The other day I walked past Japan City and realised something was different; the Asian homewares retail outlet now has expanded into food too with ‘Eat Street’, a mini food court featuring various Japanese delicacies. It’s nice to know that some retail outlets (eg. IKEA) are differentiating themselves by including a culinary experience as part of the shopping experience and I thought I’d check it out.
Filed under Chatswood, Food Court, Japanese
Ice cream has got to be one of the world’s best inventions ever. It is delicious all year round, it can be manipulated into practically any flavour and it even sees us through some of the highest and lowest points of our life. This post is about peace, love and ice cream. Yum!
Its been nearly a year since we last reviewed The Rice Den. I’ve been back several times this year with other friends and it hasn’t changed much, but when we heard that their specials menu recently got a revamp, we had to return as a team to try some new dishes!
Just to refresh your memory about this place – The Rice Den is near the Victoria Ave intersection near Chatswood Chase shopping centre. It features a range of Asian flavours including Chinese, Japanese and Thai and infuses this with modern Australian cuisine. Tonight we get the opportunity to speak to the owner Roy, who has been in the food industry for about 10 years now. He tells us his story about how The Rice Den has managed to succeed in the busy Chatswood food scene, how he has incorporated his experiences with Asian cuisine into the menu and his foray into social media by interacting with his customers. For a restaurant in Chatswood, its good to know that he’s embracing the digital age to build customer engagement and loyalty, something that a lot of Asian restaurants are lagging behind in.
Chilli Jam Roasted Duck Wok Tossed
Tonight we choose all our dishes off the specials menu (except the rice dish). There are faint chalk smudges underneath the writing suggesting that this menu changes periodically. To start us off, we get the chilli jam duck. This consists of big pieces of duck breast with chilli jam sauce and hints of basil. I find there are moments when this is quite spicy, especially if you eat the chilli seeds, so watch out if you can’t handle spiciness!
“Lamb you Long time” with Black Pepper Sauce & Seasonal Veges
Next up is the lamb dish called “Lamb you Long time”, which has a humorous name thanks to a dish-naming competition for The Rice Den’s Facebook fans. Usually lamb cutlets have big chunks of fat attached to them but this dish doesn’t have too much, leaving me with big meaty fillets. The lamb is also well cooked with a black pepper sauce which matches the meat very well.
Spiders Nest (soft shell crab with tamarind, seasonal veges & egg noodles)
The Spiders Nest comes next which consists of a bed of crunchy noodles mixed with assorted vegetables and fried soft shell crab, drizzled with a sweet tamarind sauce. The crispy noodles are delicious with the sauce which is a mix of sweet and spicy flavours. Scattered within the vegetables are also juicy lychee and pineapple pieces which are very refreshing. The soft shell crab is also very meaty and not too oily – a delicious dish.
Garlic & Shallot (Jasmine rice infused with fried fresh garlic and shallots)
Our last savoury dish is a garlic and shallot fried rice. This is a simple stir fried rice which is surprisingly light and fluffy. There are good hints of garlic flavours, very similar to the garlic rice at The Tall Lemongrass but just without the overload of oil. The crispy fried onions scattered throughout the rice also adds a crunchy textural element.
Black n’ White Sticky Rice with Vanilla Ice Cream
And now to our favourite time of the meal – dessert! We opt for the sticky rice which is served with ice cream and whipped cream on top along with ‘The Rice Den’ written on the side in caramel sauce. At first glance, it looks disturbingly like a discoloured burger pattie given the shape. Thankfully it tastes nothing like that; the sticky rice is hot which goes very well with the cold ice cream. The caramel sauce also adds some extra sweetness, although I don’t think it needs any. Who knew that ice cream and rice could work!
Just like every other time I’ve been here, tonight I am very satisfied by my meal. The Rice Den is one of the few restaurants who can do great Asian fusion food with interesting combinations that taste fantastic. And a plus is that it is affordable too! If you’re looking for a change from the typical Chinese fare that clutters Chatswood (but still want Asian food), The Rice Den is a good way to start.
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All mains were in the $15 – $25 price range. Dessert was $10 – $15
Excuse Me Waiter dined as guests of The Rice Den
The Rice Den
3/77 Archer Street, Chatswood
(02) 9411 2001
I remember 2 years ago I went on a holiday to Melbourne and had the best burger I had ever eaten from Grill’d. It was then that I decided to bring this franchise to Sydney if I ever flunked uni. (Un)fortunately 6 months later, stores started popping up all over Sydney (someone beat me to it!) but this meant I could eat it without having to open my own store.
