Joomak, Chatswood

Joomak is a Korean restaurant near the Chatswood branch of Fitness First. It's not far from the train station or the Victoria Avenue shopping strip, but it's still a little out of the way compared to the other restaurants and shops. It was thus surprising that the restaurant was half full on a week night - the food must be pretty authentic because the other diners were Korean.

Considering there are so many baby chairs, I'm thinking young families are most welcome...

The ambience was cosy, even with (or should I say because of?) the video clips of KPop bands that were projected onto one of the walls.

 

The Boy ordered a steaming pot of pork backbone immersed in pork bone and cabbage broth (ppyeodagwi gukbab). The meat was soft and came off the bone, but the stock was a little lacking in salt. You could regard that in a positive light - restaurants tend to add too much salt to food. Since the Boy's meal came with rice, small plates of condiments appeared in front of us- bean sprouts, chilli potato, lettuce and some onion. Sadly no kim chi.
 

Ppyeodagwi Gukbab ($13.00)

I'd selected the dumpling ramen, as I wondered at the time what the Korean equivalent to ramen was. It was pretty much instant noodles in a spicy stock (possibly instant noodle msg soup) with 5 boiled dumplings. If it did come out of a packet, I'd like to know what brand they use, because that was really satisfying - and it'd probably be heaps cheaper. I felt like Cheon Song-Yi in one of the scenes from You Who Came From the Stars, slurping down the noodles and gulping up the soup.

Dumpling ramen ($12.00)

Verdict? Undecided, leaning towards average. I need to pay another visit to figure out whether I like it or if I simply feel indifferent- instant noodles doesn't really require much cooking. Plus, the soju cocktails sound really yummy!

Dukbaegi, Chatswood

Dukbaegi is a new Korean restaurant right next door to Makanai (the former site of dessert cafe Zen Q). Its head chef, Danny Hwang, draws on his Korean heritage and influence of his mother's cooking to deliver an admirable range of stone pot dishes - including bibimbap, hot pot and noodles.

I've been here a couple of times already, and it's the Boy's new favourite Korean haunt in Chatswood.

Turnover is high, causing the lines outside to shrink and grow reasonably quickly. We weren't sure whether we could have mandu (Korean dumplings) dine-in, or whether it was a takeaway option only (since the menu suggests that the former is the case). The waiter clarified that we could eat-in with mandu, so when given a choice between steamed and pan fried, we opted for the crunch of the latter.

I had a pork and kim chi mandu, while the Boy chose the chicken, both to be dipped in the soy sauce-based accompaniment. The kim chi in mine provided extra crunch, spice and moisture, but other than that, they weren't too different from each other.

Pan fried mandu ($2.50 each)

Kim chi with pork mandu pp ($2.50)

My main was the BBQ beef bibimbap. Notably, this particular option didn't come with egg (though there are other dishes in the menu that do), and not all the vegetables were typically what you would find in Korean food (i.e. the corn kernels and slices of capsicum). I personally love these vegetables, so I was really pleased with what I had.

The 3 little side dishes were bean sprouts (which I offloaded to the Boy), spicy cold tofu and little bits of Korean pancake).

BBQ beef bibimbap ($13.90)

The first time the Boy ate the chilli prawn hotpot, it was excruciatingly spicy for me (and just tolerable for him). This time, they'd taken the spiciness down a notch, so it was hot but not overwhelmingly so. They're generous with the prawns, and the sauce is really tasty. It's made me believe that their rice dishes are pretty safe choices.

Chilli prawn hotpot ($14.90)

During my first visit, I'd ordered a spicy seafood noodle dish (can't remember the exact name), which was ultra hot. The Korean rice noodles had a lovely texture at times, but they also had a tendency to clump up together, creating hard, starchy and chewy lumps of noodle (which I know is a huge bother to a lot of people).

I'm keen to see how its newly-opened udon neighbour fares.

Bulgogi, Chatswood

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Bulgogi. My dad and I have been visiting them regularly over the past few years for their lunch specials (Dad gets cravings for seafood udon), but whenever I order beef-related dishes, I know there's a chance that the meat won't be great. One day, I saw Bulgogi was offering $29.00 Groupon vouchers for their Korean BBQ Wagyu Samplers for 2 with 2 bowls of rice, valued at $73.00. Not having tried their BBQ, I gave into my curiosity.

Barbecuing there is a little awkward, as the BBQ grills are not built into the tables, but are separate apparatuses. This meant there was limited room for anything else on our table for two. Metal pipes are situated over the BBQ grill to suck up any greasy BBQ smells.


The Wagyu Sampler consisted of 4 slices of each of the following:

• Wagyu rib finger
• Wagyu inside skirt
• Wagyu short rib
• Wagyu oyster blade
• Wagyu flap meat
• A mushroom and a couple of other slices of vegetables

Most of the meat was marinated nicely, but the cuts ranged from mouthwatering and tender to tough and suspiciously not so fresh. It's this inconsistency that puts off a lot of people, particularly those who decide not to give Bulgogi another chance after a negative experience with the meat.

