Categories
Chinese

Mr Stonepot – Eastwood NSW Restaurant Review

Incepted by Goldthread’s YouTube videos on xiao long bao and claypot rice, my partner and I made our way to Eastwood’s Mr Stonepot with a view of having both. While we found out tonight that stonepot is not quite the same as claypot, we still had quite a nice time trying out somewhat novel and not quite traditional items on their menu. Service was rapid, and we were able to experience the full spectrum of having our number shouted out at the front door as well as completely silent service from our waiter – two extremes that would probably displease most Australian diners but were probably part of the restaurant’s focus on hyper-efficiency.

The pork ribs in blueberry sauce ($8.80) sounded quite fancy and promising, but ended up just being sweet and sour pork served in a tiny bowl on a much larger plate, dusted with icing sugar. The blueberry flavour was not readily apparent, and really only noticed when the dish had cooled to room temperature. Non-special.

The xiao long bao (8 for $9.80) at Mr. Stonepot are both cheap and good, though after watching the above-linked video on xiao long bao perhaps they were a bit overdoughed on the superior aspect. Nonetheless, the taste was really clear and porky, earning my partner’s prized rating of “probably the best [she’s] had recently”.

The apple flavour smoked cumin lamb ribs with rosemary and chilli and onion ($19.80), true to its name, featured all of those flavours and ingredients. The lamb ribs were actually extremely tender and well cooked, falling off the bone and consisting also of a delicious, molten layer of fat and skin surrounding the meat. Whilst the rosemary was on full display, the chilli, apple, smoke, and onion elements were only accessible through the detritus at the bottom of the dish – easily missed if one were to eat just the ribs themselves. These were quite exemplary ribs, even if the smoke flavour was a bit irritating.

The Singapore style barramundi ($19.80) was an entire barramundi cooked in the Singaporean sweet chilli style and served in a sizzling stone pot. Whilst this photo probably fails to capture it, I was very impressed by the sheer size of this dish, having paid more for single fillets of barramundi numerous times at Sydney’s cafes. Though an extremely generous serving for price, I can’t say that I was a big fan of the Singaporean sweet chilli flavour in this particular dish, and wish it were offered with a different sauce or base.

The abalone black truffle rice with abalone sauce ($7.80) was one of only two stonepot items that featured rice, ordered in a vain attempt to fulfill our desire for claypot rice. The unfortunate difference between claypot and stonepot, as we were quite to realise upon gleaming the menu, is that claypots are inherently porous, helping to add the crispy outer layer to rice. This rice, cooked in a stonepot, did not have such a crispy exterior layer. Only two pieces of abalone were present in this rice bowl, suitable for the price paid though disappointing to the mouth. The black truffle, second item of note in the dish’s title, was nowhere to be found, with only very standard mushroom slices and a whiff of what was probably truffle oil over real truffle itself identified. Despite these misgivings, this is a perfectly adequate fried rice style bowl for $8.

OTHER NOTES
The couple to our right had received a bug in their order of jellyfish, and on informing their waiter received an apology and a promise that they would take the dish back to the kitchen and remove the bug. Said couple was not pleased.

The couple on our left arrived 3 minutes before the kitchen closed at 8:30PM, was told strictly that they had 3 minutes to make their choices, following which the maitre d’ returned and ripped the order form and menu out of their hands. This didn’t seem to bother them, though, as the wife of the party had come in actively eating a grocery store brought ice cream, and then continued to eat lollies as she waited and a full prepacked salad once her food came, tell her husband “I’m trying to lose weight, I have to eat salad with each meal.”

VERDICT
If you are into loud environments without much social distancing, abrupt service, pretty good Chinese food, and a strict adherence to the kitchen’s last order time you will love Mr Stonepot.

