Dos Senoritas, Gladesville

Truck on down to Gladesville and join the fiesta at Dos Senoritas, a poky restaurant that’s packed to the rafters almost every night. Sky-blue walls, sombreros and rainbow ponchos set the scene – the only thing missing is a mariachi band.

It’s a popular spot for groups and kids on weekends, so dismiss any thoughts of a quiet, intimate dinner. Seating is also tight, so expect to make friends with the table next to you. Every table scores a complimentary basket of golden tortilla chips and a saucer of fiery salsa as soon as they sit down – a nice touch.


Complimentary tortilla chips with salsa

Now, if you’ve ever wished that burritos came in XXL, then the Mac Daddy Burro ($25) is your dream come true. Leave your belt at home and put on your loosest pants – this is going to be a serious chow-down.


Mac Daddy Burro $25

The Mac Daddy Burro is a behemoth of a meal, weighing in at over half a kilo. Choose your protein – pork chilli verde, shredded beef, shredded chicken or minced beef – and sit back and wait for the burrito bomb smothered in spicy salsa verde and mole oaxca, a dark chocolate sauce that is smoky and slightly bitter. Guacamole, sour cream and side serves of refried beans and Mexican rice will tide you over until at least lunchtime the next day.


Street-style tacos $25 for three

The street style tacos ($25 for three with rice and beans) are a cracker, especially the baja shrimp taco with fresh prawns. There are five types of fillings to choose from, each piled into a corn tortilla that has been grilled until slightly crisp. Chef Domingo Medina hails from Guadalajara, Mexico and is committed to bringing the authentic taste of real Mexican street food to Sydney. Hence there ain’t no cheese on these tacos – just a good smoosh of guacamole and plenty of fresh salsa.

The supercheesygooeychimihanga ($23) is everything you need to raise your cholesterol – a pork and cheese grenade in a flour tortilla that is deep-fried and then served with jalapeno cream cheese and jack cheddar cheese. You’ll also find gringo philly steaks covered in cheese sauce ($23), chicken in mole oaxca dark chocolate sauce ($29) and traditional corn masa tamales wrapped in a corn husk ($29).


Margarita $12

Mexican beers (from $7) and margaritas ($12) will keep the party going. Finish things off with a warm churros donut ($6) dusted with cinnamon and served with chocolate sauce. Yowza.


Warm churros donuts $6




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Dos Senoritas 
265D Victoria Rd, Gladesville, Sydney 
Tel: +61 (02) 9817 3737 


Opening hours: 
Lunch Tue-Sun 11am-3pm
Dinner Tue-Sun 6-10pm

This article appears in the January 2012 issue of Time Out Sydney in my monthly Food & Drink column Eat This! [read online]


More Time Out Sydney reviews:
Akash Pacific Cuisine, Liverpool (Fiji Indian cuisine) 
ATL Marantha, Kensington (Indonesian fried chicken with edible bones)
Balkan Oven, Rockdale (Macedonian burek)
Cyprus Community Club Aphrodite Restaurant (roast baby goat) 
Durban Dish, Baulkham Hills (South African cuisine)
Everest Kitchen, Marrickville (Nepali cuisine)
Good Kitchen, Hurstville (Hong Kong cafe)
Hijazi's Falafel, Arncliffe (Lebanese breakfast)
Island Dreams Cafe, Lakemba (Christmas Islands cuisine)
Kambozza, Parramatta (Burmese cuisine)
La Paula, Fairfield (Chilean empanadas, lomitos and sweets)
Mario Tokyo Pizza, Strathfield  (Bulgogi Korean pizza)
Misky Cravings, Fairfield  (Peruvian cuisine)
Olka Polka Bakery & Deli, Campbelltown (Polish cheesecake and rye bread)
Sea Sweet, Parramatta (Lebanese sweet kashta cheese burger)
Sizzling Fillo, Lidcombe (Filipino pork hock crackling)
Tehran, Granville (Persian cuisine)
Tuong Lai, Cabramatta (Vietnamese sugar cane prawns)

Kam Fook, Bondi Junction

Everything happens in threes, right? It was a hattrick of back-to-back dinners for Chinese New Year feasting recently, culiminating in a ten-course banquet for media at Kam Fook in Bondi Junction. It sits on the top floor at Westfield, above the food court, with large windows letting in plenty of natural light.


