You can see that owner, Diana Ren has grand plans for Dan’s House. Step inside and the place is swish, bling lighting, mosaic tiled columns, a mesh metal chain feature wall that provides a perfect backdrop for the enormous Dan’s House logo. It’s obvious Diana wants the place to be known for its style as well as food. Noodlies, Sydney food blog should probably stay away from style, so I’ll talk about food.
Dan’s House is so new, the grand opening is two weeks away. Their specialty is Peking Duck and hand-made noodles. Today, Heidi (a friend of the owner) and I have invited a group of food blogging friends to sample their menu.
Diana proudly proclaims her Peking Duck is better because each one takes two days to prepare, the time she claims, is why the skin is oh-so crispy while the flesh is tender and tasty. The presentation is stunning too, square white plates divided into four quarters each containing a different section of the dish. Two sections of the duck come on the plate; leg and breast – the breast goes with the steamed pancake, while leg is best with steamed round buns (not pictured). All to be had with the daintily cut and presented cucumber and shallot and to be dipped in your choice of sauces: hoisin with honey, grapefruit and radish. Diana explains it all in the video above.
The duck skin also comes out separately and when dipped in sugar delivers an amazing crispy texture as explained by Heidi, also in the video above.
And then there’s the hand-made noodle, in fact all the noodles, whether steamed, boiled or fried are hand-made on the premises. A particular specialty is longevity noodles, an entire bowl of noodles made from one strand that’s 40 metres long. Longevity noodles is about long life and it’s the sort of dish you order on your birthday. Diana says you’re meant to suck the whole bowl in one go. Heidi demonstrates in the video below how to eat these noodles. The picture above is a tasting portion for us on the day, usually the bowl is pretty full.
We got to watch the chef make these longevity noodles and as a bonus I was given a one-on-one tutorial… watch my feeble attempt in the video below (promise you won’t laugh!).
The hand-made noodles can also be fried as shown below, that flat noodle bread is actually made up of individual stands of noodles.
Dan’s House delights in contemporary Chinese too, like silken tofu sashimi. The tofu was so smooth, sashimi equally delicate both combining perfectly with a light but extra tasty soy-based sauce.
It seems a restaurant can’t be contemporary unless wagyu beef is on the menu. Here it’s served on extra hot stone and sizzles in excitement when red wine sauce is poured over the meat. Thick garlic chunks give this dish an extra mouth-watering aroma.
Scallops in XO sauce is another Chinese favourite, here it’s stunningly plated in a fried basket of hand-made noodles. The prawn flavour is brought out by the tasty sauce which contrasts, in texture, with the fried noodles.
A light salad adds a fresh zing to our meal, the dressing is Asian inspired – I could taste a touch of soy sauce. And of course, finished with a coil of fried hand-made noodle.
I’ve had Chinese toffee apples before, but this is something else – it’s jaw-droppingly stunning but at the same time is playful and fun.
Watch the food bloggers go crazy as we eat and play with the toffee apple in the video below.
It’s obvious Diana wants her restaurant to be known as the place for contemporary Chinese fare and one that does it with flair. The first floor restaurant is bling city, to borrow Penny’s description (see above), while upstairs is an intimate, classy bar that also has a VIP private room with karaoke facilities – what more could you ask for?! As you can see below, noodlies is equally at home with intimate and classy as he is with bling, bling (pic courtesy of Penny).
Noodlies really likes noodles at Dan’s House. Get to Dan’s House before the rest of Sydney finds out about this place.
PS. I took these photos with a new Samsung Galaxy Note. Need your advice dear readers, how do these photos stack up with the rest of the pics on noodlies? Love to know…
Dan’s House
Level 1 & 2, 710 George St, Sydney
9211 1112
Noodlies, Sydney food blog and the rest of the food blogging posse Penny (Jeroxi), Lauren (Corridor Kitchen), Angie (Angie lives to eat), Kevin (shiitake and stuff), Heidi, Shaun (Everybody loves ramen) and Simon (the heart of food) dined as guests of the lovely Diana of Dan’s House.
I love the look of the noodle flat bread. Handmade noodles are such fun to watch being made… but even better to eat! It’s so cool how you “food blogging posse” get invited to try food at such great new places!
ha, ha.. didn’t mean my posse.. lol.. I invite people at random really.. pretty much my scattered personality 🙂
That was so much fun, and the food was delish! Thanks for the invite.
I loved those noodles, they had great texture. But my favourite dish was probably the chilled tofu and sashimi – that sauce was heaven!
Yeah.. something about the smooooth tofu..!
I was wondering what Dan’s House was all about! Great to take a peek at what’s in store for this place. Definitely going to take a visit to Diana’s when I get the chance!
It’s so much more fun to see it being made.. something wonderful about noodles made when you order.
photos look great! I want a Galaxy Note! How do you like it Thang?
I’m in love with the Note… the size is big and does get some getting used to, but that’s the reason I like it so much.. the web is so much brighter and more readable than the iphone. Camera’s fantastic, though you’d still need DSLR for very low light, I love how easy it is to move pics from a Note to PC, just drag and drop like another drive.. not like the painful itunes syncing painfulness. Still to try the video.. that will be next.
are you using it for a phone as well? do you feel like a klutz lifting it to your ear?
Yep, using it as a phone too. Interesting question. First I thought it might look a little over the top, but that passes.. but then again, I don’t really use the phone that much these days.. more social media, twitter and emails. People are VERY curious when you whip it out to use it, like surf the net for example.. so you will get some attention that way, lol
HAHA thang love the last picture 😉 too cool for school!
Gangsta rulz, lol!
Bling city rocks…. we need to takeover the bling room as well!
I can see some serious karaoke action!
I should hope the duck, noodles and tofu were all good because the salad looks like something you’d get out of a packet at the supermarket.
Might have to try and avoid this place. Looks similar to that dross faux/mod Canto place in Potts Point. Forgotten the name of it…
Be nice to know how much the dishes cost to the, ahem, paying public.
Sadly your experience is not what the general public care getting 🙁
The food could be good, but when they offer only 3 desserts and the signature is sold out, the good soup is sold out, the pork buns are sold out, we stopped asking, but you get the drift. It wasn’t busy by any means, and there was still a night service to go
the duck was good – but no one explained the plate set up.
The service atrocious – we had to ask 4 times for water, the dishes were never cleared, we were treated with utter disdain – not something I’d do to a table of 12 (3 families so not rowdy ), especially after one of those plastic chairs broke (there’s a chair graveyard upstairs by the toilets (which were out of paper) so there’s obviously an issue with the chair quality. Luckily our guest wasn’t injured – no apology
I wouldn’t go back if I was paid, so I’m glad your experience was a good one