Mother Chu

If you're after Taiwanese food, you'll know Mother Chu is the one place to go to. It's very homestyle, very authentic, and won't break your wallet.
It's funny because having pass by this place countless time, and have also heard raved review from many people, I just never tried it before myself. Hence, after recently dined in the quite expensive Din Tai Fung, i decided that I'll try the cheaper version of Taiwanese food.
Mother Chu is located in China Town, it's a rather small, pack, and functional restaurant. It is always crowded, and they also set up small table to fit 2 -3 people along the outside of the restaurant. Remind me of those hawker stall back in Malaysia.



There are 3 of us, and we're ask to wait for about 10 mins for a free table. I ask for the menu while we wait. Browsing through menu always bring a sense of excitement to me, and time seem to pass by faster. There are a whole page of small/side dishes which is very famous amount the Taiwanese, as well as a huge range of main dishes, categories into rice mains, and noodle mains. There are some desserts too but the drinks menu seems to be longer, with many different types of pearl milk tea.


Taiwan Beef and Tendon Noodle Soup ($8)

We were seated before i finish browsing the menu, and the 2 boys were already eager to order.
Although they all seems to be more interested to order a selection of small/side dishes only, I manage to persuade them to order some main dishes as well.
Husband lock his eyes on the famous Taiwan Beef and Tendon Noodle soup, while T could not decide what to get. Since we've ordered the noodle section, I suggest that we should try the rice section of the mains, and we choose the Preserve egg and pork congee to share. What is congee without Yu Tiow? So we order Yu Tiaw with egg pancake to go with the congee. Apart from that, we also order some small/side dish such as the steam beef dumpling and Taiwan Siao Long Bao. Having just dined in Din Tai Fung the night before, we are just curious to do compare the siaw long bao of both places.


Preserved Egg and Pork Congee ($8)

The food arrive very quickly, and almost all at once. We ask for extra bowl and share everything together. The beef soup is very hearty and fragrance. I particularly like the handmade noodle, just the right amount of chewiness, and the beef was soft. Perfect for winter as it really warms you up, but husband feels that the portion is a bit too small.
The Preserved egg and pork congee is a little disappointing, it's more bland, and both the preserved egg and pork were microscopically small that we can hardly taste them.
The Yu Tiaw though, was very good, crispy and chewy all at the same time. The boys enjoy the egg pancake that wrap around the yu tiaw too. The congee is then used as a dipping sauce for the yu tiaw, which at least, serve it's purpose in a useful way!


Yu Tiow with Egg Pancake ($5)


Steam Beef Dumpling 12 ($7.50)

The steam beef dumpling is good value for money, although, it's nothing too exciting about it. It's the siao long poa that keeps everyone talking about going back to Mother chu.
It's a serving of 8 pipping hot little gems!! After the first siao long bao encounter, we know we have to be patient and wait for a while before biting into them, as the hot soup that burst out will hurt our tongue!! So, we mop up the beef dumplings first, and then it's the saiw long bao time!!
Boy they don't disappoint, the skin was just enough thickness to hold the soup that when we pick up each bao with chopstick, there was no breakage. I like to dip mine into black vinegar and sent the whole thing straight into my mouth, while husband likes to slurp the hot soup with a small opening first, and then gallop the whole thing. No matter which ways you like to eat your siao long bao, they are good. And I can loudly proclaim that it is better, if not as good as those in Din Tai Fung, but at a much cheaper price.

Siaw Long Bao 8 ($6.50)

We'll definitely be back!

Mother Chu's Taiwanese Gourmet

Shop 1, 86-88 Dixon Street, Haymarket,

Sydney

Tel: +61 (02) 9211 0288

Din Tai Fung

So the news is that after landed in Taiwan, Japan, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Korea, US and Malaysia, Din Tai Fung have arrived in Australia! The history and their specialty can be found in here, apparently, they're very famous!

I've never heard of the name before, but everyone that have been to their chain in Singapore, Malaysia or Taiwan have prise them. So, we decided it's time to go and try it out ourselves.

The first time when we decide to go, the queue was too long and we just don't have the patient and took off. ( apparently, this does not apply when queueing for sushi! ).

After that, it was months before we attempt to try again, and this time, we went there with a group of 15 friends, and we book for an early dinner, which makes it easier for us to get a table because there are special big table reserve for such huge group.

When we arrive at about 6, there are a lot of people queueing to get a table already, but when we told the waitress that we have a group of 15, we were immediately invited inside. The only condition was that we have to finish our dishes before 8 because another big group of guests are coming at 8. Though, i do not understand what power they pull to get a reservation since they don't normally took reservation on weekend! But, we assure them that we can finish before 8 if they can have their dishes out fast enough!



