The cooking, eating and travel blog of a hungry blogger from Sydney, Australia featuring original recipes, interviews and articles on all things food @ Not Quite Nigella

Category Archives: Singaporean & Malaysian

Albee’s Kitchen Malaysian Delights, Campsie

albees-kitchen-campsie

“Let’s go for an adventure!” I say to Mr NQN one afternoon. We are well blessed with an unusually sunny day after what seems like weeks of rain shining down on us. And as my parent have loaned us their car while they were away we feel like we should go for a drive to seek out newer pastures to eat. A reader has told me of Albee’s Kitchen, a small eatery in Campsie which is said to serve food whilst being a little challenged in the glamour stakes.

albees-kitchen-campsie

“Why are we eating dinner so early? You sound like your dad” Mr NQN says to me as we make our way over there at about 3:30pm. “We’ll end up eating at 4pm” he points out quite rightly. My excuse is that I’ve skipped lunch in order to eat here and I’m very hungry indeed. Or perhaps that’s what driving their car has done to me. Gulp, perhaps he is right…

“What a hoon!” I say as a grey headed 60 year old gentleman in a souped up car does burnouts down Claremont Street and screeches past us followed by his mate of the same age. Yes it seems like I am my father.

albees-kitchen-campsie

“Is that Marmite chicken?” I can see going through one of the three menus. I had seen Marmite crab at another restaurant months before and was dissuaded from ordering it by my dining companions so I always vowed to try Marmite something. There’s a worn plastic covered colourful booklet with pictures plus a single laminated sheet with food specials and what it seems to be set meals i.e. the mains served with rice and there a laminated page of drinks on offer too. That’s not even counting the items stuck to the wall. On the right hand wall are names of a number of dishes and on the left are framed pictures of dishes.

I know choosing a dish based on an odd name isn’t the wisest choice but we choose a couple of dishes based on this including the aforementioned Marmite chicken, butter cereal king prawns as well as favourite such as char kway teow and a seafood and pork hand roll that the waitress recommended. For the last item we went for the set meal version which at $10 has one roll but also a bowl of chicken rice. I wash my hands in the bathroom which is through the kitchen and listen as the woks are going full steam ahead with the steady clunk clunk clunk of the metal wok scoop against the wok bowl . As I return to the table our first dish is ready.

Cendol $4

The straws given are fat bubble tea ones but the crushed ice is quite coarse so as a result you suck up a lot of ice. Most of this drink is ice with some coconut milk, palm sugar syrup and green tapioca noodles. What ends up happening is that because there is a lot of ice the green noodles get trapped between the ice. What is liquid though is good although there isn’t a great deal of it.

albees-kitchen-campsie

Rambutan and pineapple ice drink $3.50

This drink is not particularly sweet or full bodied, particularly if you’re trying it after the rich and sweet cendol. The rambutan comes from a tin and the pineapple juice can only be ever so slightly tasted (whereas pineapple is usually such a strong flavour) and there are small chunks of pineapple at the bottom. The overwhelming flavour is of the rambutan syrup from the tin.

albees-kitchen-campsie

Marmite Chicken $13.80

Click here to read the full story

51 comments | May 5th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella

Bonta Vita, Sydney

When I first heard of Bonta Vita, I knew it was the kind of place that I had to save for M and her boys. It’s a Malaysian Italian restaurant serving Rizza or Roti Pizza (pronounced Ritza) were their star item. I had also read about the Rice Dice where rolling the dice allows you to decide what you’re eating that night and if you happen to roll the same numbers, your table gets free gelato so I knew that the idea of winning a dessert would appeal enormously to them. Indeed S has fantasies of living for free here just eating dessert (yes he of the never ending dessert tank).

BYO torch for menu reading

It’s part of the Lumiere building, where we walk past the colourful fountain which has everyone oohing and aahing with the changing light colours. S says in hushed tones “Mummy, can we afford this place?”. We walk in and it’s nicely outfitted. We’re shown our booth which is actually a booth that has another table added to it which is either a good thing or a bad thing as everyone feels quite apart but as we learn later, the narrow booth table requires this in order to fit our food. And it also smells pervadingly of fried chicken owing to the KFC next door and is incredibly dark so we resort to using a shared torch to read the menu, not something we ever have issues with so hopefully you’ll forgive the less than stellar photographs that we got. Our waiter brings over four tealights which don’t really help. Some of the lights are turned on, but most remain out for the whole time we are there.

I inquire about the Rice Dice and the waiter says that that was from an old menu item but after some discussion he brings us the menu and I read out the instructions. It’s different from when Ffichiban visited, quite different in fact that there are actually now 3 dice you have to roll and now you have to order an entree, main and dessert. When FFichiban visited it was 2 dice and you just ordered a rice dish and a side. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that rolling a triple is a lot harder than rolling a double and you are possibly up for pretty expensive meal with rules such as “if you don’t obey the dice, you must buy a round of drinks for the whole table” and with their drinks being $8.90, it seems like the odds are definitely stacked in the house’s favour. Your 3 course meal could cost you anything between $38 to $69.

Apricot Moon and Suai Suai $8.90 each

Instead we order what we like. The menu is broken down into section from Rizzas, Malaysian food and Italian food. We start with drinks. I’m intrigued by the Apricot Moon drink described as “a unique Egyptian blend, especially made for us using apricot that is mixed with secret recipes that takes 2 days of preparation to be served to our customers”. I’m hopeful and at $8.90 it sounds like it might be quite special indeed. One sip and instantly we taste dried apricots. We can figure that it’s made by soaking dried apricots for 2 days in hot water and then pureeing them. I know because I’ve done it for an apricot sorbet and it tasted exactly like this. The Suai Suai is plain yogurt mixed with kiwi, vanilla gelato and a dash of honey blended with ice which tastes like a honey smoothie. This also doesn’t quite reach the heights of the description.

