Sydney :: Chinese Noodle Restaurant

The best thing about Australia? The people. They were fantastic, laid back, and full of fun! After a great night with S, I woke up early the next morning for a walk around the harbour. The botanical gardens were quite nice - random statues and an interesting area with tea leaves that I'll shamelessly admit that I poked around in to smell. Oh Sydney - I am so jealous of your perpetually great weather.

"Boy Extracting Thorn" & Tea Leaves

I met Minh in front of the Opera House and we began an epic day of eating with Chinese Noodle Restaurant! What better way to explore a city through your appetite with one of their best food bloggers?

Chinese Noodle Restaurant Verdict: Fresh noodles and delicious dumplings! Go for dry noodles instead of soup :-) Meal: Gorging Location: Thomas Street, Haymarket New South Wales, Australia

I didn't expect much food culture shock in Australia - other than being able to get wallaby, kangaroo, and paying $5 for Bowen mangoes of course. So I had to think: What am I missing out on in Toronto? What will they do better? Well, given the geography it was no surprise that Malaysian and Indonesian food made my to-eat list.

Before I left, a friend and I talked about Toronto's weak offering of hand-pulled noodles. Fell in love with them in Hong Kong, never found a great bowl in Toronto.

So...I was ecstatic when I heard that I could get a great bowl in Sydney! w00t! Minh and I hopped over from the Opera House to Chinese Noodle Restaurant (not to be mistaken for the Chinese Noodle House next door). You can watch the chef make noodles - win!! We ordered a bowl of seafood noodles as well as a plate of pork & chive dumplings!

Ah! The dumplings were so good. I really love fresh, well-made pork & chive dumplings. I used to make these quite a bit during undergrad and freeze batches - if you're ever interested I recommend checking out Maangchi for a good recipe.
Crispy fresh dumplings were enjoyed along with noodles - a big bowl each. Oooh...I'm so glad that I can justify my Australian food baby with these pictures (which, by the way, was named Jack this Saturday!).

The noodles were great - but the soup? Not so much. If you hop over there, I recommend getting them fried as the broth lacked flavour and probably a bowl of pork instead of seafood. I picked seafood since I was so much closer to the ocean (another reason to be jealous of Sydney-ites!) but I am quite sure that what I got was pre-frozen - that's Chinatown!

There's something about pork + noodles that I love. Whenever I go to Kenzo, I savour the salty, porky goodness with a big King of Kings bowl.

Argh! I need to find great & fresh hand pulled noodles in Toronto! Or learn how to do it myself - definitely not an easy feat....

Whether or not you're heading to Sydney, I recommend checking out Eat, Show, & Tell - it's a fun blog run by a group of friends who travel and eat!