Cold Appetizer (glass noodle, seaweed, been curd dress in Asian vinaigrette)


As this chain originate from Taiwan, so most of their dishes are famous Taiwanese dishes.
Taiwanese is obsess with street food, so almost all of their dishes are small/side dishes. Din Tai Fung is also famous for their Siaw Long Bao. Saiw Long Bao is not like the normal bun that we encounter from Asian bakery or Yum Cha, in fact, it's more like a soup dumpling. It have the same skin of the dumpling, but when bite into it, it'll have the bursting of soup into your mouth. Quite addictive to eat, in fact, it's impossible to stop at just 1. I must shamelessly admit that i could finish the whole steamer basket myself, or even 2 !!




Drunken Chicken

We decided that we'll each order one main each, and share the small/side dishes. The small/side dishes that caught our attention were drunken chicken, century egg with tofu and shredded pork, shrimp and pork wonton with spicy vinaigrette, stir fry garlic shoots with prawns, shrimp and pork parcel ( Sao Mai )and their famous steam crabmeat and pork siaw long pao.
Because of the gossip to catch up, I didn't notice what everyone else were ordering. Me and husband however, decided that we should share a Za Jiang La Mien, which is handmade noodle with pork and spicy bean sauce.


Century Egg with Tofu and shredded Pork

The dishes as promised, came out rather quickly, and almost all together. Which is a good thing because everyone pretty much got their food together, save the hassle of food being left cold for those who felt embarrassed to consume first.
But be warned, their side/small dishes are really tiny portion! In fact, when the appetizer came, it was sized like it should be a complimentary dish. We think it's rather expensive, but it was nevertheless, very delicious, cold and tangy, very appetizing indeed.
Next up was the drunken chicken, also, in very tiny portion, was rather disappointing. The chicken was cold, ( i didn't expect it to be a cold dish ), and overpower by the wine.
The century egg with tofu and shredded pork was really nice. It's ironic but the century egg was really fresh, and the shredded pork add texture to the smooth tofu. Yum!
Another good side dish was the stir fry garlic shoots with prawns. I really like the crunch of the garlic shoots, and the prawns are plum and juicy.
The shrimp and pork wonton arrived rather unimpressively, about 8 wonton swimming in a big pool of black vinaigrette. However, it was tasty enough.




Stir Fry Garlic Shoots with Prawns



Shrimp and Pork Wonton witn spicy Vinaigrette

We're all very excited when the waiters arrived with baskets after baskets of xiao long bao. This is their house specialty, so we had very high expectation with them. All the xiao long bao arrived in their steaming basket, and looking smokingly impressive. The skin of the xiao long bao were perfect, not too thick and yet thin enough that there were no breakage. I was too eager to try them, i burnt my tongue when the hot soup burst upon first bite. Hence, my advice for eating these little babies is to be patient. The flavour of these xiao long bao is also very good, we can actually taste the crab meat in them. In fact, it was so good we end up re-order another 2 baskets.
The Ooh and Aahs became louder when the shrimp and pork parcel arrived, in their steaming basket of course. Theses are also called sao mai in Mandarin, but it's no ordinary boring looking sao mai that you got from yam cha, these little babies are tall and elegant, shaped like a vase, and top with a small juicy prawns. They are very delicious, as well as very pricey. I think it was priced at $9.80 per basket ( 4 sao mai per basket ).

Steam Crabmeat and Pork Xiao Long Bao

Shrimp and Pork Parcel (Sao Mai )

Za Jiang La Mien

The Zha Jiang La Mien that was shared between me and husband were OK. I've tested better one before. I think the sauce was quite bland, but the handmade noodle was good. Others that had noodle dishes as mains such as Dan Dan Noodle or Wonton Noodle soup...tend to agree with me that their handmade noodle were very good, but otherwise, quite ordinary.

Their fried rice dishes however, got rave review from many. I got to taste some and it was indeed fabulous. It was fragrance, with a distinctive egg aroma. Fried rice dishes either came in plain, or with chicken cutlet. I was lucky enough to share the chicken cutlet with a friend, it was so good. The cutlet was deep fried to golden, and the crunch when biting into them makes me ask for more!

Fried Rice with Egg and Prawns

Fried Rice with Chicken Cutlet

Din Tai Fung is also very famous for their dessert, their shave ice were really good, but because of some miscommunication, we didn't order any! Also because we need to finish our meals in 1 hour time, so we didn't bother to re-order them. Despite that, we manage to try some in house Taro ice-cream, mango pudding and the golden red bean bread.

My favourite among the 3 will be the golden red bean bread, i think that's because i love all thing crunchy!

Taro Ice-cream with red beans


Mango Pudding


Golden Red Bean Bread with Sesame seeds

We left with a big bill of $450, and still wanting a bit more.

It's quite an upclass restaurant for cheap street food like Xiao Long Bao. However, it's worth the trip if you want to impress your guest and introduce them to Xiao Long Bao for the first time. The ambiance of the restaurant is really presentable, and there's even is a "transparent" kitchen, where one can enjoy the whole making of Xiao Long Bao. But for people like me who just like to enjoy good food with good value, I'm sure there are more "down to earth " places to enjoy these little soup dumpling!

Din Tai Fung

World Square Shopping Centre

644 George St, Sydney

Tel: 02-92646010