Wok 'n' BBQ

Whenever we feel like eating out on the weekend, we usually end up at Burwood for some Chinese roast and rice. Since the lovely name and shame of one of our regulars, we thought we should try out another place. Wok 'n' BBQ has been open for about a year. We had visited it when it opened during its first week. We probably would've visited earlier if they didn't have a blackout on the day we went. hehehe The shop is located on the corner of Burwood Rd, next to the train station.



I've been back a few times since as its a nicer and cleaner environment to enjoy lunch compared to some of the other roasts shops (Which is more eat and run type style).

Complimentry soup that's not in a brown cracked plastic bowl

BBQ Pork and rice

Soya chicken and rice

Roast pork and rice

Another BBQ Pork and rice

Roast duck noodle soup - seperated

The roast is really nice and fresh. Taste wise, its very similar to the other shops. The portion sizes are slightly smaller, but that's because they don't load you up on the rice. They still give you the same amount of meat and veggies as the other shops which is good. The price is also similar to the other shops, usually around the $8-10 mark.

All in all, a lovely Chinese roast lunch in a nice clean setting with real crockery. If you're starving, you might want to head up to some of the other shops where they give you more rice. Otherwise, a good place to catch up with friends.

The Corn Exchange - Four Points Sheraton

It's been a few years since I've visited the Corn Exchange. I used to come here quite regularly with my family when they had the buy 1 get 1 free offers every few months. But they haven't had that offer for quite a few years. As a part of the Enliven Sydney Promotion, they're offering the buy 1 get 1 free offer again! Woohoo! I immediately dragged my friend with my for a bout of seafood feasting! I thought I should test the place out before bringing my family here again.

I'm always well prepared for visiting The Corn Exchange. Minimal breakfast and lunch. Don't drink anything fizzy or full of dairy. Order hot water when at the restaurant (So I'm not tempted to drink heaps of water). Get plenty of prawn chips/papadums and some hot soup to counteract the slimey cold seafood I intended to gorge on.

I decided to combine all the photos from both my visits into one big post. So don't worry, I didn't eat ALL of this in one sitting. But even if you average it out....... *Cough*

Cold seafood section

Smoked salmon

Cold prawns

Mussels, sushi, sashimi

Some lobster/prawn/bug type thing

Anti pasto/Salad section

More salads on another night

Let me firstly explain what type of person should go to the Corn Exchange. The buffet is catered for those who love their cold seafood and dessert. The hot food on offer is minimal and very disappointing for those who don't eat seafood. Whilst for those who like their seafood, this place is HEAVEN. And I mean HEAVEN. Huge amounts of oysters, sashimi, smoked salmon, prawns, crab, balmain bugs, mussels, octopus and sushi. And that's exactly what I intend to eat.

My DIY seafood platter

My 2 favourite things, oysters and sashimi

More oysters, sashimi and prawns

Oysters, crab, prawns and some sashimi hidden in the bottom

More oysters, sashimi, smoked salmon and mussels

Moving onto the hot food. Confit of duck, saffron pasta and more seafood

To be honest, the total amount of hot food I ate was limited to that piece of duck confit and about 1 tablespoonful of pasta. I also sampled 1 or 2 pieces of other hot food, basically they were all quite terrible. Gluggy, salty or flavourless. "Hot food" selection includes things like white rice, roast potatoes, pumpkin, green beans and occassionally some sort of roast meat/fish/stew. Basically, nothing appealed to me. I'll have 1/2 a bowl of soup to warm my stomach up and move onto the dessert.

Dessert

More desser offerings

Orange cream, creme brulee, fruit tart, portugese tart and strawberries and chocolate

I was really disappointed when I found out that they no longer did their gorgeous sticky date pudding with hot vanilla bean custard. It was my absolute favourite dessert at The Corn Exchange. I almost liked it more than the seafood. They've replaced it with a huge vat of melted chocolate which you ladel over strawberries and marshmallows.

