Sharing the top of George St with backpacker travel stores, Seabay Kitchen has a good standard menu that might not stand out with any wow or a must have bang but it cranks out some good homestyle Xi'an Chinese food. We dig it.
Th hot oil seared noodles are dense and slightly chewy, with a touch of smoked heat in the chilli. We would have like a little more of the hot oil to coat them with more slick and flavour.
A six pack of steamed pork and chive dumplings. Served with a side of chilli oil, we ended up adding this to the noodles at the end to give it a bit more oomph.
A different way to have your noodle fix, cold skin noodles are coated in a chili sauce and mixed with cooked bean sprouts and little squares of gluten. There was some more chili heat here which works as a balance with the cool noodles.
Rou jia mo or pulled pork bun or Chinese hamburger. Whatever you want to call it. The outer dough was good and crisp and the filling had a slight touch of cumin. At $6 it's a good extra snack to a smaller noodle dish.
Egg and tomato noodle soup $10. The most comforting of comfort foods, soft scramble like egg mixed with quarters of just cooked tomato on a bed of rice noodles and broth. This is a generous eggy dish that is softly reassuring. Good for when you need a Chinese grandma hug.
We notice the bowls seem to be extras from the old
Chongqing No. 1 stall in Eating World, closed down a while ago now.
Pork intestine noodle soup, a cloudy, salty broth with a noticeably offaly scent, but in a good way. Got to love some piggy bits, it's something we never cook at home so we seek it out whenever we can. Well, Alison does anyway, it's taken Shawn a little longer to be converted to the team.
Tissue sponsorship brought to you by a roast duck company.
Seabay Kitchen is at 808 George St, Haymarket. They have other stores in Hornsby, Chatswood and Eastwood.
In case you were wondering why it's Seabay when Xi'an is nowhere near the sea, it's a phonetic rendering of 西北 Xibei meaning "Northwest". Although, oddly, the Chinese name isn't Xibei, but Xi'an Mingchi ("Xi'an Famous Eats").
ReplyDeleteGood trivia!!!
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