Category: Café

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Japanese

Cool Mac – Kirribilli NSW Cafe Review

As huge fans of Kurumac, my partner and I have been looking for an excuse to eat at Cool Mac for some time. We finally found ourselves on the fancy side of the bridge during our annual leave, and stopped at Cool Mac on the way to the zoo for a quick breakfast.

Service at Cool Mac was not as good or friendly as at its younger brother. Perhaps we didn’t fit in with the suited up business and government types that frequent Cool Mac, but we didn’t really feel like we were paid much attention. There was not really much table service. There was a menu printed outside the restaurant, and ordering was at the counter. This made it difficult as my working short term memory is apparently very poor. Payment was expected at time of ordering.

The Crumbed whiting, miso salmon, egg, pickles, cod roe, rice ($18) was the better dish of the two we had. I really enjoyed the crumbed whiting and egg, and thought that they went well with the preserved vegetables and rice. I did think, however, that the salmon was too overcooked and dry, and let the bowl down as a whole.

I had mixed but ultimately negative feelings about the pork belly, seaweed, coriander, soy broth, dry ramen ($17). While I enjoyed the flavour, the huge amount of coriander, and the noodles mixed in with the small quantity of soup, the headlining element – the pork belly – was a massive letdown. Similar to the salmon above, the pork was dry and tough.

Barley tea, cappuccino

The barley tea with huge ice cube ($4) was good, as was the large cappuccino ($4.80).

I’m ultimately quite disappointed by cool mac. We went in having high hopes after absolutely enjoying our time at Kurumac, but our none of the food we had at cool mac was very good.

3.5 eggs/5

Cool Mac
2/34 Burton St, Kirribilli NSW 2061
(02) 9955 3087

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Italian Vietnamese

Mentmore and Morley – Rosebery NSW Cafe Review

Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? 

Memento Mori is one of the spookiest cafes in all of Rosebery. The constant reminder of our impending deaths is something I usually only experience while hanging out with one of my senior intensive care colleagues. I never thought that such a feeling could be distilled into a cafe, but the wizards behind Mentmore and Morley named their restaurant just so.

Wow. Let me tell you about these textured plates. They’re from IKEA, but I couldn’t identify them on IKEA’s online store. Again wow.

While I cannot quite tell you the name of this veal scaloppine style dish with assorted vegetables, I can tell you that it was quite good. I especially enjoyed the tomatoes.

Pork knuckle and Vietnamese slaw

The seasonal special, pork knuckle with Vietnamese slaw was around $30. It was a whole pork knuckle, slow roasted with skin on. The skin was quite crispy and delicious, and the meat tender. I was initially skeptical of the Vietnamese slaw, but the acidic flavours helped cut through the fat perfectly. A good pairing.

Coffee was no better or worse than standard.

While the name of Memento Mori was spooky, this did not extend to the food, which was a mixture of Italian and Vietnamese cuisines. I can recommend going to get spooked.

4 out of 5 Yoricks.

Mentmore & Morley
Rosebery, 13/55 Mentmore Ave, Sydney NSW 2018
(02) 9697 3617

Categories
Asian Fusion Café

Henry Lee’s – Redfern NSW Cafe Review

My partner will freely volunteer that I don’t usually pay much attention to my surroundings, both whilst eating, and also in general. Henry Lee’s was a bit of an exception – I thought it was a cool use of an old factory space – very Melbourne-esque – , with a nice sunny internal courtyard that we ate in.

Purple Fields + Soft Shell Crab

My partner picked The Purple Fields ($18) (braised broccoli, sweet corn, garlic & parsley puree, scrambled eggs, prosciutto dust, crispy fried kale, marinated feta served on sourdough) with an additional soft shelled crab ($5). I was nervous about the choice as it was one of the least appealing items on the menu for me, but I did not speak out. I did not enjoy this dish outside of the scrambled eggs and soft shelled crab. I did not enjoy the taste of the braised broccoli, and I could not identify the prosciutto dust (from a marketing perspective, why not just omit this unidentifiable meat component and just mark it as vegetarian?). The sourdough also got quite soggy with the scrambled eggs sitting on it. The only saving grace was that we spent an additional $5 on a soft shelled crab, which was fried nicely but I felt had a bit of a bitter taste (my partner did not share this concern.) Overall a $23 that I would rather not have spent.

