Category: Cuisines

Categories
Italian

Fratelli Pulcinella – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

Fratelli Pulcinella really makes you question the difference between a ‘sit-in restaurant’ and a ‘takeaway only pizza shack but feel free to sit in our extensive backyard with undercover seating and tables, but don’t call us a sit-in restaurant’. Our visit came after a strong recommendation from our friend and local baked goods oracle CRN (née CRE), who had hired them to cater for their wedding.

Their operating model, at least on our afternoon visit between two stroke calls at the local quaternary referral centre, seemed to be extremely hands off, with the backyard pizza kitchen completely unpopulated when we arrived, staff being summoned from within the presumably air-conditioned confines of the house by an online order placed by phone. It honestly seems like a highly efficient and comfortable way to work.

We will start with a description of the Vesuvio ($30), a double layer pizza of tomato, ham, mushrooms, italian sausage, mozzarella & parmesan cheese. The flavours were good, with a saltiness erring to the saltier side of things. The base pizza structure was good with good foldability as well as long-lived crispness of base, though I’m not sure that I’m fully sold on the double-layeredness of it all. I don’t know that it really added anything above and beyond what could be achieved by a conventionally structured pizza, nor did an extremely cursory web search of the history of double layered pizzas in the Neapolitan school really turn up any useful results.

The Funghi ($20) with truffle mushroom pesto, mushrooms, mozzarella, rocket, garlic & chilli oil was a rare vegetarian pick for us, but not one that we regret. The dominant earthy flavour of mushrooms was matched well with the freshness of the huge amount of rocket layered on top, though neither my partner nor I were able to pick out any hint of chilli flavour (although on review of the photos whilst writing this post I do see some red spots). I again enjoyed the extreme thinness of crust, which held a great crispiness, even if it did sag under the generous weight of the cheese on top.

OVERALL I agree with the general opinion that Fratelli Pulcinella offers the best pizza in Parramatta at this time – though to be honest it’s not a high bar given its main competitors have been Bondi Pizza and the recently-deceased CicciaBella, a restaurant for which I had not published a review until now because I didn’t want my site with three monthly readers to be blamed for their inevitable downfall.

Fratelli Pulcinella
44 O’Connell St, Parramatta NSW 2150
0420 667 296

Categories
Middle Eastern

Kabab Al Hojat – Merrylands NSW Restaurant Review

The mixed kebab ($20) from Merrylands’ Kabab Al Hojat is pretty well known both within and outside of the Western Sydney Afghan community. Essentially what your $20 gets you is a skewer of chicken, a skewer of lamb tikka, and a skewer of shami (mince) with a grilled green pepper, half a tomato, some fresh salads, and an unreasonably large quantity of bread. The meats were juicy, well flavoured, and tender, but I thought that the fresh salads didn’t really complement the meats in the way that I ate it. I assume that one of the intended ways to eat this would be to wrap everything up in bread and eat it as a roll, in which case it would’ve made more sense.

Pretty good/10. Well known locally. Some guy in scrubs came to pick up his order whilst I was there, and given it’s around a half hour round trip during the day from the nearest tertiary referral hospital I thought that was a bit brave.

Kabab Al Hojat
2/254 Pitt St, Merrylands NSW 2160
(02) 8677 9423

Categories
Chinese

Tarim Uyghur Handmade Noodles – Auburn NSW Restaurant Review

Last year we went to the Ramadan night markets in Lakemba just down the road from where we live twice, and I got gastroenteritis twice. This year I did not wish to be unwell, and so we skipped the night markets for a sit down meal in one of Sydney’s other Muslim centres.

We started with besip lagman ($18), flat noodles stir fried with diced meat, cabbage and red peppers. We enjoyed these noodles, with its tangy tomato sauce base, good umami flavour, and nicely jin dao noodles. The “meat” topping was stated at the top of the menu as a mixture of lamb and beef, and I wonder if it would have been less suspicious to in the description of each item rather than just at the top of the menu.

The toho qordah (small: $20), descriped as special chilli chicken braised with potatoes, red peppers, and shallots, complemented with flat noodles was unfortunately almost exactly the same thing as the besip lagman, except for the addition of potatoes and the substitution of chicken. Again a tomatoey base, but with a tiny amount of spice this time, and a little bit more oily. I’m not usually a big fan of chopped up chicken drumsticks, but I did not mind it in this case as there were not really any broken bone fragments for me to spit out. My partner, potato-fan as she is, was not too sad at the sameiness of this dish, though ultimately I think we would’ve liked to try something else instead.

