The Food Thread - comments and recommendations

[liegeprime]

Hmmm quite cold now. SO Im having good ol fashion Shabu Shabu - good thing all the supplies are easy to find in Asian shops these days - nice hot soup and tender thin strips of beef with lots of silken tofu, fresh leafy veges and steamboat stuff, crabsticks, carrots sticks and mushrooms, hmmmm comfort food!

[SkyWarp91]

Hmmm quite cold now. SO Im having good ol fashion Shabu Shabu - good thing all the supplies are easy to find in Asian shops these days - nice hot soup and tender thin strips of beef with lots of silken tofu, fresh leafy veges and steamboat stuff, crabsticks, carrots sticks and mushrooms, hmmmm comfort food!

so that's what it's called! I had a similar thing at a restaurant the other day. Delicious stuff, the hot soup I had was kim-chi flavoured! Thanks for naming it liege!

by the way how do you make that dipping sauce that looks like soy sauce but has so many spices like garlic (i think?) in it and you can mix the egg yolk into it?

[griffin]

The Smiths Pizza flavoured chips that were released for the State of Origin and only available at Coles, are on clearance... $1 each, down from $3.
Grabbed myself 6 bags.
They aren't the best flavour, or my favourite, but who can beat $1 bags of chips.


And these guys must know where I live... their only store outside of Asia just opened up 'next door' to me.
I'd never heard of Mos Burger, but sounds interesting to have a combination of two of my favourite foods - Burgers and Japanese.
Guess where I'll be going for dinner tonight...

(everytime I see the name of that place though, for some reason I get the Cantina theme in my head... )

[liegeprime]

so that's what it's called! I had a similar thing at a restaurant the other day. Delicious stuff, the hot soup I had was kim-chi flavoured! Thanks for naming it liege!

by the way how do you make that dipping sauce that looks like soy sauce but has so many spices like garlic (i think?) in it and you can mix the egg yolk into it?

You dont have to do it yourself - if There's an asian shop near you - Tong Li for example. You just have to look at the Jap section for sauces - look for Ebara Sukiyaki No Tare. Ill post a pic of the bottle I bought once Ive taken shots.

But to make your own its actually a combination of Dashi, Mirin, Soysauce, Caster sugar and water

Dashi is basically Stock - either Bonito, Kelp or Shiitake Mushroom

You can make the dashi by boiling the ingredients abovein 500ml of water then reduce to a third by simmering, you can keep this stock then in the fridge for 3-4 days when your not about to use it.

Erm the one you where dip in egg yolk after you've taken it from the boiling soup is called Sukiyaki - just as delicious and tasty uses same soup stock anyways heheheeh

[Firestorm]

The Smiths Pizza flavoured chips that were released for the State of Origin and only available at Coles, are on clearance... $1 each, down from $3.
Grabbed myself 6 bags.
They aren't the best flavour, or my favourite, but who can beat $1 bags of chips.


And these guys must know where I live... their only store outside of Asia just opened up 'next door' to me.
I'd never heard of Mos Burger, but sounds interesting to have a combination of two of my favourite foods - Burgers and Japanese.
Guess where I'll be going for dinner tonight...

(everytime I see the name of that place though, for some reason I get the Cantina theme in my head... )

Woah, i didnt know we had a Mos Burger in Australia, cool.
I ate at Mos Burger a bunch of times while i was in Japan
though it probably wont be as cheap or as good as the ones in Japan. hope one opens up in my area soon

[griffin]

A short review of MOS Burger.

Last night, as promised, I went to sample their burgers. It was approaching 7pm, and as with the last time I walked past the place at a similar time
there was this old man there repeating the same three lines to anyone who could hear him:
- Welcome to MOS Burger.
- The only MOS Burger in Australia.... so far.
- Very popular in Japan.

After looking at the website of their JP restaurant menu, I found that this Australian menu was very small... and only included burgers. Yes, I know
it's their name, but other burger franchises don't just exclusively sell burgers (except maybe, In&Out Burger in America).
The Menu has 11 burgers, and on the day I was there they had an extra 'limited edition' burger, which was a spicy version of their regular burger.



