emlou81

7.5 Recommended

Food  6      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  6     

Picturesque little restaurant, very romantic place to eat, and fabulous service. We didn't enjoy the food as much as we should have but I think that's mostly our own fault, we over-ordered, forgetting how incredibly rich French food is.

For that reason I don't know that I could handle the degustation, but I think each meal in isolation would be okay, though not spectacular. For entree I had the oysters with ham hock, while my partner had the Duck and Pork pave (which wasn't quite what he expected). Mains were the fish of the day (a pan fried snapper fillet) and the roast veal fillet. We ordered the creme brulee for dessert, which was nice.

Mostly we liked the little touches, like the escargot on arrival. Our waiter was very attentive and accommodating too. All in all it was a pleasant experience.

Jun 23, 2011

6.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  6     

Good place for a delicious Vietnamese meal. Not the best I've had in Sydney, but still damn tasty.

Jun 23, 2011

7.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  8      Value  8     

Very tasty and authentic Japanese food. Loved the pork belly, which didn't seem traditional exactly but it was certainly delicious. Steamed crab dim sum and pan-fried pork gyoza were tasty. Sashimi was some of the freshest and best I've eaten in Sydney, and I've eaten a lot of it! Great service as well, thanks!

Jun 23, 2011

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  9      Value  9     

I've only lived in Lilyfield for less than a month, but I've already got this place as my favourite pizza place. They're really friendly and community-oriented, but most importantly their pizza is absolutely sensational.

Jun 22, 2011

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  9      Value  8     

Dalat delivers consistently excellent food and service. I take people here a lot because they inevitably walk out raving about it. The Vietnamese pancake is a must-have. One of Randwick's little jewels!

May 07, 2011

7.5 Recommended

Food  6      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  6     

Picturesque little restaurant, very romantic place to eat, and fabulous service. We didn't enjoy the food as much as we should have but I think that's mostly our own fault, we over-ordered, forgetting how incredibly rich French food is.

For that reason I don't know that I could handle the degustation, but I think each meal in isolation would be okay, though not spectacular. For entree I had the oysters with ham hock, while my partner had the Duck and Pork pave (which wasn't quite what he expected). Mains were the fish of the day (a pan fried snapper fillet) and the roast veal fillet. We ordered the creme brulee for dessert, which was nice.

Mostly we liked the little touches, like the escargot on arrival. Our waiter was very attentive and accommodating too. All in all it was a pleasant experience.

Jun 23, 2011

6.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  6      Value  6     

Good place for a delicious Vietnamese meal. Not the best I've had in Sydney, but still damn tasty.

Jun 23, 2011

7.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  8      Value  8     

Very tasty and authentic Japanese food. Loved the pork belly, which didn't seem traditional exactly but it was certainly delicious. Steamed crab dim sum and pan-fried pork gyoza were tasty. Sashimi was some of the freshest and best I've eaten in Sydney, and I've eaten a lot of it! Great service as well, thanks!

Jun 23, 2011

8.8 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  9      Value  9     

I've only lived in Lilyfield for less than a month, but I've already got this place as my favourite pizza place. They're really friendly and community-oriented, but most importantly their pizza is absolutely sensational.

Jun 22, 2011

8.5 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  9      Value  8     

Dalat delivers consistently excellent food and service. I take people here a lot because they inevitably walk out raving about it. The Vietnamese pancake is a must-have. One of Randwick's little jewels!

May 07, 2011

7.8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  10      Service  7      Value  6     

We visited Silos on the Easter break, once during the day for wine tasting (excellent) and again that night for dinner. About 6 k's from Berry, it's an easy and reasonably-priced 15 minutes cab ride if you don't want to drive. I recommend you don't as you'll want to be free to enjoy the delicious wine.

You enter the restaurant via a door right next to the old grain silo (check out the inside on your way through, it's cool). At night the restaurant had fantastic, candlelit ambience, very romantic, warm and intimate.

My partner ordered the special for entree, a garlic and cheese souffle served with a creamy tomato sauce. I of course nicked a forkful, it melted in my mouth. I had the tasting plate, consisting of delicious crispy lamb strips with a sweet dipping sauce, sesame-encrusted tuna with a delicious wasabi mayo, and a samosa that felt strangely out of place (but delicious just the same).

For mains my partner again had the special, a rack of lamb, juicy and tender. I ordered the salt and pepper bean curd with assorted Chinese mushrooms, asparagus and egg noodle. Portions for both were very generous, neither of us managed to finish our meal, though they were very tasty.

The service throughout the meal was attentive, perhaps, overly so. However, staff were very friendly and eager to recommend other great wineries in the region.

With a bottle of Two Paddocks Pinot and a glass of Silos Estate Porto Verde to finish, it was a very enjoyable and satisfying meal. Definitely intend to go back!

Apr 27, 2011

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.8 Below Average

Food  7      Ambience  5      Service  1      Value  2     

1.10pm, Six of us arrive at Spice Me Up, hungry and eager to sit at our pre-booked table. Waitress snarks that we’re 5 minutes early.

1.20pm, We apparently become incorporeal forms unseeable by the naked eye, and end up seating ourselves at an available table. Only then does the waitress see us again, and insists we move to another table with uncomfortable bench seats they stole from an Opus Dei church.

