One of our many random dining excursions led us to a really cheap Vietnamese restaurant in Marrickville. Located at 304 Illawara Road, Pho Bac is nestled between a few other Vietnamese restaurants, so make sure you check the signs before entering!

The food was good and great value for money. Mains range from $7.50 – $25 and the portions were just right. I’ve been here for both lunch and dinner and they can get really busy. However, The restaurant is quite small and can get cramped during peak hour.The service isn’t too bad, the ambience at night is quite warm and they don’t have the horrible fluorescent lighting you can expect from many Asian restaurants!

Although I’d go back to Pho Bac, Thanh Binh in Cabramatta is still my favourite Vietnamese restaurant in Sydney! Here’s a little sneak peak of a few dishes we sampled. As usual, I will be adding more photos in future after a few more visits to Pho Bac!

One of our frequent haunts in Sydney is a specialty dumpling shop in Ashfield. That’s what they do best – dumplings, dumplings and more dumplings! This is the place you’d go to satisfy any dumpling cravings you may have. Located at 337 on Liverpool Road, New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant is the joint you should look out for if you’re ever in the area.

This is a great place to take friends for a shared meal as the food comes in small plates. It’s almost like yum-cha, just minus the steaming hot trolleys. The dumplings are made fresh on site and on order, and they also have a wide variety of other Chinese dishes on offer. As this is a typical Chinese ‘fast-food’ joint, don’t expect great service or ambience! It’s noisy, busy and expect to share a table with other patrons!

My favourite dumplings from here are the dangerously scalding hot Pork Soup Dumplings. Encased in a doughy shell is a mixture of pork mince with chives and hot soup. The trick to eating these dumplings without suffering any third degree burns is to pop the dough with one chopstick first to release the hot steam before putting one in your mouth. One must eat these with caution!

I have learnt the hard way with these. They look rather cute and harmless but looks are deceiving! The dough they use on these dumplings is thicker than the usual rice flour version – it’s actually bread-like and chewy. They are first steamed, then lightly pan-fried to brown the base and make it crispy on the bottom which gives it a slightly toasted flavour.

They serve many types of dumplings here. Another version we ordered were the steamed crab and pork dumplings. These are very similar to the ones you’d get as part of a typical yum-cha set and has the original rice-flour casing which is softer and lighter than the casing of the pork soup dumplings. The fillings in these were pretty tasty too but had less of a ‘chivey’ taste compared to the previous ones.

The following dish was pretty interesting. Deep fried salted and spiced fish – served cold. This tasted like they used the Chinese Five-Spice mix as a marinade. The most distinctive taste I could pull from the flavour was Star-Anise. I quite liked the taste of this dish but would have preferred it if this was served hot rather than cold. Tasted like leftover KFC in a sense, besides we were looking forward to something hot.

One dish that I have ordered more than once from here is the Crispy Egg Noodles with Pork, Shitake Mushrooms and Bamboo Shoot sauce. Probably not the healthiest dish, but on the taste scale this one is probably high up on it. The egg noodles are deep fried to a crispy perfection then the sauce is poured over the top – as you have probably already put two and two together, this is a very oily dish!

This next dish was nothing like what was described in the menu. It was called satay lamb, but tasted nothing like satay! It was very garlicky, cooked in a rich soy-sauce and was served with semi-raw onions. The meat pieces were too big for chopsticks (one had to tug with their teeth!) and overall the dish was way too oily. However the lamb was tender and I think this would be better served with rice as a main.

Watch this space for more dishes to come in the future!

Located across the road from Balmain Town Hall, Kazbah serves up delicious Middle Eastern, Moroccan and North African Cuisine. The flavours are rich, the servings are generous, and the ambience is warm and inviting. Kazbah was highly recommended to me by one of my companions who had been there the previous day. She was really impressed with what she had eaten, she came back for an encore!

We went there for what was supposed to be breakfast, but daylight savings meant that once we arrived it was already brunch! We were greeted by a queue of patrons out the front, and overheard a lady asking about bookings. We didn’t make a booking (who makes breakfast bookings anyway?!) and didn’t think we’d get a table. But with the large crowd assembled there, it probably goes to show that getting a table is worth the wait!

It only took about 3 minutes in the queue for us to eventually get to the host, and she managed to squeeze the three of us in but we were only given 45 minutes to finish up our meals as the table we got was already reserved for another group. Despite how busy Kazbah was, she still managed to keep her cool and was very friendly.

Picking something to eat from their unique and extensive menu was a challenge! I initially ordered the Fried Duck Eggs, only to be told that they had run out! I went for the Foul Mudammas instead. Foul Mudammas is an Egyptian fava bean stew normally eaten for breakfast. The serving of Foul Mudammas at Kazbah was really thick – a combination of Boiled Egg, Chick Peas, Fava Beans, Garlic, Tahini and Lemon and served with 4 sprigs of fresh shallot and Lebanese bread. The Foul Mudammas tasted pleasant, but was too heavy for me and I couldn’t have eaten the entire bowl on my own as it way too rich, like a dip!

Next up was the Lamb Tagine – A combination of Lamb Mince, Sucuk (sausage), Spinach, Roast Capsicum, Roast Tomatoes, Caramelised Onion, Feta, Eggs, Turkish Toast and Lebanese Bread. We ordered a serving for one person, but you can also get a larger serving for two or more people. The mince in the tagine tasted quite similar to the Spicy Morroccan lamb but wasn’t as sweet and spicy. It still won me over though!

Last to arrive was the Spicy Moroccan Lamb Mince with Hommus, Pine Nuts and Pita Bread. I actually ended up swapping my fava bean dish for my dining companion’s spicy Moroccan lamb because I was in the mood for some hearty meat instead of beans! Out of all three dishes, the Spicy Moroccan Lamb was my favourite. The mince had a really strong flavour which I’m assuming would be cumin, and the pine nuts added that extra bit of crunch. The generous serving of hommus was rich but not too overpowering, while the pita bread was fresh and crispy.

The entire meal plus drinks and coffee came up to $68. I definitely rate the food at Kazbah. If you want to try something different for breakfast, this place is definitely worth a visit. It’s probably a good idea to book in advance, just in case!

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My second outing at Kazbah involved an out-of-this-world Lamb Tagine. My dining companion and I ordered the breakfast lamb tagine for two people. It was quite a generous serving and was the perfect portion for two. This also came with two servings of buttered Turkish and Lebanese bread.

The lamb mince was cooked beautifully in aromatic spices and the flavour that truly dominated the tagine dish was cumin. The lamb was cooked with baby spinach leaves, red capsicum, onions, tomatoes and eggs on top. A very hearty and delicious dish! Don’t be too intimidated by the size of it- when you taste how good it is, you too will lick the tagine clean!

Kazbah is located at 379 Darling Street, Balmain 2041.