♡ Kimmie Bites | Food blog, Sydney Australia ♡: university life

The Hub House Diner, Broadway

Riding past this place nearly everyday on the bus to uni (yes I'm that lazy) has made me real curious as to who is succeeding in the former Soul Origin's place on Broadway. The outside always looks bright and friendly as the place has a nice orange theme to it and the doors are wide open.

Originally I was going to stop by with Francis sometime but on this random unplanned event, my sister and I were the ones stopping by as the $5 mid wings and $5 popcorn chicken signs caught our eyes!

Do you see the $5?

We had actually just eaten a late lunch with my friends Vanessa and Claudia but upon looking over the menu board, everything actually still sounded so tempting and delicious. Walked in for some $5 chicken but ended up ordering a burger and concrete shake as well because we're already here so why not! The food is very American themed/inspired.

Service is very quick and friendly, but it's a shame there is no option to upgrade the drink in the +$5 combo (chips and drinks) to a concrete shake. A concrete shake by the way is their soft serve textured shakes that come in some fun and unique flavours such as Peanut Butter Butterscotch, Nutella, NY Cheesecake and Coffee.

There is limited seating available by the counter and window and I can see it getting a little cramped once the place gets busy. Luckily we're here around 6pm when it's quite empty on this day. You're given a number from the counter and they bring out the food to you when it's all ready. On every table, there is a ketchup bottle hahaha

NY Cheesecake Concrete Shake $8.50

This is the first thing that comes out and we're both really excited to try it as we're big fans of cheesecake! It does not disappoint as it is so cold, creamy, sweet and got that nice cheesecake tang. I can definitely see what they mean when they describe is a "concrete" and "soft textured" at the same time because it tastes like a blended up cheesecake in a milkshake. It gets super sweet towards the end so this is not something to take lightly!

The other foods we ordered come out shortly after and they both look SO AMAZING...

🙌 🙌 🙌

Tipsy Pig Burger w/ seasoned pork, jack cheese, bourbon sticky onion, lettuce and old bay aioli $11

+ Combo (Fries and Drink) $5

This pork burger stood out to me on the menu because even though all the other choices sounded mouthwatering, I thought it was very unique to eat a pork burger. I'm really pleased to let you guys know that this did not disappoint! From the first bite I was like oh my goooooddddness. The pork is perfectly seasoned and very juicy. I really like the bourbon sticky onions as they are like a smokey caramelised onion which are very more-ish. The buns of this burger are very "American-style" and I wouldn't call it a brioche but more like soft spongy buns. I'm pretty sure you guys will know what I mean. Everything in this burger goes SO well, the only thing I would add is pickles because I love pickles and it might provide a cut from the extreme creaminess that is this burger but other than that it's really damn good.

The chips come in such an overwhelming and generous portion. Not only that but they are the perfect chips being crispy & evenly seasoned on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.

Mid Wings w/ Southern Coating, 5pc for $5

No tips here, all mid wing sections of the chicken wing. The "Southern coating" tastes very peppery which I liked. However my sister didn't like it. We're not sure what other spices went into this coating but pepper is all we could taste. The mid wings were all juicy, not a single one dry - but the coating did not hold on very well. One bite in and the entire coating would kind of just fall off. It's not a major problem but definitely kind of strange to us.

In the end we walked out of the Hub House Diner with a take-away box in hand full of chips which we happily nommed on the train home. Our little dining experience was really fantastic here and I really hope to come back to try their other burgers such as the Just Jack and Phat Chicken! A friend of mine also recommended the Veg Burger which I would also love to try.

All students around this area or even workers and passerbys, I encourage you to try out this fast food place! Let me know if you do, or if you have and how it went for you. Keen to return.

Thanks for reading, everyone! xx

TL;DR:
Price: Bit pricier than normal quick eats
Quality: Good
Service: Good
Ambience: Bright and friendly, fast food vibes

The Hub House Diner

13/185-211 Broadway,

Ultimo NSW 2007

Open Monday - Saturday

10AM - 10PM

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, by Kim

brunch

Zilver, Haymarket

As the long weekend and USYD mid-semester break comes to a close, I barely managed to complete all the tasks and catch up's with my friends that I had planned. In fact on this particular Friday, I ended up having three outings to catch up with different friends. A successful, expensive and productive day yet still not enough. Anyhow that means I ate out three times and I have two more exciting food reviews (and an additional post about my Cirque du Soleil experience) to post!!

