Spoon, fork & Chopsticks: seafood pancake

Showing posts with label seafood pancake. Show all posts

Burwood Korea House

Humans are creatures of habit who like to return to places which are familiar for comfort and assurance. Dining falls into this category and especially so when seeking something quick and reliable. Céci has always been in this category for Dr King and Kiki, with its value-for-money serving sizes, until they noticed the food starting to taste different and the noticeable absence of the expertly coiffed and well made-up lady owner.

When I told them that Céci had upped and left its original location leaving its name behind to be reincarnated as Burwood Korea House, they were relieved to find out that there was somewhere to reclaim the familiarity. Soon Monsieur Poisson and I find ourselves accompanying them there for a meal where the picture-heavy menu echoes that of Céci as well.

A small handwritten sign on the window mentions that they are behind the original Céci and, stepping inside, we are greeted by similar décor as well as the reassuring sight of the owner lady. Side dishes are brought to us soon after ordering and before we know it our table is crowded with food.

The ‘Seafood Pancake’ with fillings a-plenty and crunchy ‘Japchae’ with its slippery glass noodles act as appetisers as well as non-chilli relief from the ‘Pork and sausage hotpot’ below.

The hotpot is loaded up with strips of thinly-sliced pork belly, tinned luncheon meat, skinless frankfurts, a mixture of vegetables and a cake of instant noodles. Hotpots with noodles always get my attention as they provide a vessel for which to slurp up the tasty flavours of the soup in which they’re cooked.

Between the four of us there is leftover food to take home and change for each of us from $20. Now that’s a familiar situation I don’t mind revisiting!

Burwood Korea House

175 Burwood Rd, Burwood NSW

Tel: (02) 9715 5098

Opening Hours: 7 days..11am-11:30pm

happy eating!

Hello! Kyochon (again), 27 April 2010

Not long after eating here a year prior, a friend urged me to try their fried chicken. Being ignorant, I wondered what the fuss was about and that surely fried chicken is just fried chicken? But then I came across this and this as well as an article in edible Manhattan in an issue kindly brought back to me from New York by Ms Sourdough. There has been a New York phenomenon over the past few years with its origins in Koreatown known simply as KFC – Korean fried chicken.

Monsieur Poisson had never eaten at Hello! Kyochon so we pop in one slightly cool evening for dinner. Upon being seated, I noticed that the tables are different from my previous visit. There is the addition of in-built stove burners which we assume are either for barbequing meat or hotpots. But we have browsed the menu and have our minds set on chicken, although not before a couple of other things first.

We start the meal by nibbling on some complimentary kimchi and pickled white raddish. I am wary about filling up with too much of the crunchy raddish but it has soaked up so much sweet vinegar marinade. Soon after our ‘Seafood Pancake’ arrives – pre-cut this time in contrast with my visit with Mistress.

In need of something soupy, Monsieur Poisson has chosen the ‘Bulgogi and tofu hotpot”. It is warming and not too spicy and arrives with a raw egg floating on top. With its golden yolk poking through the surface of the soup, it is perfect mixed in with a bowl of rice.

And then for our pièce de resistance – half a chicken, deep-fried Korean-style. The skin is fried to a thin, bubbly crisp and well-drained of excess greasiness. A bowl is thoughtfully provided for bones and a plate of finely-shredded cabbage provides cooling crunch interestingly dressed with squiggles of tomato sauce and mayonnaise.

Monsieur Poisson is unexpectedly impressed with the chicken and promises that we will go in search of more KFC in order to compare.

Hello! Kyochon

76a Archer St, Chatswood NSW

Tel: (02) 9411 8766

Opening Hours: 7 days, I think…

*EDIT*: As of mid-2011, Hello! Kyochon has been replaced by Gallus Gallus in the same shop space serving a similar menu.

happy eating!

Céci, 21 Nov 2009

After a sweaty afternoon of rock-climbing, a group of friends and I find ourselves at Céci to fix our collective hunger. I have been recommended this Korean eatery by multiple sources, mainly for its value-for-money large serving sizes. The décor is decidedly eighties with many splashes of peach and floral prints but what we’re here for is the food.

Mistress and I are the first to arrive after parking her car and we are lucky to secure a table for eight after the staff ask a couple to relocate to a table elsewhere. Following our being seated, a queue quickly begins to grow at the doorway. The eatery is small and the service swift. We are asked several times how long our friends will be and whether we would like to order first. I leave the ordering to Mistress as she has eaten here previously. We decide to choose a few items and double up on serves so as to cover our long rectangular table.

