Thursday, January 28, 2010

New Taste Noodle House (Lao Fu Qing) - Ashfield

Whenever I am eating in Ashfield, 8 times out of 10, I would choose to eat Shanghainese. Of those 8 times, I would say 7 times is with Shanghai Nights. I've tried atleast 3/4 of the restaurant in Ashfield, and I consistently go back to either Shanghai Nights or the local Kebab joint, Metro 1.

I was trawling on eatability awhile ago and noticed there was a restaurant in Ashfield called Lao Fu Qing that had decent ratings. I decided to try the place out and couldn't find it! I tried on 2 separate occasions! Today I made sure I double checked google maps before I decided to hunt the place down. Success!


Strangely enough, the restaurant seems to have two names? New Taste Noodle House on the menu, but Lao Fu Qing on the sign outside. Some things have both names on it.


I've actually walked past this restaurant a few times, never noticing the name and almost instantly dismissing it as the modern type restaurant with small serves and bad food served on square plates category. Boy was I wrong!


Before I get onto the food part, I must apologise for the dodgy photos. I only realised when I sat down that my camera had a flat battery! I was completely devastated when this happens, especially when I try a new place! I was almost tempted to leave the restaurant and come back another day with a fully charged camera! hehehe Luckily for camera photos.

Anyway, food! The menu has a entree section and a traditional snacks section. I wasn't too sure what the difference was, so I assumed the snacks section was small serves like the entree section. Based on that assumption, and the thundering noise coming from my tummy, we decided to order 2 snacks and 2 mains between 2 people..... *cough*

Spicy minced pork Dou Pi - $6.80

This came out looking like a murtabak. The chinese name is spicy minced pork in tofu skin. What came out seemed to be more doughy pastry than tofu skin pastry. Nevertheless, the pastry was crispy and oh so moreish. The filling was a layer of sticky rice topped with a spicy, garlicky pork mince. SO GOOD! I'm definitely hoping to try their other Dou Pi dishes.

Boiled Pork and chive dumplings - $8.20

If I thought snack meant small portions then I was wrong. For $8.20, you get 12 of these babies. Big, plump, juicy dumplings. These are definitely freshly made and not of the frozen variety. The chives were a fresh bright green and the pork had a lovely bite to it. And did I mention these babies are huge?

Taiwan beef brisket noodle soup - $10.50

This was a clean rich broth with big flakey chunks of beef.

Hu Nan beef tripe noodle soup with spicy minced pork sauce - $10.50

When this huge bowl came out, I automatically assumed it was a big bowl, lots of soup, not much substance. It wasn't until I dug my chopsticks in did I realise how much food we had actually ordered! The bowl had a huge wack of noodles, chunks of meat and heaps of tripe, pickled veggies, bok choy and........peanut butter. That's right....peanut butter. I had a WTF moment and then went whatever! If that's the way the chef made it, that must be what the dish is like in Hu Nan and bravely stirred the peanut butter in. And you know what? It works! The peanut gives a lovely creaminess to the soup and mellows out the chilli. Were the minced pork sauce was I have no idea. But I did like the chunks of meat! Not bad for $10.50. I actually couldn't finish this bowl and took home a huge container of leftover noodles!

The reason I didn't find the restaurant the first 2 times was that I assumed it was down Liverpool Rd with the other restaurants. Little did I know it was actually up near the quieter end of town. Quite unfortunately actually, because they have really good food! Its actually one of the few restaurants in Ashfield that I'm excited to have found! (I actually rushed home to blog about it, how sad is that?!). The restaurant is clean and comfortable, with plenty of seats for a large group of people. Certainly not something you find it a lot of other restaurants in Ashfield!

New Taste Noodle House (Lao Fu Qing)
243 Liverpool Rd
Ashfield, 2131
(Ph) 02 9716 6838

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