Filed under Australian, Burgers, Chatswood, Mexican
A colleague of mine is relatively new to the North/Western suburbs of Sydney and wanted to know some good restaurants to go to. I suggested Shanghainese cuisine, to which she responded that she had a very unpleasant time eating that cuisine in the past. She wasn’t sure what to order and didn’t order any dumplings! So I convinced her to give Shanghainese cuisine another go and to let us introduce some delicious dishes for her to try.
Tonight we are dining at New Shanghai restaurant; there’s five of them in NSW of which two are in Chatswood. We’ve chosen the original Chatswood one located in Lemon Grove (a short walk from the train station) because it’s slightly more convenient by public transport and also cheaper. After a quick glance at the menu, I notice that it differs from the Chatswood Chase branch; the design and style is different along with some of the menu items. Some of my much loved dishes aren’t on this menu unfortunately (Prawns fried in egg yolk, Rainbow Beef), but there are still some great dishes on offer.
Steamed Mini Pork Bun (Xiao Long Bao), 8pcs – $7.20
First up is the traditional Shanghainese Pork Dumpling or “Xiao Long Bao”. We’ve reviewed this several times before at LYNN Shanghai Cuisine and at Shanghai Stories 1938 so we knew what to expect. Freshly steamed pork dumplings with hot soup inside; the skin is soft and it goes well with vinegar. It needs to be eaten quite soon or else when it cools, the dumpling skin hardens and it is more likely to break. 90% of ours didn’t break which is a pretty good effort.
Drunken Chicken – $9.20
A typical entrée dish of drunken chicken came next. This consists of boneless pieces of cold chicken soaked in Chinese wine, herbs and spices. It has a lovely wine flavour, very succulent and tasty.
Pan Fried Pork Dumpling (8 pcs) – $9.20
Following this was our Pan Fried Pork Dumplings which came extremely quickly, no more than 5 minutes after we placed our order. The skin is crispy and contains inside a small lump of meat and some soup. I found that the meat inside was a bit small so it felt that I was eating a lot more skin, however the skin was very delicious.
Shallot Pancake (2pcs) – $5.20
Next was the shallot pancake. I’m not too sure why the menu says 2 pieces when it is cut into 6 (I think maybe it’s 2 thin pancakes pushed together to make 1?). This pancake is flat, crispy and contains shallots enveloped within it. I found that there wasn’t that many shallots there, however as a fried dish you can’t go wrong with the flavour.
Deep Fried Chicken with Special Garlic and Chilli Sauce – $14.50
One of my friends said that they had tried this chicken dish before so we thought we’d give it a go. The chicken presented to us was tender with crispy skin, however was completely flavourless. There was no garlic or chilli apparent and I was quite disappointed. Apparently they forgot to give us the sauce which we then asked for. The waitress gave us a sweet garlic soy sauce which thankfully made the chicken taste a lot better! I’m so happy we asked for the sauce or otherwise this chicken would have been a disastrous dish.
Stir Fried Noodle with Shredded Pork and Vegetable – $9.20
Our final dish was a classic Shanghai stir fried noodle. We requested to change the pork to chicken as my friend couldn’t eat chicken. Unfortunately this request was not possible. So we tried to have the pork separated onto a separate dish. Once again they couldn’t facilitate this. I didn’t think that these requests were unreasonable and was a bit annoyed that they couldn’t make these requests work. In the end we had a vegetarian and tofu noodle. The sauce was a bit sweet and didn’t seem like the correct sauce for this type of dish.
Overall, I am happy with New Shanghai’s quality of food as it is both tasty and cheap. Unfortunately our experience was only average as they forgot one of our sauces and couldn’t facilitate a vegetarian request, but nevertheless it is still a good restaurant that I will be returning to in the future.
New Shanghai
Shop 20, 427-441 Victoria Ave (inside Lemon Grove)
Chatswood, NSW 2067
Ph: (02) 9415 3536
Excuse Me Waiter is a documented food adventure run by two hungry Gen Y food fanatics DK & Yvn. We can often be found roaming Sydney in search of interesting foods from food courts to high-end restaurants.
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