This looks like a really cute place to hang out for a drink and a snack sometime. Appealing design. Cosy. On Chippendale’s eat street, which I think is a phenomenal success in terms of urban design.
Koi, as you can see through the door, had a mob of people outside it, so we decided instead to have dessert here (and in my case, a nightcap, sake on ice, and in fact the drinks here all look very reasonably priced).
We didn’t know at the time that this bar is owned by the same brothers as own Koi. For $13 each, we had a KOI Bobba, and I think it’s an interesting decision not to compete with the pastries next door. This was a sort of complicated dish with Thai ice cream, tapioca pearl (that you get in bubble tea), a light-as-air hazelnut sponge cake, torn into pieces, freeze-dried mandarins (yum!) and salted coconut ice cream.
We liked it, though I don’t know how I managed to take such a fuzzy photo! Oh well. The staff were young and eager to please. Looks like the place got sledged in some early reviews with some problems in service and people expecting this to be a sit-down restaurant, appropriate for dinner. It’s not: it’s drinks and snacks, and I’ll be back to try some more.
These dumplings, with duck and pork, had a firmer texture than usual, in an interesting and delicious way.
We thought we might have ordered too much food but it was almost the right amount. The crispy roast pork belly plate was a modest amount… but very tasty, and I loved the taro rice.
I always love lotus root chips. Yum.
We ordered half a duck, crispy skin and roasted, and the waitress pulled apart some of the meat at the table when she brought it, just to show us how it was done. A generous amount of pancakes (unusually, and we even left one) and you know, duck, raw green onions, cucumber, hoi sin and Chinese pancakes is a magical combination that you just can’t match. It’s true that this was not the lacquered duck pieces that you’d get at a Chinese banquet, so it was a variation, but god, it was tasty.
Nestled behind Kings Cross at the end of Kellett Street is the House Bar and Bistrot. Chef Mauro Forgillo, who has worked at Fratelli Fresh, Rockpool and Merivale restaurants had the dream to open his own restaurant, and he’s achieved it at 27-years-old. The result is a charming place in two adjoining terrace houses, serving food that highlights good produce and tasty simple cooking.
We came partly because they also feature a vegetarian menu, though we mixed it up with some seafood dishes as well. Starting off with a selection of starters of sourdough bread ($12-13 each for four), it was fun deciding among the three of us which were our favourite (and who would then get the second piece).
I liked the simplicity and savoury-sour hit of the marinated sardines. The others thought that dish needed another element, to be as tasty as the pear-honey-gorgonzola one, or the pumpkin-thyme-parmigianno.
For a main, I had homemade ravioli with lardo and wild mushrooms. It was tasty and I love homemade pasta. My pals split a Tagliolini with king prawns, garlic and chili ($26) and they raved about the taste of the prawns.
We accompanied it with a generous fennel salad.
We matched it with a bottle of, first, Venician white wine, organic I believe (which I preferred), and followed it with an Australian pinot gris (which my friends preferred).
I found it all in all very charming, though I’m a little worried about them finding a clientele. Kellett Street SHOULD be busy, and once was, and has an interesting mix of restaurants (who else remembers the hat restaurant on this street where diners chose hats from the walls to wear during the meal: a fun idea for a party).
And on Anzac Day, it was pretty quiet, except for the occasional sailor walking by. But it’ll be hard to get walk-by traffic here, and the name ‘House’ doesn’t, to me, point to the best part of the restaurant, a friendly feeling of Italian authenticity.
I really wasn’t expecting at a beach during school holidays to pop into a restaurant and for it to be so elegant. But it was. Fine dining in a lovely location and a very pretty old house at Nielsen Park.
We opted for the lunch special which gave us a main, a side dish and a glass of wine ($39 each). We also had some delicious Sonoma Sourdough and some eggplant croquettes (I quite liked them but I think my friends weren’t as impressed). I had black mussels, which, coming with pieces of silver dory and calamari, was more like a seafood stew, then say, moules and frites. It was very tasty, as was the wine. My pals liked their meals too.
It was one of those occasions where I was enjoying myself and the day so much that I forgot to take photos of the food. Ah well, next time.
So, I took my dear friend Daniel on the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk, and we, of course, needed sustenance en route, particularly after a swim at Bondi Icebergs. Cafe Salina has slightly higher ratings on Zomato than the other cafés so I thought it was worth a try. And I’m glad we did.
I had the corn and polenta fritters with bacon ($19.50) and it was a classic Sydney café dish: it was very tasty. Daniel had the gyros, which much have been on the specials as I don’t see it on their menu now. He polished it off.
A nice location, very nice guy who served us (the manager?) and we were happy campers.
I digress. But I do still love the Entertainment Book (with much of the profits going to charities which you can choose: Mine is Sydney Pet Rescue and Adoption though I also bought books from the Cancer Council in the past). And I’ve been to a few amazing special dinners, like this one, where they bring together a winery and a fine dining restaurant. It’s a good pairing. And this event was the most generous with the wine of any I’ve been to so far!
Next was a beautiful kingfish dish.
Mike’s ethos is to provide food sourced from the best provenance, and there’s also a combination of the feeling of eating at home, but amped up to fine dining, I suppose it felt like being invited over to a great chef’s home for a meal! So, pretty fun I’d say to go with a group of four. Our table arrangement with eight people passing around the plates was a little awkward, I have to admit.
Still, the lamb, served in a fry pan, was melt in your mouth and it was served up with duck fat potatoes, appropriately crispy.
I found it really cool after kneeding and folding the curds when it suddenly turned into the consistency of mozzarella. The recipe makes two big balls of mozzarella, bigger than I expected. There is a ton of whey leftover, which I plan to use all of to make various soups. I plated it up with tomatoes, basil and a splash of caramelised balsamic vinegar. We ate some right away, and the rest two days later, where the cheese had gotten a bit slimy with some sort of white mixture of whey, but a little rinse and it was fine.
Instructions
Remove the pot from the heat and continue stirring gently for another 5 minutes.
So many restaurants to choose from! We came to Chica Bonita (“Pretty Girl”) because somehow they’ve managed to score a little higher than everywhere else on Zomato. So, why not? And I like Mexican food, the authentic kind and the various alterations.
We thought the food was tasty enough but nothing special. So perhaps people are swayed by the drinks menu, which sounds kind of fun, honestly.
I found the drawings on the tin foil amusing. I actually thought that mine, that actually had french fries (thin ones) inside the burrito, along with the crisp fish, was pretty tasty, and I was really hungry.
My pal thought his was mediocre.