Mr Stonepot Eastwood
205 Rowe St, Eastwood NSW 2122
(02) 9804 8688

Categories
Dessert

Anita Gelato – Bondi Beach NSW Restaurant Review

A few quick takes about Anita Gelato, Bondi Beach

  • Generally quite good, and I would not hesitate to come back considering Messina is the other nearby alternative
  • Cup size is inferior to cone size in terms of serving
  • It’s nice that cup-havers don’t have to miss out on waffle, with these waffle disks
  • Black forest was very good
  • Mascarpone ricotta strawberries was good
  • Chocolate and salted pretzel was good
  • Watermelon and mint was not so good
  • I will never be a Bondi local

Anita Gelato
180 Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach NSW 2026
(02) 8188 4166

Categories
French

Restaurant Hubert – Sydney NSW Restaurant Review

My partner and I recently became engaged, and Restaurant Hubert, with its 15% public holiday surcharge, was where we chose to eat afterwards. Prices as mentioned in this post are as-paid inclusive of this surcharge, but even without this surcharge it looks from other places on the internet that prices at Hubert have risen a healthy 30% over the last few years.

I’ve been trying to stay away from alcohol recently, but from the single sip that I had I can confirm that this Campari Grapefruit ($17.25) was pretty fresh tasting.

We started our night with roe boats ($17.25 each) – expensive little pastry tarts topped with trout roe, sea urchin, and avruga. I enjoyed the thin, dual layered pastry as well as the oceanic flavours, with the sea urchin being particularly noteworthy with its unusual funky fungi like flavour. It was like tasting three different parts of the sea. Just a shame that it didn’t last.

The Pâté en Croûte ($31.05), a dense buttery but cold pastry baked around a similarly dense pork terrine, was up next. We battled our way through the interesting and varied textures of this dish, with no idea as to which part of the animal any particular mouthful or mouthfeel came from. Ultimately whilst the pastry flavour was just right, we felt that the terrine was too salty, and that while the dill pickle was nice and sour, its use was limited when paired with something that was already so flavourful. This is one dish that we just didn’t finish, and I would recommend avoiding this if you’re only dining as a party of two. There’s more variety to be experienced than to be so invested in the incredibly dense plate.

This Prime Beef Tartare ($33.35), made from wagyu topside, was just so fresh. The seasonings, including the included capers and pickles, reminded me of a raw cheeseburger, but not in a bad way. The mini French fries, fun as they were, made the dish a little bit difficult to eat, and furthered this cheeseburger (or should I say royale with cheese) motif. Though some past online reviewers have heaped criticism on this tartare, either it’s improved greatly in the intervening time or I just don’t have as refined a palate. Either way, it’s a recommendation from me.

My partner is known to enjoy a good potato, and though I wasn’t nuts for the Pommes Anna ($18.40), she loved it. These potato towers, cut with slices through them to maximise exposure to oil in the deep frying process, were cooked deliciously crispy on the outside with an appropriate remnant of moisture and softness on the inside. They came bathed in a beurre blanc sauce, and honestly what non cardiovascular related wrong has ever come from the combination of potato and butter?

This was my first time eating snail, and though I had some mild initial apprehension towards Hubert’s Escargot XO ($33.50) they turned out to be a reasonably soft introduction. The snails were a bit smaller, shrivelled up and tougher than I had imagined, with not a lot of inherent flavour, rather taking on the rather pleasant (though not very spicy at all) XO sauce. The XO sauce was particularly good with the bread.

The baugette and butter came with our order of escargot, but can also be purchased separately for $8. It may be that this was the first time that I had had bread in some time, but I absolutely loved it. It was just so good. The crust to middle-bread ratio was optimal due to its size. The bread was dense near its crust but also inside. The butter was salty, dense, heavy, and just right. We both enjoyed eating the bread with the sauce from the pommes anna as well as the escargot’s XO sauce.

The Mille-Feuille ($32.20) was alright, but represented pretty poor value considering it was essentially the same price as the tartare or escargot and was a mere dessert.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
We had been meaning to eat at Hubert for some time, and our dinner did not disappoint. I did feel that overall the food was a little bit too salty for my taste (except for the bread), though this was more a problem for our waiter who had to be constantly back and forth with the water. Though some have complained, we had no problem with the 90 minute seating, as we were hungry enough to scoff down all of our dishes within the prescribed time limit. The presence of live jazzy music was definitely a point of difference, though I think the very fact that such a large and grand subterranean space could exist at all in the Sydney CBD, in a state of constant night, and with a single door as a point of ingress and egress is perhaps the most interesting part.

