Category: Cuisines

Categories
Café

Two Fives – Rosebery NSW Café Review

We’ve eaten at Two Fives both in person and via delivery services.

This grilled chicken salad with Lebanese bread was not exciting. Very healthy. Wouldn’t recommend.

I really really loved the pea, smoked salmon, poached egg and hollandaise sauce thing. I can’t find it on their menu any more, but I would really recommend it if you see it on their specials board.

The mint coffee was good, the iced latte was pretty standard.

Two Fives’ I Stand Carroted ($21) is basically carrot cake pancakes drowned in mascarpone (however I don’t know how submerged they would be if eaten in person). I didn’t care for it much but my partner liked it.

We enjoy the Crispy Bird ($14), a chicken schnitzel sandwich with Tomato, Cheddar Cheese, Lime Garlic Mayo & Lettuce.

The cure ($16), a breakfast burger/sandwich with a hearty helping of bacon, 2 eggs, potato rosti, lettuce, tomato, and sauces is delicious. It is one of the best bacon and egg rolls in the area, helped by the fact that it is not merely a bacon and egg roll. I can recommend this one.

The Miss Maroubra ($14 – not pictured) is basically a ham sandwich but yummy.

While their sandwiches are very expensive, they’re absolutely jam packed with ingredients. I can recommend Two Fives.

Four out of fives.

Two Fives
355 Gardeners Rd, Rosebery NSW 2018
+61 (02) 9669 1611

Categories
Middle Eastern

Beverly Hills Kebab and Pide House – Beverly Hills NSW Restaurant Review

It was July 2020, and my Melbourne based colleague had just snuck across the border into NSW and was keen for a meal.

I had Beverly Hills Kebab and Pide House’s Mixed kebab plate with hummus, garlic, and chilli ($18). It was a large portion for the price and I had difficulty finishing it despite not having eaten during the preceding 12 and a half hour shift. The quality of the meat and ingredients were standard, nothing to write home about, but nothing specifically wrong either.

I don’t think I’d come back, but it was worth trying.

3/5

Beverly Hills Kebab and Pide House
520 King Georges Rd, Beverly Hills NSW 2209
+61 (02) 9580 9229

Categories
Café

The Tinhorn – Sydenham NSW Cafe Review

The Tinhorn is the latest victim of my rolling B&E Reviews.

I quite enjoyed the the Bacon & Egg Roll ($8.50). There was a healthy serving of bacon and egg, and the relish helped to prevent it from being too dry. This is a highly rated bacon and egg roll.

I enjoyed the Pulled Beef Sandwich ($12) less than the B&E. Don’t get me wrong, it was still good, but not what I was after that day. My partner liked it more.

My partner was a big fan of the Butter Pancakes ($17). I enjoyed the fruit and cream toppings but I didn’t think the pancakes themselves really stood out. $17 is also a bit steep for this but I guess that’s how much you pay if you don’t want to crack open a bottle of Green’s or White Wings.

Overall I enjoyed my food from the Tinhorn. I especially enjoyed the B&E, and will likely get a few more from them in future days to months.

(Retrospective 2021 update: I didn’t)

The Tinhorn
11 Gleeson Ave, Sydenham NSW 2044
0404 494 604

Categories
Café Latin American

Costas Arepa Bar – Bondi Beach NSW Restaurant Review

I’m generally not a very beachy guy, and though I’ve lived in Sydney almost all my life, my visit to Costas Arepa Bar also marked my first visit to Bondi in over a decade. Bondi, as some may know and many are about to learn, is home to a population mostly consisting of well off Caucasian youths, who have the benefit of their family having lived in Australia since the First Fleet. One outcome of this very well off population is the incredibly boomy corner store industry, with the mini-grocer next door to Costas Arepas Bar seeing plenty of egg-and-or-milk runs from the above mentioned cohort during our brief visit.

Mama Chang (L), Yankee (R)

The arepas at Costa Arepa Bar are essentially little, corn based toasted sandwiches filled with an imaginative and plentiful range of fillings. The arrangement is similar to what you would find if you toasted a crumpet, cut it in half and filled it to the brim with proteins, salad, and sauces, though the arepa itself is a bit more grainy, thinner, yet somehow still more substantial feeling.

