It was clear that Alan Thompson’s new venture, Barista & Cook, would be special. But I didn’t know just how good it would be until last Sunday when I finally tried it for the first time.
Alan’s Bangbang cafe in Surry Hills was simply, a great experience (it’s been taken over and is not doing too badly in its new incarnation). It was always a great place for a cafe, but after a tasty place called Plissé, it had a year or two as a terrible cafe, before Alan took it over. As a 
former DJ, he had a huge set of headphones painted on one wall, there were super cool light fixtures, even the colour of the paint was cool. The style and detail was also applied to the menu, a fun and engaging British influenced menu, with particularly excellent breakfasts (though I often would fall prey to the white chocolate caramel slices).
Barista & Cook is huge and airy, and super-stylish. The young, shiny staff with very stylish aprons and leather straps, were friendly and efficient. Alan was presiding over the floor, and I know he’s got high standards, and is making the place run beautifully.
The food though? What of the food? One of our party, from Perth, was very impressed with her pork belly and eggs and beans. A beautiful dish. My better half had a mac n cheese toastie, which is a pretty good concept, if you ask me.
But let me wax lyrical about the grilled mushroom on toast, just as an example of how good I think this place is. This is a pretty typical dish for an Aussie cafe, and I’ve had some terrible versions of it: a big old grilled mushroom on a dry piece of toast. But this had some sort of mushroom mixture on top of the toast, rich and savoury, like a nice pate, and then 
grilled wild mushrooms on top of that, plus some delicious salady bits. And then here’s the thing: some soft burrata cheese (one of my favourite good groups) and some bits of enoki mushrooms (the tiny stringy ones) that have been deep-fried so they taste a bit like fried onions.
I thought the whole thing was masterful and can’t wait to try the rest of the menu.
I also got to try a golden latte (turmeric, ginger) that has hit the international press, as of late. I really wanted to like it, I did, and the first mouthful, I kind of liked. It’s got a great colour, and started with a complex combo of flavours, but I have to admit that it tasted just too medicinal in the end.
Ah well. Not to my taste, but Barista & Cook certainly is. My only complaint is that it’s not five minutes from my apartment like Bang Bang!
Drat. On the other hand, the coffee was superb, and we both had avocado on toast, which for $12 was pretty good. The salad was lemony and light and fresh, the presentation as you can see is superb (good branding).
For the deconstructed Banh Mi was really a fantastic plate: a fresh baguette, a generous portion of pork belly, some pickled vegetables, some kim chi, a little pot of chicken orange pate, a nearly black apple and date chutney and spiced kumquat butter! I mean, that is some plate. And it was delicious. And I like food you can play with.
The food was so interesting, I asked a friend to come with me a second time only about two weeks after the first visit. I had the pho, which had a beautifully cooked piece of steak in it! It was not only full of flavour but with both the steak and some extra meatballs (and all of the wonderful fresh herbs), it gave this dish a substantial feel, which I’ve sometimes felt lacking from other pho. I thought this was a really, really good pho.
My dining mate had lobster of waffles with truffles. Yup. I’ll just let you think about that. I tried a bite. The perfectly crisp waffle went wonderfully well with the beautifully cooked lobster. My friend loved it.
In a hidden basement below Clarence Street in the City is a pumping busy whiskey bar. I’d wanted to try this, because I’m not sure the team behind Shady Pines Saloon can go wrong these days.
We first ended up in the Barbershop… another bar with an entrance in the same courtyard, which looked fun enough, but I was happy my better half pointed out that it was not, in fact, the Baxter Inn where we were milling about.
My better half had an Old-Fashioned, which was on tap! He approved of it. I myself spotted on the menu board the Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye. This was named the 
world’s best whiskey last year, and I spent more than a little bit of time when in Canada seeing if I could find myself a bottle (impossible!). So, I was excited to try it here. The waiter said he thought that the $25 for the small shot was quite a good price, considering (I assume how hard it is to get, and its reputation) and so I can’t be impartial about it. For $25, I was going to enjoy every drop of it. I found it both smooth and spicy, and very nice.
I don’t normally eat at the same restaurant twice in a week… but this was a different branch and the better half wanted to eat here before we saw Singing in the Rain (an old-fashioned musical and fun, I thought).
It’s been a while since I’ve been to Din Tai Fung, the Taiwanese chain with the famous soup dumplings. There are many locations these days in Sydney, and it’s a great option both for a quick meal or to sit down and take a bit more time…
We ordered lots. The Mango Shrimp Roll was new to me, perfectly crisp and savoury. I go for the fried pork chop and egg fried rice as a regular dish. They seem to have slightly changed the pork chop recipe: it doesn’t look as crumbed and crisp as in the photos on the menu but is still delicious and I find the rice is some magical creation that doesn’t take like fried rice elsewhere: it’s really light, really tasty and somehow elegant.
I love a gimmick. So I could not resist when I saw this recipe go up online. How would this cake work, that purportedly separates into cake and custard? I once made Magic Custard Pies, where by mixing the egg custard batter with a cup of Bisquick, a crust would magically form on the bottom (one could also make a quiche in this fashion). But in this recipe, the cake rises to the top…
I admit that I was a bit nervous: I could see many possibilities of failure. Were the egg yolks and sugar pale and fluffy enough? Were the egg whites stiff enough? What was the purpose of whisking in one teaspoon of white vinegar into them? What if my technique for folding half of the egg whites into the batter wasn’t much different than the one for mixing in the other half?
Osaka Bar in Llankely Place in Potts Point really does look like it could be a casual eatery in Osaka, Japan. The kitchen, the lanterns, the lighting: it’s all right. Even our charming waiter who seems to have only been in Australia from Osaka for a few months added to the authenticity.
There’s a lot of styles of Japanese food that I think most folks won’t be familiar with: the wonderful octopus balls (takoyaki), like a pancake batter with chunks of tender octopus cooked in a waffle griddle, except instead of waffles, balls. There’s various kinds of 
omelette with artful swirls of Japanese mayonnaise and another sweeter sauce on top. Deep-fried skewers of things. Various other small plates (we didn’t try the sushi or sashimi).
Almost ordered too much food, but it was fine. There’s so much good food on this strip now… this is a good option, perhaps if you’re up for a more casual and quick meal. The 
outdoors seating area is great, and I said. This place has a lot of charm.
September 24. You’ve got two months (from the time of this blog post) to get to Moon Park, Sydney’s most elegant modern Korean restaurant. Hidden away on the second floor of a corner building in Redfern, their lease it up, and they’re offering until then, only tasting menus.
I think this was the third time I’ve eaten here over the years. Korean flavours are still unfamiliar to many people, and to refine them into fine dining is a real treat. I found it amusing and engaging to recognise or almost recognise a flavour or texture, and think about how it was applied to the dish. That bright green chrysanthemum leaf sauce was beautiful under the lamb!
