Pho Hai Duong, Marrickville

After buying ice-cream at Serendipity, the BF and I realised we were actually starving! So we drove to Marrickville shops and wandered around the main street. They say, if you’re looking for a good restaurant, always go to the ones that are packed and busy!

We scoured the streets of Marricville (well more like the main street) and eventally ended up at Pho Hai duong. It’s perpendicular to the main street and I noticed it was one of the more cleaner and brighter restaurants around the area.

Coconut Juice

Soothing coconut juice… Drinks come out first but don’t finish it so hastily! Best sipped in between spoonfuls of steaming hot beef noodle soup!

Vietnamese Crepe Style Pancake with Prawn and Pork

An interesting entree – the crepe is actually made with salted egg yolk so I loved the grainy texture. However the flavour was a bit bland so make sure you top it up with the fish sauce provided.

Crispy Skin Chicken with Tomato Rice

When you order crispy skin chicken I guess you really expect crispy skin chicken. However, the meat was at best, standard  with the skin being soggy and not crispy at all!! However the tomato rice was really good with strong flavour but still didn’t make up for the dissatisfying crispy skin chicken.

Pho Rice Noodle Soup with Medium Rare Beef (large)

Highlight of any vietnamese meal – the Pho! The presentation was by far the best I had seen for a cheap vietnamese meal. There was a good serving of beef and onion and I loved the strong beef stock soup. I’ve been craving pho ever since!

Pho Hai Duong
304 Illawarra Rd
Marrickville 2204
T: (02) 9559 5078

Serendipity Ice Cream, Marrickville

So, a few weeks ago I heard about this awesome ice-cream place from the BFs brother all the way in Marrickville and my mind was set on trying it out for myself! So a few days later, we trekked all the way to Marrickville to this little treasure and here’s what we discovered…

The shop front is really small but the exterior of the building is bright pink so not too hard to find. Inside you’ll be able to buy tubs of icecream either in 500ml portions for $6 or 150ml for $3. The smaller size is good to eat it on the spot but if you are a glutton for ice-cream, like me, you may want to bring an eski or cooler bag to keep the bigger tubs on your drive home.

There were so many flavours I wanted to try but eventually settled on three: Taro, Black Sesame and Peanut Butter Disaster. Serendipity make their own icecream with natural ingredients and you can really taste it. I loved the Taro! It took a while getting used to as I’m a huge fan of the taro icecream from passion flower. The texture and colour was completely different. The taro was a light purple with little bits of taro in it so I found that really exciting.

The BF chose the Black Sesame and like the taro,  it tasted 100% natural and not washed out with your typical milky and creamy supermarket ice-cream.

Love. Peanut. Butter. Anything which has peanut butter… Like the dream bars from Mrs Fields or the Peanut Butter Frappe from Max Brennar. The ice-cream here was super rich with flavour and maybe a little too strong. Maybe I have to go and buy some Serendipity Vanilla icecream to mix it with next time! hehe.

If you sign up to the Serendipity mailing list, once a month you are invited to collect a free 150mL ice-cream which is the new flavour that they are promoting. This month we got the Banana Berry Sundae and the taste was just amazing. The mix was perfect and the flavour was just so good it tasted like you were eatinbg a frozen banana!

Serendipity Icecream is also participating in the Sydney International Food Festival next month (October) with home-made ice-cream classes on 16th and 23rd October. Check it out!

Serendipity Ice Cream
333-339 Enmore Rd
Marrickville, NSW 2204
T: (02) 9557 8986