07 February 2012

Top Choice Sizzling Hotpot ~ Market City Food Court - Chinatown


Food blogging is a weird hobby. How do we get a euphoric sense of achievement from chugging cheap beer in a shopping centre pokie bar then chowing down on Chinese in the foodcourt?



A feed at Top Choice Sizzling Hotpot at Market City completes our mission to eat at every food court stall in Chinatown. It's been a long, hard journey of perils and pleasure. We know how Sir Edmund Hilary felt at the summit of Mount Everest. Except we were drunk on $12 jugs of Tiger, not altitude sickness.

We chose Top Choice as final leg on our mission because we've tried their other stall at The Sussex Centre food court so we knew it was going to be good.  We love the food here, there's some really interesting hotpot dishes which really float our boats. Plus the sizzling hotplate dishes are excellent, it's oily food by nature, you need oil to sizzle (baby), but the dishes aren't swimming in the stuff. Top Choice has been doing their thing for over fifteen years, they know what they're doing.



Shredded beef in Peking sauce hotplate - $9.80. Strips of dried beef fried in oil until crunchy and coated with dark, sweet sauce.





Shan tong chicken - $9.80. A liberal interpretation of this classic dish, which twice cooked chicken (poached then fried) and served with a sauce of black vinegar, chili, soy and coriander, a perfect combo of fresh and fried flavours. This version is still yummy, it's more of a hotplate chicken in a sweet sticky sauce, delicious. Here's a good post on cooking one of Alison's favourite dishes.



Steamed veggies in oyster sauce - $4. Highly recommended, particularly with this oily style of food.



Steamed pork with yam - $9.80. A row of thick pork slices between slices of yam. The yam is an excellent counter to the fatty pork.



When we say fatty pork we mean fatty pork. Our belts have tightened a notch just looking at it.

In a fitting end to our epic Chinatown foodcourt adventure we get kicked out at closing time, along with the bottom bit of a Chinese dragon.

Top Choice Sizzling Hoptpot is at Market City Food Court, Chinatown - top floor of Market City Shopping Centre, above Paddy's Markets.

4 comments:

  1. Re. "A feed at Top Choice Sizzling Hotpot at Market City completes our mission to eat at every food court stall in Chinatown."

    Six months later at the Australia Day Medal Ceremony

    Australian Governor General:
    "Miss Alison & Mr. Shawn, it is with great honour that I bestow the Order of Australia Medal in recognition to your great achievement to have eaten and published blogs on every food court stall in Chinatown. Your country salutes you."

    (Crowd stands and applauses while G.G. pins Order of Australia on Miss Alison's and Mr. Shawn's chest.)

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  2. That's great you have finally ended such an epic foodie adventure. Love to visit Market City's food court myself, and I've had a few hotpot plates from Top Choice before, they're best!

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  3. Congrats on your achievement. But there will always be new food court eateries for you to try. Maybe it's time to branch out of Chinatown and into the CBD? :-)

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  4. We're desperate to trawl the Hunter Connection next but it's hard for us to get to in business hours dangnabbit.

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Thanks for your comment joy - please keep your musings happy - if you want to complain about a restaurant please do it on a restaurant review site (or your own blog) - we're all about celebrating cultural diversity and the great eats that come along with it :-)

Our ethics: We pay for all our own meals and travel (though sometimes Mum shouts us).