First week I came back from Sydney (AGAIN!!! This is my fifth visit in the past 4 years), I fell sick the next day because of exhaustion. Well, when we went to Sydney, we didn't hire a car so we pretty much relied on our feet power and walked pretty much everywhere. I am used to walking in Melbourne and in Malaysia (when I used to live there). When I was younger, my parents couldn't afford holidays that are too costly and too far so we travelled around Southeast Asia most of the time and my parents, my sister and I would walk everywhere from dawn to sunset and beyond. So in a way, I was trained from a very young age to walk everywhere and wouldn't feel tired. Fast forward, 13 years have gone by and admittedly, my body is not as strong as it used to be (Yes, I am an old lady now that I possibly need a walking stick soon). I still can walk for miles but of course my body takes the toll the next day or the day after or when my body recognises it's time to rest, then it registers that it is overworked. As a result, I fell sick.
Silly me, knowing I wasn't feeling well, I went to the gym anyway and the next day, my body was aching and the flu kicked in. After I recovered from the flu, I had a friend came over from my hometown for a week holiday and I fell sick again from eating too much! There is actually such thing as falling sick from overeating. Imagine this, I went out for dinner every single night with my friends for the entire week. Trust me, you WILL get sick from eating out too much.
Back to the reason why I was so exhausted from my Sydney trip and I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. Although I walk so much in Melbourne, Sydney's CBD is a lot bigger than Melbourne CBD (Central Business Districts). It's almost 3-4 times bigger than Melbourne's city and to help you picture it, Melbourne CBD can be described to look like a square shape whereas Sydney CBD is a rectangular one, so the streets stretch longer and more dense. After 2 days of pure walking and carrying tripod around, my shoulders felt like they were going to fall off from the joints. I was flat out. We probably should've rented a car but parking would be a hassle and expensive although public transportations weren't cheap either in Sydney. We tried to justify by thinking that we would be able to appreciate the scenery more and we would know our way around more than just relying on GPS. There were many instances when we walked into the wrong street and we discovered something else better.
Since I've been to Sydney so many times, my fifth visit concentrated more on hunting for amazing food. After several years of on and off blogging, I realised that whenever I visit a good restaurant, I really want to share it (although I tend to ramble too much). So I've decided to share my food adventure whenever I encounter food that is share-worthy. There is just so much good food to share around and I'm not even getting paid for it! I'm just so passionate about good food.
Now, I know what defines as good food is very subjective and it depends on individual preferences so what I deem as good, you may not agree. So, feel free to disagree and if you do agree, good!!
I went to a number of restaurants whilst I was there but I will only pick one to write a review on. It is this popular Chinese restaurant called Chefs Gallery. The food there is simply amazing. What really impressed me was the fact that they make simple and familiar food taste extraordinary. There is that extra "X" factor and I must say, this restaurant is by far, in my top 3 Chinese food category. A lot of Chinese restaurants in Australia serve very average tasting food that is overpriced and super oily. I rarely come across a Chinese restaurant that makes me feel like "Wahhhhh". With no doubt though, a Chinese restaurant with average tasting food combined with good location always do pretty well (on average) but Chefs Gallery proves that great taste with great location create a phenomenon.
First of all, the queue was unbelievable. Correction, when I was in Sydney, there was a vivid light show festival going on for that particular long weekend (it was during Queen's Birthday). So, the usually jam packed city was even more jam packed and everywhere you go, there was an extremely long queue outside pretty much all the popular restaurants even when you already made a booking! We didn't make any reservation before we walked in Chefs Gallery, it was a serendipity because we planned to have dinner elsewhere but the queue was way too long and we couldn't be bothered. The queue was extremely long in front of Chefs Gallery as well but La Boyfriend wanted to try so we waited for about 15-20 minutes for a seat which wasn't such a bad waiting time at all. Partly because inside the restaurant, it is very spacious so it can fit many patrons at once.
In the beginning, I was a bit cautious because when the wait staff brought out the dishes to the patrons, they all looked really ordinary. For a second, I must admit I doubted my decision for walking into this restaurant because the last thing I wanted was spending my last night in Sydney eating ordinary meal that I can easily get in Melbourne. To my surprise, I was not disappointed at all. The noodles are well known here because they are handmade, each to their own and they are extremely delicate not like many self proclaimed "hand made noodles" which taste horrible and texture wise, are just too rough and thick. I did keep my expectation low when I heard about their hand made noodles.
We ordered shredded peking duck with cucumber, hoisin sauce rolled inside a Chinese roti $16.90.
It wasn't the best I've ever tasted in Australia. If you want to go all the way out, Peking duck with Chinese thin pancake is better than this because for me, it feels like it is half half effort. As in, the roti is a bit too thick and it covers the beautiful taste of the shredded duck and the fresh cucumber. If the roti was thinner, maybe it would taste a lot better. It wasn't too bad and it is amongst the popular entreé in this restaurant when I was browsing urbanspoon. The shredded peking duck was not fragrant enough for me to take notice that I was eating peking duck.
The next dish had me swallowed back my own words..
La Boyfriend ordered spinach handmade thick noodles wok fried with prawns, mussels in shell, baby calamari tubes, Chinese Shitake mushrooms, dusted with seaweed & sesame powder.
