I love vegan food – there, I said it. But I feel like this turnabout is less due to any personal development on my part, and more attributable to the fact that vegan food in Sydney is a little magical. Ramen, Pizza, Laksa – you name it, and they can do a vegan version that tastes miraculously similar to its animal-containing alternative, and probably taste better to boot. I will take a little credit however; it wasn’t so long ago that I was denouncing vegan food in favour of fried chicken.
I was craving some easy sushi, and seeing as Sushi Hotaru has been leaving me wanting more often than not these days, I decided to expand my horizons a little. Armed with an old recommendation for Sushi Wow in Newtown, I decided to get over my mental block for the name – seriously, what kind of name is Sushi Wow? – and actually try it based on its merits as a sushi train. When I first walked in, I was quite impressed (wowed?). But it’s not the interior that caught my attention; the place basically looks like your standard sushi train restaurant, albeit a clean and welcoming one. What I was impressed with was the sushi train itself, which tottered…
31 The BoulevardeStrathfield, NSW 2135http://maenamlaothai.com.au/ What’s better than Thai food? Clearly the answer is being able to get good Thai food without having to travel far. Oddly specific I know, but I really do have a hatred of trying to get around Sydney, and that’s especially the case when it’s been about 40 degrees all weekend. There’s plenty of Thai offerings around the Strathfield area, but the most popular one of the lot is Maenam Lao and Thai. I was initially worried about our chances of grabbing a seat in the small space, but as it turns out, they have a larger dining room past the kitchen – one that I think is far superior to the cramped and noisy…
Being back in Melbourne after a whole year of Covid restrictions is no insignificant event. It’s the longest I’ve ever been away from my family or friends, and just thinking about all the restaurants I didn’t get to eat at absolutely breaks my heart. So between spending as much time as I can with my loved ones, I’ve had the difficult job of deciding on where to eat in my short week-and-a-half in Melbourne. Thankfully K had a good idea of what he wanted to eat; having been in strict lockdown for about 3 months, he hasn’t had Japanese food for almost as long, and that’s how we ended up at Ima Project Café for brunch.
I have a personal vendetta against course-based fine dining that Sydney stills seems to be so very fond of. As far as I’m concerned, 4 dishes served in procession is just not a good use of a few hundred dollarydoos, not when there’s the option of a table-full of share plates, or dozens of exquisite nibbles served degustation style. Thankfully, although the high-end restaurants in Sydney tend to prefer stuffy, traditional-styled dining, there are a few places that eschew that old-fashioned habit, and Ms G’s was one of the first in the city to do so.
Believe it or not, almost three years after moving to Sydney, I’m still looking for a go-to Japanese restaurant. Although I have about half a dozen good ramen restaurants under my belt by now, I’m still yet to find a cheap and cheerful place that serves casual Japanese food – the kind of place you go to on a weeknight when you don’t feel up to cooking. My search today took me out to Parramatta, to a popular sushi restaurant named Kanzo. Based on reviews, I had expected a small and fairly low-key restaurant, but what actually greeted me was a takeaway shop with some rickety stables set up next door, in the vestibule of a run-down shopping mall. Still,…