Category Archives: Vietnamese

Chi Chi Asian Kitchen & Bar, Canley Heights

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Whenever it’s raining, I always see rainbows as a sign of something good to come. Symbolic perhaps of a lesson learnt after a hardship or a silver lining in a cloud. Rainbow themed anything from cakes, biscuits and cupcakes adorn my blog and when I see a sign saying “Double Rainbows All the Way Across the Sky” beaming at me from a yellow neon sign as soon as we walk into Chi Chi Asian Kitchen, I see it as the reward at the end of a long drive.

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I was with my usual partners in crime Mr NQN, Miss America and Queen Viv. The latter two are the friends that best like an adventure to a far flung suburb and on this torrentially rainy Sydney Saturday, Mr NQN and I bundled into the car avoiding fat drops of rain and picked up Miss America from Potts Point and Queen Viv from St Peters and went on our way to Canley Heights (on the way buying twelve blocks of butter but that’s nothing new). We were running a touch late and perhaps we were over optimistic with the travel time to Canley Heights. The rain doesn’t help traffic conditions and Chi Chi isn’t actually on Canley Vale road as the address says but we stumble upon it on Derby Street while trying to find a park in this busy little suburb.

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Inside, it’s quite different from the large number of Vietnamese eateries that line Canley Vale road. There’s a large Manga style wall complete with a waving lucky panda alongside an exposed brick wall and pink metal cut outs of pandas in sunglasses partition off the marble bar from the main restaurant. They tell us that Chi Chi just means chic and the idea was to introduce a Melbourne sort of vibe to Canley Vale. One of the owners Les Huynh of Chi Chi also owns Blue Ginger in Balmain. Every table is taken this evening and I’m glad that they take bookings. Service is very friendly and they take time to explain things to us and give us recommendations.

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Liquid Pavlova $18 (left) and Hello Chi Chi $8

It’s funny how one ingredient can evoke a whole dish. The passionfruit in this cocktail and fluffy top brought forth memories of pavlova immediately. My choice was the Hello Chi Chi which was a delicious mocktail tasting of sweet strawberry and lychee. The only complaint was that there was a lot of ice in both drinks and they were gone rather quickly within a few gulps.

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Spanner crab, pomelo, caramelised coconut, galangal and peanuts on betel leaf $4.80 each

It’s a short wait for the entrees that arrive all at once. We start with the two betel leaf items which are always crowd pleasers. The spanner crab, pomelo, caramelised coconut, galangal and peanuts on the betel leaf are perfectly balanced, with just the right amount of sour pomelo and rich, sweet caramelised coconut never overpowering the crab.

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Smoked trout, galangal, roasted chilli and fried shallots on betel leaf $3.90 each

We follow the crab with the smoked trout (on their recommendation) and it’s also good with the strong smoked trout flavour dominating but out of the two betel leaf toppings, the crab ones were just that touch more balanced.

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Son-in-law eggs with house XO sauce $5.90

I originally found Chi Chi from Tina’s blog Bitemeshowme and I recall that she was smitten by these on her blog and I’m in total agreement. They’re simple enough, boiled eggs lightly dredged in cornflour and deep fried so that the outside gets a crispish coating. Inside the yolk is runny and golden and topped with house made XO sauce, that powerhouse spicy sauce flavoured with dried scallops and pork. “I could have eaten a dozen” Miss America says to eating lifting the last mouthful to his mouth.

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Steamed dumplings of seafood and vegetables with ginger soya sauce (5) $11.90

On the drive here Miss America had made several requests for us to stop in Ashfield for dumplings. It was rainy weather after all and that means holing up with a plate of steaming dumplings. These were filled with seafood and vegetables with an egg pastry wrapper. Drizzled on top was a ginger soy sauce. They weren’t bad but they also weren’t very distinctive in flavour in terms of the seafood and I couldn’t tell what seafood it contained.

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Crispy skin baby chicken with house satay sauce $20.90

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Great Aunty 3, Enmore

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From the age of zero to about seven or eight, I had no concept of first cousins once removed, second cousins, great aunts or uncles. To me, everyone that was part of my family no matter how far was my “cousin” and the elder females “auntie” and elder males “uncle.” When I finally clued onto the fact that there were all sorts of levels of aunts, uncles and cousins, I felt silly. Of course there were. But in Asian culture, every older female friend of your mum and dad’s is your aunty.

