Shop 329-330 Level 2, Harbourside Shopping Centre

Located side by side with the famous Criniti’s Italian Restaurant in the heart of Darling Harbour, Thai Foon restaurant have a tough job to attract the innocent-no-clue walk-in customers. But for those who know, a reservation is the only way to guarantee nice outdoor table (undercover) over-viewing the famous Sydney Darling Harbour.

Sydney skyline and Darling Harbour over your table

Before The Main

Delicious Spring Roll

The table will greet you with 2 stacked platea a la Thai, one on top another. The top (smaller) one is supposed to be use for eating Entree. And when you finish with it just the waiter will take it to get ready with the main.

You can order variety of Entree from the classic spring roll to the signature Thai dishes such as “Money Bag” (similar to chinese’s fried wonton only different look), from the chunky chicken satay on skewer to the exotic Papaya Salad (“Som Tum”). Yes, vegetarian entree is also available.

Tasty Coconut Milk Soup

Our entree order come very fast, it’s literally 1 minutes flat and we are chrunching the yummy Money Bag and Spring Roll.

While you can order your favorite drink, the waiters and waitresses also have a hawk eye to maintain your complimentary chilled water always full in your glass. They use the surveilance to check your entree as well. As soon as we finish the entree, they come to our table and prepare it for the main.

Have to Come Twice

Unique Basil Fried Noodle

Just by looking to the menu on the card, I will recommend to come at least twice to satisfy your curiosity on what is being offered. Really. Only a meal will not enough to get the decent try.

We first know this restaurant around 9 years ago and never disappointed us. Every time we come back we always got a dilema to order the previous one that we know it’s very good, or try the new one. Fifty – fifty is our compromise.

One thing that always satisfy my taste bud: the gorgeous BBQ Beef with special sauce. This dishes they call “The Crying Tiger”. It’s definitely one of the nicest dish they have. Not just ordinary barbecued meat.

The Gorgeous Crying Tiger

Yes, I agree the price is not the cheapest. But with the premium vantage point, it’s definitely worth the treat. Remember, sometime you get dissapointed to pay such premium meal with only half decent food and very stingy portion, well, try it yourself, you will find the food is really also premium in taste and quality with such generous content.

Want more ? Check out their website at http://www.thaifoon.com.au/ for further detail and offer, including perhaps  free parking !

7 Spatha for Thai Foon

Rose Gonzaga did that well, when we force her to reveal her secret recipe below. Take note and print it  before this post will be forcefully remove after cease and desist letter from her solicitor

Tasty Spinach Dip

Tasty Spinach Dip Recipe

Ingredient

• one red onion
• a tub of sour cream (~250 grams)
• “French Onion” Simmer soup from Continental
• a box of frozen chopped spinach

Spinach Dip Ingredients

Equipment

Stove, Simmer pan, Knife, Spoon

Method

1. 

   Chopped Red Onion

   Defrost the spinach (From your supermarket fridge, don’t put it back to the freezer, just let it thaw while you are ready to cook…)
2. Chopped the red onion into small pieces. Half should be enough.
3. Make the simmer soup. Put all sachet into a simmer pan and put only 200 ml/cc of water (instead of the recommended 1 liters). The reason is you don’t want the dip sauce become to watery or runny. If it turn out to be too thick you can put additional water later.
4. Put the chopped onion into the soup and heat the pan until it almost boiled. Stir the soup gently to blend the onion flavor into the soup..
5. Squeeze the excess water from the spinach and put them as well into the simmer pan into the soup. Stir well.
   The heat from the pan will help molten the excess frost dust.
6. Put now the sour cream , one spoon at a time until all thick enough and well blended.
7. Remove from heat and serve cold.

French Onion Simmer Soup with Red Onion and Chopped Spinach

Serving Suggestion

• Get a bread roll and serve the dip on it (pictured)
• Enjoy it with your favorite corn or potato chip (pictured)
• Put it as your tasty salad dressing

And don’t forget, do not tell anybody about this webpage. Otherwise they will know your secret.

Enjoy your break !

Recipe by Rose Gonzaga.

7 Spatha for Tasty Spinach Dip

Gorgeous Egg Dish of Omelette

Some people have negative approach when talking about eating egg. But most of it will be because they don’t know the real value of egg, Egg is one of those “complete food” that not only gives  11 different vitamins and minerals, high quality protein, healthy fats (including omega-3) and important antioxidants, but also tasty and easy to cook into variety of dish. For more information about egg and it’s nutritional value: just check here.

Let’s get into this omelette noodle.

Omelette Noodle Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 eggs (free-range is recommended)
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper
• few spoons of milk (optional)
• cooking oil or butter

Equipment

Stove, a frying pan, spatula, knife, bowl and fork (to beat the egg)

Method

1. Make the “Dough”

• Crack all 4 eggs into a bowl. Make sure the bowl is not too full, if it is get a little bit bigger one
• Add (optional, only if you like it) 2 spoon of milk into the bowl, to give just a hint of creamyness. (If your eggs are not that big, maybe 1 spoon is enough, you don’t want the “dough” become watery)
• Add salt and pepper to taste. (don’t make it too salty !)
• Beat the egg with a fork (or if you have hand mixer, it will be useful – but simple fork with do). Make sure the “dough” is mixed properly (become only 1 color, the white and the yolk mixed together) and you get a bubbly “dough”

2. Prepare the Frying Pan

• Heat a frying pan on your stove with medium heat
• make ready your favorite cooking oil. I would recommend butter to give you maximum taste. If you don’t realize, butter is healthier than margarine contrary to popular belief. Read this healthy cooking oil article for further info.