Aside from the Burgers, the rest of the menu contains sides and drinks.
And as you can see, the prices for most of the burgers are $4-something, which isn't too bad for something different.

The range of actual burgers is interesting though, with 7 of the 11 burgers using different types of meat. Compare that to the major franchises that
have about a dozen burgers using the same meat patty as it's base.

This also meant that I kinda had to buy more than I probably should have, just to sample as much of the range as possible.

So after standing in a queue for about 5-6 minutes, I placed my order:
Mos Burger (to see what the flagship burger is like without anything added)
Cheeseburger (because I'm a fan of cheeseburgers)
Teriyaki Chicken burger
Fish burger
Wagyu Beef cheeseburger
Seafood Kakiage Rice Burger (bun is made of pressed cooked rice)
Pork Ginger Rice Burger
Spicy Mos Burger

It totaled about $38.

You can watch them making the burgers, which helped pass the time, as it took about 10 minutes for them to get to my order and make it.

WARNING!!!!! - if you ever get takeaway from there, as with any franchise, be sure to check you have everything. They left out a burger on
my order, so was able to chase them up while I was there.
I've never gone back to a place to try to convince them of a missing item, but could imagine that it would be impossible to prove or get a replacement
- or else anyone could do it to get a free item.

Back home I unwrapped each one:



The thing you notice most is that they slather on a lot of wet stuff (sauces, mayo, onion relish, etc), and they even had signage in the store
to tell you to eat it in their bags to prevent dripping stuff onto your clothes.
Their bags are pretty good though, as they aren't just paper - they are grease/water proof.

The downside I had though is that these burgers got cold really fast... perhaps I'm too used to HJs burgers which are microwaved to make sure
they hold their heat longer. These ones only have the meat as their only hot element, which is probably absorbed really quickly into the other
components. They would therefore be best eaten there, as they are fresh and warm.
I was only able to eat 5 of them first up, and about 4 hours later I was able to eat the other 3 (after a quick zap in the microwave).

Each burger has its merits, and I may return to this place again in the future, but the ones I was least impressed with were the two seafood
ones. The Fish Burger tasted like something from McDonalds, and the Seafood Rice Burger had a strong taste to it that I couldn't quite work out
(and I'm not even sure what Seafood items were in it).

I liked the Teriyaki Chicken burger and the Cheeseburger, while the Pork Rice burger and Spicy burger were merit a mention as well.
The relish they have on some of the burgers is very nice, and gives it a really unique taste and texture.

The Wagyu beef seems over-rated though, as it costs a lot more than the others, but still tastes like Beef, so don't know what the fuss is all about.
So we get this Angus beef at HJs and McDonalds which is supposed to be a better beef, and now this Wagyu beef is showing up at places like
Subway...
My question is, what is the regular beef called then, and why is it so bad?

I didn't get to try their chips/fries (called both on their menu), but they didn't look to be anything special. Maybe next time.

BTW, the MOS in the name is an acronym of the words 'Mountain, Ocean, Sun'.
Some interesting info from a wiki site - this AUS store isn't the first outside of Asia, but is currently the only one at the moment, as their Hawaii store
closed in 2005. It is also the 2nd largest fast food franchise in Japan behind McDonalds, with over 1300 outlets.

They have an Australian website address quoted on their menu, but it doesn't have anything up yet. The restaurant has been open 3 months -
they should have had the website up before they even opened. (even the main JP website has nothing consumer-based about their AUS store)

They did have a nice little plaque on the wall to commemorate them being the first MOS Burger in Australia.

[1AZRAEL1]

Mmmmmmm, they look nice. Hope they open up a store in Sydney. I'm particularly interested in the ginger pork burger.

[KillinSpoon]

I'm just wondering why they don't have a regular pork burger... Can you change the rice bun to a regular one?

[griffin]

I guess you could ask, because they market themselves as 'made to order' (as in it isn't pre-prepared).

[Sharky]

they actually look very slimey and greasy.....and in some cases very off putting...

i will stick to pauls hamburgers!!! (any sydney siders ever get out to sylvania try them they are a beautiful burger)