[FOOD REVIEW] Stra Pocha, Strathfield

Recently, my sister has been craving fried chicken, thus instead of giving her a dose of KFC, we decided to venture to Stra Pocha (19-21 Everton Rd, Strathfield) and theirs!

I really liked how the restaurant was separated into individual cubicles as shown in the photo below.

It felt much more comfortable and it felt like we had our own private space. It was also very convenient and efficient to have a button for us to press and call the staff to help us with any orders or kimchi refills (yes!). The service was very fast here and our food arrived very promptly.

First to arrive would always be the side dishes that everyone loves to enjoy as a snack! I really like how different Korean restaurants have their own little variation. The side dishes provided here were pickled onions with cabbage, creamy apples, soft eggplant, deep dried taro with honey, broccoli with (some sort of)  mild spicy sauce and our all time favourite and staple kimchi! I really liked the kimchi, it wasn't extremely spicy but it was very flavoursome. The creamy apples were very delicious as they were really nice and sweet. Especially good for when you're trying to save your poor tongue from any more of the chilli! :p The broccoli was pretty refreshing as well.

My brother has been wanting to try Korean hotpot for a while and so we decided to order the Kimchi with pork, veggies and tofu cooled in casserole hotpot ($30). This looked as good as it tasted! Every sip of the soup just made my mouth water for even more. It was super refreshing with the subtle sourness in the boiled kimchi. I didn't particularly like eating the boiled kimchi but the soup was awesome! We ate the veggies before they went soggy and had a few pieces of meat and tofu for the four of us. There were also potato noodles and mushroom but there honestly wasn't a whole heap so remember to share before gobbling it all! (I know it's hard!)

Next up was the Stir Fried Celophane Noodles in Sesame Oil with Assorted Veggies and Beef ($20). The noodles very rather sweet but I really love the the texture of potato noodles, thus I didn't really mind it at all and ate most of it haha! I love how chewy and soft these noodles are!

My sister was mega excited to receive the Deep Fried Chicken dipped in sweet soy sauce ($30). However, this wasn't as good as I expected. My sister's boyfriend said that the chilli fried chicken wings and the fried chicken with melted cheese tasted much better so I would recommend those instead because these were pretty average. The pieces that had sauce on it was extremely sweet but the best merit of the chicken was that the skin was really crispy and crunchy! I loved crunching on it the whole night haha! The inside was a bit dry but it wasn't that bad.

I think the Seafood Pancake with Veggies ($20) was the biggest disappointment for me. The dough was way too thick and most of the time, I felt that I was mainly eating dough with egg on the top layer. Overall, the pancake tasted really plain and the seafood was rather scarce. But the biggest dealbreaker for me was the dough, I really felt like I was eating a soft fat kebab pizza. It had a bit more taste when I ate it with some kimchi though!

 After ordering our food, we decided to try some soju along with it and thus we ordered the Chamisul ($13). It wasn't really strong and tasted okay, pretty much like rice wine!

Overall, this restaurant is convenient to get to and has pretty good food! I would definitely recommend the hotpot! It kept me warm throughout the night and tasted amazing! The price may be a bit more on the expensive side but I would definitely want to come here again to try the chicken with melted cheese next time!