Dopa by Devon at Darling Square, Haymarket Sydney

Dopa? It's short for dopamine because the crew behind Dopa, Devon's newest incarnation, reckon you'll be hooked. On the menu you'll find Japanese rice bowls and sweets, everything from matcha profiteroles to black sesame puddings to kakigori shaved ice.



Dopa takes up a corner site on the recently launched Electric Treat Street, part of the multi-million dollar Darling Square development. At its centre is The Exchange, an impressive building that looks like a giant birds nest. You'll find a who's who of food luminaries now open in the area. The Exchange includes Saga Lyte by Andy Bowdy, Boque by Tapavino, Hopper Kade, Mr Bao, Bubble Nini, Fishbowl, Bau Truong and Pasta Wafu by Hamish Ingham, Rebecca Lines and Kerby Craig.

Wander down Electric Treat Street (and extension of Little Hay Street) and you'll find Gelato Messina, Shortstop Donuts, Kurtosh, and Filipino snack bar Rey Jr.


Adding Hokkaido uni sea urchin to our rice bowl

Dopa is one of the bigger eateries, an L-shaped dining room built around the open kitchen. The menu feels a little hard to follow in its overly spaced-out format but basically you choose your preferred protein on top of a donburi rice bowl.

You'll have to order and pay upfront at the register; a supplied buzzer will vibrate when your meal is ready to be collected, a slightly tricky task when balancing a tray of dishes in a narrow dining space.


Hokkaido uni don $49
Sea urchin roe, salmon roe, blue fin tuna sashimi with koshikari rice

Make sure you check the specials - written on a tiny blackboard next to the cash register - before you order. We make no hesitation in heading straight for premium territory, the Hokkaido uni don. Sure it's $49 but #yolo.

We're rewarded with plump petals of Hokkaido sea urchin roe and thick slices of blue fin tuna sashimi in ruby red. While the menu promises "caviar" we're provided with salmon roe which I guess is only slightly stretching the truth?

It's a luxe bowl that's generous with sea urchin roe. Our only quibble was the bowl was prepared relatively quickly but sat at the pick-up station for ten minutes while the rest of our order was prepared.


Ultimate don $35
Steak, wagyu tongue, foie gras and truffle

We also splurge on the ultimate don, a decadent offering of steak, wagyu tongue, foie gras and freshly shaved truffle. The steak is particularly good, super juicy and tender. Foie gras and truffle are also an excuse to #treatyoself.


Pork katsu don $16
with miso soup, pickles and seaweed salad $5

It's not all fancy. The pork katsu don alone is $16 but you can turn it into more of a meal for $5 which adds miso soup, pickles and a seaweed salad.


Inside the pork katsu

The pork katsu is a winner, tender meat layered with fat and encased in a crunchy panko crumb. A soft-cooked scramble of velvety egg and a tangle of fried seaweed and fresh shallots round out a satisfying meal.

Other rice bowls on offer include karaage fried chicken, saikyo miso king salmon, salmon or tuna sashimi and a cheeseburger-style wagyu patty.






Dopa by Devon
Shops 5-6, 2 Little Hay Street, Haymarket, Sydney

Opening hours
Daily 11am-10pm


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All you can eat mu kratha Thai bbq hotpot at Capital Thai, Sydney Chinatown

What do you get when you cross Korean barbecue with Chinese hotpot? Meet mu kratha. It's a mash-up commonly found across Thailand, and guess what. You can get it in Sydney too. And it's all you can eat. Yeah, baby.

Get it at Capital Thai, the restaurant located next door to the Capitol Theatre. I bet you've walked past it a million times and never even realised. Sure they have a la carte options but head deeper into the dining room and you'll find the mu kratha buffet set-up. It's here you'll find groups of Thai uni students in the know. And now, you.


Banana prawns

The buffet is a veritable bargain. Just $29.80 for all you can eat meat, seafood, vegetables and desserts. It even includes a self-serve soft drink station, so you can pump all the post-mix soda you please.


Marinated beef

Stackable trays mean you can bring back the motherlode of ingredients for your table. Proteins include chicken, beef and pork - marinated and plain.


Tripe and intestines

If you love tripe, you're in luck here. Bible tripe and intestines are both available. Cook them in the soup for maximum deliciousness.


Fish tofu, fish balls and meatballs

Soup aficionados will want to load up on fish balls, meat balls and more.


Fishcake slices and meatballs


Green bean vermicelli noodles, egg noodles, enoki mushrooms and mussels

Grab all the noodles you want as well. We went nuts on the enoki mushrooms.


Water spinach, Chinese cabbage, baby bok choy, Thai basil and fresh corn

Don't forget your greens either. We ate tonnes of kang kong water spinach and baby bok choy. The corn cobbettes worked a treat on the grill.


