Yum Cha - Sun Ho Restaurant

The family and I went to our favourite Yum cha place on Saturday. We've visited this place ever since it opened and have watched it get more and more popular. It is located within the Rockdale Businessman Club or Club 32. It offers the usual at yum cha but they don't charge for tea and offer 20% off Monday to Fridays and 10% Saturday and Sunday.

It gets quite busy at around 11.45am where they start handing out tickets. Expect to see a doorway filled with hungry people eyeing you to finish quickly at midday. It's nothing fancy like East Ocean or Palace but it is definitely a place worth trying. The service is excellent, all the workers there are really friendly and are happy to help you even if they are in the middle of serving food. The ladies are more then happy to get sauces and other dishes on request without a hint of a scowl. Yum cha is always better when not only the food and price is great but the service is always given with a smile.

Ham Soi Gok - sister's favourite

Egg Tarts - fresh from the oven.. YUM!

Spinach dumpling

Dad's favourite -Pei Dan So - thousand year old egg with sweet lotus paste wrapped in pastry

Siu Mai with scallops

Eggplant with prawn paste smothered in black bean sauce - can be a little oily but well worth the oil hehe

Beef Tripe - well cooked, not chewy at all

Wu Gok - mum's favourite

Ngau yuk yuen - beef balls with Worcestershire tasting sauce.. my favourite =)

Pork Ribs in black bean sauce - my brother in law's favourite

Har Gau - yes you get 5!!

After the 10% off, it only cost us approximately $11 per person. BARGAIN!

Sun Ho Restaurant
Level 2, 32 Bay Street
Rockdale
Ph: 9599 6388

Ceci Korean Restaurant

Was going to Burwood cinemas to watch Transformers with the boy one night, so decided to have dinner in Strathfield. Strathfield is known for their Korean restaurants and being a cold winter's day, Korean sounded perfect. The boy didn't want Korean BBQ so that eliminated half of the Korean restaurants. We finally decided on Ceci Korean Restaurant.

Food came out quite quickly starting with the usual side dishes of kimchi, marinated beansprouts, potatoes and a jelly like thing.

Beansprouts had a strong taste of sesame oil

Didn't try this one.. some sort of jelly?

The kimchi pancake came out looking all fiery red and was absolutely delish. I rather prefer the kimchi pancake to the usual seafood pancake that I used to order.

Kimchi Pancake $10

The sweet chilli chicken unfortunately didn't have the same effect as when I had it in the city.. it tasted like sweet and sour pork.. did not have a hint of spice and the chicken unfortunately lacked crunch.

Sweet chilli chicken $18

The soybean paste stew included tofu, mushrooms, clams, potato slices, mussels and veges. This dish was perfect for a winters night.

Soybean Paste Stew $10

Ceci Korean Restaurant
37 The Boulevarde
Strathfield

Ph: 9746 7710 

Pizza Hut

Having finished a grueling semester of uni and being stuck in the library on those sunny days.. I decided to go for a relaxing picnic with the boy. Although I had finished my exams, the boy still had one more left.. but with my constant nagging and whining about being stuck indoors during exams, the boy finally succumbed to the idea of a picnic!
I suggested we get pizza instead of doing the whole picnic thing with making sandwiches and dips etc as we both couldn't be bothered to shop. We decided on Pizza Hut as we love the crust.. ever so crunchy!
We tried the dinner box which included a large pizza, garlic bread, 4 twist ups and a choice of pasta or their new lasagna option. As we had tried their pasta before and felt it lacked seasoning, we opted for their lasagna and it was definitely the right choice!

We ordered The Works pizza along with 2 cheese and 2 pepperoni twist ups. The pizza again had that lovely crust which we both love.. the twist ups were ok.. i think we were focusing our attention more on the pizza and pasta so didn't really touch these.

The lasagna.. mmm what can I say.. filled with yummy beef, bechamel sauce and cheese.. mmm. It was full of flavour and reminded me of those lasagna's I used to order back in primary school which warmed me up during those winter days.

I also had a bottle of Rothbury Estate's Rose 2010 which was given by Miss V for my birthday.. it made for a perfect relaxing day.

Pizza Hut
www.pizzahut.com.au

El Jannah

Had a craving for charcoal chicken the other night.. we usually go to Habib's in Bankstown but the last visit left me disappointed with the chicken being quite dry. So we decided to head further west at have chicken at El Jannah.

