Gama BBQ, Turramurra ($$)

Address: 1/1380 Pacific Highway Turramurra NSW

Tel: (02) 9988 4939

Website: http://gamabbq.com.au/

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Atmosphere

The atmosphere was a little quiet as it was early on in the week and there weren’t many customers around. However, the sounds of the TV playing The Voice and the sizzling BBQ made it the place a little more interesting and no doubt Fridays and Saturdays are busy nights for this little suburban restaurant.

Entrance to Gama BBQ

Service

Some would say service is pretty average as when we walked in the owners themselves were cooking at a bbq table! It was a bit unusual for a restaurant but my family, MC and I all thought service was great. Why? Because the owners were extremely friendly, very helpful and welcoming.

Although they were eating their own meals nearby, the lovely gentleman came over to set up our BBQs and teach us how to use it, would come and change our hotplates when they became charred from the meats, and would check the temperature of our BBQs.

The BBQs

The friendly lady made us tea and coffee and would now and then answer my mum’s questions about Korean food.

They were both so friendly that we felt like they too were guests who were dining with us.

Food

The food was quite good. I have only had Korean food a couple of times and so I was interested to see what the Korean BBQ would be like.

The restaurant is set up with the hot plates on each table and a separate area for the buffet. You choose your own meats (including pork, beef, rump, wagyu, prawns, NZ mussells, octopus, marinated chicken etc) and bring them over to your table where you cook them to your liking.

My dad and brother choosing their meats

You can also choose from steamed rice and soup, a variety of pickles including Kimchi and radish, lettuce and carrot, garlic, onions, and various sauces (such as BBQ sauce, tomato sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, satay sauce and chilli sauce).

Pickles, kim chi and salad (bit of a mess!)

The variety of foods on offer and the option of cooking with different sauces made the experience really exciting, especially for the younger ones who tend to get bored at dinners. Needless to say, my brother and MC had a very enjoyable time cooking their own meats!

My brother enjoying cooking his own food

There was plenty of food available, even though my family are big eaters. My dad enjoyed the prawns, MC enjoyed the beef and my brother and I enjoyed the chicken.

Some of the raw meats- marinated chicken, wagyu beef, angus steak and bacon

Cooking the meat

BBQ prawns, meat and chicken

Summary

Overall the food was tasty, the experience interesting and the service friendly and welcoming. We would definitely return to try this again, perhaps next time we will ge the Hot Pot!

Cost:

Gama BBQ’s Korean BBQ buffet costs between $25-30pp.

Rating:

I would rate my experience (out of 10):

• Service-6.5
• Food-6.5
• Ambience -5
• Value –7.5

Night Noodle Markets 2013, Hyde Park Sydney

Address: Hyde Park North, Sydney NSW

Website: http://sydney.goodfoodmonth.com/nightnoodlemarkets

Opening Hours:

October 9-12, 14-19, 21-26

Mon-Tue 5-9pm; Wed 5-10pm; Thur-Fri 5-11pm; Sat 4-10pm

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Currently in its 15th year, the Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park attracts about 200,000 people each year.

With over 40 delicious food stalls, which are mostly Asian, the Night Markets is a great way to enjoy the beautiful Spring weather with a drink and a quick and cheap meal with friends in beautiful Hyde Park.

Rekorderlig Cider invited me down to the markets to enjoy a drink at their beer garden.

A short stroll from Darlinghurst, Chinatown, Circular Quay and the city centre, it didn’t take me long to walk up after work, and when I got there (around 5.45pm), the place was already starting to fill up.

I was impressed by Rekorderlig’s chilled out set up with a “May pole” covered in green vines and flowers, beautiful fairy lights, quirky white trees on the tables and funky tunes coming from the (very young looking) DJ. 

Rekorderlig stall by day

Rekorderlig stall at night

The signature red and white chairs, seen at previous Rekorderlig stalls, looked comfortable and inviting and provided a great spot from which to sit back and people watch.

We ordered some drinks from the bar in the tent near the beer garden.

The staff were friendly despite the fact that they were probably dying from the heat that day as it was about 30 degrees in Sydney!

I ordered the Mango Raspberry cider, one of my favourites!

As always, it was ice cold, perfect for the hot summer day. This flavour is one of my favourites so I really enjoyed the fresh, crisp taste.

In some interesting news, I learnt that one of the favourites, Strawberry Lime Cider is now on tap and will be heading out to bars across town soon!

I also got the scoop on some exciting new developments next week- stay tuned for more information!

After checking out the Rekorderlig beer garden I met up with my lovely mum and we walked around the rest of the markets, looking at our options for dinner.

The place was packed out and the background music, Chinese dragon shows and buzz of happy people chatting in the park made for an exciting and fun environment.

The Night Noodle Markets are definitely a good place to take friends from overseas to, to showcase Sydney’s multiculturalism, or to enjoy a good meal after work from some of Sydney’s most popular Asian restaurants.

Some of the restaurants with stalls included East Ocean, Din Tai Fung, Jackie M Malaysian, Longrain and Zilver.