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Great Aunty 3 on Enmore Road in Enmore serves up Vietnamese Food-street food to be specific. It’s borne a tale that sounding more and more familiar lately. Owned by couple Michael and Mai Li, he worked in the world of big bank I.T. and she worked in financial services. They found that there was something missing and found their calling through food. Michael’s father was a chef and they owned a cafe in Kingsgrove where Michael used to help to flip burgers, make shakes and coffee at the tender age of nine. Now they serve Vietnamese banh mi rolls, rice paper wraps and pho.

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The decor is inviting and there is a welcome sight of the banh mi station. All of their breads and pate are made in house and there is a choice of bread or wholemeal rolls for the banh mi while colourful rice paper rolls line the top display. And who is Great Aunty 3? It’s Michael’s 76 year old grandmother whose image features on their website. She was given the number as she is the second eldest in her family (the eldest child is given position number 2, the second oldest is position 3 while apparently the number 1 position is for the parents).

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The menu is simple and on the blackboard and comprises of a variety banh mi and fresh rice paper rolls alongside fresh fruit shakes and Vietnamese iced coffee. The prices, well they’re nothing short of fabulous and although it is small, takeaway is also an option for these portable little foods. Today I’m catching up with friend Reem and her gorgeous baby A and we take a seat at the table opposite the red scooter in deep, comfortable leather arm chairs.

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Vietnamese coffee $4

I start with a Vietnamese coffee, strong and sweet with sweetened condensed milk and ice. Michael hands it over and asks if it is too sweet. It’s sweet but reminds me of my trip to Vietnam. It’s a humid, hot Sydney day and iced is the ideal way to have it.

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Rice paper rolls 3 for $6.80

Reem and I try a few of the rice paper rolls and we go for the vegetarian prawn, duck and chicken & mango. We get two sauces, a vegetarian one and the other sauce with fish in it so that we can see the difference between the two. The vegetarian prawn has the taste and texture of real prawn, the duck is rich and saucey but my favourite was the chicken and mango rice paper roll which had a great range of flavours.

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Berry fruit shake $6 or ($10 with a banh mi as part of a combo deal)

For the banh mi, it wasn’t hard to go past the very recommended filling of slow cooked caramelised pork belly cooked in coconut juice. I decided to try a fruit shake as there was a combo deal where for $10 you got a banh mi roll, a humungous fruit shake and a voucher for a free weekly movie at the nearby DVD store. The berry fruit shake was very refreshing and not overly sweet as it has mainly just fresh fruit and ice in it.

Caramelised pork belly banh mi $6 or ($10 as part of combo deal)

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Yen’s Vietnamese, Waterloo

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Sometimes, when you’ve spent all your pennies on things (for Queen Viv: an overseas trip, for us: home renovations and a new computer) you may want to eat out but you don’t want to spend a small fortune. Which let’s be honest in Sydney, is quite easy to do. So I consult my oracle, aka Queen Viv, and she suggested Yen’s Vietnamese in Waterloo. It’s her go to for a quick lunch or a quick dinner.

We’ve driven on this street so many times and hadn’t even noticed it. It’s busy this evening and people are huddled over steaming bowls of pho or heaped plates of freshly cooked noodles and seafood. We take a seat at a table for four but it is underneath the air conditioner so when another table leaves, we take up residence there. The menu is just over one page long and features almost sixty dishes with pho, bun, noodle soup, fried noodles, seafood, beef chicken and pork dishes. There are some specials also on the walls (along with apologies for a $1 price increase) and the service is warm and lovely although the temperature inside is cold.

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Fresh coconut juice $2.50

Our order came out quickly. With just the right amount of sweetness, the coconut juice came with large pieces of young coconut meat and a refreshing juice.

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Rice paper rolls 4 for $7

This was an order for Karen who is a celiac. With the amount of soy and home made chicken stock they couldn’t guarantee that the menu items were suitable for her. The waitress was so lovely and went out of her way to make sure that the rolls were gluten free. The next night, lured by the promise of more addictive pho, we visited with my parents Rose and Ronald and this post is made up of both visits. The rice paper rolls  are soft and made fresh to order. The chicken and prawn filling is delicious and it comes with vermicelli noodles and a hoi sin and garlic based dipped sauce with a little sprinkling of ground peanuts.

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Chim Cut Chien 3 for $9

As Queen Viv is a regular she knows the menu well and suggests that we order the quail. Marinated and crispy fried so that you can practically eat the whole thing and nibble on the larger bones, you squeeze some lemon juice in the salt and pepper mixture and then dip the quail in. There is an explosion of flavours, salt, tangy and soy and we wish we had ordered the serving of six.

