was barely set, wobblying in the spoon as we tried to scoop it up along with the delicate broth the leek concentrate was floating in. It was like eating the silkiest, smoothest cloud.... This was an eye rolling moment. And by eye rolling, I meant everyone was gripping the spoon, their eyes rolled to the back of their heads as they enjoyed every mouthful of this. After every bite, we took a sip of cool sake to compliment the lingering flavour.

I personally am not a fan of sake. All of the sake I've had tastes a bit like rocket fuel. But all of the sake I've had is not of Tetsuya standard. But now....now I know why people like their sake. It was incredibly smooth and aromatic and did not detract from the flavour of the dish at all. My favourite bit was getting to the bottom and finding a nice chunk of crab.

Scampi 3-ways (L to R): Grilled scampi in Pancetta.
Scampi in sea water and lemon scented olive oil
Marinated Scampi with white miso and passionfruit...

...served with a glass of 2008 Paradigm Hill Riesling, Mornington Peninsula, VIC

We started with the scampi in sea water and lemon scented olive oil. The waiter kindly told us that we were NOT to drink the liquid. Not that I'm stupid or anything, but when I see a shot glass out of the corner of my eye, I have an urge to grab it and toss it down my throat. This nearly happened quite a few times....

Anyway, to eat the scampi, we gently lifted it out of the glass on the skewer. The lightly sea water salted scampi will pass through the layer of lemon scented olive oil giving it just a hint of citrus flavour. Oh yum! Except that's not what I said, because I had my eyes and mouth closed so I can savour the taste. When we all managed to talk again, I moved onto the pancetta wrapped scampi.

To me, Pancetta is basically like bacon. And who doesn't like bacon? You can never go wrong adding bacon to everything because bacon is perfect. This made the pancetta almost better than a plate of pure bacon. Almost. Because bacon is perfect. SO. GOOD.

The scampi was much more delicate in flavour. Surprisingly, the miso and passion fruit went very well together. You don't taste the passionfruit upfront, but it had a lovely lingering aftertaste.

Confit of Petuna Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Konbu, Apple, Daikon and Wasabi

Seasonal Green Salad...

...all served with a glass of 2008 Delatite Dead Man's Hill Gewürztraminer, Upper Goulburn, VIC

This is Tetsuya's signature dish, and you know why when you taste it. I'm not even sure how to describe this, because no matter what I say, it won't do the dish justice. I can tell you however, that even a simple green salad made by Tetsuya, is better than most salads you can find out there. You must try this dish!

Terrine of Queensland Spanner Crab with Avocado Soup...

...served with a glass of 2007 Pierro Chardonnay for Tetsuya's, Margaret River, WA.

MMmmMmmm Mmmm mMM MMmmMmm Mm MMmm mmMmmmm mMmmmMmm..... Sorry. I was remembering what this dish tasted like. This has got to be my favourite savoury dish of the night. I was literally left speechless, gripping the edge of the table in a reenactment similar to "When Harry met Sally". Embarrassing I know. But this dish literally gave me headspins it was so good! I had goosebumps with every bite of this dish. The avocado soup was delicate enough to let the naturally sweetness of the crab shine through. The only way I could describe this dish is orgasmic.

Grilled Fillet of Barramundi with braised baby fennel...

...served with another glass of 2007 Pierro Chardonnay for Tetsuya's, Margaret River, WA.

I'm not sure if I was still reeling from the crab terrine, but this dish really confused me (in a good way). It looks like a perfect French dish, yet the aroma was screaming "Chinese steamed fish with ginger and shallots". However, when I took a bite, I could only think in Japanese. Amazing! I am also not a huge fan of fennel. I rarely get fennel that is cooked in a way that I like it. I'm not sure what was done to the fennel, but I could barely tear myself away from the fennel to try the fish!

Breast of Duck with braised Witlof with Shansho and Walnut Jus...

...served with a glass of 2006 Felton Road Pinot Noir for Tetsuya's, Central Otago, NZ.

Perfectly pink slices of duck sitting on a lovely piece of braised witlof. Again, witlof is not something I generally enjoy. I've had witlof so bitter that I couldn't spit it out fast enough and have been scarred ever since. This witlof was perfect. I wanted more! MORE!

Grass fed Angus Beef Fillet with asian mushrooms...

...served with a glass of 2003 Parket Estate Terra Rossa Cabernet Sauvignon, Coonawarra, SA.

You know your beef is going to be perfectly tender when they give you a butter knife instead of a steak knife. The beef was buttery and melts in your mouth. The asian mushrooms was a perfect accompaniment to the dish. HP is allergic to mushrooms, so they kindly paired her beef with some grilled white asparagus instead.

** By this stage, I was seriously behind with the wine. I still had my glass of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir AND my Cab Sav! I had given up on the Chardonnay, threw back the Pinot Noir so I could enjoy my beef with my expertly paired Cab Sav.

Heidi Gruyere with Lentils

This is an inbetween palette cleanser to help transition you from savoury food to dessert. We held the spoons for awhile, sniffing and sniffing. And all I could really smell was the cheese. Kind of like mild parmesan (aka, old socks). The taste, however, is nothing like what it smelt. I reminds me of a Chinese red bean soup crossed Thai sticky rice (Sweet and salty). It was certainly nice and interesting.

White peach sorbet with Champagne Jelly
Summer pudding...

...served with a glass of 2007 Heggies Botrytis Riesling, Eden Valley, SA.

We started with the White Peach sorbet and Champagne Jelly as we didn't want it melting. This was a fantastic idea as it was incredibly delicate and refreshing. Plus, once we tried the summer pudding, we may not have gone back to the sorbet!

