Crazy wings

Tim and Food Paladin Denis are Feeling Foody on a Friday arvo. Crazy wings it is.

 

" What kind of name is Crazy wings!? pshhh, whatever we'll give it a go" - Tim

" Retardedly spicy chicken wings? Now I'm excited" - Denis
"You think I can be defeated by a mere chili?" - Tim

10 seconds after the first bite

Ex-Paladin Denis

Thinks I'm feeling the HEAT

30 seconds

Throwing the towel in after one wing. Denis loses his title
of food paladin for wasting a chicken wing.

Throwing fire after finishing the wings

 Buying a fire extinguisher

Weapon of choice

______________________________________________________

Okay, so continuing down Dixon St. there's Crazy Wings, a Chinese BBQ experience of coal/wood skewer BBQ that you usually find on the busy smokey street stalls in China taking us all the way to Silk Road, quite an unusual focus for a Sydney restaurant.

Table, bowl, chili powder salt, cup ahha! Tissues are vital!

Now that we're seated and greeted by the earthly aromatic of toasty cumin we get our menu. There isn't a terribly wide range to choose from, any meat that isn't their Original lamb or chicken wings is offal of some sort. We decided to stick to the dictionary definitions of meat.

Original lamb and chicken skewers

BT wings

Fried tomato and beef rice bucket

mmmm cumin

We knew lamb fat tends to taste rather foul when left cold so we finished them first. Beautifully grilled, lovely helping of cumin, just the heat needed to fight the lamb fat. The original chicken that was cooked in the same way. The fried rice was a little different to what we normally see, it was closer to a risotto than anything else. I'm guessing the rice was slow cooked in chicken stock then fried with beef while keeping the water level high and adding the tomato in the end. Quite nice.

Oooh they look so harmless and so delicious here!

Here was the highlight of the night, that made this a rather unforgettable experience. How should I start? BT wings is an extremely vague but accurate translation for what these wings really are. BT stands for 'Bien Tai' which means really messed up or f***ed up in this context and we only understood this after we thrashed about in our seats for half an hour. Oh dear..

On the menu there was a curious little order under the BT wings, a fire extinguisher ($1.00) which I believe is a set of tomatoes? Well anyway, when we asked the waitress for the wings she asked us if we were sure and then gave us some pitying look that was close to something like "These kids don't know what they're getting themselves into. Like most super chilis the first seconds begin with a strong flavour reminiscent of paprika. From this point the heat mounts exponentially until you feel as though the restauraunt manager is ramming a nice head of cactus up and down your throat.

Having said all of the above, Crazy wings is a restaurant before the BT wings. If you're going to try them, save them for last.

Good place for about: 2-8 people

Expect to spend: $10-$20+ per person

Value: 7/10 - Not too bad, you get a $10 voucher for every $20 you spend

Taste and food quality: 8/10 - Enough chili to get you kicking, some high quality fried rice, just don't let the food go cold!

Ambience: 9/10 - You get a bit of room to share the pain with some friends. Lovely place for some giggles! Remember to order some BT monster wings and hide them under the victim's rice.

Service: 7/10 - It was rather difficult to get a good explanation of the menu. The food came out quickly and all at once though which was nice.

Overall rating: 8/10

If you're feeling adventurous or have a really cocky friend who thinks they can take on some chilli then head on to Crazy Wings, if not, it's still a nice way to spend a meal chatting and chillaxing.

Passionflower - Sticky rice ice cream

Haven't tried it? Go get some now at Passionflower, it's an amazing yet unexpected harmony of flavours. Save me the effort of describing how good it is.

Nagoya - Japanese BBQ

On the corner of a quiet chinatown sidestreet we found Nagoya, a small japanese BBQ restaurant. Nagoya is opposite the entertainment centre maccas, a little further up from Cold Rock ice creamery. What drew me in was the quality of the beef they offered. Nagoya offers some of the highest quality beef, Kobe beef.

Having said that I believe they sell the lower-end/medium quality of this high quality meat - if that makes sense.You can get Kobe here for about $100 per kilo or more depending on the market price which they post up on their front entrance, Kobe beef goes all the way up to $1000 a kilo, but I'll have to do a little more research before i can be sure. Anyway, that's not important for this review because my budget won't allow for this beef haha.


The thing that sets Nagoya apart from other BBQ houses is the option of engaging yourselves in a 90 minute all-you-can-eat from a range of meat, sides and veges where most sides are fresh and made on order! 

Starting at $28.80 you get a hotpot for Syabu-Syabu (Shabushabu) or Sukiyaki which unlocks unlimited beef & veg. At $35.80 you get to select from the basic BBQ menu which includes several of the cheaper cuts of beef, pork and lamb and some very simple sides and veges. Paying an extra $3 gives you access much better quality meat and some better sides as well. Finally at $45 you can access some more sides as well as Wagyu, a very good quality beef.


Cooking your own is really nice as it lets you control how cooked your meat is. Personally I like my meat between rare and medium rare and I had quite a bit of fun trying to handle 4 different preferences and burning some meat (which still tasted good). We opted to pay an extra $3 for the better quality beef and we all agreed it was worth paying for.


The only thing that would bring this restaurant down is the service. The waitresses lounge about and don't respond to orders very well maybe because of the language barrier? I'm not sure, but some orders never came out and we ended up re-ordering.


Is 90 minutes enough time? This depends on how efficiently  you work the grill. Be sure to always have food cooking, other than that theres plenty of time to eat, talk, relax and get packed. I could barely manage a waddle after 90 minutes.

