Does Cubby’s live up to its hype and long queues? YAAASS.
Modern Lebanese food, from one of the owners of Toko: I’ve been wanting to try this one.
In some ways, it’s similar to a lot of the new Aussie restaurants: share plates, big flavours and grilled and smoky flavours. But the difference here is that this touch is applied to Lebanese food.
And it’s absolutely delicious. The smoked labne was so tasty.
Grilled burnt corn, only for $6, was astonishing.
Pastries with meat inside are always a hit with me… coming just after dumplings as a favourite food group.
One of the specials of the day were these incredible grilled king prawns, as succulent and sweet as can be.
And all this and knafeh, the delicious cheese custardy Middle Eastern dessert, which I first tried from the Knafeh food truck and now will never be the same…
Service, mainly from a waiter from Strassbourg, was both efficient and friendly, and the wine was fine. We didn’t love being at a shared table, sandwiched between some other parties (with the distance across the table just a little too wide, meaning we had to raise our voices to chat).
But this is amazing food in a buzzy atmosphere. It’s called a ‘pop-up’ so I don’t know how long it will be here, though it sounds like they’ll be trying to make it permanent in another venue nearby. Bigly recommendation from here.
Not only delicious but inventive too.
The special today was an oyster chowder ramen. OMG. I couldn’t go past this. Tiny crispy potato cubes, a crisp piece of bacon, a breaded oyster, and the soup: a creamy clam chowder. And you know, this is not a flavour that you find in Australia regularly. Our family would always treat ourselves to a Boston clam chowder, if we headed across the border from Vancouver to Seattle. The particular creaminess with a bit of corn starch and and that bivalve mollusc flavour: yum.
So, really, this ramen (choosing the medium texture for the noodles, neither super hard, nor soft) was a huge treat for me. All that and cold Japanese ice tea, and my friend D. shouted me for lunch. Happy day.
Beer galore, with a range anchored by local brewery Redoak.
We ended up with two dark beers, one that tasted of bananas, and the other with chocolate and hazelnut flavours. They were a little darker and heavier than what I’d usually go for (and my better half said that his had so many flavours, it tasted like a full meal), but certainly interesting.
Let’s make Sydney’s Laneways great! And with great cocktails and solid Italian food, 
It’s in the right location too. Tucked away on York Lane behind Wynyard Station, I think they’ll be able to take advantage of the buzz that’s starting up around Barangaroo, and there are some interesting hotspots that are not so far away. You could make a night of it, really, start here, have another farther up the lane at the York Lane Bar (which looked cool, didn’t try it) and then perhaps head down Clarence Street to grab a whiskey at the Baxter Inn.
It’s also in a good location to grab a quick meal and cocktail before heading towards the Opera House or Sydney Theatre Company for a show, as even though there are a number of restaurants in those directions, I think there’s not that much choice among the good ones.
But I digress. A short selection of sensational cockatils is up for your delectation (though you could always ask for the classics) from bartender extraordinaire, Maurizio (with a great accent, you’ll feel you’re in Italy). We thought the ‘Southside of Sicily’ would be red because of the blood orange, but the blood orange liqueur is actually clear. Mixed with gin, lemon and mint with an orange twist, it was refreshing, subtle and really delicious.
I opted for the ‘Made at York Lane’ with rosemary-infused gin, aperol, fresh lemon and a sprig of rosemary. Also beautiful.
And then the pasta: the mamma mia sauce is apparently the favourite, and we could see why: italian sausage, mushrooms, fresh cream and chilli in a napoletana sauce. Rich but not too rich. We were going to have the spaghetti but got convinced to have the gnocchi, and wow: usually when I have gnocchi, though I love it, it’s just a bit heavy. You know? Aside from the extremely smart decision to split it between the both of us, these gnocchi were super light and delicate. It was really a top-notch dish.
Pasta and pizza, $18 each, and the cocktails, $16. A pretty good price point.
I think the City of Sydney has done an amazing job of getting this going, and facilitating small bars to happen, but we’re still rather behind those cool laneways in Melbourne. I’ve tended to dine and drink in suburbs like Surry Hills or Potts Point rather than go to the CBD, but I’d be certainly happy to hang out more often in the CBD with cool little joints like this.
An Australian-born taste sensation!
Apparently, all of the other flavours change regularly, and we had a burnt toffee, which went deliciously with the sea-salt. Really tasty. My better half had his with a tiny palmier. I had mine with bits of mochi. Yum.
Broadsheet tells me that 
This review allows me to say, WTF Regent Place. Many years ago, I had Japanese food in the corner (quite acceptable I remember) and sometimes had ramen at the booth across from it.
But they’ve managed to now cram a whole bunch of other businesses in, and it has a really fun feel of an Asian food market or mall, with, appropriately, dozens of young Asians, having a ball.
It’s a really good bit of retail design, creating such a buzz here. We’re coming back to try the place specialising in matcha flavours. Maybe for a soft-serve!
Easy, tasty and inexpensive Mexican food. Perfect for a quick bite after a movie or to settle in and drink tequila with yer mates.
There seems to have been an interesting ‘moment’ happening in popular culture in the United States. I’m sure that this has nothing to do with the fact that the two Asian-American contestants on the latest season of the long-running TV show Survivor have been among the first to be booted off…
I noticed the latest round of news starting with some bozo from Fox News heading into New York’s Chinatown for a ‘report’ at the start of October. I thought it was because of attention on Asian-American voters but it was apparently because of the amount of times that Trump talks about China… He used tired stereotypes, made fun of how people spoke and ugh: I couldn’t even watch the clip. There were some good responses, like this 
The 
basically asks: why do we even need to ask the question ‘where are you from?’ and is it important to be able to tell Asians apart?
Oh, this is why it’s so highly rated…
On a weekday, I wanted to treat myself to somewhere new for lunch, and Zomato gives Mappen a clearly higher rating than everywhere else. What’s the beef? Well, I can see that it’s popular because it’s cheap. Really cheap. Then: noodles. Everyone loves noodles, and here the specialty is udon. While I am kind of obsessed with ramen, I have to say I love udon too, the chewy texture of the thick noodles, how the fresh noodles almost shine. When I was a kid, my Mom would take us to the Japanese festivals in Vancouver, and they would serve big steaming bowls of udon.
I reckoned that a bit of spice would be nice, and that I could avoid the volcano bowl, and just go for spicy. The tonkatsu red sounded reasonable enough. Was I ever wrong! It was still too spicy. However, by just eating the delicious noodles, with pork, and a soft-boiled egg, with a sprinkling of scallions and some tempura crumbs, and not sipping too much of the soup, I was just fine.
A fun concept. Check out this pop-up restaurant before it pops down.
The only thing is that even though the menu was interesting, the dishes weren’t really jumping out to tempt us. Maybe it was our mood that night.
Because if the dishes were all as good as the pork jowl (from Dead Ringer)… well: it was fantastic.
Also liked the whipped bottarga and pretzel (I never met a taramasalata I didn’t like). We also had a simple, tasty and elegant tomato and burrata salad.
Finished off with a pavlova, which I thought was rather beautiful.
Ah, and some nice wine and very good service. This is definitely worth a trip.
Modern Vietnamese food in a cool and casual setting
Around us, people were receiving various dishes, rolls and prawns and other delights, which all looked delicious, appealing and fresh. I’ll be back here for sure to try more of the menu.