Suckling pig and jellyfish cold meats platter

The cold meat platter is a traditional start to any celebration, especially wedding banquets. Our waiter uses a small serving table to dish out individual portions for guests.


Suckling pig and jellyfish cold meats platter

No, you can never have too much suckling pig. This one is commendably good, the crackling an even golden colour with small and uniform bubbling. It splinters with a loud crack in the mouth, giving way to juicy young pork ribboned with fat. The jellyfish is cool and toothsome, and provides some relief against the richness of the pork.


Serving the snow crab


Snow crab with ginger and shallot Menu price $88/kg

There is no way to eat crab elegantly, but rolling up your sleeves and wielding a nutcracker with a gleam in your eye has its own charm as well. The snow crab has a finer texture than mud crab, with a softer and more delicate flavour. It's stir fried with ginger and shallots, and the orange crab roe in the main shell is worth extricating.


Mixed seafood soup supreme 

We're assured that the mixed seafood soup supreme contains vegetarian shark's fin, and indeed the clear threads do seem a little too uniform and firm to be the genuine article. It tastes more like a crunchy green bean noodle, in a heady broth filled with slivers of mushroom, dried scallop and sea cucumber.

It is interesting to note that although there are four types of shark's fin soup listed on the menu, a vegetarian option is not offered.


Lion dance

The entire restaurant is treated to a lion dance performance, always an impressive display of acrobatics, showmanship and rhythmic drumming.


Lion dance musicians


The lion 'plucking the greens' or 'cai ching', a lettuce holding a lucky red envelope

Central to the performance is cai ching, or plucking the greens, where the lion must reach a lettuce holding a lucky red envelope of money. The lion always 'eats' the lettuce and then sprays out small pieces of it all over the crowd.

The lion takes its time to visit most tables, much to the delight of everyone. At our table, the lion even stops to help pour a glass of red wine!


Beef cube stir fry with goose liver Menu price $28.80

The beef cube stir fry is tender, mixed through with small cubes of rich goose liver. Lengths of asparagus and sugar snap peas provide crunch.


Roast goose Menu price $88 whole goose (must be ordered in advance) 

This is my first time trying goose and it's a phenomenal introduction. It's a young goose we're told, about ten months old so the flesh is still tender and the flavour is not too gamey. The goose is dried in front of fans so when it is cooked, the skin becomes deliciously brittle, just like a Peking duck.


Roast goose 

The glazed crispy skin, the juicy flesh and the tantalising flavour of star anise combine to make this a glazed-eye spine-tingling food lovers' moment. It tastes much like a duck crossed with quail, but it's the succulent meat and the toffee crisp skin that has our eyes rolling to the back of our head.

Alan Yeung, the General Manager, tells us that goose supplies have improved significantly in the past three years. Unlike Hong Kong, where goose is commonly eaten, Australians are only just discovering the joys of goose, in part because goose used to be old, tough and chewy. A raw goose costs $42 (raw duck costs $17) so the $88 diners' price tag seems more than reasonable.


Pan fried minced pork and pumpkin cakes Menu price $20.80

Pan fried minced pork and pumpkin cakes are on the specials menu, but these remind me of a home-cooked dish, more like pork rissoles with the sweetness of pumpkin and shallots.


Kam Fook special roast chicken Menu price $22.80

The Kam Fook special roast chicken can't compete with the roast goose, but the skin is still delightfully crisp, smothered in a layer of deep-fried garlic chips.


Fried rice in lotus leaf 

We're struggling by the time we reach the fried rice in lotus leaf, a touch soggy in consistency from the steaming in lotus leaf, and confusing my mind because I kept expecting sticky rice, not long grain rice with every mouthful.


Stewed egg noodles in abalone sauce 

The simple appearance of stewed egg noodles in abalone sauce belies the expertise of cooking the perfect al dente noodle, subtly flavoured with abalone. We also relish the fresh stalks of gai lan Chinese broccoli, bright green and crunchy.