Cooking pork on the mu kratha

The mu kratha is genius in design. Imagine a Korean barbecue grill surrounded by a trough filled with clear soup stock. The grill - greased with hunks of pork fat - is slightly domed so as your meat cooks, all the juices run down into the soup. That means grilled meat with a bonus of meaty vegetable broth. Nothing gets wasted here!


Drinking soup from the moat filled with enoki mushrooms and water spinach

In Thailand the mu kratha vessel is much bigger and fueled by charcoal. Here you'll have to contend with a portable gas flame, and a significantly smaller moat, but it's still a heap of fun.


Moo kratha party

There's no limit to broth refills. And everyone gets two types of nam jim dipping sauces, providing a spicy, salty sweet and sour baptism for the protein of your choice.


Fried rice and fried chicken wings

Too hungry to wait for your food to cook? They have cooked dishes too. A massive tray of fried chicken wings was hard to resist, coated in a golden batter.


Fried prawn crackers and fried wonton crackers

The prawn crackers are particularly good too. They're the proper prawn cracker type with real prawns and extra crunchy.


Chicken skin crackling

But wait until you clap eyes on the chicken skin crackling. You read that right. And there's a mountain of it!

Self-serve nam kang sai shaved ice dessert station

Your 90-minute buffet time limit includes unlimited desserts. After the heaviness of grilled meat, you'll relish the relief of the self-serve shaved ice station. Here you'll find jackfruit, grass jelly, toddy palm seeds, basil seeds, palm seeds, sweet corn and soft white bread. They even have fruit salad mixed through with chilli salt.


Adding grass jelly to basil seeds and jackfruit

Choose whatever fruit you prefer...


Adding condensed milk to shaved ice

add a mountain of shaved ice and then drizzle with condensed milk or flavoured syrups.


Coconut jelly and fresh watermelon

Need more? They have banana and sago soup, fresh watermelon and rockmelon, and my favourite - coconut jelly.

Go with friends. Go hungry. Go now.






The all you can eat mu kratha hotpot buffet costs $29.80 for adults and $15 for children under 11 years old. A 90-minute time limit applies. Additional charges may be applied for excessive food wastage, so only take what you can eat. Bookings are highly recommended.

Capital Thai
21A Campbell Street, Haymarket, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 1130

Opening hours
Lunch daily 11am-3.30pm
Dinner daily 5.30pm-1am


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Mr Meng Chongqing Gourmet, Market City Chinatown, Sydney

Spicy. Initially confusing. And then jaw droppingly addictive. I could be talking about the Chinese dating show If You Are The One or host Meng Fei's new noodle house that's just opened in Chinatown's Market City. There are more parallels between the two than you'd think.

Mr Meng Chongqing Gourmet is Mr Meng's second venture in Australia, following on from his Melbourne opening mid- last year. It's part of an international stable of noodle houses (some franchised) that started in Nanjing in 2014.

Sydney's version is slick and efficient, and one of the first outlets to open in the former level 3 foodcourt of Market City, now rebranded 1909 Dining Precinct and set to host a number of casual dine-in restaurants.


Bean jelly in chilli sauce $5.80

You'll have to order and pay at the counter but staff will bring your meals to your marked table. It means that random add-ons like another drink or dessert will require another trip to the register but it does avoid the whole bill-splitting nightmare at the end of the night for large groups.

Unlike the sounds of the Melbourne menu, there are no chilli indicators to warn diners about the relative heat of each dish. Suffice to say, be prepared for tongue tingling numbness from a whack of Sichuan peppers in every dish. In a good way. If you're really heat averse, order a soy bean milk as an emergency extinguisher.

Bean jelly in chilli sauce is an ideal place to start. The mung bean noodles are cool to the throat, bathed in a chilli sauce that is equal parts sour, salty, spicy and sweet.


Mung bean jelly noodles

There's only a faint hit of tongue-numbing Sichuan pepper here, but it's a great primer for what's to come.


Steamed chicken in chilli sauce $8.80

Steamed chicken in chilli sauce will set your mouth on fire if you find the right piece. The chicken itself is tender, cooked and served on the bone for maximum flavour.


Chongqing spicy noodle with stewed beef $14.80

The main attraction here is the mighty Chongqing noodle, thin round wheat noodles served in a fiery broth laced with soy sauce, sesame oil, black vinegar and red pepper oil. You can stick with the plain version for $10.80 or choose variations of toppings that run from $12.80 to $14.80.

Stewed beef with noodles

Chongqing spicy noodles with stewed beef is a classic, yielding soft simmered hunks of protein against those springy chewy noodles. 

Chongqing spicy noodle with pork intestines $14.80

If you want to level up, I highly recommend the version with pork intestines. Don't be afraid. The intestines have been rinsed well and have been cooked to an expert softness. They also offer a chicken giblet and chicken heart offering - I'm getting that next time.