First up is Zilver. Freshly renovated and looking bright and beautiful, Zilver is reportedly one of the top Yumcha places in Sydney. The last time I visited this place, it didn't elude as much sophistication as it does now. It used to be all about the black, red and gold decor but now it's completely light, bright and white. I really enjoy it because it's much more pretty and ideal for photos. My photos are still amateur though so forgive me as I try to improve haha!

I caught up with a group of friends who I studied Chinese with at Uni and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately Hayley, James and Cherie weren't able to make it, but still good to catch up with the others. Half of us don't study Chinese anymore, myself included so it really makes me feel like we're all missing out. Last time we went to Zilver together, I barely had anything to eat because the group started without me 😭

Fun throwback photo:

Me looking and feeling like a kid on Christmas with the only thing left to grab off the trolleys; Mango Pancakes.

TODAY I made sure I was early and on time. I ended up being a few minutes past 11am yet still earlier than everyone else, with the exception of Edward. Now I know how bad it feels to wait for someone when you are hungry. But we persevered… and waited!

Funny thing was my sister and her boyfriend were also at Zilver this morning since they had a voucher that was about to expire. Or they are following me 😱

How gorgeous is this!

We waited around and Anna was the first to show, so us three went in first. Behold the new and beautiful Zilver.

These chairs are a work of art!

We are seated promptly as a waiter brings us some menu's, tea and chilli sauce.

The menu's are pretty but we don't really need them because we are here for the yumcha! I suspect these were bought out only to pipe our interests in choosing Zilver as a lunch or dinner option.

The restaurant is absolutely bustling but not crowded on this Friday morning. I'm pleasantly surprised at the great variety of Yumcha carts are being pushed around the restaurant. Usually it can be extremely hard to find the cart with the dishes you like on it, but here they will travel by you very often. Chinese broccoli is usually a hard dish to find as well.. you end up having to order it and it'll arrive at the end of your meal. Here, I must've seen it promptly come out of the kitchen various times.

The service is generally friendly and helpful, but there is always a sense of guilt when you turn alway a Yumcha lady because you don't want any of the dishes on her cart. Some of them will seem quite annoyed but I wouldn't take this as rudeness, just slight disappointment.

Also the prices for Yumcha dishes are never explicitly stated on a menu or anything. Rather you will have a sheet on your table and every time you grab a dish off a cart, the lady will stamp your sheet in a category where the dish fits into. I think they go by sizes as well as whether it is a speciality dish or not. But don't trust my word, I can't read or understand Cantonese. Mostly you should just try to ignore all the costs adding up on your sheet and of course, enjoy your Yumcha 😌

Pork Dim Sim with Prawn

Also known Siu Mai/Shumai, these dumplings are your very classic representation of dim sum. They are very delicious and I can't fault them here. The carrots topped on these open-top dumplings are so finely diced that I actually thought it was fish roe. Fancy!

Chinese Broccoli in Oyster Sauce

I can't go to any Yumcha WITHOUT ordering these greens. I could eat them for every meal. My favourite vegetable to be honest 😍 They are very briefly boiled/steamed so that they still retain a nice crunch. These stems are also very fresh. The oyster sauce here is served in a watery consistency yet it still is very salty and flavourful. Just what I like!! Although I do love when the oyster sauce is served thick because a lot of places literally water it down but because there is so much flavour left in Zilver's sauce, I very much enjoyed it.

Steamed Prawn & Spinach Dumplings

We actually didn't want this because we were waiting for the cart with prawn har gao dumplings, but the lady kept insisting that this was what we were looking for so we succumbed and got it. It's decent but not as satisfying as a prawn-only dumpling.

Hong Kong Egg Tarts

Served warm, these are bomb! The outer pastry crust is perfectly flakey and buttery. If you look closely you can see all the layers in that crust. The egg custard is very silky and sweet. Love this dessert!

