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The Dutch Shop & Cafe
Cheap Eats Restaurant Reviews By Amy @ cookbookmaniac

When i heard that there was a quaint Dutch Cafe in the middle of nowhere in Smithfield I told pizzaboy we had to go for a visit. We happen to have gone on the hottest day of the year so far. Its 40+ degrees outside and we drive over to Smithfield in a car with no-aircon. Without even thinking i say, "there had better be air-con at this place". The entire car goes quiet. None of us have ever been to the Dutch Cafe and do not know what to expect. We are following the GPS and tomatogal asks me, "Where the hell is this place? We've reached the end of the road". I look ahead and we are in the middle of nowhere. There are residential houses to our left and closed industrial warehouses on our right. I see a green warehouse ahead and i say "that must be…

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Menya – The best ramen in Sydney
Asian Restaurant Reviews By Amy @ cookbookmaniac

Whilst in Japan, pizzaboy and I were lost in the streets of Shibuya, Tokyo. We were hungry and couldn't read Japanese. I was craving noodles and I randomly chose a noodle bar that had a picture of ramen at the front. We pointed at something that looked appetising on the menu with no idea what we were ordering. This was our first introduction to Tonkotsu Ramen. Tonkotsu ramen is usually a cloudy white coloured broth and is a thick broth made by boiling pork bones, fat, and collagen over high heat for hours on end, suffusing the broth with a hearty pork flavor and a creamy consistency that rivals milk or melted butter or gravy (depending on the shop). Most shops, but not all, blend this pork broth with a small amount of chicken and vegetable stock and/or soy sauce. When I got home to Sydney, I googled - tonkotsu…

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Tan Viet Noodle House – Cabramatta
Asian Restaurant Reviews By Amy @ cookbookmaniac

Tan Viet is one of our favourite places to eat. They serve traditional vietnamese cuisine but they are famous for their "Criskin Chicken". Yes - Criskin. It's an appropriate play on the words crispy and skin. And if you are familiar with the vietnamese accent, this is how the vietnamese say crispyskin in english. Or possibly a spelling mistake made many years ago, and now is the norm. They are so reliable that we order the same thing on every visit. This is one of few places that I rarely stray from my usual order because my favourite thing on the menu is so good I want to eat it every time that I visit. The chicken is wonderfully crispy and amazingly flavourful. They somehow manage to get the skin super-crispy and the flesh really moist. My mother tells me they cook it twice. They boil it first to cook the…

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