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May 9, 2019May 9, 2019

Ho Jiak Sydney, Haymarket

After taking a very long break from posting on my blog, I am back! And in my first post this year is a review on a Malaysian restaurant: Ho Jiak Sydney. We have heard many good raves about this place but somehow we were never looked into it. And finally a couple weekend ago, we accidentally passed by this place and decided to give it a go.

The restaurant:

It’s location in Haymarket is just opposite of Paddy’s Market on the Hay St side towards the Sydney Entertainment Quarter end. Unfortunately, it does not stand out much that we did not even spot it right away. What gave it away was the pictures of menu on the side of its door and only then we looked up to see the name sign.

Ho Jiak literally means good eat or delicious in Hokkien dialect. Looking at the menu, you could tell this is modern twist on Malaysian Nonya cuisine and some hawker style food as well. They all look really good actually but unfortunately with just the two of us dining, we didn’t get to try many things. Never mind, we could always come back again later.

As we entered through the ground floor entrance, a lady asked whether we had reservation which we did not. She then told us to go to second floor, which you would need to exit then turn left to find the stairway to second floor seating. Upon entering the dining area, I like this retro seating area right away, it’s spacious, bright and gives out cozy atmosphere.

Ho Jiak Sydney interior — Love this retro wallpaper

Secondly, have to applaud the service which was prompt and friendly. The waiter handed out the menu and cold water then come back again few minutes later to take our order. Also, appreciated the warning on the food being spicy by default and whether we wanted to have them no spicy instead. Lastly, our order also turned up fairly quickly after ordering – sign of an efficient kitchen.

And here are what we ordered:

Ho Jiak Sydney - Char Koay Teow — Char Koay Teow (Normal) $17

I love rice noodle, be it fried or soup, therefore I knew immediately what to order as soon as I saw the menu. The duck egg variation tempted me, but we thought to try with the most basic version and see how is it. That’s how we ended up with the Normal versions on both dishes. The Char Koay Teow was good – it’s greasy (as what char koay teow should be) with wok flavor, got the spicy kick, generous with slices of fish cakes and chinese sausages. We both think this is the winner!

Ho Jiak Sydney - Nasi Goreng — Nasi Goreng (Normal) $17

On the other hand, hubby loves fried rice and he always likes to try fried rice from different places. So, of course he would do the same and ordered the Nasi Goreng here. Honestly, the Nasi Goreng was not bad at all. Compared to the char koay teow, this dish tasted slightly lack of wok flavor. Also, we think it will taste much better if the spiciness was left as default than toned down. Fortunately, they provided sambal on side which definitely helps. If we are to order fried rice again, we’d probably opt for Jumbo which has fried chicken and satay as well 🙂

To summarize, the flavor are awesome and the menu is extensive. Moreover, there are many other dishes on the menu we want to try at Ho Jiak. And for that reason, we would absolutely come back again!

92 Hay Street
Haymarket, NSW, 2000
T: (02) 8040 0252
E: hello@hojiak.com.au
Open: Mon to Sat 11am – 12midnight
Sun 11am – 10pm

Shop 33 Strathfield Plaza
11 The Boulevarde
Strathfield, NSW, 2135
T: (02) 9008 8020
E: hello@hojiak.com.au
Open: Sun to Wed 10am – 9pm
Thur to Sat 10am – 9:30pm

August 29, 2018August 29, 2018

La Floraison, Sydney CBD

The main reason we came to La Floraison was for their creative custom printing on drinks. It is located in Sydney CDB, very close to Townhall Station which is great location and easily reached. Honestly, I never heard of this place before I saw pictures of those cute drinks which then prompted me to look for their address and made the trip eventually.

So we came here on a Saturday morning only to find that they open from 12 noon. I thought this is a little odd considering this is cafe and people do get the drinks in the morning or at the very least during brunch hours. So we had to kill some time walking around Daiso (luckily just few doors away) for the open time. In that time, we noticed there was also another small family did what we did – came here way too early.

As they opened and we lined up at the cashier for order, I realised this place really must be alive mainly for their drinks. There were just a few cakes available on display, literally mean just a few. The lady in front of me was asking if they had such cake from the menu and was told they had run out. Anyway, I ended up getting a piece of cake to share and a hot drink for each of us. Upon payment, they will ask what design you would like to have on top of your drink. You can choose from numerous pictures available on the tablet and even send your picture to them as well.