Head chef Liew Boon Dee

"Would you like a tour of kitchen?" We can barely get out of our chairs fast enough!

The kitchen is bigger than you'd expect, although much of the space is devoted to prep areas. A gleaming commercial stove runs the length of one wall, and as we're coming to the end of the service, the mood is relatively calm.


Prep station and bamboo steamers for yum cha


Hanging roast ducks and suckling pig

My attention is immediately drawn to the back of the room, where roast ducks and a whole suckling pig are hanging from the ceiling.


Roast chickens and the 'spaceship' roasting oven

This back corner is the barbecue section, including a special roasting oven affectionately known as the 'spaceship'. It's in here that the chickens, ducks and geese are roasted.


The barbecue chopping station


Complimentary peanut biscuits, laughing sesame balls and fruit platter 

Dessert? You bet we did. Fresh fruit, biscuits and bowls of sweet red bean soup filled with chewy glutinous rice dumplings.


Complimentary red bean soup with glutinous rice dumplings

Grab Your Fork dined as a guest of Kam Fook Bondi Junction.


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Kam Fook Bondi Junction 
Shop 6010, Level 6 Westfield Shopping Centre
100 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9386 9889


Opening hours:
Yum cha 7 days 10am-3pm
Dinner 7 days 6pm-10.30pm




Also at
Kam Fook Chatswood 
Shop 600, Level 6 Westfield Shoppingtown
28 Victor Street, Chatswood, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9413 9388


Kam Fook Doncaster (VIC) 
Shop 2003, Level 2
Westfield Shoppingtown
619 Doncaster Road, Doncaster, Melbourne
Tel: +61 (03) 9005 1888


Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Bondi Junction - Kelly's Bar and Grill
Bondi - Hurricane's Grill
Bondi - North Bondi Italian Food

Chinese - Golden Century, Haymarket
Chinese - The Eight, Haymarket

Chinese New Year Dinner with Suckling Pig

Why hello. An invitation to a Chinese New Year dinner is always exciting, but when Veruca Salt told me that a suckling pig was also on the guest list, I could barely keep the grin of anticipation off my face.

Chinese New Year is all about getting together with family and friends. It's a time to cherish loved ones, be thankful for what you have, and to clear the slate for a New Year filled with the promise of good fortune. It's a bit like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year all rolled into one, and a bountiful feast is the best part of celebrations.


King crab 

A feast at the home of Veruca Salt is never a modest undertaking. The table was overflowing with food, and the generosity of dishes was staggering. I've known Veruca Salt for over 15 years, and to be included as part of their family celebration was humbling. And delicious.

We relished the sweet flesh of the enormous king crab, cooked with tamarind and chilli and hoed into homemade spring rolls and stuffed chicken wings, packed tight with pork mince, black fungus and vermicelli.


Homemade spring rolls and stuffed chicken wings


Steamed silver perch

There are many dishes that feature regularly at Chinese New Year, usually because the names of the dishes sound lucky or auspicious. The word for fish sounds similar to abundance, dried oysters sounds like 'good things' and black hair moss sounds like the phrase 'to prosper, or grow rich'.

So a whole steamed silver perch took pride of place in the centre of the table, the flesh moist and fatty in a ginger, soy and shallot sauce.


Dried oysters with fatt choy black hair moss

Dried oysters were reconstituted, the flavour-intense bivalves cooked up with dried shiitake mushrooms and the treasured delicacy of fatt choy black hair moss, harvested in the Gobi Desert.


Chicken and jellyfish salad

Xoi Vietnamese sticky rice

Chicken and jellyfish salad has always been one of my favourite dishes, fresh with coriander and crunchy from celery and carrot shreds. It provides freshness and balance in-between mouthfuls of deep-fried spring rolls and chicken wings.

There are also three kinds of rice to choose from: fried rice; claypot chicken and Chinese sausage rice; and xoi Vietnamese sticky rice, faintly sweet from coconut milk. 

Suckling pig

But really, I only had eyes for the suckling pig, picked up from a barbecue shop in Bankstown and waiting patiently in its red cardboard box.