Steamed Chicken Feet in Black Bean Sauce

I 100% understand if you think eating chicken feet is gross because I was just like you once upon a time. However once you get past all the gross feelings you have about eating chicken feet and just give it a try, you might actually end up really liking it! Edward really likes it so he ordered two 😂 But definitely this is also a must-order at Yumcha for me as well. The skin around the chicken feet is steamed until it becomes very soft and tender. It soaks up the delicious sauce.

FYI you eat this by taking it into your bowl and biting right into the chicken feet. The bones/joints of the feet come off really easily because of how it has been steamed. Then you eat around the bone you have bitten off. This bone then goes onto the plate underneath your bowl. Hope you learned something new HAHA

Steamed Prawn Dumplings

Also known as HAR GAO. The other very traditional dim sum. It is very delicious by itself or dipped into a soy or chilli sauce. Most people critique the dumpling by talking about how thick the skin is. Apparently a thicker skin is not all that impressive or ideal. The skin here is a little on the thick side as you can see by how the dumpling is not that translucent. However I don't mind it at all because it holds the contents well and doesn't rip apart when held with chopsticks or is stuck with the dumpling next to it. We got two baskets of this!

Hi Edward!

Look at all this food we ordered and yet the other two friends in the group still aren't here yet HAHAHA

Okay they actually arrived shortly after I took this photo. It was good to see Nancy again and meet a new friend of Edward and Anna who's name is Queenie.

We didn't actually order many more dishes after they arrived:

Steamed Beef Dim Sim Ball

This looked interesting! The texture of the meatballs was soft and springy. They are served on a bed of tofu skin. I found these alright but it might've been better with the sauce served on the side which I neglected to make use of until I noticed it at the very end.

Stir Fried Noodles with Soya Sauce

Didn't order this but my sister on the other table received this as a part of her voucher and she didn't like it so she gave it to us. It's very basic chow mein, with the noodles having a very dry almost rubbery mouthfeel and seasoned with onions and soy sauce. I liked it but I wouldn't order this at Yumcha just because it is so simple of a dish.

FRIEEEEENNNNDSSS

I was really satisfied with this Yumcha experience and very happy as it was a great place to share a meal and catch up with my friends. We all paid around $19 each so the total bill for 10 dishes (remember, chow mein not included, and we also ordered a mango pudding which isn't pictured) was $95. Kind of expensive in all honesty. But at least everyone somehow ended up feeling full and we even had takeaway for some noodles, broccoli, chicken feet, a dumpling, and a meat ball. Which was given to me hahaha so lucky, thank you friends!

If you are in the city looking for some Yumcha I actually will recommend Zilver to you because overall I thought it was great. Zilver also has a sister restaurant called The Eight (upstairs at Market City) which I really, really loved but I haven't been there in a while so I will have to revisit it and give you guys a review on that.

When the next post about my next foodie adventure on this same day is available, you can click on this link to view it: « Los Vida, Barangaroo »

Thank you for reading! xx

TL;DR:

Price: Bit expensive

Quality: Fresh

Service: Good

Ambience: Loving the new light & bright interiors, very sophisticated and pretty

Zilver

477 Pitt St,

Haymarket NSW 2000

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, by Kim

blogger friends

Spice Alley, Chippendale

This is the first food review and post where I use my brand new and exclusive watermark designed by Jasmine! It looks so so so good, I am very much in love with it. Also we are showcasing my NEW SHORT HAIR! After many years of growing out my hair and then refusing to cut it, it's finally all chopped off leaving me feeling a little lighter in embracing my 21 years of age. Click here to read more about it on my other blog.

Todays post is all iPhone photos since the one day I didn't carry my DSLR around, Vanessa invites me to go to Spice Alley after our lecture. I'm almost ashamed to say that this is the same day that I only just discovered Spice Alley. WORST FOODIE OR WHAT 😱

Short hair, new watermark, great discoveries!

Spice Alley is located nearby Central Park and the Kensington Street Social. It's literally an alley way marked by the gate I am posing next to above. Walking in is such a nice surprise because the place is SO pretty. The paved flooring, strings of lanterns on the ceilings as well as hawker x canteen styled eateries… what a place to be!