The kawap lamb skewers ($4.50 each) were really quite good. Super tender, but not fatty at all. No significant unwanted lambiness to them. Quite good, though I wonder if they would’ve been better with some chilli (I have no idea if this would take it away from being traditional Uyghur cuisine).

OVERALL THOUGHTS. Pretty good. Not expensive. Great lamb. I don’t know why the guys on the table next to us were so surprised that they didn’t serve alcohol.

Tarim Uyghur Handmade Noodles
105 Rawson St, Auburn NSW 2144
(02) 9649 9085

Categories
Café

Badmanner Thymes – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

Badmanner Thymes is a small-ish cafe in Parramatta, conveniently located across the road from the frozen-in-time Eat St Carpark, which in 2022 is somehow yet to discover contactless payments, or reasonable walk from the nearby (and free) Westfield Parramatta parking. Badmanner serves up a relatively limited food menu for breakfast, which sadly does not encompass its much broader lunch menu. We went, as we often do to such places, after an intensive care night shift at the end of our work week.

I chose the relatively basic Brekkie Burrito ($16), a reasonably sized wrap of sautéed chorizo, hash brown, avocado, tomato salsa, scrambled egg with a hint of chilli relish from a breakfast menu of similarly basic items. I have no complaints about the quality of this burrito, though it would have been nice if there were other, slightly more complex items on offer.

Food aside, we did enjoy the service and the coffee, and the fact that they gave the sleep-deprived eight of us a gigantic dining table in our own private room to eat and debrief around. That was something very special, and an experience we’ve never had at Parramatta’s more popular cafes like Circa or Lil Miss Collins.

Presented for my own amusement only, a couple I ran into on the way to Badmanner with matching shoes and walking in perfect synch.

Badmanner Thymes
1 Horwood Pl, Parramatta NSW 2150
0410 406 889

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Japanese

Koku Culture – Ashfield NSW Restaurant Review

Koku Culture is home to one of the best brunches I’ve had all year. I’ve never been shy about my love of Japanese-fusion breakfast and brunch foods, and Koku Culture’s tiny Ashfield store fits the bill completely.

The Torched Confit Ora King Salmon Fillet with 63 degree egg ($24+$2) was sublime. Ora King Salmon is always a treat, featuring a rich oiliness and delicate mouthfeel far beyond your average grocery store Tasmanian Atlantic salmon. I try to order some Ora King salmon every now and then from the popular online fish delivery services, and even when cooked inexpertly by me at home the difference is noticeable. Koku Culture’s torched confit king salmon fillet definitely lived up to expectations – tender inside with a slight char on the outside reminiscent of aburi sushi. The miso dressing was tasty but not overpowering, and the green tea soba salad surprisingly refreshing, especially with the egg (a $2 supplement but important) and miso mixed in. This has to be a must-order dish from Koku Culture.

This Crispy Rice Cheeseburger ($15) with Chips and their secret sauce was also fantastic, but in a completely different way to the salmon. Where the salmon felt clean and healthful, this was perfect in terms of sheer debauchery. The rice “buns” were perfectly cirspy and fried out the outside, with a light but slightly sticky texture on the inside – a bit “QQ” as we would call it in terms of Chinese food. The seafood was similarly crispy, enjoyable and not merely for decoration. I opted for an extra patty ($5)(probably wasn’t necessary in this case, and I’d just stick with a single patty in the future) , and both beef patties were cooked to a delicious level of juiciness, mixed in with their special sauce and fresh lettuce. Even the chips were good.

The matcha affogato, which I can’t see on their menu any more, was pretty OK. The ice cream was good, the coffee was black. Mixed together it remained a bit black for my taste.

That’s a good Matcha Brownie right there.

COMMENTS
I enjoyed Koku Culture. Definitely worth a visit, but make sure you budget in some time for the queue outside.

UPDATE
These guys are now closed forever, before the publication of this review. This is part of why I’ve pushed this review far into the future in terms of scheduling – they’re not going to get more dead. Hopefully Kenji Okuda and Donna Chau can bless us once again something good.

Koku Culture
1/355 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131
0402 697 475