Pork intestine with noodles


Hot and sour rice noodle with pork mince $11.80

Hot and sour rice noodles was one of my highlight dishes. These noodles are noticeably thicker and chewier, with a more glutinous density. You'll have to dig around for the pork mince which tends to sink to the bottom of the bowl. This dish felt like one of the spicier offerings too.


Dan dan noodle $13.80

Dan dan noodle is another winner, dry noodles covered in a saucy pork mince with peanuts, shallots and vegetables.


Mixing the noodles with the pork mince

You'll have to get in there to mix it all together. There's a good, but not over-the-top, hit of chilli and Sichuan pepper in this one as well.

Sichuan style dumpling $12.80 for 10

Still hungry? The appetisers menu has plenty of temptations. Sichuan style dumplings are elegantly silky packages, the thin skins wrapped around seasoned pork mince. There's already a generous dousing of black vinegar and chilli, but if you need more, you can use the supplied table condiments as reinforcement.


Beef tongue and beef tripe $7.80

The beef tongue and beef tripe is offaly good too. Your tongue may be on fire by this point but that tripe is so soft and tender, you'll be going back for more.


Deep fried crispy pork $7.80

And because they'd run out of the brown sugar rice cakes (noooooo) we end up having the deep fried crispy pork for dessert instead (hello). The seasoning around these pork strips is super addictive but be warned that about a third of these pork strips will be pure fat. Just fat. Battered and deep-fried. Farewell arteries.

Seeking an adventure with thrills and spills? If you are the one, you'll find it right here.






Mr Meng Chongqing Gourmet
Market City
Level 3 (1909 Dining Precinct), Shop T3
9-13 Hay Street, Haymarket Chinatown, Sydney


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Xi'an Biang Biang, Haymarket

Xi'an Biang Biang might be all over your Instagram feed right now but there's a good reason. It's crazy delicious and Sydneysiders can't get enough of it.

It's all about biang biang noodles, a prized specialty of the Shaanxi province, the capital of which is Xi'an. Think chewy handmade noodles doused in garlic, salt, vinegar and chilli. And then there's roujiamo, the Chinese take on the hamburger that stuffs a pile of tender pork into panfried flat bread.


Cold noodle with garlic sauce $10

The cold noodle with garlic sauce is your must-order dish. The noodles are liang pi, made by steaming thin layers of a starchy paste and then slicing into ribbons. These are terrifically chewy, smothered in enough garlic and chilli to keep vampires away for a week. A tangle of fresh bean sprouts add a refreshing crunch. If there's any dish that'll waken your taste buds, it's this one.


Pulled pork stuffed burger $8

The other crowd favourite is the pulled pork stuffed burger aka roujiamo, a popular street food that also originated in Shaanxi. The fillings inside this handheld flatbread vary across the country, with beef and lamb more often found in Muslim areas.

Here it's all about the pork, soft and fatty chunks crammed into a flaky flatbread. Look around the dining room and you'll spot locals double-parked with chopsticks in one hand and a pork burger in the other. That's one slurp of noodles followed by a bite of porky goodness. Repeat.

And bargain hunters should note, if you want the pulled pork burger and the cold noodles, get the biang biang set for $17.80. You'll save 20c and score a free soft drink. Ka-ching!


Biang Biang noodle with minced pork and vinegar (dry) $12.50

Noodles? There's plenty to choose from, although the English descriptions aren't particularly descriptive. Biang biang noodle with minced pork and vinegar (number 18) will net you a bowl of fettuccine-like noodles along with fatty pork (more shredded than mince), green vegetables and a medley of diced potatoes and carrots.


Biang biang noodles

Get your chopsticks in and mix everything up. Our dish is quite mild in flavour without any noticeable tang of vinegar but it's a great counterbalance if you end up ordering spicier dishes like number 13.


Biang Biang noodle with stewed pork $13

The biang biang noodle with stewed pork (number 13) is definitely worth ordering. Saucy pork mince, stewed pork, diced potato and carrot and a good whack of chilli powder need to be teased through oversized squares of hand-pulled noodles.


Wide noodles with stewed pork

The noodles are the real star of the show, with a silky slipperiness reminiscent of fresh ravioli sheets. There's so much going on here - texture, taste, smell and colour - that your heart will drop when you hit the bottom of the bowl.

But wait. There's more. Pao mo is another Shaanxi specialty, combining cubed steamed bread served in soup with beef, lamb or chitterlings (intestines). Snacks include steamed pork ribs with sticky rice, stewed pork liver and the intrigue of steamed fried chicken.

Expect a heaving crowd all day and night although diners tend to eat and run. Don't expect to find seats for more than two people at a time - the entire venue only seats about 30. It's cash only at the till and you'll have to pick up your food when your buzzer flashes. The self-serve cutlery section by the fridge includes small bowls for sharing as well as cups and free water.






Xi'an Biang Biang
Shop 41, 1 Dixon Street, Haymarket Chinatown, Sydney

Opening hours:
Daily 10am-11pm

Cash only


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