Luke Nguyen Star Casino
When your hear ‘dinner with a view’, you probably think: Rooftops. Skylines. Ocean views. A restaurant with floor to ceiling windows, and sweeping panoramas of our city’s twinkling lights.
Fat Noodle, Luke Nguyen’s pan-Asian eatery at The Star, has views of twinkling lights of another kind, and they have names like “Emerald Jade” and “Rainbow Jackpot”. I’m talking about this 112-seater restaurant being located right on the poker floor of The Star casino. Like, right there. But that's no reason to sidestep this late night dining spot, helmed by one of our favourite real-life master chefs.
In a small saucepan, heat and reduce the sugar until caramelized, 5 minutes. Add in the fish sauce, bring to a simmer, and cook until light caramel in color, 2 minutes. Nguyen runs two of his Fat Noodle outlets at The Star's casinos in Sydney and Brisbane, and intends to open a third restaurant as part of the $345 million revamp of its Jupiters casino on the Gold. The Luke Nguyen Street Food pop-up will operate daily from Friday, 19 August until the end of November and will be open on Sunday to Monday 11.30am – 9.00pm, Tuesday to Thursday 11.30am – 10.30pm and Friday to Saturday 11.30am – 11.00pm. For more information on the Luke Nguyen Street Food pop-up and The Star, please visit www.star.com.au.
So, my reccomendation—nab a spot at the bar seating, facing the open kitchen. You get front row seats to the hard-at-work chefs cooking up a storm.
Now, to the food. Luke Nguyen has made a name for himself with his mastery of Vietnamese food, a slew of travel-slash-cooking shows, cookbooks and restaurants, and a stint as a judge on MasterChef Vietnam. (Check out this segment where he speed-slices an onion like nobody’s business. Bet he’s got a super-score on Veggie Ninja.)
After opening the successful Vietnamese-focused Red Lantern restaurant with sister Pauline Nguyen and chef Mark Jensen, he followed with Fat Noodle in 2010, promising hawker-style from across Asia. The menu canvasses flavours from Vietnam, Thailand, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, with a sprinkling of modern interpretations of some classic dishes.
So what’s good? Well, the “shaking beef” starter, for one. The Vietnamese peppery beef, normally served with tomato rice, comes folded in a betel leaf like a delicious secret. Spiked with nước mắm (fish sauce) dressing and a tomato and cucumber salsa, it’s a fresh, reviving mouthful to kick off the proceedings. So too is the salmon sashimi: silky, tongue-like slices of pure salmon goodness, studded with fish roe and a sweet-sour lime and galangal dressing.
From the “with rice” part of the menu, we spring for the chicken rendang. Plump pieces of chicken come doused in a thick and rich curry-gravy, fragrant with coconut, curry leaves and lime leaves. It’s the winner of all Indonesian chicken dinners. Cash it in, babes.
A dish of braised beef and oxtail lands on our table. It’s a bubbling cauldron of slow-cooked, bone-in meats, swimming in a phở-like broth that’s rich with cinnamon and star anise. Pile over a mound of accompanying rice noodles, and you can slurp happily away.
Mee goreng (lol, not the instant stuff, you heathen) is smoky with wok-breath and slick with a starchy tomato-y sauce, though it could do with extra chilli in the sambal; and the wok-tossed vegetables – which sound pretty ho-hum on the menu – are a pleasant surprise. The jumble of asparagus, baby corn and snow peas is upgraded to first-class with a lush-as garlic and butter sauce. Garlic and butter make everything taste better, didn’t you know?
Look, if you're of the mind that having dinner in the casino is a little weird, you shouldn't set aside this delicious gem. The poker machines are there, unabashed, for all to see. But as for what’s on your plate, you're set to win the jackpot.
If you ever do opt for instant mee goreng, follow this guide to improve your packet noodles.
Image credit: Supplied.
Nguyen (right) with Jeff Rowley | |
| Born | September 8, 1978 (age 42) |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Vietnamese–Australian |
| Occupation | Chef |
Luke Nguyen (born 8 September 1978) is a Vietnamese–Australian chef and restaurateur, best known as the host of the television series, Luke Nguyen's Vietnam and Luke Nguyen's France.[1] The former is a food documentary in which he travels through Vietnam with his sous-chef son Bryan Nguyen, cooking in the ad hoc manner of the street vendors in the country, usually preparing the dish on the footpaths,[2] and the latter is an exploration of the French influence on Vietnamese cuisine.[3] He is a judge on the television series MasterChef Vietnam.
Following his first two series, the 10 episode Luke Nguyen's United Kingdom,[4] first aired on 14 May 2015 with the London episode in which he toured the city's food markets with his brother, Lewis. In his most recent series, the 8 episode Luke Nguyen's Street Food Asia,[5] first aired on 1 September 2016 he explores street food in Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.
He is the owner of Red Lantern restaurant in Surry Hills, Sydney, and is the author of a number of cookbooks. He is also the man behind the restaurant Fat Noodle situated in the Star Casino Sydney New South Wales. In 2009, Luke Nguyen and his then-partner, Suzanna Boyd founded the Little Lantern Foundation in Hoi An, which gives disadvantaged youths an opportunity to undertake a hospitality training program in Little Lantern’s operating hotel – restaurant and bar.
Luke Nguyen Married
Nguyen has appeared multiple times on the competitive cooking show MasterChef Australia as a guest chef, including season 2 episode 8, and season 8 episode 31.[6]
Nguyen appeared on the season 7, episode 3 of the SBS genealogy series, Who Do You Think You Are? in which he learned of his previously unknown Hakka Chinese ancestry through his maternal grandfather, an immigrant from Guangdong. Though his mother had known about this for decades, for unspecified reasons she had hidden this information from Nguyen. The program also revealed information about the involvement of Nguyen's ancestors during the Indochina and Vietnam Wars.[7]
References[edit]
- ^Luke Nguyen's Vietnam
- ^Luke Nguyen's Vietnam on SBS
- ^Nguyen's France
- ^Luke Nguyen's United Kingdom
- ^Luke Nguyen's Street Food Asia
- ^http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/masterchef/season-8/episode-31
- ^10 things you didn’t know about Luke Nguyen