Le Grand Chef

Every Friday night Frankie and I aim to go out for a meal for dinner as we don't eat out as much as we used to anymore, as we are trying to save a bit of money. So this Friday night we decided to keep it local and check out the new Korean BBQ in Marrickville. I can't really remember what was in this spot before, but all of a sudden there was a new Korean restaurant with the name Le Grand Chef (not your typical Korean name I am guessing).

The Charcoal Pit

I was a bit scared when they put this in actually cause it started spitting sparks a bit and I was scared Frankie's jumper was going to catch on fire or my hair would turn into a flame ball! Luckily none of this happened.

We ordered a couple of entrees to share which included jap chae (my favourite) and this egg roll dish, which didn't quite look like the picture on the menu..

Also every Friday Frankie goes to his local wine cellar near work and picks a really good bottle of wine for our dinner. This week it was Omrah

Very nice wine I must say. Being a shiraz it was quite bold and flavourful. Yeah I am not taking up any job soon of reviewing wines, don't worry!

We were handed a few of the traditional banchan which seem to be different in each restaurant, but always features the Korean staple of kim chi.

Kim Chi

Beans

These beans I had not seen before. They were just green beans with a sauce over the top, which seemed to me to be thousand island dressing?

Potato Salad

We also got a potato salad which I had never had before, which was ok, but could have used a bit more flavour.

Jap Chae - $10

The Jap Chae was very good. It's sort of like the Korean spaghetti bolognese. I am going to try cooking this one day cause i love it and it doesn't seem to be too hard to cook, just a lot of chopping of vegetables.

Egg Roll - $8

This just tasted like an omelette to me. It was nice, but nothing special. They actually brought us another plate, cause the dish didn't look anything like it did in the photo, although the replacement wasn't too much better, except that the replacement was hot!


Some places you can cook the meat yourself, but in this place they put it on the stove for you, which is nice, but if you go to one of those buffet type ones, it's always better to cook the food yourself. We got the combination A dish which was $30 which included pork ribs, and 2 other types of meat (which I couldn't remember what they were). The meat was beautiful and came with 2 dipping sauces which were great as well. There is nothing better than meat cooked over charcoal. Now where can i get one of these for my place...

We also got a free salad each and free fruit at the end of the meal which was a bonus. The staff were lovely and very polite as well, which I have seemed to notice a lot from Korean restaurants which I think is great. If you are in the Marrickville area I recommend you try it out.

Le Grand Chef
Illawarra Road (Just down the road from Pho Bac)
Marrickville

Pho Bac Hai Duong

If anyone has been to Marrickville the first thing they will notice is the long stream of Vietnamese restaurants along Illawarra Road. I can't believe how many there are. Frankie said that he has been to them all so it was up to him to choose which one we went to. After going to both bottle shops in Marrickville and finding they were both closed we found a bottle shop in a pub and then headed to Pho Bac. I love the freshness of Vietnamese food and I also love how you get all the different condiments on your table so you flavour dishes to your liking.

Vietnamese Pancake - $9.50

We started off with a Vietnamese pancake which I hadn't had for ages. I never used to like this cause I wasn't a big fan of bean sprouts, but I have learnt to like them. The pancake was so crispy and fresh and the sauce was perfect. I couldn't eat this without the sauce though. Everything on the menu was so cheap that we decided to get 3 main items and share them.

Salt and Pepper Squid - $13

You can't really see but the salt and pepper mixture was chunky and had bits of chilli through it of which i ate a big bit of. The batter was probably a bit thicker than you'd expect, but it was still really good.

Combination Omellete - $11

This had pork and squid and vegetables in it and tasted so good with the hoisin sauce. I love hoisin sauce...yum.

Chicken in Anchovy Sauce - $11

I had never seen this dish before, so I was keen to try when Frankie suggested it. It didn't really taste anything like the anchovies that you usually get on pizzas. It was sweet and salty and really good. I would recommend this highly, although i didn't get to eat much of it cause I was stuffed from all of the other dishes.

If you are planning on opening a shop in Marrickville, I wouldn't suggest a Vietnamese restaurant, that's for sure. Maybe a bottle shop that is open past 8pm on a Monday night perhaps... One down twenty five to go!

Pho Bac Hai Duong
304 Illawarra Road
Marrickville
Ph: 9559 5078

Open Mon to Sun 10am - 9:30pm