14 October 2012

Tai Wong Barbeque ~ Chinese - Haymarket

Few places in Sydney capture the experience of a backstreet Hong Kong BBQ joint like Tai Wong Barbeque in Campbell Street, Haymarket.

This joint has been around for as long as we can remember, it sits next to the fabulous Dong Nam A & Co Supermarket, and provides a little piece of old Chinatown history.



It's wonderfully ramshackle, if only these walls could talk.



Tai Wong mainly caters to takeaway and trade customers, but you are more than welcome to dine in at the solitary table, complete with happy plastic floral tablecloth. Now and again we see smiling gangs of toothy old Chinese uncles and aunties sitting here, we love this spot.



The bloke behind the counter is a friendly fella. We ask him how look Tai Wong has been in existence "Too long" he jokes, "about thirty years."



The menu lists the various meats by kilo for takeaway, but you can ask for you favourite flesh on rice and eat in. Our duck rice ($10) was superb. We ate around 10.30am so reckon the duck was not long out of the oven. Lovely and moist, super tasty without overly relying on sauce for flavour.



Soya sauce chicken on rice ($10) is another favourite, a bit easier on the waistline than the duck, and not as rich either, but equally delicious, highly recommended. Ask for some ginger and shallots and they'll put a dollop on top, it really makes the dish.



Mystery leaf parcels beg to be sampled. If we could read Chinese it would take half the fun out of what we do.



The boss says the mystery parcels are chicken rice. A little bit of chicken inside a mix of rice and some kind of bean paste or the like. Cutting it open the pattern inside reminds us of a thunder egg. It was quite plain, the flavour didn't wow us but it was a fun stomach filler. Come to think of it, mystery parcels wrapped in leaves rarely live up to their promise...



Tai Wong Barbeque is at 12 Campbell Street Harmarket, not far from the corner of George Street, opposite the Capitol Centre. Phone 9212 1481. See Helen Greenwood's review in the Sydney Morning Herald.


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3 comments:

  1. Duck & chicken for breakfast - sounds good to me! The fellow behind the counter looks really friendly!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The mystery parcel is ZongZi. Traditional chinese dish that is made once a year for the dragon boat festival. Very tasty when done right and its hot and steaming.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zongzi

    ReplyDelete

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 :-)

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