Rizza #1

Click here to read the full story

41 comments | June 13th, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Ginger & Spice, Neutral Bay, for Chinese New Year dinner

First of all I’d like thank everyone that voted for me for the Well Fed Awards. I was nominated for Best Food Blog-City and Best Food Blog-Post for my Freeganism story. I didn’t win either (check out Well Fed’s announcement of the winners here) but congratulations to the winners and thankyou to Well Fed for creating the awards!

I can genuinely say that it was truly an honour to be nominated -for I didn’t realise that I would get nominated in a single category let alone two. I was too scared to see if anyone would nominate me (I’m a chicken that way) but my husband would read out the lovely comments where readers suggested my site never thinking that I would even make the final cut when compared to the other sites discussed, nor did I ever think I would get 2 out of 4 Australian nominations (unfortunately no Aussies picked up an award this year). Perhaps I am destined to be the Kate Winslet of the food blog award world I joke!

But seriosuly, again I’d like to thank everyone that nominated and voted for me. Your support means a great deal to me and motivates me to make this even bigger, better and more creative every day. This blog is a testament to how much I value you.

Lots of love,

Lorraine

xxx

And now onto the story…

As I’ve mentioned there was a bit of clash this year with Chinese New Year and Australia Day. So because of this, we were celebrating Chinese New Year on Tuesday the 27th of January instead of the 26th. No matter, more meals and more spread out. It was a win win! We chose Ginger & Spice because we wanted to have some Singaporean and Malaysian food without trekking out too far (my father and uncle dislike traveling for their food, in fact getting them to cross the Harbour Bridge was far enough as far as they were concerned). It’s freezing inside with the air conditioning being turned up to Singapore shopping mall levels.

Ginger & Spice is also interestingly a favourite place of uber chef Tetsuya Wakuda, his image on the wall.

Yusheng Raw Fish Prosperity Salad $78

We’ve ordered this dish ahead as it’s a special Chinese NY dish that A told us about at the Multicultural Australia Day party the day before. They had told my mum about it when she booked but she dismissed it as it was a Raw Fish Salad. However after a bit of convincing she was interested again. We ordered the small as my parents and my uncle dislike raw fish.

Its’ brought to the table on a large platter and consists of shredded radish, sweet potato, carrot, sashimi salmon, ginger, chili, coriander and spring onions. They scatter a peanut sesame mix over it, then a sweet plum sauce and then finally some crackers (deep fried dumpling wrappers).

Flurry of salad tossing!

The whole idea is that you grab your chopsticks and toss the salad together digging your chopsticks deep and getting salad from the bottom. The higher you toss the better and more luck. And despite their initial fear, my parents and my uncle enjoy this salad.

Whole Hainanese Chicken $34.80

Click here to read the full story

26 comments | January 30th, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

Satay Delight at UNSW Kensington

Have you ever known one of those permanent University students? One that drifts from course to course collecting degrees and PhD’s like trophies. I know some but I could never be one. I was always itching to get out and ready to do the job rather than theorise about it. I can understand the appeal of the safety of a university but to me, studying for exams is something nightmares are made out of. As soon as I got my degree, I was gone in a flash.

University food is pretty dismal at the best of times – as I was a vegetarian at the time I seem to recall melted cheese on everything, but if you’re a student at UNSW there is one place where you can find solace, in a spicy bowl of Laksa, noodle soup or Beef Rendang. I am such a fan of their Beef Rendang that I compare it against all other and inevitably others fail.

It’s 11.45am and there is already a queue which comes in waves, sometimes it is empty, other times it stretches beyond the shopfront. They’re either queuing for bain marie’d dishes or at the noodle station for some noodle soup or Laksa. The Laksa is always a good bet here and today is the Penang Laksa so we order this.

We also order a chicken green curry and some soy sauce chicken and a satay stick.

Click here to read the full story

21 comments | August 31st, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Makan at Alice’s Malaysian and Singaporean food, Thornleigh

Does it seem like to you that there are suddenly now numerous places to eat Malaysian /Singaporean food? It seems only a few years ago that there were only 2 or 3 restaurants. Walking through Chinatown and World Square, it looks like many more have sprung up. Not a bad thing, you understand of course. Quite good in fact for a Malaysian/Singaporean food lover like myself. A little further afield, tucked away behind Thornleigh station off West Pennant Hills Road lies a small restaurant that has been offering Singaporean and Malaysian Hawker style goodies for a few years now. At almost an hour’s drive away, it’s not exactly nearby to us so we made it a Sunday adventure to drive out to Thornleigh and check out some other foodie eats and enjoy the drive to the outskirts of Sydney.

Chicken and Prawn Laksa ($13.80)

Arriving at 6pm when it opens, we’re greeted with a welcoming sight. It’s rapidly filling with Singaporean/Malaysian clientèle (always a good sign for authenticity). We order a Roti Canai with Lamb curry ($11.80); Chicken and Prawn Laksa ($13.80) and a bowl of Chicken Rice ($2.50) and for dessert Ice Kacang ($5.50). Alice, who takes our order is friendly and happy to recommend dishes. The Laksa arrives quickly, within 5 minutes, and we dive in. There’s a mix of Hokkien noodles (my favourite) and vermicelli noodles (my husband’s favourite) as well pieces of soft chicken, large prawns, tofu cubes and fish cake. A scarlet orange pool of oil floats across the top and diving in to retrieve the long noodles risks a scarlet splash on your clothes but it’s well worth it. The taste is rich, creamy and subtle, not as pungent as some Laksa and the beautifully soft and toothsome chicken (from the Hainan chicken rice) is a particular highlight.