Iron Chef Chinese Seafood Restaurant, Cabramatta
Monday, October 03, 2016
Hello, welcome back! Or a brand new welcome if you're a first time reader! This post is around 3 months late but this is my experience at Iron Chef in Cabramatta when I invited my mom here for her birthday. I was going through Zomato for somewhere new and mildly fancy in the Cabramatta area and this is what I came up with.
Iron Chef is located on the other side of Cabramatta Station, opposite to the main John St area. It is a part of the Stardust Hotel complex. I've never really ventured out on to this side so it was very interesting to see!
Huge red Chinese lanterns and gorgeous gold and red decor outlines the entrance to Iron Chef. It gives off a great sense of splendour and magnificence from the moment you are outside. As if you are about to walk into some palace.
Indoors, we find it mostly empty on a Wednesday night. This contrasts immensely with the numerous amounts of tables and chairs. Towards the front there are tanks of live seafood as well as the counter. Towards the back there are even more tables.
We choose our table before the waiter comes over to hand us menu's.
Actually the waiter seemed like the manager but I can't say.
My mom didn't have a clue what she wanted to eat tonight so she let my sister and I pick. Because it was her birthday we decided to spoil her by ordering a lot of delicious and expensive dishes. Unfortunately the manager informed us that many of these dishes were "sold out" tonight. I find it hard to believe that at 6pm on an empty Wednesday night, a restaurant as big as this in a suburb that is full of fresh food markets, butcheries, and other shops cannot provide MANY of the dishes on the menu because it is "sold out". He seemed really annoyed that we had ordered those dishes as if we should've known it was sold out. Half of the choices we made seemed sold out which was so disappointing. But anyway even though his attitude was giving off a bad vibe, we all still tried to see the best in things.
Our final choices don't exactly reflect what we had in mind. But let's get right into it. First off is the 2 course Peking style roasted duck. The 2nd course was meant to be Sang Choy Bow but we were informed that the kitchen was unable to make it that day so we would only be getting the rest of the duck chopped up. We all wanted the full experience but hey what can you do 😞
Peking Style Roasted Duck, half $29
1st Course: Carved Duck slices wrapped in thin pancake complemented with cucumber, shallots, and Chinese Hoi Sin sauce
The half duck we ordered was wheeled to our table by a waitress/chef with a cart. She carved and assembled the Peking duck pancakes in front of us really promptly before wheeling off the rest of the duck to be chopped up. The pancakes were so good and I'm really impressed with it. We received 7 plates between the 6 of us so we let my mom have 2 hehe. The duck meat is very succulent and juicy + the skin is slightly crispy making it the perfect filling with be accompanied by cucumber and shallots. This is the first time my parents and sister have had peking duck pancakes so now we're all in love with it! Wish there was more of it.
2nd Course: Peking Duck
As mentioned before usually the second course is a San Choy Bow with shredded duck meat, however we were informed that was unavailable today. Instead we received the rest of the duck chopped into pieces with plum sauce on the side. The duck was really good - juicy and succulent all over, fat rendered nicely, and the skin a little crispy. The plum sauce had a nice sweet and sour taste to it. I really like that sauce and always make sure to get it when having roasted duck for dinner!
Pippies in XO Sauce with Crunchy Vermicelli Noodles $45
Oh my goodness THESE PIPPIES ARE DIVINE. The XO sauce is so delicious and more-ish and even has a hint of chilli in it providing a nice spicy kick. The pippies are all very clean, no hint of sand or grit. And the crunchy vermicelli noodles underneath soaking up all the XO sauce goodness is incredible. I've never had noodles with this dish before and now I am converted! This dish also doesn't appear on the menu (not that we saw), but it appears on their Facebook page so if you don't see it - just ask! Noodles are an extra $10 from the market price of the pippies but it feeds the entire table well so I'd say definitely get it.