3. Make a stack of thin omelette

• Put your butter/oil on the frying pan only on thin layer. Use spatula to even them up.
• Wait until the oil heat up
• Pour small amount of your “dough” above enough to cover the whole frying pan, but not too thick
• Immediately flip the omelette on the other side once form a layer.
• Take it off from the frying pan once you have the brownish color all around (see picture below)

Thin Omelette

• Repeat making thin omelette above until you finish the dough
• Put it on a stack, layer after layer as pictured

Stack of Thin Omelette

4. Make The Noodle

• Tidy up your stack of thin omelette to more less align each other
• Roll into one side (as pictured below)

Roll the Stack Of Thin Omelette

• Then cut with sharp knife a narrow slice to make it like a noodle (see picture)

Cut Thin Slices Of The Omelette Roll

And You are Done !

Some serving suggestion of Omelette Noodle

• Serve it with thin slice of tomato (as pictured – maybe more of it) as one dish
• You can just eat this dish as snack while watching TV (kids would like it)
• Serve it as a topping of other rice or noodle dish – it will be good addition as decorative feature and boost the taste
• Stuff it inside your sandwich
• Just eat this with steam rice like I do ! One of my favorite breakfast !

You know why people like omelette? One of the reason is the smell and taste of slightly burnt egg on both side of omelette. And on Omelette Noodle you are not only have 2 side of surface of that tasty burnt side, you have heaps of the, So, Omelette Noodle maximize this tasty bid of egg dish.

Not difficult, isn’t it ? Enjoy the Omelette Noodle !

7 Spatha for Omelette Noodle

The Bird Nest

The Bird Nest: Crunchy Egg Noodle with Seafood

The name of the menu card is “Crunchy Egg Noodle With Seafood” but it really remind me of a bird nest. Beautiful setup. The deep fried crunchy noodle form a circle with thicker edge, similar like a donut only the middle it’s not really a hole. The “topping” is of some seafood ingredients: prawn, squid, fish ball, mixed with a serve of stir fry veggies.

The serve size is really generous. Even a big man like me has a bit struggle to finish it off. Really value for your money as you can share this meal with your spouse or friend and still satisfy both.

Although it was deep fried, you cannot really feel the oily part. So, don’t worry about excessive fat from the oil. It is well drained. Eat it with sliced chili or chili sauce accompany with hot chinese tea, this dished will satisfy your taste bud and made your day!

The Restaurant

Saigon BBQ, Homebush West

When I say “takeaway” above, actually it’s not quite precise. The restaurant is quite decent size hosting around 15 tables. The name of the restaurant is “Saigon BBQ” . Yes, it’s a Vietnamese style cuisine located on the suburb of Homebush West. The address is 8/90 The Crescent, Homebush West, around 12km west from Sydney CBD.

8/90 The Crescent, Homebush West, photo: Google Map

It’s literally just a cross the street from Flemington station (hence, Flemington market) on the south side of the railway (not the market side). So, taking the train could be a straight forward idea.

It’s just a stroll away from Hudson Park Golf Course and it is in the middle of local shopping precinct. So, there are plenty or parking although it’s quite busy with the locals, but you will find one without sweating.

After meal, you can do a little bit Asian grocery shopping around the area.

Of course as a Vietnamese restaurant, you could order the usual Vietnamese beef noodle, Pork Chop with Fried Rice, and all other vietnamese meal and dessert. But for me, “The Bird Nest” was the highlight.

It’s not that difficult to make this dish at home, although a little hurdle will be to have a big wok full of oil to make the crunchy noodle.

6 Spatha for The Bird Nest

Photo from http://outbacksteakhouse.com.au/

Believe it or not, this is just the humble onion. The official name is even registered trademarked: Bloomin’ Onion® one of the signature dish from Outback Steakhouse Australia

The meal comes very quickly. Within 5 minutes of order, this magnificent meal has been placed on the center of our table.

Well, since it was deep fried, we cannot say that this one is the healthiest meal on the planet but both our 1 yr and 5 yr old eat this one without any complaint. The first cut is a bit struggle as we don’t know exactly what will be the easiest method to start eating it without really breaking it too much. But after few second, we just take the dip sauce a side, and cut it from the center as if it was a birthday cake.

The rest is history, within the next 10 minutes all mouths on the table are busy chewing this tasty starters. The spiciness will bite you a bit since we are actually eating onion, but I find it really pleasing with a sip of Coke on the rock to sooth you mouth – then keep eating it until none left!  The dipping sauce itself is not really special, probably just ordinary cheesy mayonnaise, but enough to complement the onion and make it a beautiful appetizer.

I would imagine, making it home made will consume some considerable amount of time to handle the onion and make it blooming. Since this has been a commercialized meal, then Outback must have had a special tools to cut open the onion, put the crumb/flour and deep fried it within minutes.  I guess this dish will also the most profitable product with practically only Onion and crumbs as the main cost.

You should try it yourself !

This has been a review for Bloomin’ Onion® from Outback Steakhouse Australia : A true Outback original. Our special onion is hand-carved by a dedicated bloomologist, cooked until golden and ready to dip into our spicy signature bloom sauce.  On your table for $9.95 as per November 2009.

7 Spatha for Blooming Onion®