Portion-wise, the Wagyu Sampler for 2 is more like a Wagyu sampler for 1.5. Or 1 person with a big appetite. We were still peckish after finishing it off, so we ordered a round of beef tongue and soft shell crab salad, since even I was starting to crave a bit of vegetable.

The beef tongue was a little tasteless, but wasn't bad after allowing it to caramelise a fair bit (i.e. until crispy around the edges).

Beef tongue ($16.00)

The soft shell crab salad was pretty good because of the generosity of soft shell crab, deep fried until golden and crunchy. The mixed salad underneath was bathed in a light balsamic vinegar dressing.

Soft shell crab salad ($13.00)

I wish I knew the one really tender cut of beef that was in that platter, as we really wanted to order another one of those. Too bad all the beef looked the same to our untrained eyes.

Sydney Madang & N2 Extreme Gelato, CBD/ Chinatown

Eating out is always a bit of a situation where you have a friend with life-threatening nut allergies. After a while you get a sense of which cuisines are generally safe, which cuisines are big no-nos, and which ones require you to interrogate the targeted restaurant. In the case of my friend, Japanese is the failproof choice, as there is minimal risk of cross-contamination. However, on our most recent excursion I really didn't feel like eating Japanese and thought, 'Hey wait a minute, there are no nuts in Korean bbq!' and proceeded to drag my friends around the city looking for a place where we could eat bulgogi.

We entered the alleyway leading to Sydney Madang and saw there was no line (it was 6pm on a Friday night, so all the other diners must have been busy having their pre-dinner drinks elsewhere. Once we left around 8, there was quite a long queue.). Ever the opportunists, the four of us snagged the last free table upstairs. We should probably have asked whether they use peanut oil in their cooking (my friend can't eat any nuts, but the slightest particle of peanut will send her to hospital). Alas, we neglected to do so and my friend is still alive, which is a pretty good sign.

Sydney Madang gives you your usual condiments - accompanying sauces, kim chi, fish cakes, seaweed and that really yummy cold potato. Unfortunately, rice isn't included so we had to order that separately. For four of us, two bowls worked out just nicely.

Condiments

Our pork belly arrived first, with plenty of fat to go around. It positively melted and oozed around the hot plate, creating a lovely mess of grease. Not exactly the most appetising description to read, but fat is always a great ingredient ;) They were less generous with the raw garlic and lettuce (about 5 thin slices of garlic and one handful of lettuce), so I didn't bother eating it the authentic way and just shovelled pork, rice and bbq'ed garlic into my mouth.

Pork belly ($15.00)

Midway through cooking the pork belly, our Korean seafood pancake was laid in front of us. In most Korean places I've been to, the pancake is either crispy but not tasty, or tasty but soggy. Much to my delight, Sydney Madang made it both crunchy and delicious. Inside were the usual seafood pancake ingredients - octopus, shallots, chives, etc. While ordering, we had been tossing up between the small and the large, and I'm glad we decided on the large, as I smuggled slice after slice onto my plate. It also provided a nice carby alternative to rice to balance out all that meat on the bbq.

Seafood Korean pancake, Large ($22.00)

Finally, the main event was delivered - the meat platter containing a little bit of everything - mussels, prawns, octopus, marinated pork, marinated chicken, marinated beef and bulgogi! The meat was fresh, and it was all flavoured beautifully. However, I think my favourite on that platter was that bulgogi beef in the centre - tender, succulent and marinated nicely.

Meat platter ($53.00)

I had my doubts about whether we had ordered enough, but at the end of the night, I was almost uncomfortably full. It was probably also best to have ordered three dishes for the size of the table we had - there would have been no space for a 4th!

And, of course, you know you've had a great meal when you exit the restaurant smelling like barbecued
meat!

N2 Extreme Gelato

As Sydney Madang only has a bit of ice-cream for dessert, we decided to pass on having it there and ventured to N2 Extreme Gelato in Chinatown. I'd heard good things about it, but looking back on it now, I think the experience is more theatrical than anything - it's pretty cool to see smoke, beakers and people making ice-cream in lab coats.

The ordering system is slightly confusing, as patrons tend to crowd around the cash register even when they have finished ordering. Then again, that's like typical food court behaviour, so you just end up asking tonnes of people whether they are in the queue.

Their range of flavours on each visit is limited, and there is a lot of risk involved. One of my friends selected the "Salty Jesus Juice", a bright red sorbet-like concoction, containing salted coke and red wine sorbet. It was quite unpleasant to eat - though it tasted like sour, bitter coke (which matches the description), there was something quite jarring about the flavours. She ended up throwing it out after a few scoops.

I was quite content with mine - a "Strawberry Blonde Geisha", consisting of green tea and bits of strawberry. The consistency was creamy and these particular flavours mixed well. Nevertheless, I don't think it'll be top on the list the next time I feel like gelato - I much prefer Messina, with its larger range and milkier/ creamier textures. And to be honest, at $6.00 a scoop, I'd rather go to Coles and pick up a tub of Connoisseur.

1 scoop ($6.00)