Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Miss Chu

Miss Chu
Cnr Bourke St & William St
Darlinghurst
Sydney NSW
Ph: (02) 8356 9988

Open 11am - 9pm Mon to Fri

The search was on for a lunch destination. It was later than my usual hour for luncheon and I wanted someplace new.
Thus I found myself at Miss Chu's.
Don't ask me what plastic vs silicon rice paper rolls are. I don't have the faintest notion. I can assure you that the storage cabinet was stationary indeed.

Whilst waiting for my overly large order of food, I sat at a rather slapdashly painted (in black) old style sloped school desk. Fine if you're dining solo but a bit more challenging if you have more than one (or three, as I saw another table attempting) diner. Partly because of the small amount of table space, but also because of the slope.
Prawn & Crab Net Spring Rolls ($4.50)
I like my spring rolls in this "net" form. I only ever seem to find them in the occasional Vietnamese place. These were undeniably top notch spring rolls. Golden, crunchy, and the filling chunky so that you could actually see the pieces of prawn. The only negative was the price - $4.50 is a leetle much for a couple of spring rolls.


Lemongrass Beef (Eye Fillet) Vermicelli Salad ($9.50)
This was jammed very tightly into a takeaway container that was a bit too small to fit it all in. A generous serving (though again perhaps a little on the higher side of the price equation). They did not skint on the amount of beef but it was a bit oversalted for my personal tastes. The rest of it, including the dressing, was not bad at all but if I come back I'll probably try something else.


Whilst eating, I noticed just to my right a nice big bag of Ho's dumplings waiting to be cooked. Now I know that Ho's do a roaring trade to restaurants and the like but I don't know.....I guess that I want to maintain the illusion a bit that most places make their own dumplings (or at least their own filling with purchased skin) and that if they don't, there isn't a great big bag of the things staring at me and making me think the inevitable about how much it costs to buy a similarly sized bag from Ho's vs how much they are probably charging just to steam/ boil them.

A final shot of Miss Chu's. On the right, out of the photo, are some tables with little bag receptacles underneath them. A handy thing for handbags. This isn't somewhere that you go for a nice lunch out, as comfort isn't a major consideration, but for a quick takeaway lunch it is a good option, though not necessarily the cheapest one.
[AP]

6 comments:

  1. Ooh I had that style of spring roll in Can Tho near the Mekong Delta region. Didn't realise you could get them here - although with so many Vietnamese here I guess it isn't surprising.

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  2. i really like a good netted spring roll. i noticed this place mentioned in the sydney magazine oct 09 on page 19. was wondering where it was located. the website says they do catering but that's definitely strange to hear that they have a big bag of Ho's Kitchen dumplings. i thought they made their own. well spotted. hope to check it out when i'm passing through the area for lunch or a light dinner after work. :-)

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  3. Forager - I don't think that they are that common in Sydney for some reason. Not sure why. It's a shame.

    Simon - look forward to hearing whta you think of them! There should be more netted spring rolls in Sydney if you ask me. It's just off William St, about half way up towards the Cross.

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  4. I love the food here but the Lady who owns this reminds me of the soup Nazi in Seinfield... she can be extremely rude and I dont think I would be going back any time soon.

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  5. hello- misschu herself here: in my defence, I am involved on a business level with Ho's Dim Sims so am only using what I consider my own product anyway made from a much larger HACCP approved kitchen and made according to my recipes without MSG! There is no way we could make them on site at my tiny Bourke St Kitchen. My pricing is ridiculously cheap for the fast service and the high quality that is hard to find especially in and around the CBD especially at lunch time. We serve around 200 people per lunch time and if you haven't made up your mind by the time you get to the service window, yes I can be a bit like that soup nazi featured in Seinfeld and you will also find that the people lining up behind you will wish that you were more organised at the point of sale with so many people lining up with a 30 minute lunch break. Don't forget that is easy to cook and serve about 20 people at lunch time but try 200 with the average waiting time of 5 minutes for incredibly good food at a price hard to match.

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  6. Dear misschu - Thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment. Thank you for the clarification about the Ho's dumplings (does that mean that they make to order for you as opposed to using their usual dumplings?) but I'm sure that you'll understand why I thought what I did. That is a lot of people for you to serve during lunchtime and I did not have any "Soup Nazi" experience personally.

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