The summer pudding was incredible. The fresh summer berries with the creamy dollop of cream on top. But the best was at the bottom of the shot glass. It was the most incredible custard I've ever had. It was super custard! Did I mention that I'm not a fan of dessert? I would happily give up a dessert course in exchange for an entree course. Tetsuyas has changed the way I think! GIMME MORE!

Lemon scented floating island with vanilla bean anglaise...

...served with another glass of 2007 Heggies Botrytis Riesling, Eden Valley, SA.

They weren't kidding when they said floating island. It should really be called a floating cloud. Incredibly light and fluffy, the centre of a perfect meringue without any of the crunchy outer shell covered in the most decadent vanilla anglaise. The candied lime peel was incredibly aromatic yet delicate at the same time. I know I've been using the words "delicate" and "light" a lot, but the food really is delicate and light. Yet, it manages to give you a real hit of flavour without over powering anything. Genuis.

Chocolate Ganache with Green Tea and Red Bean...

...served with a glass of Romate Moscatel Ambrosia, Jerez, Spain

Hahahaha.....oh gosh.....this was heaven. The rich dark chocolate ganache was the perfect way to end the dessert courses. Velvety and creamy at first, then you get the crunch of that chocolate toffee disk, followed by the lovely bite of red bean. And then, a slightly bitter after taste of green tea. I LOVE green tea. Especially when its JUST on the verge of almost being bitter. I could eat 10 portions of this and I still won't get sick of it.

The room we were sitting in had started to empty, giving me a chance to run my finger through the plate trying to get the last of the chocolate. Classy!

Petite four - Short bread, coconut biscuit type thing, green tea marshmallow and chocolate macaroon with lime and pepper.

We were offered tea and coffee, but I really was too full to have anymore. I mean, I did have 11 glasses of wine by this stage! However, we did not say no to the Petit Four when they brought it out!

We started from left to right. The shortbread is like the king of shortbreads. It must be 80% butter since it literally melted in your mouth. It was soooo buttery and decadent! I'm glad it was such a small bite, because it can not be good for you if it tastes so good!

We couldn't figure out what the second ball is. Its kinda of like a coconut macaroon with biscuit bits in it. Whatever it was, it was good.

The Green Tea Marshmallow was....was...I don't know how to describe it. Spine tingling? Mouth watering? Eye rolling? Toe curling? Orgasmic? None of that can capture what I tasted. This time, the whole table joined me in reenacting "When Harry met Sally". I'm soooooo glad the rest of the customers had left at this stage! Oh my. I still get a little out of breath when I think of this. Soft and fluffy, not like those horrible marshmallows you get at the supermarket. It was incredibly intense in green tea flavour. Again, almost bordering on bitter. I am definitely going to learn how to make this!

The last was the chocolate macaroon with a lime like ganache and a definitely hit of pepper. That's right, pepper. And yes, it tasted wonderful! I've never had pepper in a dessert, who knew it would work so well?

By the end of the meal, 5 hours had passed. This wasn't just a meal, it was an experience. And when you have such wonderful company to enjoy it with, it was worth every cent we paid. Oh, and how much was the overall damage? $350 pp. Well worth it in my opinion. Now to just get another booking.....

Tetsuya
529 Kent St, Sydney
+02 9267 2900
http://www.tetsuyas.com/

Last minute bentos

One thing I hate about summer is the setting sun shining into our kitchen at 7pm at night. The sunlight is so intense, washing your hands will make you sweat from the heat. This makes it a pain in the butt to make my bento after dinner, so instead, I procrastinate until the sun goes down. Except then I have to scramble around looking for ingredients to wack my bento together. Thank goodness I keep the fridge well stocked. Here are the absolute last minute bentos I made, usually after 10:30pm. Yes, I'm that lazy.


I had to stay back late at work one night, so I packed this as a snack to tide me over until I got home.

Left: Smoked Salmon, cream cheese and lettuce tortilla wraps
Top right: Stringer shapes
Bottom right: Cucumber and capsicum strips


Left: I have no idea what to call this. The literal translation is "Flavoured rice". This is one of our favourite comfort food that we made in our family village. Its rice boiled with chinese sausage and cured meat, fresh chicken/pork/beef, dried shrimps/oysters/scallops, beans or peas of some sort and lots of shallots and ginger. Mix it all up with a little soya sauce and eat by the bowlful.
Top right: Cheese and bacon puffs and mediterrenean puffs.
Bottom right: Dragon fruit, one of my absolute favorites. But only if its the white variety. I absolutely hate the bright pink variety. It tastes like someone has sprayed deoderant or perfume in my mouth.....



You can almost guarantee that when I make bibimbap for my bento, that I had pho for dinner!! Since we make our own Pho at home, we have almost all the ingredients I need for a bibimbap. The 2 main ingredients that I don't always have on hand is beef for the bugolgi beef and bean sprouts. I added some sauteed zucchini, carrots and shredded egg. I also pan fried some Mandu (Korean dumplings) to go with it.


I had family friends over for dinner who spent the whole night sitting in the kitchen cooking. Not wanting to cook infront of them and getting them salivating over my lunch (No! I'm not sharing! hehe) I had to cook in our other kitchen. I loaded my arms up with as much as I could carry without looking like a piggy hog, I managed to whip this up.

Left: Cha Soba
Top right: Salad with artificial crab stick.
Bottom right: Mandu


My lazy vegetarian fried rice with added cherry tomatoes. I also quickly cooked up some beef patties. That's the last of my beef patty stash, will need to make more for the freezer soon.