Gözleme may be a Turkish dish, but I’ll probably always associate it with Sydney, coming across it at the Surry Hills Market or at Mardi Gras Fair Day or pretty much any other outdoor event, Turkish ladies in head coverings making this delicious and quick snack of flaky pastry and a meat and cheese filling. I like them lots.
It does seem to take away a bit of their home made quality to be turned into an official fast food, but so be it, especially located at Gateway at Circular Quay, which in an area were it was hard to get inexpensive, good food, now serves up pretty much any kind of cuisine you want. I think the concept and design is good, and am happy they’ve opened up.
As for the gözleme, it was fine. Tasty. I was so hungry, I ripped into it and then realised that they had given me a wrong order. Rather than the traditional minced lamb that I’d order, with an egg as well, it was a sort of salami and cheese mix, which made it quite a bit like pizza. Not bad, but exactly what I wanted.
I’m also really interesting in Meet Mica for its location. This part of Surry Hills, just up from Cleveland Street, is mostly known for traditional Lebanese restaurants. Some other options, usually quick, inexpensive ethnic cuisine have come and gone, but it looks like there may soon be a critical mass of interesting food options to attract people to the area. My breakfast-mate recommended Mjølner, just around the corner from here.
My pal was happy with his molten matcha French Toast, including because he could choose how much condensed milk or not to use, to control the sweetness. An interesting menu, which includes more standard menu items; I’ll be back to try more.
Sometimes Sydney surprises me like that. Canadian cities always have a handful of interesting cafes and diners and ethnic restaurants that are open. In Vancouver, there’s wonton and noodles open until past midnight any night of the week. But I digress.
We ordered off a pretty basic menu. My better half had chicken risotto and I went for the chicken schnitzel, and it was pretty much perfect. The fries were super crisp. The chicken had the right batter, and was well done. The risotto got good reviews though was found to be a little large as a serving for that time of night (we took half of it home).
They weren’t serving alcohol at that time of night (slightly confusing, since the menu had wine by the glass and they said it wasn’t licensed, but so be it). $60 for two main courses and two bottles of pelligrino. Expensive but beggars can’t be choosers and we were just happy to get a meal, and that the meal turned out to be just fine.
Radio Cairo sounded to me like it could be one of thos new fusion restaurants that Sydney is a bit fond of these days (I was just at the Turkish-Mexican mash-up at Pazaar Food Collective recently). And there is a definite charm (and contemporary feeling) to the owner of the restaurant, Srian Perera, introducing himself on the menu as of ‘Sri Lankan (Wijeyekoon), English (Martin), Irish (Kennedy), Scottish (Anderson), German Jewish (De Worms), and Portuguese (Perera) descent’.
In fact, Radio Cairo seems to be a neighbourhood institution and the waiter tells us that he’d been told that the decor and feel to the restaurant is pretty much the same as when it opened 25 years ago.
The menu is very appealing with so many cultural influences and the food fit the ambience, a friendly neighbourhood diner that happens to also be quite international. It was good. A fun meal and a good option for before a movie in Cremorne!
I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: I think Spice Alley in Chippendale is a great place. Beautifully designed, good concept, buzzing with life. Aside from some complications to try to get an alcoholic drink, the rest of it works great. Everyone in your party can choose their own favourite Asian dish, and then gather and eat tasty food together.
Others in our party went for laksa and sushi; I felt like a roti canai from Alex Lee Kitchen, and it’s hard to go wrong with this. A crispy, fried roti with not one but two spicy curries and a sambal. Yum. $7.50. It’s the first photo up top. I do think that the frozen roti in Chinatown are really good quality to fry up at home, but I wouldn’t be able to recreate these curries.
And then I was really interested in trying the Ngoh Hiang, a deep fried ‘five spice’ roll with minced pork, prawns, water chestnuts and onions as a filling, wrapped in a bean curd skin. It reminded me of some dishes that I like at yum cha. Delicious. $12.
I was hoping to get the duck tasting plate, meant to be shared, but I was going to hog it all to myself for a main: hoisin duck treats, a rillette, some smoked duck… But it was sold out. I settled on the sous-vide crispy skin duck breast, as did another in our party. The others had bangers and mash and a duck ragout pappardelle.
We of the duck breast though it was good not great, though the others really liked theirs. We matched it with the cheapest pinot noir on the wine list (I think it was $42), which was light and spicy. We worried about getting to the show in time as the service seemed a bit slow, but our timing was just fine in the end (arriving at 7pm at the pub; show was at 8:30pm; though we only had main courses).
After I stayed at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City in May, I wrote 
However, after waiting for both our sandwiches and coffees, both parts of the order seemingly forgotten (and we were only part of a handful of people there), David said: this better be great when it arrives.