The Jackie M stall even has Ms M herself cooking at the front of the stall!

After a bit of walking around, I decided on a delicious box of fried goodness from East Ocean ($12.00). It included pork ribs, salt and pepper octopus and delicious prawns.

The ribs were soft and delicious, easy to eat and tender with a tomato and BBQ styled sauce.

While I am not a big fan of octopus (I don’t like the tentacles). I didn’t mind this as the thicker parts at the top were easy to eat and the fact that it was fried meant I didn’t notice the suckers on the tentacles as much!  🙂

The prawns were well cooked through and were great with the hot chilli sauce.

Mum decided to get a chicken curry with yellow rice from Chinta Ria, which she said reminded her of Sri Lankan biriyani.

The chicken pieces were well-cooked and had absorbed the delicious spices from the curry. They were good pieces of chicken with plenty of meat on them.  The yellow rice was gently flavoured and had a slight sweetness from the sultanas.

We both enjoyed our meals and had a great time out.

I will definitely be returning to try out some of the other foods available, perhaps even the Ramen Burger!

Korean Food (KoFoo), Sydney CBD ($)

Address: Shop G02, 35 – 39 Liverpool St, Sydney NSW

Tel: (02) 9261 2465

Website:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Korean-Food-KOFOO/168063346673527

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Atmosphere

Kiwi Kolleague and I decided to check out one of the local restaurants near our workplace. It was a gorgeous sunny day so we decided to head towards Darling Harbour and see what we could find.

On the way we noticed a Korean place with photos of interesting looking dishes displayed in the windows.

When took a seat in the middle of the cafe and were given menus and water.

The place has a pretty unique atmosphere. It’s a dark but funky spot with Korean music playing in the background. There is a somewhat open kitchen from which you can hear the sounds of sizzling pans and the steaming of dumplings.

Service

The back wall has a sign saying “Korean food KoFoo – Passionate Staff: Conquers the World.” I was looking forward to seeing the passionate staff in action.

Unfortunately, I didn’t notice any passion in the staff at all. Moreover, they didn’t even seem that interested in us and they weren’t very friendly.

Food

There is a special $6.99 deal between, I believe 12.00 to 2.00pm, which Kiwi Kolleague and I just missed by 5 minutes (yes, we had a late lunch!).

We were a bit disappointed about missing this but decided on our meals fairly quickly anyway as there were quite a few mouth-watering dishes on the menu.

After placing our orders we were brought an array of pickles and sides including what the waitress told us were:

• fish pancake cut into shreds
• pickled radish
• soy fish sauce
• seafood noodle mayonnaise salad

They were pretty interesting for us to try, especially as I had never had the noodle salad and fish pancake before. Kiwi Kolleague is not a fan of fish so she did not really enjoy the seafood noodle.

We both enjoyed the sour pickled radish though, and the fish pancake was not as yucky as it sounds.

First up were pork dumplings. These were juicy and moist, although they got stuck to the bottom of the steamer 😦

Kiwi Kolleage lived in China for quite a while and she enjoyed the dumplings too but was too full to have her three (so of course, I ate it!- can’t waste a good dumpling!).

Pork Dumplings, $6.99

I ordered a sweet chicken Korean bento box.

While the wedges, fried noodle spring roll, chips and fried dumpling were an odd edition to the dish, they were probably the best things in the box.

The chicken was too hard to eat, tasted too much of ginger and a sickly sweet sauce, and was difficult to eat with the flat metal chopsticks.

The egg and rice were….well, egg and rice, and the pickled condiments, mini corn salsa and lettuce with beetroot mayonnaise were quite average.

Nice presentation but the food was not great.

Kiwi Colleague’s chicken egg noodles were a bit better than my dish. She said the dish was delicious and really tasty.

It was also well-presented and was a good portion-size.

Overall, I was disappointed with my dish but next time would come back to try the noodles and prawn har gow- perhaps when they are $6.99!

Cost

My meal came to about $18.00 all up including a peach iced tea and shared dumplings.

Rating:

I would rate my experience (out of 10):

• Service-5
• Food-6
• Ambience-6
• Value –6.5

Sydney Night Noodle Markets, Hyde Park

So yesterday I went to the night noodle markets with a few friends from my exchange in Canada.

We were a bit worried about the storm that was threatening to ruin our evening but it proved to be an empty threat and we didn’t encounter any rain during our visit to the markets.

The night noodle markets have been running for a few years now as part of the Crave Sydney Food Festival and I try to make it at least once a year as it is something different.

There are big white tents set up with red lanterns outside them, which are filled with stalls from all sorts of Asian restaurants. There is Malaysian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and other types of food available to purchase. There is also live music and a bar.

As it was quite busy, we settled on the grass, using the Sydney morning herald newspapers bags we were given, as makeshift seats.

One friend and I ordered some noodles, beef and black bean, a spring roll and san choy bao. The two others ordered various dumplings and pork buns.

The atmosphere was great and there were even waiters coming around to the people seated on the grass! Now that’s good service!

If you’ve been to the noodle markets we’d love to hear what you thought of it!! Post your comments below!