EDIT: The suckling pig was bought from Big Hong Kong Garden, 292 Chapel Road South, Bankstown, Tel: +61 (02) 9793 8540. Cost was $43/kg (as at Jan 2012). The pig pictured weighed about 6.3kg.


Suckling pig

The loud and distinct splintering sound as the meat cleaver was pushed through the crackling was like music to our ears. It was almost like glass breaking, as the toffee-like skin split apart neatly in two.


Banh hoi

Vietnamese often have suckling pig with banh hoi, lacy bundles of fresh steamed rice vermicelli dressed with shallots that have been sauteed in oil. The banh hoi and pork is eaten together, drizzled with nuoc cham fish sauce dressing - others wrap it all up in lettuce leaves with extra herbs.

We just eat lots of it, savouring the juicy fatty pork crowned with irresistibly crunchy crackling.


Suckling pig plate with banh hoi



A night of good food and much laughter? I couldn't think of a better start to the Year of the Dragon!

The Eight, Haymarket

Happy New Year!

It's the first day of the Lunar New Year and 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. We celebrated with a dinner at The Eight at the top of Market City, buzzing with families and friends who had come together to eat.


The Eight


Yee sang sashimi salad $42.80 (specials menu)

After a complimentary house soup - sweet with pork bones and filled with lotus roots and strands of lucky fat choy black moss - we were excited about the upcoming yee sang sashimi salad. Traditionally served at Lunar New Year celebrations, the yee sang is usually a large plate laden with a colourful rainbow of raw fish, julienned vegetables and fried crackers that is tossed together at the table. Often this is done by the guests who shout good luck chants as they toss the salad with as much height as possible.

The yee sang sashimi salad that arrives is much more modest in appearance that we anticipate and scant in portion size, especially given the $42.80 price tag. A waiter wanders over with a jug of dressing which he pours over the top of the salad before it is mixed with quiet efficiency and minimal fanfare.


Tossed yee sang sashimi salad

There are probably ten planks of salmon in the salad, doused in a sweet soy dressing. Deep-fried wonton wrappers and crushed peanuts give a pleasing crunch, but we wished there was more cucumber and carrot in the salad mix.


Red braised pork knuckle $33.80 (specials menu)

Red braised pork knuckle is from the specials menu, a hunk of pork cooked until tender. The skin is glossy and sweet around a generous layer of fat, and the nest of fat choy hair moss is a deliberate inclusion for extra luck. Fat choy sounds like the last two words in "Gung hei fat choy", the Cantonese New Year greeting that calls for prosperity.


Wok-tossed snake beans with oyster sauce $19.80

Both our vegetable dishes come with sprinklings of pork mince. The wok-tossed snake beans are squeaky fresh with a salty sauce and the braised eggplants are deliciously soft and sweet.


Braised eggplant with minced pork and chilli in clay pot $18.80


Deep fried salt and pepper bean curd $18.80

If there's one dish that tests the skill of a Chinese it's deep-fried salt and pepper bean curd. There's an admirable level of expertise required to create a light and crunchy batter around delicate and wobbly pillows of silken tofu. These pass the test with ease. The gentle flavour of tofu is boosted by crunchy shards of deep fried shallots and a dusting of salt and pepper.


Crispy skin chicken with ginger and shallots in soy sauce $16.80

We finish with crispy skin chicken, splashed with a vinegary soy sauce in the style of shandong chicken. The chicken is succulent beneath the thin and brittle glazed skin, and the heap of shredded shallots add some zing.



There's no need to order dessert either with a series of house sweets served with compliments to the table. A fruit platter of rockmelon and watermelon slices is sweet and refreshing, best eaten before the bowls of sweet red bean soup. And just to make sure you're literally waddling out the door, a plate of sponge cake squares and siu hao jo laughing sesame balls will put a smile on your face for the new year ahead.


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The Eight

Level 5, Market City

9-13 Hay Street, Haymarket Chinatown, Sydney

Tel: +1 (02) 9282 9988

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday 10am-3.30pm and 5.30pm-11pm

Saturday and Sunday 9am-4pm and 5.30pm-11pm

Related Grab Your Fork posts:
The Eight, Haymarket (Apr 11)