1.25pm
Foaming at the mouth with hunger, we gleefully pounce on the ironically named Speedy Lunch Menu. Within 5 minutes, we’re ready to order and place the menus in a pile.

1.40pm
Everyone starts to look like tasty, tasty chicken. My stomach starts digesting itself. A waitress comes to take our order (sans pad and pen). When she goes, we marvel at her incredible memory.

1.45pm
A waiter comes with a pad and pen to take our order again. Memory apparently not so incredible.

1.50pm
We argue over which of the six of us is going to get eaten first if the food doesn’t come soon. Not me – I’m all sinew and gristle.

1.55pm
Our mixed entrée arrives! Cannibalism averted!

1.57pm
Mixed entrée has been annihilated. Cannibal amnesty looks tremulous at best.

2.05pm
We make a game of listing all the things we could have done in the time it takes the staff of Spice Me Up to serve a Speedy Lunch meal. We glare hatefully at a man who arrived half an hour after us as he tucks into his red curry. Why do the Thai Food Gods hate us?

2.10pm
There’s a frightening lack of clanging-stirring-flaming-tossing noises coming from the kitchen. Each time some one walks past our table, we turn in hope, only to be deflated once more.

2.15pm
The hungriest among us walks to the counter to enquire about our meals. He’s reassured that they’re coming – they just had to import some chickens from Thailand and they’re currently in quarantine, but lunch will be ready by late 2012.

2.20pm
They bring two plates.

2.25pm
They bring another two plates. Talk about progress!

2.30pm
One by one (with a separation time of 7-10 minutes) we receive our meals. From memory it was pretty tasty but I was hoovering mine into my mouth so quickly that I can’t remember much. The hungriest of us who dared approach the counter gets his 15 minutes after everyone else. Do not question the sanctity of thy Speedy Lunch!

2.40pm,
We leave...never to return.

Response from Management:
We appreciate your feedback but would like to let you know that on the day you also ordered from the a la carte' menu and not only from the speedy lunch menu. Yes the 2 courses might have taken a while to come out however we were experiencing a very busy afternoon. So we do apologise for your delay. Spice Me Up loves to see all their customers return. We take pride in our freshly cooked meals also our image and reputation. By the way we find the comment about our dark wooden benches halairious. Regards.

Apr 19, 2011

4.8 Average

Food  2      Ambience  6      Service  8      Value  3     

I first visited Choys early last year, having lived in Randwick for a good 5 years and always intending to go one day. And I was pleasantly surprised, the slightly dingey exterior of the restaurant made me suspicious, but the food turned out to be fresh and delicious, the interior decor was low-lit and pleasant, and the staff were very attentive. After that initial visit, I returned with family and friends many times.

So I'm disappointed to say things have changed, I returned recently after a 10 month absence to enjoy a meal with my partner, and whilst the service remains devoted and the staff do everything they can to please, the food we had was nothing short of abominable.

We started off okay with an entree of ham and chicken rolls with sweet and sour sauce. Very greasy, but very tasty, albeit the serving was much too large, 7 rolls between two of us. We'd also ordered the steamed dim sum with the expectation of 4 or so to share but we received a plate of 6.

I don't normally look a generous serving horse in the mouth, but it's the quality of the dim sum that was disappointing. It was a far cry from your usual mouthwatering combos of pork, prawn and soy, these dim sum were basically parcels of dry, flavourless pork mince, which fell apart at the first bite.

Our main order was steamed whole fish with ginger and shallot, and crispy skin duck with plum sauce. When the fish came out, we could smell it before it even reached the table. It reeked. A meal of fish should never, ever stink. But we decided to give it a taste (you never know when something is going to taste better than it smells). It didn't taste as strong as it smelled, but this fish was definitely beyond it's use-by-date. The flesh was solid and slightly greyish-white in colour. We gave up after two bites.

The duck was far more edible, however, quite overcooked and cut up in chunks too large to manage. Choy's is definitely generous in terms of portion size, and their staff are absolutely lovely. I'm hoping this was simply an 'off night', however, I won't be returning to find out. Sydney is too full of amazing Asian cuisine to settle for this. Unacceptable.

Apr 15, 2011

5.5 Average

Food  6      Ambience  8      Service  5      Value  3     

Had dinner here with a friend. Decor is cool. Cocktail list was nice, enjoyed the Apple and Amaretto Sour as a pre dinner drink. Bar staff were friendly. Ambience was good, even though the crowd was mostly drunk suits.

Scored a booth, which the waitress arranged just for us. Nice touch. Unfortunately, from there we were attended by restaurant staff who didn't follow her act. The wine list is extensive (but overpriced). We only discovered this after we'd ordered mains because they forgot to bring it with the menus. Food was very quick. Sydney rock oysters with jelly (better on their own with just lemon and salt) were fresh and creamy.

Main was the Beef Short Rib with the in-house BBQ sauce. It was very tender, quite marbled (to the point of being overpowering) but the 'homemade' BBQ sauce was somewhat sickly, especially as they serve it with no accompaniment whatsoever. So we ordered onion rings, which were tasty.

All in all, it wasn't awful but there are too many fine restaurants in this city with far more reasonable prices for me to bother coming here again.

Mar 24, 2010