Though the displayed menu confusingly offers its arepas in pairs for $14, the chef was quick to point out that any combination of arepas could be had.

The Mama Chang featured a crumbed hoki fillet, kimchi, slaw, and a mixture of mayonnaise and “Korean BBQ Sauce”. Whilst the flavours were OK, I wasn’t a big fan of the sesame crumbing that they used on the fish, which I found gave it a bit of a harder bite than it really had to (no doubt designed to suit Bondi’s anti-gluten cultists).

The Yankee, was advertised as featuring beef short rib in BBQ sauce with coleslaw and jalapenos, though what we actually got was a pulled meat, not at all comparable to the juicy piece of short rib as we were expecting. The blandness of the meat and boring BBQ sauce made this the weakest arepa of the bunch. Not even the jalapenos could save it.

Pepiada (L), DownUnder (r)

The Pepiada arepa was the strongest of the bunch. The shredded chicken was coated in a rich sauce of lemon mayonnaise, coriander, and avocado. Unlike the other arepas, the filling in this one was homogenous, with no unexpected surprises or difference in ingredients eaten bite to bite. If you find yourself here and only have room for one arepa, this would be the one to go for.

The DownUnder arepa of the same shredded chicken but in peri peri sauce with a side filling of bacon and avocado just wasn’t executed as well as the Pepiada. The spicy filling wasn’t quite spicy (though the additional hot sauce for $1 made up for that), and the differing elements made it difficult to eat.

Soy Cappuccino

Costa Arepas Bar’s soy cap is essentially the same as any other soy cap, made with Little Marionette beans. What’s worth mentioning is the cup from Huskee, which is made from coffee husks and has a nice handfeel. I’d think about getting one of my own were I able to keep a keepcup longer than a few days.

VERDICT
3.5 NOT BAD.

Costa Arepas Bar
112A O’Brien St, Bondi Beach NSW 2026
0480 276 880

Categories
Japanese

Kazuki Japanese Kitchen – Hurstville NSW Restaurant Review

We are frequent flyers to Kazuki Japanese Restaurant in Hurstville, and I find that it is a reputable and reliable source of Japanese food for delivery to Kogarah.

The Eel box ($24.50) is a full featured bento with eel, prawn, tempura vegetables, agedashi tofu, edamame, potato mash, and salmon sashimi. It is a good set with plenty of different flavours and textures to amuse the mouth.

The chirashi sushi don ($19.50) is my favourite thing to order from Kazuki. It is a bowl of mixed sashimi on rice, including really fresh and sweet scallops, salmon belly, tuna (akami), cooked prawns, raw octopus, tamago, and a small serving of cucumber and carrot. It feels super healthy and fresh, and you can’t go wrong with it.

The soft shell crab roll ($11.50) is a bit expensive for the quantity that you get, but not bad overall.

VERDICT

Judging from the four times we’ve ordered from Kazuki over the course of two months, I can definitely recommend them to a friend or colleague.

5 octopi

UPDATE FEBURARY 2023

I finally went in person, and it is weird how some things were better, and some things were not as good three years down the track.

Starting with the good is the decor. I love cats.

Not bad was this chicken karaage ($8.80), which is standard enough not to evoke any feelings, positive or negative.

Pretty good was this miso aburi salmon ($12), though the pictures don’t really give away how small the portions are.

Back to the good parts, take a look at this super cute cat-themed dish.

The tempura udon ($16.80) was actually quite good. Great tempura prawn, good udon soup.

Super underwhelming was this combination sashimi (4 kinds) ($16.50) which was quite expensive for some really small pieces.

REVISITED THOUGHTS
After visiting in person, and though I love all the cat-themed stuff, Kazuki no longer fills as special a place in my heart. The 5% discount for cash payments also seems a bit odd, because I feel like it would be odd to be paying that much for a card payment processor.

Kazuki Japanese Restaurant
176 Forest Rd, Hurstville NSW 2220
(02) 9579 1053