I was lucky to be invited to a Christmas lunch here by the amazing PR group Wilkinson Butler, and I was amazed that the food matched up to the surroundings.
I heard that Regatta has been through a few changes in the last years, but it seems to have found its feet. Executive chef Damien Pignolet and head chef Michael Morrison are serving up perfect modern Australian food. Each of my three courses was beautiful. I liked the witty serve of chicken liver paté with figs and a fruit sorbet and brioche toast. 
The duck was so good that it made the duck I had at the Duck Pub a week before seem less good than it was.This is how it’s supposed to be, richy and fatty and melt in your mouth. Along with some smoky and grilled flavours… wonderful.
This chocolate mousse cake dessert was to die for.
I try to keep up with the great restaurants in Sydney, and my radar had completely missed this one. I think I’ll come back for a special occasion…
On a side note, I suspect the terrible Zomato ratings here are a legacy of the previous incarnations of the restaurant: a bit of a price to pay for continuity of name, but hopefully discerning diners will read the most recent reviews.
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.
Ready for a meat coma? Bring friends so you can try as much as you can.
A barbecue joint has opened up in the back of the George Hotel in Waterloo and it was descended upon by this year’s food bloggers Christmas get-together, as organised by Chocolate Suze (her review 
I’ll defer to fellow bloggers, such as 
Sadly, I wasn’t super hungry that day, but the beef brisket burger was really beautiful (and the fries too, perfectly crisp). The meat was tender and smoky and wonderful.