The Benny Munro

The Benny Munro ($21) (Five spice braised pork belly, purple slaw,
turmeric pickled zucchini and crispy prosciutto with poached eggs & chipotle hollandaise, served on sweet corn & cauliflower croquettes) I enjoyed significantly more. The chipotle hollandaise, poached eggs, and slaw were a good combination. I did enjoy the single pickled zucchini that was allocated to me. One of the things I will mention is that when you order a dish with pork belly as the first ingredient listed you would assume that it would be a main component of the show. Instead what we got was two very small, somewhat dry pieces of pork belly, one under each egg. Having had a really good pork belly at The Cupping Room in Canberra in 2017, a dish that uses pork belly to its full potential, I expected much different and much better.

Hot beverages are one of the places where Henry Lee’s shines. I had the Tea Latte (left -$5), which was a lavender infused earl grey latte. It was my first tea latte (excluding the million chais), and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed both the taste as well as the flower petal presentation. My partner had the Aztec Chili Hot Chocolate (right – $7) and it even came with a real chili! I was not sold on it but she enjoyed it a lot.

I went to Henry Lee’s today in search of Asian fusion brunch food, but ended up leaving disappointed. In retrospect I should’ve delved further rather than take the name at face value – it’s a reference to a Nick Cave song – and realised that while the menu had some Asian fusion elements these were more of an afterthought.

3/5

Henry Lee’s
16 Eveleigh St, Redfern NSW 2016

Henry Lee's Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato
Categories
Bakery Café Dessert Korean

La Vigne – Eastwood NSW Cafe Review

La Vigne, with a name you probably shouldn’t say in front of your mother, is one of Eastwood’s many places to get a bingsu on a hot Summer’s day. The surprisingly large cafe features two internal dining areas separated by a sun-drenched courtyard (very warm).

I enjoyed the mango bingsu with flavoured ice, mango, mango sauce and cake blocks. My partner, the driving force behind our recent bingsu binges, was less pleased with the artificial taste of the mango sauce, though this didn’t stop us from finishing the whole thing.

The citron pastry was not very good.

The chocolate cream puff was quite good, though I didn’t expect it to have chocolate filling.

During a subsequenttrip to La Vigne with colleagues KSEL, ACHT, KS, MJC we had the mixed fruit and red bean bingsu ($25). I think it was better than just plain mango, and despite it having red bean my partner might have liked it more.

Overall I can recommend a quick visit to La Vigne to a friend or colleague.

La Vigne
82 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW 2122
(02) 9858 3005

Categories
Café Modern Australian

COOH – Alexandria NSW Restaurant Review

COOH’s Bourke Road restaurant has long been on my list of places to eat at this year. We’ve driven past it countless times on our way to the other restaurants, but it’s taken us over nine months of living in the area to finally pay a visit.

COOH is situated in a high-ceilinged warehouse on Bourke Road. There is no parking available, and minimal street parking in the area, so we did a sneaky and parked at Grounds of Alexandria around the corner. It is a beautiful, large room setup, with a large bar and kitchen area on show. We had lunch on a Wednesday, the same time as what appeared to be a local mum and bubs group.

The potato chips with aioli ($8) were salty and ultimately unsatisfying. It is difficult to pinpoint what was wrong with them, and it was probably more a constellation of things that did not quite meet the mark. We found that we were quite aioli dependent with these chips, and ran out of the aioli early. Luckily we were able to get additional aioli at no charge.

I ordered the seared tuna with a spice crust, spiralised salad, jalapeno salsa, and avocado puree ($26). This was a dish I was quite excited about – there are some beautiful photos online of essentially sashimi tuna with a seared crust, and that’s what I thought I would be getting. I was wrong. The tuna that I ate today was almost fully cooked through, nowhere near as rare or raw as expected. While I enjoyed the flavours in the spiced crust I felt like the overcooking lead to a strange and unpleasant texture – no better than what I could make by myself at home. I enjoyed the spiralised salad, as well as the avocado puree, and thought the plating was quite nice. I could not identify any jalapeno salsa, and indeed didn’t realise it was meant to be part of it until I took another look at the menu whilst writing this review. I would not recommend this dish.

The Morrocan lamb and quinoa ($28) I enjoyed even less than the seared tuna. Most disappointing was the inexplicable lukewarm temperature of the lamb, almost as if it had been cooked and left to rest for far too long. The quinoa was also cold, which I just don’t feel goes well with a meat such as lamb, which is meant to be served hot. I enjoyed every other element of the dish – the plating, the mint yoghurt, the sweet potato, currants, and pomegranate seeds, but unfortunately the two title ingredients were a let down.

My trip to COOH was ultimately a let down. I didn’t really enjoy anything we had, despite the restaurant having generally good reviews online. My partner had good things to say about the space, and even considered it for some kind of formal occasion in the future, however the food was such a let down that it would be a veto.

Not my cup of quinoa.

COOH Bourke Road
90-96 Bourke Rd, Alexandria, NSW, Australia
(02) 9002 1333