I tried a bit of everything on my plate, but I quickly gave them all up for one thing. The creme brulee. OH. MY. LORD! Their creme brulee is AMAZING! Its extremely smooth and creamy. Totally decadent even though the burnt sugar had melted by this stage. Infact, I liked it so much, the first time I went, I ate 6 of these babies!

Second time I went back, I warned my sisters to get out of my way if I'm getting creme brulee. I WILL hurt them if they fight me for it. Luckily, the had the dessert section well stocked with creme brulee. So well stocked in fact, that between the 4 of us, we ate a total of 36 creme brulees. 36!! It was quite embarrassing whenever the waiter came to collect our dirty dishes and it was all creme bruless dishes.


The good thing about us eating all the creme brulee was that they had to keep bringing out more. We ate everything they put out so they had to make a fresh batch where the sugar was lovely and crunchy! What a perfect way to end our meal!

Extra crunchy top

The Corn Exchange

161 Sussex St
Sydney NSW 2000
Ph: (02) 9290 4851

Home cooked comfort

My friends have been complaining that I haven't updated my blog for awhile. I guess I've been really lazy and basically just enjoying home time since I've been back from Houston. Plus I've also been busy planning my Europe trip! Yes that's right! Europe is on babyyyyyyyyy!!! I've booked our tickets and our tour, just need to sort out additional accommodation and transport for all the other free time in between. I can't wait for a proper holiday!

In the meantime, I've been at home cooking up a storm whenever I get a chance. Basically I want to dose up on homecooked comfort food every time I look at the food I ate in Houston.

Malay Chicken curry and rice

Combination Bugolgi

Easy to make. Get any amount of chicken, beef, lamb and pork, marinate in premade bottled bugolgi sauce. Stir fry quickly with onions, carrots and more sauce.

Stir fry garlic veggies

One of the things I missed the most when I was in Houston, veggies! The minute I got home, I stir fried a huge plate of shanghai bok choy and brocolli with plenty of garlic and a little oyster sauce. Really light and refreshing.

Homemade BBQ Pork

We couldn't get any decent chinese food in Houston, so I whipped this up for a bit of home comfort. 2 mins to put the marinade together, leave in the fridge overnight and roast. Can it get any easier than that? Recipe can be found here.

Min Chee

Inspired by TPF. I love this dish! Take some beef or pork mince and brown in a pan. And I mean REALLY brown in the pan. Add garlic, diced onion, potato and water. The water will lift all the lovely brown stuff from the bottom of the pan. Add oyster sauce, soya sauce and sugar to taste. Let it simmer til the potato and soft adn the sauce thickens (because the potato will start to break down). Eat with a spoon with or without rice.

Extra garlicky king prawns with choy sum and broccoli

Pork bone and watercress soup

I remembered one night we were all sitting around the office in Houston, 2am in the morning when we start discussing how miserable we were. And how we would kill for some home cooking. Specifically mum's soup! Every asian loves the soup mum makes. We were all craving pork bone and watercress soup. When I got back to Sydney, my whole family was on holidays leaving me home alone. Since mum wasn't around to make me soup, I had to make it myself! Comfort in a bowl.

"Sand Ginger" steamed chicken

Not sure what the herb is called, but its literal translation is "Sand Ginger". Its a common spice that is found in salt baked chicken. I covered the chicken with heaps of sand ginger and salt. Let it sit for a few hours before steaming. Pour the chicken juice all over boiled rice and consume. Yum!

Beef and capsicum in blackbean sauce

Stir fried bean sprouts

I didn't just miss home cooking, but also good quality junk food! Actually, non-liquid yellow paint like cheese would be a good start. And after all my junk food eating in Houston, I reckon I could whip up a mean burger.

SMJ Extravaganza!

For something a little different, I did a cheddar cheese stuffed all beef patty. Big hunk of cheese in the middle of my beef patty. You have to be super careful biting into the burger to make sure you don't get burnt by molten melted oozey cheese! Didn't make it easy to eat when I put bacon, eggs, lettuce and tomato into the burger as well.