Here are what we ordered:

The drinks were not bad taste wise, but the cake was dry and felt like it’s been sitting there for too long. We love how the drinks are not overly sweet and can absolutely taste the taro or matcha flavours. Also their price point is fairly expensive – but I guess you pay for the experience. After all, we enjoyed slurping the printed Gudetama and Sinchan over our hot drinks 🙂 Would I be coming back? Perhaps no, mainly because we have already experienced it and apart from the print, everything else was not outstanding.

Click here for our experience at Gudetama Cafe in Osaka, Japan….

La Floraison

Shop 21 Level 9,501 George Street, CBD, Sydney

Phone: 0411 219 338

Zomato page

July 17, 2018July 16, 2018

Rengaya Yakiniku, North Sydney

Since we tried and happy with Suminoya, I had been wanting to go to its sister restaurant, Rengaya. Located in North Sydney and has the highest price charge ($86 per adult) in the group, naturally we expected superb dining here. It certainly did not disappoint 🙂 Just make sure to have a reservation before coming here, especially during busy dinner times and weekends or public holidays.

We booked for early dinner and when arrived, there were only few other tables occupied. The interior and service felt more upper class compared to the other sister restaurants. It had been a while since we went to Suminoya, so perhaps it has changed as well. The ordering system at Rengaya is by putting your order yourselves via the tablet they handed to each table. Whereas, at Suminoya while we were there, we had to call out to the waiter for order.

The other good thing at Rengaya was the unlimited order for ox tongue (the best!!!). We ordered so many portions of these super thin slices of ox tongue 🙂 Hubby was a little disappointed that they do not offer unagi rice bowl here, but the other options here kept him happy. The meat quality were excellent – I love how the Japanese style BBQ usually have their meat in thinly slices and their marinate is usually very subtle.

Here are what we had. By the way, these were all for four people 🙂

The verdict

I think the place is good for special occasion for that kind of steeper price compared to its sister restaurants and its up class setting. But then again you do get the unlimited order of ox tongue which is such a delight. There are a few options I love at Suminoya which are not available here, such as unagi rice bowl and gyoza. I also heard that it is actually better to dine here a la carte, since some of the nicer meat cuts are not available on buffet options. So, perhaps if we do come back here again in the future, I’d try the a la carte dining.

Rengaya

73 Miller St., North Sydney, NSW 2060

Tel: 02 9929 6169

Website

May 29, 2018May 28, 2018

2017 Japan Trip – Day 15

And finally we are here: the last full day of our 2017 Japan trip! On Day 15 we went to Tsukiji Market and spent the rest of the day shopping and packing. 15-day is far from enough for this trip, but we had really great time and enjoyed Japan much these past two weeks dearly!

Day 15 – 16

The first place we went to this morning was Tsukiji Market, is well-known as one of the world’s largest fish market. Note that the inner market, where the wholesale fish market and tuna auctions take place will close on 6 October 2018 and move to a new location at Toyosu from 11 October 2018. The outer market, where the retails and restaurants are open to public will remain at Tsukiji. For more information, please read here.

One of the alleys at Outer Tsukiji Market

We did not come that early to watch the tuna auction, so when we came around 9am, the market had already packed. The lines outside all those famous restaurants were already very long. We walked through all the alleys of the outer market and finally decided to join one of the shorter line. Perhaps it was not the best in the market, but we still had a great meal. But, would I come back and queue up early for the most famous restaurant there? Probably not, just because we feel the restaurants there mainly sell the same dish and being in the market, most likely they all use fresh ingredients anyway. So, yes we were content with what we had at Tsukiji.

The restaurant where we had our sashimi rice bowls 🙂

From here, we went to Tokyo station next. Originally planned to walk to Tokyo Castle, but ditched that plan due to shopping being in the higher priority. I will not bore you about how that went in the post 🙂

That’s pretty much covers our Japan trip! I always praise how good their public transport is and how punctual they are, etc. Wait until the last day when we travelled to Haneda Airport: the train actually delayed! And it was not for just 5 minutes, stopped at Shinjuku for about 10 minutes, another 6 minutes at Shibuya and we gave up. We ended up took a taxi to Shinagawa station then took another train to Haneda airport. And that drama with train literally wraps up our holiday at Japan just before we headed back 😀

What we ate on Day 15

We got this sweet tamago roll from Tsukiji Market while deciding which restaurant we should queue up. The tamago roll is slightly sweet in taste and very fluffy. Yummy!

