Ramen Zundo - City

Hello everyone!

Today we went to try a new Ramen house in the city, that has received many good reviews from blogs and food review websites.

The place is called Ramen Zundo, it's located in World Square in the City.


Inside and outside of the restaurant is nicely decorated in a very authentic Japanese style, that makes you feel like you're dining in Japan.

The dining area was also very spacious, and had a very nice ambiance.

When we entered the restaurant, a friendly waitress greeted us and asked what we would like to order.

However, we weren't ready to order yet, so she gave us two menus.


Unlike other restaurants, at Ramen Zundo you have to order at the counter and you will be given a number stand and the food will be brought to you.

Also, water and glass is also self service.



Here's what we ordered.

Egg Salad $4.60
My partner ordered this, and he said the eggs were really nice.
I'm not a fan of salads, so I didn't give it a try. =D

Small Ramen Set with Zundo White Ramen $14.90
This is Zundo's signature ramen with their rich pork bone broth that is boiled over 12hours.
The soup was very thick and the ramen noodles was really chewy, it's the type of good quality ramens that does not go soggy.

The set also comes with this mini Teriyaki Salmon Donburi.

Zundo Black Ramen $11.80 + 2 pieces of boiled eggs as topping $2
The soup base was just like the Zundo White, except with an addition of baked garlic oil. It made the soup a bit bitter, but it does not lose it's rich pork bone taste. The eggs were splendid, the egg yolks half cooked half raw exactly how authentic Japanese Nitamago should taste like.

6 pieces of Gyoza $7.90
I have to say, their gyoza is the best I've had so far in Sydney. They're pan fried to just right, it was not too burnt, the skin was really thin, the pork fillings was perfect. It was absolutely delicious!

Overall I would give Ramen Zundo 8.5 out of 10.

The ramen was absolutely top quality good ramen. However I think the pork bone soup base was a bit too thick and slightly oily too, but I hope to try their other ramens with different soup bases.


They're really an authentic Japanese restaurant, all their staff were Japanese, and they would greet their customers "Irasshaimase" (welcome) when they enter, and "Arigatou gozaimasu" (thank you) when they leave.


Their service was above average, the staff all looked very friendly and constantly smiling. However, I wished can serve us water instead of being self service, it can be quite the hassle.


I would highly recommend those who love ramen to definitely give Ramen Zundo a try!

Also, they're gyoza's are irresistible, I think I can go there just to eat their gyozas.


Thanks for reading!


-Kumi.

Shanghai Chef Kitchen - Parramatta

Today, I went to a restaurant nearby for dinner. Ambience, very casual, nothing special to see here but an obvious local favourite as this place is packed for lunch with daily lunch specials from $7.80.

Most Shanghai restaurants provide the 'Shanghai style' meals and at the same time also have the casual 'Canton style' dining (so the mongolian lamb, sweet n sour pork etc.)

At Shanghai Chef Kitchen, this does not differ and so on my visit I went for a 'Shanghai style' dinner. It was pretty quiet today, and so we quickly made our orders.

This was the first dish to arrive on our table, Hot n Sour soup. For $4.80, this is probably one of the best Hot n Sour soups you will get. There is a larger size for $8.80 but we settled at the small size.

Quickly after, came the 'Shanghai Fried Noodles'. As I said, it was a pretty quiet night for them so all the food practically came in 15 minutes, most the 15 minutes probably the time needed to steam the buns.

The noodles were great. Elasticity of the noodles was very good yet easy to bite through, little bit of pork meat with a relative amount of light and dark soy sauce gave it great taste and texture. The greens were a nice extra, one of my personal favourites.

This is the 'Seaweed Short Soup'. For those that know short soup, that normally uses a chicken broth, but this one has its own special soup base with Seaweed. Unlike the original short soups chicken-broth based soup, this ones lightly flavoured yet very diverse, one of the restaurants specialties.

Some Pork Ear... and many many dumplings!

The soup buns, 'xiao long bao' little dragon buns translated in english were very well made here. Good xiaolongbao's are defined by thin pastry, great tasting soup and pork mince. It is very easy to oversteam the buns, even one or two minutes extra can cause the pastry to pop or stick to the bottom, thus controlling the timing of steaming these buns is very important. The xiao long bao's here were perfectly steamed, and met all the requirements of good soup buns. I personally think they have some of the best xiao long bao's around Sydney.

Last was the pan-fried dumplings. These weren't bad, the meat inside was very nice and the soup squirted when I bit the pastry but I personally thought the pastry was too thick and the meat was too little.

All in all it was a pretty nice casual dinner and I would come back for some more.

My Rating: 7.5/10

-Samuel.