The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
We went here essentially after my partner eavesdropped on two of her bosses talking about their separate weekends cycling to Leichardt and having their mini cannoli. Sadly and conveniently we don’t own bicycles.
We had the ricotta, vanilla, and chocolate mini cannoli ($2.20 each). The pastry portions are pre-baked, with the cannoli piped in with filling to order to minimise sogginess. The pastry was crisp at the time of eating and the ricotta filling, the least sweet of the three, was my favourite. I don’t have any prior experience with cannoli though, so I can’t actually say if they were good or not. I am told by general consensus, though, that they are considered good.
I do have prior experience with Portuguese tarts ($3.80), however, and Mezzapica’s was a bit sweeter than I would’ve liked. The pastry was also neither flaky nor crispy, and overall not something I’d want to have again.
So apparently Ginger is a local Western Sydney icon, news to me as someone who grew up in the famous 2145 postcode and who had not heard of this restaurant until last week, when I went with two colleagues before a night shift who had together eatern there in excess of ten times.
We started with the Fish Amritsari ($14). This was actually really good. The batter was very lightly applied and crispy. The flavouring was very lightly spicy and salted, to the appropriate degree, and the chunks of fish were thick and moist. This was on the higher side of the quality scale of what I had pictured ordering (I’ve had a few middling renditions recently) and I would get this again.
The Murgh Makhni (Butter Chicken) ($21) was fine. A bit on the sweeter side to what I’ve had previously. The size was good, not served in some tiny pot.
The Shahi Korma Lamb ($22) I was less fond of. Our waitress questioned the table’s choice of choosing two sweet curries with not even a hint of spice, but this is what the people wanted. Irregards I don’t think a spicier lamb curry would’ve saved it. I just didn’t love that the pieces of lamb meat were quite solid and tough.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a Cheese and Garlic Naan ($5) I didn’t love. Not the best ever garlic and cheese naan of my life (the bread from nearby Mazaidar in North Parramatta is a strong recommend for me), but no complaints here.
Would I come back? Probably not ten times. But that fish was great.
Crazy Nonna is our local woodfired pizzeria. We walk past it several times a week on the way to the grocery store or the parcel locker, but have never eaten in, only ordered take-away.
The Crazy Nonna Pizza ($26), with San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte, basil, pork sausage, ham and salami was super tasty. It was absolutely topped with toppings, with each bite presenting multiple flavours and animals in one.
The Nonna Irene ($28) with its San Marzano tomatoes, Fiore di latte cheese, hot salami, chilli oil, stracciatella and alleged dash of honey was super delicious too, with the creaminess and mildness of the stracciatella providing the perfect foil for the spicy salami. The honey was difficult to appreciate, but appreciated all the same. The pizzas at Nonna’s were 2 for 2 bangers.
My partner loves a good pasta, even though I am a bit iffy about takeaway pastas in general. We had the boscaiola ($26), which though acceptable (she enjoyed it thoroughly), I’m sure would’ve been better eaten in a dine-in capacity. I just don’t think pasta usually travels really well.
We ate at La Disfida two days before Christmas, two years after the first time we walked past it on our way to Yakitori Jin (really great, by the way). The place was almost empty on this Saturday 23rd, though my friend and colleague DTC who first told me about this place said he couldn’t get in at all on a weekday 27th, just four days later.
This is a picture of bread.
This is burrata with smoked/marinated eggplant and pomegranates ($25). It has been my long held belief that burrata represents extremely poor value when ordered at a restaurant, but I simply can’t stop my girlfriend from ordering it every time. I tell her, “we have burrata at home”, and really the options from La Casa Del Formaggio ($6.50) and whatever company makes the $8 burrata at Coles Local (I thought it was Fresh Fodder but I’m being proven wrong by Google at the time of writing) are perfectly fine, and in fact better than the one we had, often with a runnier and less solid centre. I just don’t find an additional $18.50 of value in some mashed eggplant, a miniscule amount of pomegranate, and a drizzle of EVOO. That’s how I feel.
Somehow dining with a family of seafood haters we were able to order the busiate with fresh snapper, calamari, and prawns with olives, green peas, chilli & cherry tomatoes ($36) off their specials menu. It had a pretty good mix of tomato and seafood flavour, though I think the tomato dominated over the seafood and I wouldn’t have minded some extra ocean-ness to this dish. The pasta had an enjoyable chew to it.
Pasta #2 was more tomato, a gnocchi della nonna pomodoro e basilico ($26). My partner, who usually loves all forms of potato but apart from gnocchi, did actually enjoy this. It would’ve been nice to have more than one basilico in it, given the basilico makes up 16.7% of the words of this dish but much less percentage by either weight or volume.
Both pizzas we had were pretty good, and really the reason we came here. I was banned by the group from ordering anything with anchovy on it, so a number of attractive options were out of contention. The barletta ($27) with a tomato base, mozzarella, prosciutto crudo, basil, black pepper, and olive oil was pretty good. Good tangy flavour to the tomato base, well balanced with thin slices of prosciutto, and an actual showing of basil leaves that you wouldn’t be embarrassed to write about in the dish’s title.
The quattro gusti ($28) with tomato, mozzarella, hot salame, eggplant, pork sausage, and wild mushrooms was what I settled on as my pick from the menu. This was a really tasty pizza, if I do say so myself, with a bit of spice from the salami, a nice rich and moist sausage, and a smattering of vegetables and fungi to make you feel like they’re doing something good for your body whilst devouring a thousand calories of grease. It was delicious and absolutely loaded with toppings, although this drew attention to La Disfida’s very thin and flimsy bases.
It was an impossibility to eat this pizza by hand without folding or wrapping it up, as the base simply didn’t have the ability to remain rigid under the weight of its toppings. This is something we experienced with the more lightly laden barletta as well, but which definitely came into play more with the quattro gusti. It didn’t make it less yummy, but it did make it more messy to eat.
Overall thoughts Pretty good showing for pizza, though I’m not as sure about the pasta, and definitely not convinced by the burrata. If anyone has suggestions on how to fix my burrata problem, please let me know. I’m thinking I pre-read the menu for any future restaurant meals and replicate the burrata with the same toppings 3 days before we go. Thoughts?
What can I tell you about Bella Brutta, in the haze of six months after our visit, that will add to the online discourse about this already widely known restaurant?
Probably nothing, so let me bore you with some poorly taken photos (the steam is a killer) and some very brief thoughts.
The clam pizza ($32) is very good. I loved the seafood flavour mixed with the zesty citrusy fermented chilli. This is one of their signature pizzas and for good reason.
The sausage pizza ($29), meaty, was good but not in the level of specialty as the clam. It’s a pizza you could get from any good pizza shop, with all the requisite sasuage, tomato (pretentiously named pomodoro on their menu), fior di latte, and fennel seed toppings.
The cavolo nero pizza ($28) was a vegetarian feature, with a lacinato kale apparently traditional in Tuscan cuisine. The flavours were good, vegetably, and I didn’t hate the confit garlic, even though I was worried that I would. Also missable under the shadow of the surf clam.
The casarecce with spanner crab in lobster oil ($28) was an excellent and memorable pasta. I’m really surprised that my seafood averse fiance and her seafood averse brother allowed us to have two seafood dishes, but this was great. Again, so much seafood umami intensity.
Overall thoughts: While the overall quality of food at Bella Brutta is good, the seafood dishes (surf clam pizza and crab pasta) are the unmissable items here.