Looks like they specialize in tamago rolls and pudding (or egg products :P). Sadly, we did not try their puddings.

And, these were our sashimi bowls and grilled tuna. Delicious and super fresh sashimi!

Sashimi salmon, tuna, (steamed or boiled) crab leg, scallop and sea urchin – ¥3,500

Sashimi salmon, tuna, (steamed or boiled) crab leg, scallop, and fatty tuna – ¥3,500

And, we thought since we had not tried Japanese curry since we arrived and it’s our last day, we should go for this. We went into this curry restaurant after shopping at Akihabara. It was not a wrong choice, great tasting curry – mind you they were really hot!!! Cannot recall the exact amount these costed us, but pretty sure it was under ¥2,000.

Bacon curry rice, very nice and tender bacon pieces

May 18, 2018

2017 Japan Trip – Day 14

Day 14, the second last day of our Japan trip, we have scheduled for a visit to Fujiko F Fujio museum then Akihabara and lastly, the Michelin-starred eel restaurant in Bunkyo. Doraemon is a pretty well-known manga character we grew up with, and mostly everyone in Indonesia would know, right? Whether or not the younger generations these days aware of this awesome cartoon, I don’t know. Anyway, when I mentioned Doraemon to my friends who grew up in Sydney, they had no idea at all. Seriously, Doraemon rocks with his amazing pocket and all the futuristic gadgets! If you could have one item from Doraemon, what would that be? I would love the magic anywhere door that will take me literally anywhere I wish 🙂 What could be better than that, eh?

Day 14

The day started with a train ride to Mukogaoka-Yuen station and approximately 15 minutes walk to the museum which is located in Kawasaki area. Alternatively, you could get off at Noborito Station and take the shuttle bus which runs every 10 minutes for ¥210. Interesting fact at Mukogaoka-Yuen station: they play Doaremon theme song as trains about to close its doors.

We got to the museum before its opening time, in fact we were the first to arrive. The staffs directed us to wait in line outside the entrance door that they opened exactly on time. As we walked in, we exchanged our prepaid tickets with the audio guides. By the way, they do not sell entrance tickets on site – so the best way to get tickets would be through one of the Loppi machines at any Lawson stores; or, alternatively any online sources. The audio guides will give commentary to various items on the museum when you input the item numbers, this was super handy!

Because the museum is based on Fujiko F Fujio, you will find various art works of his apart from just Doraemon. On the first level, which unfortunately taking pictures is prohibited, displays many of his original art works. Also, the professor’s life story from being a kid until married with kids also on the display photos and explained through the audio guide.

On the next level, there is a manga corner, and playground for kids with large size of various figures of Fujiko’s works. There is also screen show which you can get in once only per visit. The outside park is beautiful with many characters of Fuji F Fuji’s creation. Generally, if you grew up with Doraemon and P-Man, this is such a nostalgic place. It brought you right back to your childhood adoring those characters 🙂

What we ate on Day 14

We bought some dorayaki from convenience stores for breakfast – again kicking myself for not taking any pictures of these.

At Fujiko F Fujio museum, we had these for lunch:

We also tried their dorayaki, these are filled with red bean paste. Honestly, we both love the convenience store version with butter and maple syrup filling.

For dinner, we went to Unagi Hashimoto – highly anticipated eel restaurant that hubby had wanted to come long before our trip. We just walked in here when we got there, they was just opened for dinner. Luckily we came early, otherwise we would not able to get a meal here at all without making a reservation ahead. The kind old lady told us in Japanese that we had around 45 minutes for the meal, because they were fully booked for the night starting 6 pm. At first, we thought she meant we should come back at 6 pm – I really wished we know Japanese a bit better in such situations 😀

unagi hashimoto — Hubby’s eel with rice in medium size that comes with eel soup

Anyway, our dinner here was really good! I personally do not really fond of eel, but ones I had here did not have any fishiness, it was tasty and tender. The eel was flavoursome without being too salty or overpowering soy sauce taste, it just really well balanced meal. We highly recommend this restaurant for eel lovers!

And that was it for our Day 14.

Fujiko F Fujio Museum

2 Chome-8-1 Nagao, Tama Ward, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture 214-0023, Japan

Phone: +81 570-055-245