The handmade spinach noodles tasted amazing! You could taste dedication and passion poured to this dish and it makes you feel personalised. Makes you feel homey. La Boyfriend loves it and until this day, he is still raving non stop about it to everyone. I love how they topped it off with sesame seed and seaweed "powder". The seafood was fresh and they gave some pretty generous amount of calamari and mussels. The noodles were not flakey when I chewed on it and it didn't taste flourish (I'm trying to describe it at my best, so I do apologise if you're frowning when you're reading it and trying to imagine how they taste like). It was simply flavoursome!!! and of course there is no artificial colouring agent used, just from natural ingredients, mainly green vegetables (i.e. spinach, duh!!!)
As for me, I chose prawn and pork wontons handmade noodles served with mince chicken and chopped lettuce in a Shanghainese style spicy sauce $14.90.
As for me, I chose prawn and pork wontons handmade noodles served with mince chicken and chopped lettuce in a Shanghainese style spicy sauce $14.90.
Again, hat's off to the chef for their amazing handmade noodles. These noodles are a bit different from the spinach noodles because the spinach noodles are flat and wide similar to kwey teow noodles whereas the noodles I had were round and skinny. Stupid me forgot to actually take a photo of the noodles to show you guys what I mean. It's similar to spaghetti noodles just to give you a better idea. It's not egg noodles though bear in mind.
This dish is pretty spicy so for anyone who shuns away from spiciness then this is not your cup of tea. It's a bit like eating sizhuan dish (in terms of the spiciness). This dish doesn't have the infamous "sizhuan pepper" though, it is spicy in a different level. I'm a huge fan of spicy dishes because I'm from Indonesia so I love anything that's spicy. The wontons and mince meat just went so well that theu created a symphony in this particular dish. I literally could hear music when I took my first bite. The wontons meat was generous and the skin was not too thick so you could really taste the flavoursome prawn and pork meat and the size of it was pretty humongous too (value for you money)!
I did skull down a couple of glasses of water whilst consuming this dish but I was addicted to the spicy taste despite the burning sensation on my tongue. Overall these 2 dishes deserve my 7.9 ratings out of 10. That's a very weird rating eh? but I'm not ready to give out an 8 out of 10 ratings just yet.
To cool down the spicy aftertaste, we ordered something more soothing and sweet, who wants dessert???
We had black sesame ice cream with red bean paste and pearl dumplings. We actually were dying to order this really popular piggy bun filled with black sesame paste but they sold out!!!! It was one of the most popular desserts in Chefs Gallery. Oh well, what can we do, it's not like the head chef could especially make us one as if we were some important people. Nevermind, I would settle for this ice cream instead and it was also amazing!
First of all, I love black sesame dessert, so I may be biased with my opinion but the entire combination of black sesame ice cream, red bean paste and pearl dumplings (mochi) are just too good!!! It wasn't too sweet at all and it wasn't too filling either so in case if your main fill you up quickly, you can definitely fit in this dessert because it was pretty light and you can share it :) All these 3 combinations are my favourite, so I'm definitely bias!!
Overall, I had an extremely wonderful experience dining in this restaurant and I would love to return to try many more dishes. Maybe next time :) Below are the details of where you can find this restaurant and don't be like us, make a reservation beforehand! Good Luck!
This dish is pretty spicy so for anyone who shuns away from spiciness then this is not your cup of tea. It's a bit like eating sizhuan dish (in terms of the spiciness). This dish doesn't have the infamous "sizhuan pepper" though, it is spicy in a different level. I'm a huge fan of spicy dishes because I'm from Indonesia so I love anything that's spicy. The wontons and mince meat just went so well that theu created a symphony in this particular dish. I literally could hear music when I took my first bite. The wontons meat was generous and the skin was not too thick so you could really taste the flavoursome prawn and pork meat and the size of it was pretty humongous too (value for you money)!
I did skull down a couple of glasses of water whilst consuming this dish but I was addicted to the spicy taste despite the burning sensation on my tongue. Overall these 2 dishes deserve my 7.9 ratings out of 10. That's a very weird rating eh? but I'm not ready to give out an 8 out of 10 ratings just yet.
To cool down the spicy aftertaste, we ordered something more soothing and sweet, who wants dessert???
We had black sesame ice cream with red bean paste and pearl dumplings. We actually were dying to order this really popular piggy bun filled with black sesame paste but they sold out!!!! It was one of the most popular desserts in Chefs Gallery. Oh well, what can we do, it's not like the head chef could especially make us one as if we were some important people. Nevermind, I would settle for this ice cream instead and it was also amazing!
First of all, I love black sesame dessert, so I may be biased with my opinion but the entire combination of black sesame ice cream, red bean paste and pearl dumplings (mochi) are just too good!!! It wasn't too sweet at all and it wasn't too filling either so in case if your main fill you up quickly, you can definitely fit in this dessert because it was pretty light and you can share it :) All these 3 combinations are my favourite, so I'm definitely bias!!
Overall, I had an extremely wonderful experience dining in this restaurant and I would love to return to try many more dishes. Maybe next time :) Below are the details of where you can find this restaurant and don't be like us, make a reservation beforehand! Good Luck!
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