Whole chicken $19.90 - the thoughtfully divided the chicken into two plates for us

Excitement filled me when we rounded the corner.. looking into El Jannah I could already see a line of people ordering. Many were getting take out but there were a fair few that sat down to gobble up the fine food they were offered. We decided to order one chicken, small chips and a plate of falafels as the boy has this addiction to them.. The falafels arrive and the boy doesn't enjoy it as much as the falafels at Jasmin's in Lakemba.

Falafel @ $1.50 each (min. order of 3)

There is a big difference between the take out price and dine in price.. but you are offered pickles, garlic sauce (toum) and bread when dining in. Service is quite quick, with the food all arriving on the table within 5 minutes. The chicken here is definitely not dry like Habib's.. u can see the juices bursting out from the flesh.. combined with the pickles and a generous slab of the garlic sauce, it's like I've gone to heaven and back. The bread has been individually wrapped with 2 pieces of Lebanese bread in a bag. By keeping it in the bag, the bread is kept soft. Chips arrive in a big bowl. There were so moreish, especially when dipped in the garlic sauce. Practically finished the bowl of chips on my own.. it definitely satisfied my constant craving for chips.

Small Chips $4.00 - couldn't get enough of these babies

The garlic sauce.. the hero.. how I can never get enough of this sauce. It is creamy with a good balance of garlic. You can just mop and mop and mop the sauce up even when you are about to explode.

Garlic sauce

Pickled radish and gherkins

During dinner, there was a never ending line of customers, with tables filling fast. Highly recommended.. and well worth the drive.

El Jannah
4 - 8 South Street
Granville NSW
Ph: (02) 9637 0977

www.eljannah.com.au

Aldi..

$29.99

Aldi to me is not only a lot of cheap food and groceries, it is also like stepping into a reject shop (which the boy and I love to go into.. just to see what they have to offer lol). My sister who browses Aldi catalogues like a magazine spotted a crepe maker for sale. A CREPE MAKER!! I have this weird fascination and addiction to crepes.. its almost like my comfort food (after anything that has potato in it of course). We were both worried that  it would be all sold out by the time we could get to our closest Aldi store on Thursday as we both work. She had read on a blog that Aldi stocks up their products on Wednesday night for it to be ready for sale on Thursday. So tonight.. we both made our way to Aldi.. and now i have.. A CREPE MAKER!! I was just saying to the boy that the first appliance I want to buy when I move out is a crepe maker.. well wait no more.. =D

We also bought some onion and tomato storers. You know when you take a tomato or onion and only need half and then will wrap the unused half in glad wrap and pop it into the kitchen? Well what this does is it stores the unused half in an airtight container. They are also shaped like brown and red onions and tomatoes.

$1.99 each

Can't wait to use the crepe maker!!!

BTW! Who is excited that Billy is back!! GO BILLY! 

TK something..

The girls all decided to meet up for dinner one night as one of our besties who moved to Hong Kong temporarily was back in Sydney to visit. Miss Y suggested we go to TK Something at Canley Vale. At first I had thought that she didn't know the full name of the restaurant but after some research I found out that the restaurant was really called TK Something.
It is an all you can eat Korean inspired BBQ restaurant. It is not one of those all you can eat places where you can choose the meats from a main area, instead you select the dishes from a menu and the waiter brings it out to you. There is a 2 hour limit and food wastage is charged at $5 per plate.
Was $29.50 per person and didn't include drinks other than tea and water.
Dinner started with some side dishes or banchan that you usually find at Korean restaurants. Tonight's banchan consisted of marinated seaweed, raw cabbage salad, beansprouts, green vegetables and kimchi. All of these were refillable. Lettuce and various dipping sauces were also given.

The menu was extensive with the usual marinated meats and seafood and some that you don't usually see at Korean BBQs which include kangaroo, nem nuong (which may cater for the locals), chicken feet and pork sausages and pork skin.

Beef in vine leaf

Chicken Teriyaki

Beef ribs, chicken satay and nem nuong

Lemongrass beef

The seafood selection included scallops, fresh prawns, marinated fish and many more.

Fresh Prawn

Whole scallop including the roe!

Baby octopus

Everything was well marinated and the creme brulee offered for dessert was to die for! There were a few of us that  kept going back for more! It's a good place to catch up with friends as it gives you time to chat and catch up while you wait for the food to cook. It was an excellent choice made by Miss Y and I thought it was well worth the money.

Corn tasted like those from the frozen section

Chocolate Mousse and Panna Cotta

The very yummy creme brulee.. I'll come back just for this!

Will definitely come back with the boy next time I crave for Korean BBQ!!

TK Something
Shop 6-7, 47-49 Canley Vale Rd
Canley Vale NSW 2166
Ph: 9726 1552
www.tksomething.com.au