Innards - Super oozey egg yolk

MmMmmm Cheesey...

I've also been hunting for a jaffle maker. Not the dodgy sandwich makers that try to cut your toasted sandwiches in half. I'm talking about the good old square pocket jaffle maker. I finally found one made by Breville! Damn I missed having a jaffle maker! I went and started experimenting with all different types of fillings. Ham, tomato, cheese, baked beans. But my favourite combo so far is my ham, cheese and egg jaffle.

A whole raw egg is cracked onto the bread, cover with ham and cheese and cook in the jaffle maker. Its best to use room temperature eggs, otherwise leave it cooking for a few cycles. Perfectly runny egg yolks......MmMmmm....

With winter hitting us full blast the other week, I've been sick as a dog. To make myself feel better, I've been having wonton noodle soup for lunch almost every day. The best thing to make me feel better when sick. I am also currently on a mission to find the best wonton noodle soup in the city. But why wait for the best wonton when you can make it? So I crashed a friends place to make a huge wonton and dumpling feast!


Left (Yellow): Homemade chicken and mushroom wonton
Right (White): Store bought pork and chives dumplings and seafood dumplings.

Homemade pork and veggie gyoza

Bottoms up!

The gyoza was super easy to make! I made a simple filling of pork, diced veggies, mushroom and black fungus. Wrap in gow gee wrapper and pan fry with a bit of water. I made a simple dipping sauce of soya sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil.

Soya stir fried wontons

I made extra wontons with the chicken and mushroom and also the pork and veggie filling. Once boiled, these were quickly stir fried with dark soy and a little sesame oil. This was a dish my parents used to always make me when I helped out at the restaurant. Its been a good 8 years since I've eaten it, but its just as good as I remembered!

Typical American food?

The great thing about staying in the one place for such a long time, is that I can actually focus on the food! When I'm travelling, I love to try the local cuisine. But you can't always find what you want when you're running around sight seeing. Luckily, we had the help of the locals this time round to help me locate all the various sterotypical American cuisines I've always wanted to try!

Chilli cheese dog

Recommended by a true Texan. Apparently its one of the better ones we could get around our office.


Whilst the chilli cheese dog was nice, there were a few things that really worried me.

1. The sausage used is kinda.....plasticky. I can see my teeth marks from where I bit through the dog...
2. The cheese on the dog......came from a trigger spray hose. CHEESE SHOULD NOT COME FROM A HOSE PEOPLE!

Chicken fried steak!

Essentially a steak fried in "fried chicken" batter. This is served with a white gravy and I got a side of green beans and mashed potatoes. The steak itself was nice, although I'm more of a fried chicken person. The white gravy was nice and spicy with the addition of lots of pepper. I think I would've liked this more if it was executed differently.

Popeyes!

I've always liked the sound of Popeyes. I'm expecting a sailor with a huge chin serving me behind the counter. Of course in my imagination, the food is anything but canned spinach! hehe I was wondering around looking for lunch one day, when my blood hound nose guided me to Popeyes with its delectable scent!

I ordered myself a spicy fried chicken set with a famous Popeyes biscuit and mashed potatoes with cajun gravy. I also got 6 nuggets, but they ended up giving me about 15 popcorn chicken looking things.

The fried chicken itself was nice. Very crispy and juicy chicken. But spice wise, I much prefer the KFC hot and spicy. The mashed potato with cajun gravy was very comforting, especially when I found bacon bits in it! haha

My favourite would have to be the biscuit and chicken nuggets. The biscuit was incredibly buttery, crumbly and fluffy all at the same time. It was like the butteriest, crumbliest but also the fluffiest scone you will ever taste! SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!! The nuggets actually had alot more kick to it than the fried spicy chicken. Much more my taste.

Cheese and bacon burger with caramelised onion

I asked where can I grab a good burger for lunch, and was directed to Otto's directly below our office. I should've been a bit more specific with what I was asking, or I just didn't know what to order. But when I said burger, I meant something with meat. Not melted cheese with a side of burger!

barely squeezing the burger....