As usual, there is an array of Korean side dishes but I’m disappointed that there’s no cold, creamy pasta. Something I like to eat on its own and also something that helps take the heat away from other dishes!

We start the evening with ‘Spicy Dumplings’ and ‘Seafood Pie’. The dumplings are large, plump and filled with minced pork and vegetables. They taste to have been deep-fried prior to being stewed in a spicy sauce.

The ‘Seafood Pie’ is your usual Korean seafood pancake but is thicker and features a lot more filling than I’m used to seeing elsewhere.

Up one end of the table we have a serve of ‘Barbequed Beef’ where thin slices of beef are brought out to be cooked atop a hotplate on an individual gas burner. Up the other end of the table we have the ‘Barbequed Chicken’ (not pictured) which is in a spicy sauce. Both feature a mixture of vegetables as well as curiously thick slabs of white onion.

Mistress tells us the ‘Sweet & Sour Chicken’ is quite a well-known dish at Céci but what surprises us about it is its resemblance in taste to Cantonese-style sweet and sour pork! The chicken pieces are encased in batter before being tossed in a sticky sweet and tart sauce.

And, our only dish devoid of any heat of the evening is the ‘Japchae’ (potato noodles) which is a lovely mix of springy noodles with crunchy vegetables, including my favourite cloud ear fungus, and thin strips of beef.

The food was served in quick succession and we barely had enough room to put all of it. Despite our rock-climbing induced hungers, there was too much food to finish and two plastic containers’ worth were taken away. And like normal, sane people full of dinner, we ventured to the Gelatissimo nearby for dessert almost immediately afterwards!

Céci

37 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW

Tel: (02) 9746 7710

Opening Hours: 7 days 10:30am-10:30pm

happy eating!

Hello! Kyochon, 24 April 2009

Monsieur Poisson tells me that where this Korean restaurant now stands, used to be a pancake place that stayed open until late. I unfortunately did not have a chance to sample their wares before they disappeared and, for ages, I thought this Korean place only did takeaway. The shop is narrow with a front window resembling that of a takeaway pizza joint or a kebab shop.

However, Mistress tells me she has heard of people dining in there so we decide to give it a try on a Friday evening. We wander in and are ushered through the store, past the kitchen, into an alfresco-style back courtyard. It is covered and nicely lit, with a flat-screen television playing in the background. There is a flower arch devoid of flowers and a few (real?) potted trees for decoration. It’s comfortable, although I am occasionally bothered by cigarette smoke drifting over from patrons smoking in a side laneway separated by a wooden gate.

We are handed menus where half the offerings seem to appear only in Korean. Not knowing Korean ourselves, this feels a little unfair – who knows what yummy delights we could be missing out on? – but in a way also vouches for the authenticity of the place. It is also reassuring to see that the bulk of customers already seated are Korean themselves.

As usual with Korean eateries, water in reusable plastic bottles is in abundance so we forego any other drinks. A young waiter takes our order in broken English and we settle into some girly banter. We have decided to skip the well-known fried chicken as neither of us wants fried fare on this occasion.

Our ‘Spicy Marinated Cheesy Chicken’ arrives on a hotplate sitting in plenty of chilli sauce and covered in lots of melty, stretchy cheese. There are also several Korean rice cakes buried within. It screams comfort-food but there is no rice to go with it. We inquire with the aforementioned young waiter who seems a little baffled by us, and approaches a secondary staff member before returning with some rice in the requisite stainless steel containers.

We dig in and find the dish is quite rich with its strong flavours. The sauce is sweet with ample bite and the melted cheese lends a creaminess to it. As we are eating we notice we haven’t received the usual barrage of side dishes seen at Korean establishments. We are embarrassed to once again have to bother the poor waiter and it does take us a while to establish communication channels, however after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing a light bulb illuminates above his head and he returns with a shallow dish of kimchi as well as creamy pasta salad.

With the spicy chicken as well as the side of kimchi, we are pleased when the seafood pancake is placed on our small, white plastic table. Made with a flour and egg batter and I suspect sometimes along with rice flour, Korean pancakes are thin and stretchy rather than fluffy like American pancakes. This one features a light golden ‘crust’ and contains plenty of seafood but unfortunately does not come pre-cut. Luckily Mistress and I are accustomed to the practice of sharing!

We are thoroughly full and are not able to finish the spicy chicken dish, but we sneak off to cool our palates with some ice-cream instead.