Soban - Korean Restaurant

Vegetable Bibimbap with strawberries on top!

I find that as I get older, it gets harder and harder to make new friends. It seems to take such an effort at times unlike the primary school days when sharing your oreo cookies will earn you a new best friend - someone who you can trust and share all your secrets with!

Thank God for old friends! My friend Ms. R and I have been friends since primary school in NZ. We met in Saturday morning Mandarin classes and then went on to go to high school together. Then in Year 11, we both moved to Sydney and then finally enrolled in the same university where she studied Medicine and I Engineering.

We still meet up from time to time. One beautiful autumn morning, we set off for a hike from Taronga Zoo to Balmoral Beach. It was a hike that we've but put off for almost a year due to our busy schedules!

View from the walk. Lots of sails to welcome back Jessica Watson!

Famished after the hike, we found ourself in Chatswood for a late lunch. As Ms. R is a vegetarian, it wasn't too easy to find a place to eat. We finally settled for Soban, a Korean restaurant on the top level of Westfield next to Kam Fook. I've been here a number of times and love their salad selections.

Beef Bibimbap

I ordered the Beef Bibimbap. The beef was nice and tender and in large amounts as well. There was an interesting selection of side dishes - even a pumpkin soup. Not usual for Korean for sure!

Vegetable Bibimbap

Now, we were a bit disappointed with the vegetarian bibimbap. When it arrived, we noticed 3 of the 5 side dishes were not vegetarian (one had shrimp, fish cake and fish stock). The waiters came and took those side dishes away after we told them that they're not vegetarian, and didn't offer to replace those dishes with anything else (nor take anything off the final bill). Poor Ms. R was still hungry after her meal. I probably wouldn't be as willing to return again after this experience. But foodwise - it was decent and fresh Korean food with an interesting Italian twist.

Soban

1 Anderson St

Sydney NSW 2067‎

Tel: (02) 9415 2028‎

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Ripples -Milsons Point

I know, it' been a while since I last posted. I've been thinking about it and even dreamt about writing entries filled with delicious recipes and photos. In the busyness of day to day tasks, sometimes I just wish I have supernatural powers such as completing jobs just by thinking about them, or putting my hand on a book and having all its information transferred to my brain.

So I digress. I am meant to be talking about breakfasts in Sydney. There are so many places to have really good breakfasts especially around the Surry Hills, Pyrmont and Balmain areas. Since I don't live around any of these areas I visited Ripples at Milsons Point one fine Saturday morning. Ripples has its chains in several areas in Sydney like Walsh Bay and Chowder Bay.

The Milsons Point location is pretty amazing I tell you. It's right next to the Harbour Bridge (next to Luna Park) and while you have our breakfast, you can lazily gaze out at the beautiful harbour and the city skyline. Best of all, we also found out that there are free parkings in the nearby Kirribilli streets (e.g. Broughton Street).

Foodwise, they serve some hearty traditional breakfasts at reasonable prices (especially when you're getting views as good as that!) It's an ideal place to spend your weekend mornings.

I had the Ripples big breakfast while my friend N had the omelette as you can see from the photos. I wasn't too keen on the 'black pudding' in my breakfast but everything else especially the sirloin was delicious.

pino’s ham, smoked mozzarella & roast tomato omelette - $15

ripples big breakfast - $16

sirloin, black pudding, tomato, mushroom, fried eggs & sourdough

Olympic Dr

Milsons Point NSW 2061‎

Tel: (02) 9929 7722‎

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