Good place for about: 4 people (per table)

Expect to spend: $30 - $50+


Value: 9/10 - This really depends on how much you can eat. Worth it you can eat a lot!


Taste and food quality: 9/10 - Very good taste and quality


Ambience: 8/10 - Theres nothing like sitting around a flaring BBQ pit on a cold windy day


Service: 7/10 - A little lacking, but orders do come out fairly fast and you cook yourself


Overall rating: 8.25/10

 Definitely a place to try for a guy's night out. Girls should think about ordering separately or eating elsewhere as it is a buffet that pays for what it weighs.

Yi Jia - Chinese BBQ on Dixon St.

So it's Thursday again. Me and my loyal culinary companion Denis prowl the streets in search of good food, where we stop in front of a rather rare sounding eating style. Chinese BBQ? Never heard of it before, why not try it?
When seated, you're confronted with a rather large metal plate about the size of a large baking tray at chest height. This would have been a rather nasty cooking experience if you're not too comfortable cooking with hot oil spitting at you occasionally, especially when you have to eat.

The meats cooked well on the plate, but they weren't spectacular in any way. Each plate of meat came down to about $7.50. You get about 200g worth of prepared meat with a choice of beef, lamb, chicken and even seafood (which we didn't try). The marinades were fairly basic, with just garlic and some spices to each dish and the quality of the meat was really just average.



The mixed veges we had were $9, you get some slices of potato, sweet potato and eggplant as well as chives and a head of lettuce. The veges were a nice order which helped keep the flavour of the meats up.

Good place for about: 4 people
Expect to spend: $15 - $30 per person
Value: 7/10 - It feels like you get a little less than what you pay for
Taste and food quality: 6/10 - Your average asian BBQ
Ambience: 5/10 - Don't mind the spluttering oil and rather cold empty atmposhere
Service: 6/10 - There were only two tables anyway, but the service was decent, dishes came out                                 quickly

Overall rating: 6/10 - A fair eat
Yi Jia isn't any special BBQ house, but if you're looking for a lower-end plate type BBQ this might be the place to go

Burnt Cream - It's better than it sounds!

Creme Brulee, literally translating into burnt cream is a very simple dessert, easy to prepare and it only requires a few ingredients. Creme brulee is basically a baked custard which is capped off with a layer of caramelised sugar, delicious!

A good creme brulee is defined  it's smooth consistent custard which is obtained over time after learning how hot your oven is and how to use it, but there some little tricks here and there  that you must take note of!

There are many flavours you can infuse the cream with, but I've found vanilla to be the timeless classic. 

You will need

• Baking tray or deep casserole dish
• Ramekins (total volume 500mL)
• Blowtorch

Ingredients

• 4 large egg yolks
• 500mL heavy cream
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar (adjust to your liking) or approx. 100g
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (or whole vanilla bean)

• 

Process

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius
2. Separate 4 eggs to obtain the egg yolks
3. Put the egg yolks into a large bowl and lightly whisk the sugar in to the egg yolks
4. Pour 500mL of heavy cream with one teaspoon of vanilla extract into a small saucepan and heat on medium low. Stir to mix. Ocassionally stir gently until a very gentle boil, look for small bubbles forming on the edge of the saucepan. Immediately take the saucepan off the heat. 
5. While constantly whisking the egg sugar mixture, pour a splash of cream into the mixture. When the splash of cream is incorporated pour the next splash. Repeat until about 1/3 of the cream has been added in this way.
6. The rest of the cream can be poured in all at once. Whisk to combine until consistent.
7. Fill the casserolse dish/baking tray 1/3 of the way up with boiling water
8. Pour the mixture in the large bowl in to the ramekins and carefully place the ramekins into the water
9. Place the tray/dish inside the oven for 30 minutes
10. 
11. When done, remove from the oven and take the ramekins out of the water. Allow the ramekins to cool to room temperature
12. Wrap or cover the ramekins as they will be refrigerated for 3+ hours
13. Before serving, cover the surface of the custard with a fine layer of sugar. Wipe off any excess as this will burn.
14. Use the blowtorch to melt and caramelise the sugar. Some burnt sugar is perfectly fine, it provides a nice bitter contrast to the sweetness of the dessert. Enjoy!

Tips for perfection

• The first step tomaking any perfect baked goods is knowing your oven. If a dark brown or yellow 'skin' forms on the surface it means your oven is too hot.
• Baking time is crucial. It will take some time for you to learn how much the custard jiggles when shaken to indicate its doneness. Undercooked the custard won't hold its shape and won't give the deep creamy mouth feel. Overcooked the custard will be eggy and grainy, making the experience less satisfying.
• Air bubbles are your next greatest obstacle. They interfere with the cooking process and prevent the custard from setting smoothly. When whisking, try avoid bringing in too much air into the mixture. Also, allow the raw custard to rest and give the bubbles time to run out of the mix.
• Step 4. is where you can infuse your own flavours. Instead of vanilla you could try whole tea leaves. If you are using whole vanilla beans, split the bean in half and scrape out the seeds. The pod and seeds are both used, just remember to pass the mix through a sieve afterwards.

Hello everyone!

Hello everyone! My name is Tim and I'm a student studying at UNSW (Sydney, Australia). I'll be documenting my food experiences and recipes here on this blog.

MISSION

My mission is to eat around all of Sydney and most if not all restaurants starting with the CBD and master the skills that let me make what I want to eat... hmmm but for now it's good night. It's 1 in the morning here and it has been quite a long day. I'll be uploading my first recipe here soon.

Oh yeah, I'll also be taking recipe and review requests! So comment and subscribe and I'll get back to you

ciao!