Banchan, fermented soy paste, shrimp sauce - Sydney Madang Restaurant
The banchan selection was fairly typical, but tasted great, especially the crunchy daikon radish kimchi. The soybean sprouts was also a favourite of mine with a nice firm crunch and nuttiness of the soybean.
The sweet, sour, salty dipping sauce for the beef ribs also had a dollop of hot English mustard, but the beef was so tasty, it didn't really need a sauce.
Both Julia and I loved the fermented soybean paste that is similar to a Chinese soybean paste, but this had an extra yeasty tang to it, perhaps from being fermented with the addition of spring onions.
I was quite surprised to see that Koreans had, a Saeujeot, a fermented shrimp sauce very similar to the Nyona/Malay cincalok. You could see the tiny shrimp swimming in a tart garlicky chilli sauce and from the shrimp came the most wonderful umami to add to the boiled pork. Think of it like a salsa verde with its briny anchovies and sharp garlic flavours.
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As a Melbournite, we're used to having great food and drink in tiny laneways and other hidden secrets that you smugly keep to youself. So it was quite a surprise to find this little gem down a dodgy laneway off Pitt Street in flashy Sydney.
The queues outside, so common at Sydney's more popular hangouts was here as well. A sign of good food ahead!
Apart from the more typical barbeque fare, there are hotpots that we would have loved to have tried but unfeasible with just two of us dining.
Sydney Madang Restaurant
371A Pitt St, Sydney
(entrance located down a small alleyway just north of Liverpool Street)
Tel: +61 (02) 9264 7010
Reviews:
- Sydney Madang Restaurant, Sydney - - grabyourfork.blogspot.com/ - Sunday, December 02, 2007
- Sydney Madang, by Joanna Savill, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 14, 2007