Shangtung Style Chicken deboned and topped with a vinaigrette and garlic sauce, half $21.80
A dish we actually didn't want to order but was insisted upon getting when another option we chose was sold out. This chicken is super tender on the inside with a perfectly crispy skin on top. It doesn't have much of a flavour alone and the sauce is served on the side. This vinaigrette tastes mostly of balsamic vinegar and soy with no hints of chilli or garlic were tasted. The dish was well made but because I felt it was kind of boring, I didn't really like it.
Hokkien Style Fried Rice glazed with diced pork, prawns and mushroom $21.80
My sister accidentally ordered this thinking it would be Hokkien fried noodles. Oops! The truth is none of us are fans of this type of dish where the thick gravy-like sauce is poured over rice, so this was mostly left untouched and we got it for take-away. It is nice though! It's well seasoned and there are such generous cuts of pork and prawns. Plus the fried rice is perfectly coated with egg.
Pork Rib deep-fried with Honey mingled with Black Pepper sauces $21.80
MY SECOND FAVOURITE DISH OF THE NIGHT. We all know the standard Chinese take-away honey chicken, but this dish utilises honey like I've never tasted before. It goes so well with the dark black pepper sauce - turning into a sort of sweet soy. It's sticky and coats well on the deep-fried pork ribs and it's so incredibly delectable to me. Also those onions have soaked in the honey pepper sauce and really add so much flavour to the dish. I love this, highly recommend!
Combination Chow Mein with selected Seafood $22.80
Quite a standard chow mein and we ordered this because we wanted some veggies in our dinner. It seemed a better deal to get it with seafood and chow mein rather than separately which costs around the same price. There's a generous portion of seafood, the vegetables seem fresh, and the chow mein is initially nice and crispy. Can't go wrong.
Salt and Pepper King Prawns $30.80
The last dish to arrive almost as we were about to finish up our meal and get everything take-away. I really think that it's quite beautifully presented with the deep fried noodles, chilli flakes and all. These prawns could've definitely used more pepper but as for salt, yes it was there. I still ended up dipping in whatever sauce was on the table though. Prawns seemed fresh and nicely battered.
We ordered way too much food for the 5 of us!!!
Look how untouched that Hokkien fried rice is. We ended up placing most of our food in take-away boxes and I'm glad that everyone was happy with their meals and feeling very full and satisfied!
Now to finish off our lavish banquet, Iron Chef served us a complementary Chinese dessert 💕
Red Bean Soup, Cookies, Oranges
I love this because it reminds me of finishing off a banquet at a Wedding and these are the kind of desserts you receive at the end. The thing about Asian/Chinese desserts is that they are never too sugary and sweet. They are very subtle which go nicely in rounding off your meal. The red bean soup is just that; subtly sweet as well as warm and hearty. The cookies are so good (I wonder if they make them in-house?) because they are nice and buttery. And the oranges are surprisingly sweet. Fun fact they symbolise wealth and luck in China and are hence a traditional dessert. Or so I've heard!
I definitely over ordered but I'm happy everyone in my family was able to eat well. Also in case you haven't noticed, while my total bill racked up to be quite a lot for my unemployed-student-life budget the dishes especially the seafood was some of the most affordable pricings you can get! I'm really impressed about that. While I wasn't happy about the service, at least the food was almost good enough to completely overshadow that.
Have you been to Iron Chef before? I'm actually considering coming back for a next event or birthday, even Yum Cha etc. I would love to know what you guys order and any critiques or recommendations you may have so leave a comment or message me!
Thank you for reading! xx
TL;DR:
Price: Comparatively, it is very affordable!
Quality: Mostly fresh, well cooked
Service: Rude
Ambience: Large restaurant, banquet style
Iron Chef Chinese Seafood Restaurant
The Stardust Hotel
84 Broomfield St,
Cabramatta NSW 2166
1 comments
Wow, the dishes mentioned in above article is so tempting. Such Best Seafood Restaurant are very rare to find. Thanks for sharing.
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