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Banh Khot 7 for $9

The banh khot, usually one of my favourite items come here less crispy and larger than what I’ve had. The taste is very much of coconut milk with bits of pork mince and prawns and whilst they’re pleasant, they’re not the little crispy sensations that I’ve had in the past.

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Pho ba ga $9.50

The pho comes as a large bowl filled with rice noodles and we took the waitress’s recommendation of the beef and chicken pho. It comes with the regulation bean sprouts, purple basil and chilli and the soup itself has a generous amount of noodles and meat with thin slices of white onion. The smell of star anise and the herbs hits you as soon as it is set down and we go back for bowl after bowl of this wonderfully delicately fragranced soup with the slippery noodles.

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Go Kho Gung $18

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Red Lantern On Riley, East Sydney

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Jet-lag can manifest itself in many different ways. You could be slumped in your soup at 9:30pm at night. A few hours later you could be wide awake at 3am ready to take on the world but keenly aware that the rest of the world is asleep. For me, I was living in a twilight state, head in a bubble with everything going past me as if I were underwater. It was a Thursday night and we were in Christie’s car. Head in a cloud, I  didn’t realise that we were headed in the wrong direction for Red Lantern. We were headed towards the original Red Lantern in Crown Street rather than the newly hatched version in Riley Street. Correcting ourselves, we made a quick u-turn and were on our way.

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Unlike the original Red Lantern, Red Lantern on Riley Street near the William street end focuses more of the French Vietnamese aspect of Vietnamese cuisine. Subtly signposted, the interior is chic with beautiful hand made tiles that reportedly take four months to make. The walls are covered with a subtle floral rose wallpaper and it is done in colonial chic. Pictures of his family, including a black and white matinee-style photo of Luke Nguyen’s dad sits pride of place. There are booths to the right and tables to the left of the restaurant. There are some Red Lantern classics as well as some new items, some of which have a French influence.

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A photo of Luke’s father

Service on the whole is friendly and charming, although the staff member who called to confirm the booking was brusque. Luke, newly back from an overseas trip filming, is in this evening bringing plates of food to diners. Even though it opened at the beginning of the month, it is busy and once it hits 8:30pm, the restaurant is full.

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Diep Chien vui Xa Ot $4 each

The first entree,  the MSC certified scallops were pan-seared with a tamari, citrus, brown sugar, lemongrass and chilli oil dressing and topped with a chiffonade of kaffir lime and mint. The scallops were tender and oh so fat and just barely seared so that the texture was creamy and balanced with the sweet, fresh dressing.

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Cha voi Pate $18

I have a slight obsession with banh mi, those pate and pork filled rolls. This is a deconstructed version featuring house made charcuterie. There is a crab and pork terrine, strong in rich crab and a pate which is strong and balanced well with the pickles, lotus root chips and pickles. We do need more bread than three pieces especially for the strong pate and another three pieces are brought out.

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Banh Xeo $28

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Red Lantern, Surry Hills

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What do they say is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again to get the same result. Over the years we had tried to get into Red Lantern and every time it was booked out. Granted we were trying fairly last minute on the busy nights but I was determined to get there eventually. When friend Ute suggested that we try it I repeated our tale of woe. I suspected the queues would be much worse now the owner Luke Nguyen has his own television show but Ute came back with a booking-we had a table there from 6pm-8pm!

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Inside the restaurant, the walls are black and red and the lighting is dark. Items like a North Vietnamese radio sit on a bookshelf with the brand name “Red Lantern” written on the side. Vietnamese artefacts and tin robots sit on shelves. Service is lovely, our waitress steers us towards her favourites at our request and since we only have a two hour window we order and then proceed to talk and talk and talk.

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Chef Luke Nguyen

Seeing my camera the waitress mentions “Luke in the house tonight” and we look at each other. I guess I had presumed that once you get a television show your time in your own restaurant is minimal but then we see him bringing out dishes from the kitchen. “That’s very uncheffy” Ute says as he we overhear him asking a table how they found their food was and removes their plates.

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Banh Tom $16.00

Luke brings over our entrees. “Aunty 5’s rice cakes” are squares of chewy, sticky rice cakes that are served with pieces of tiger prawn, caramelised pork, pork floss and shallot oil. Ute asks Luke about these and he explains that he fell in love with them during his time in Vietnam. When it came to putting these on the menu he sought the advice as to which of his aunts made the best rice cakes and it was apparently auntie five out of the twelve aunts whose recipe inspired this dish. “These are just what I needed” Ute says and she is a big fan of the sticky, slightly crispy rice cakes and the fluffy, sweet pork floss sitting on top.

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Goi vit $26

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