The cheese seriously made me sick. The rest of the burger was nice. Just need to cut down on the cheese. Too much cheese.....

Sausage and egg McGriddle with a hashbrown

Can't go to the US without Maccas. I couldn't decide between a sausage and egg McMuffin (my usual) and a sausage and egg McGriddle. Since you can't get a McGriddle in Australia, I just had to try it.

Innards

HmmMmmm perhaps I should've found out what a McGriddle was before I ordered it. Basically what I got was sausage, egg and cheese, inbetween 2 apple and cinamon pancakes.... It was both delicious and disgusting at the same time??

Cajun shrimp and oyster po'boy

OH MY GOD. This was one of my favourite meals in Houston. The cajun fried shrimp and oysters were amazingly flavoursome without losing the freshness of the seafood. A squeeze of lemon was all that was needed on my po'boy! Infact, I enjoyed this so much, I promised I had to visit again before I left!

Cajun fried oyster and catfish platter

I really REALLY like the cajun fried oysters. I do regret not ordering just fried oysters because......the catfish was terrible. It had that horrible muddy taste, which cannot be masked by all the tartar sauce in the world. And it wasn't just me having a bad batch. I did try catfish at other places and they all had that muddy taste. I might just stick with the oysters and shrimp in the future.

Anyone guess what this is?

Hidden in the back corner of the box was this strange object. I had no idea what it was. I gave it a few pokes with my fork when a few bits of batter fell off. Oh.....my......lord. They deep fried my corn cob....Tasted good though? Maybe because I was so severly craving veggies at this stage?

Biscuit with sausage gravy and scramble eggs

I thought I'd try something a bit different and ordered a biscuit and gravy. I assumed it would be good old brown meat juice gravy we get in Sydney, but its actually a white peppery gravy with some bits of crumbled sausage in it. This was extremely filling. I barely got through half of this. The biscuit was incredibly heavy once topped with the gravy and I found the scrambled eggs too overcooked for my liking.

Grits

My biscuit and gravy also came with a side of grits. I can't decribe how this tastes except that there is no taste. I had 2 spoonfuls and binned the rest.

Double tree choc chip cookie cheesecake

Essentially a gorgeous cheesecake that used a top notch choc chip cookie as the base. I've had the cookie on its own and that was eye-rolling good as it was. Used in a cheesecake was just genuis!

Princes burger

After my cheese overdose with the Otto burger, I tried out another burger in the Houston tunnels.


Oh my......the meat patty was incredibly juicy and beefy. It wasn't overwhelmed with cheese or sauce, which let me taste the quality of the patty. Really good burger. Really HUGE burger. I couldn't even finish my chips and onion rings (But have you noticed the size of the onion ring??).

NY Style pizza

Fresh made to order NY style pizza. The base was soft and chewy, making it easy to fold and consume! I love free food at work!

Crabcake sandwich

I am completely addicted to crabcake sandwiches! Especially ones that are crammed with chunks of crab meat. This was one of many free lunches I got at work. It was delicious even when cold!

Deep fried oreo

Need I say more?

Mushu pork!

hahah I didn't know mushu pork had a chinese name! I always assumed it was some weird name made up for Americans. And I had no idea what Mushu pork was! Basically its shredded pork stir fry which you wrap with peking duck wrappers and some hoi sin sauce. I'm definitely going to try and make this.

Crispy shrimp tempura roll

Basically a tempura shrim roll, rolled in tempura battered bits. It can't get any better than that.

Complimentry appetiser

So I went to a chinese restaurant to grab a quick bite for lunch. When I sat down, they put this plate of spring roll and fried wonton infront of me. Yes! Free food! I cut into my wonton thinking I'll take a shot of the inside. I didn't expect to see this though.....

"Why is it white?" you ask? Because that is creamed cheese. CHEEEEEESE!!! *faints*