While the space is actually quite small, there are a few (predominantly) South East Asian eateries lined up in the alley way. The smell of food in the air makes Vanessa and I literally want to order one of everything, and personally I have so much trouble choosing between a rice dish, a fried noodle dish, or a soup noodle dish. Everything looks and sounds delicious. I don't even bother checking online for the food reviews, I had a feeling it would turn out well!

Vanessa opts for some Thai Pad See Ew at Bang Luck as well as Xiao Long Bao at Hong Kong Diner. Whereas I head over to the first eatery seen on arrival, Alex Lee Kitchen for some Singaporean food!

For the purpose of my review and because Zomato only allows one Spoonback per post, I'll only add the Alex Lee Kitchen one!

In all honesty, I found the service really rushed and a bit rude. It was a quiet afternoon and I was the only customer ordering at the time, but the server made me feel as if I was taking up so much of her time. She would finish off my sentences and gave me a strange look when I ordered the "Nasi Lemak". I mean I probably pronounced it wrong or something, but that really made me feel uncomfortable.

All the eateries in Spice Alley only accept card, so make sure you have that on you!

You are given a little ticket and your number is called out when the food is ready. My food didn't take too long to arrive and it comes out on a TV dinner style metal tray. I am much more used to seeing roti served on this hahaha. You also have to pick your own cutlery from the side of the stall and I'm super pleased to find that with the exception of a plastic soup spoon, everything else is wooden and biodegradable. Sure I admit I don't like the feel of wooden utensils when eating and it imposes a wooden taste, but it does help the environment just that little bit more!

Nasi Lemak w/ Beef Rendang $13

- This is relatively expensive compared to everything else in Spice Alley (but still very affordable overall)

- The rice is so fragrant and full of coconut and pandan aroma. It's really well done!

- The beef rendang was also really good and very very tender

- Disappointed to find only one half of a boiled egg with a small spoon of sambal on top. The sambal was actually delicious but it was sweet rather than spicy. Is that normal?

Edit: I read on Wikipedia that a sweeter sambal is preferred in Singaporean nasi lemak so that it won't overpower the dish!

- Okay and probably the component of this nasi lemak that confused me the most because I've never seen it before is the curried vegetables. They are slightly pickled so they have a sweet x sour taste and are still crunchy.. also coated in a curry seasoning. It's tasty by itself but because I'm not used to this, I think that it takes away from the nasi lemak!

Vanessa's: Pad See Ew (from Bang Luck) $10.80

- This looks so humble in my opinion, there's nothing fancy but theres a lot of good flavour going on

- I had some of this and the sauce used is SO good, it's very more-ish!

- I think my only critique is that I wish it had a little more char and 'wok breath'

Shared: Xiao Long Bao (from Hong Kong Diner)

- Mmm xiao long bao, how I love dumplings!

- The skins on this are a teeny tiny tad thick so that they aren't as delicate as expected, however they are so good. The dumplings are served fresh so the soup inside is initially very hot, and the meat is tasty!

Vanessa's entire attire including that gold watch literally just turned this into

FLATLAY PERFECTION!

Cheeezzzeeee

Straightening my short hair can be a little annoying because the ends are extremely choppy so matter how good of a job I do, they still end up flicking out. And also it just takes away so much volume. But straightening really is better than leaving it natural because if I do, those flicks go so out of control that my head looks like a Christmas tree…

Anyway that post lecture and quiz feed were just what we needed to feel a whole lot better about our rumbling tummies. We headed over to Central Park's La Mama del Gelato Anitas afterwards for some ICE CREAM! They didn't have the flavour Vanessa was looking for so we ended up sharing a scoop of Rum & Fig. Which by the way tastes nothing like rum or fig. Just strongly of white chocolate!

Hehe okay so I'll end the post here with a few more photos of me x me & Vanessa!

TL;DR:
Price: Competitive prices. Cheap!
Quality: No issues, food was awesome
Service: Rushed, rude
Ambience: So themed, so pretty. Amazing place to eat at!

Spice Alley

18-20 Kengsinton St,

Chippendale NSW 2008

Alex Lee Kitchen:

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, by Kim

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