Review: Chinese Noodle House, Haymarket, Sydney

For $12 a head, I didn’t expect to get pre-dinner entertainment in the form of a violin virtuoso. But on this particular Saturday night, I did.

I’m a regular at Chinese Noodle House in Haymarket but have never been on a Saturday night. And although the place is the kind of dingy haunt for students and those on a similarly tight budget, that night it resembled more an exclusive club for Sydney’s it crowd. We waited in line for almost half an hour.

Now the service here is nothing short of lacking. A menu is violently thrust in your hand as you perch yourself on a rickety stool outside, waiting for a table, your order taken before you’ve even time to turn the page – I assume in an effort to increase efficiency and turnover. But the soothing sound of strings as the owner moves about the crowd, wooing them with his violin, makes the waiting experience somewhat more bearable.

Once inside, the waitresses make a mad scramble to find somewhere to wedge you in. I don’t advise bringing more than a party of four to this joint – unless, of course, you’re willing to dine facing the old man next to you. Those shaky stools reappear and a table that should really seat two is magically transformed into a four-seater.

But what this place lacks in service and décor, it makes up for in food. Our usual fallback is the boiled pork and chive dumplings ($8.50 for 16) but we limit ourselves tonight to a half serve ($4.50). And there’s a reason we keep coming back just for these: the dough casing is satisfyingly soft and starchy, the filling meaty but not overwhelmingly so, heady with garlic and ginger, and flecked with bright green chives.

Pork & Chive Dumplings.

We also order a half serve of steamed pork buns ($4.50), a regular sight on most Chinese menus. But these aren’t the usual buns made with sugary white fluffy dough and barbecued pork – instead the outside is thinner, less sweet, and the inside the same as the dumplings. They’re tasty but I secretly crave the almost cake-like nature of the old favourite.

Pork Buns.

Hot shredded potato ($9.80) is the next dish to appear, fifteen minutes after the arrival of the buns. That’s the other thing – don’t expect everyone’s meals to come at once. But it was well worth the wait, as this was my favourite dish of the night. Julienned strips of potato are flash fried (I assume, as the potato is only just cooked) in a hot mix of chilli, garlic and shallots. For a giant plate of potato, it doesn’t feel heavy or dull. Although I do advise keeping the complementary green tea close by – the chilli is mouth-numbingly hot and is enough to keep our table silent for a good ten minutes as we gulp down the tea and desperately beg for more.

Hot Shredded Potato.

To round off our feast, we order the peanut chicken ($13.80). For some inexplicable reason, I expect a Chinese take on satay chicken but what we get is far from. The thick, sweet, bordering on cloying, soy sauce that drenches the bite-sized pieces of chicken is almost enough to satisfy our need for dessert. But it’s salvaged by the fresh pieces of green and red capsicum and hidden nuggets of peanut gold. Anything with that much sweetness is usually fine by me, but I can’t help but want a bowl of plain rice to tone it down.

Peanut Chicken.

The bill comes to $36, which confuses us. My maths skills are poor but my mental calculator tells me it should be $4 less than that. We decide not to make a scene – the line has swelled even more and the waitresses are getting increasingly frantic. And anyway, who are we to complain about a measly few dollars for such good food?

Radio News: Students still not interested in cooking

Radio news – students not attracted to cooking by gemk

Feature: Students and Nutrition – is moving out of home better or worse for your diet?

News: Generation Y click the mouse instead of the remote

A recent Roy Morgan research poll showed that Generation Y are the first generation to consume more Internet than television. But media corporations need to drastically change to keep up with this social shift. Gemma Kaczerepa reports.

Generation Y – Internet vs. Television by gemk

Feature: Internet Addiction

They’re a relatively new mental health issue and not a lot is known about them. Are they a real disorder? Or are they just a habituation? And how can we determine whether or not someone is addicted?

Gemma Kaczerepa reports.

Opinion: Let’s take Internet addictions seriously

Hi, my name’s Gemma and I’m a netoholic. Oh, you don’t know what that is? No, it doesn’t mean I waste a good portion of my income on sachets of white powder or bottles of the most potent alcohol I can get my desperate hands on. No, I probably don’t need any sort of rehabilitation for it. And, yes, I realise my hours spent refreshing and sifting through my Facebook news feed may seem trivial. But do take it seriously, because it is a real disorder.

The current medical journal used by psychologists and psychiatrists doesn’t include Internet addiction as a valid mental illness. Some experts will tell you it’s merely a side effect of another mental disorder. If you’re already depressed, anxious or even addicted to something else, you’re merely whiling away hours on the net to pass the time and evade real life predicaments. Others still will deem your addiction an habituation; something easily overcome without the necessary standard treatment for addictions. But if the man down the street hooked on pornography can be considered a bona fide addict, why not the thirteen-year-old girl ignoring friends and family for the sake of an online friend she made through some forum? Or is it just yet another example of a Generation Y character trait?

The neural pathways of a child are malleable and flexible and the earlier they’re exposed to something, the more likely they are to become addicted. For me, it all started when I got my own computer at the age of 12 – like that first drag of a cigarette.  I was hooked. I’d come home from school, abandon pleas from my mother to do my homework/the dishes/anything but spend countless hours chatting on the net, and spend countless hours chatting on the net. I barely knew my family then; they were merely a persistent annoyance that I’d shout at occasionally. I didn’t think they were worth my time.

This lasted a good four years, through the majority of my high school days. I chatted to people I’d never in a million years speak to in person. I felt stronger, more confident, behind a digitised façade. I chatted to people I’d never even met before which, eventually, led me to trouble. I was part of something a great deal more sinister than I could handle, as I took part in a forum of other unknowns, trying to convince a fifteen-year-old boy not to commit suicide. Constant arguments with my mother ensued as she tirelessly tried to get me to spend some decent time with my family. I felt she didn’t understand. My online life, to me, was more important than anything she could provide. I was so absorbed in it all that I didn’t see how crippling and damaging it could be to both my family and myself. Currently I probably spend more time than is good for me on the net but am able to remove myself from it if necessary. But I only think this has come about through seeing the damage it can really do.

And the case studies on Internet addiction are difficult to ignore. My own experience pales in comparison to a 28-year-old Korean man who collapsed and died after playing online games for 50 hours straight, without resting. Also in Korea, a young couple let their three-month-old baby starve to death while caring for a virtual baby online. These are situations that have only come about since the Internet’s inauguration. In the same vein, nicotine addictions couldn’t have existed before the invention of cigarettes.

And yes, the two are different in that one is psychological, the other involving a substance containing an addictive ingredient. But is not the principal the same? Shouldn’t the person who just can’t log off be treated with the same amount of conviction as the nicotine-addict? I would hate for someone to be dealt with in a less dignified and respectful manner because his or her addiction is a mere ‘habituation’.

This is the world now. A massive social and communicative shift has taken place and as with any major transformation, there comes a plethora of advantages as well as negative ramifications that need to be dealt with. The deaths of those too engrossed in their online lives and those simply too helpless to stop them are impossible to ignore. Internet addiction is real and it needs to be handled with care.

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