Would come back.

Restaurant Hubert
15 Bligh St, Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9232 0881

Categories
European Fine Dining

LP’s Quality Meats – Chippendale NSW Restaurant Review

It’s been about a year since I first tasted LP’s class-defining mortadella, and about a year that I’ve been dreaming about dining at their Chippendale smokehouse and restaurant. After a couple of setbacks and false starts we finally found the opportunity to go last night, taking advantage of the tables left free by those spending Good Friday at home with family.

We chose the $65 tasting menu with the addition of a serving of smoked chicken. Whilst the serving sizes are in general fine, certain fixed serving sizes, for example for the pork loin, are not adjusted for odd numbers of diners, meaning that it is better value to go in a group of four rather than the five that we had.

The first item on our menu was the malted sourdough & butter. There was nothing really special here. The bread was crusty on the outside and a bit gooey on the inside, possibly reflecting its malted nature. The ratio of butter to bread was adequate.

The oysters with mignonette dressing were fresh and delicious, though not differentiable from any other inner city oyster. When ordered a la carte, these oysters are $5 each, which is quite expensive.

While I can’t remember the name of this off-menu metal dish of vegetables, it is probably LP’s rendition of giardiniera, a classic Italian salad. It is essentially a vinegar-marinated combinastion of cauliflower, capsicum, carrot and onion. Quite the tangy palate cleanser, paired with the salumi.

LP’s salumi plate, featuring fully in-house smoked and prepared (though not husbanded) mortadella, salami cotto, and saucisson was a treat. You’ve heard me wax lyrical about LP’s mortadella more than once now – this soft, mild smoked pork sausage is the best I’ve ever tasted. The salami cotto and sauisson were also good, both ssavoiding being too salty or overflavoured, as salumi often is. Whilst LP’s cold and cured meats are also available for sale from their in-house deli, the price of their mortadella at $77/kg was no cheaper than when I had bought it from Woollahra luxury butcher Victor Churchill, and I chose not to further indulge.

LP’s grilled beef tongue with smoked beef fat vinaigrette is one of their signature dishes, and for good reason. Unlike most renditions of beef or ox tongue, LPs slices theirs longitudinally rather than transversely, the end result being a visually arresting, tongue shaped tongue meal. The tongue is extremely tender, falling apart with minimal fork-based instrumentation, which is actually fully different to the hard and chewy mess that I get every time I try and cook it at Korean BBQ. Each mouthful is an umami bomb, thanks to the smoked beef fat, though perfectly tempered and matched by the tanginess of the salsa verde and vinaigrette components. This is a truly next level dish that I can recommend as a must try.

I’m not normally the biggest fan of mussels, but these steamed mussels in nduja were actually very good. There was none of the feared grittiness present in most low-tier mussel dishes, and the sauce was both umami and lightly spicy. This dish would’ve been even better with some bread to soak up the delicious sauce.

The pickled beetroot salad was very tangy. Not the most enjoyed dish around the table, but then again it’s LP’s Quality Meats, not LP’s Quality Beets.

The 800 gram pork chop with mustard sauce and grilled onions was pretty good, but not something I’d necessarily mention in a letter home. The meat was cooked well, the sauce was inoffensive, but apart from the size and spectacle of an entire giant pork chop cut and rearranged into shape there was nothing truly special about it. It’s sad that with 5 people we did not get a 1000 gram pork chop.

This mesclun salad, mixed herbs, palm sugar vinaigrette was pretty unexciting, and definitely not as exciting as the name.

This smoked half chicken in sauce pearà ($31 supplement) was an add on from the a la carte menu. I had heard a lot about the chicken at LP’s, and this dish certainly did not disappoint. The skin of the chicken was crispy, whilst the meat of the chicken was soft. The smoked flavour, mixed with the creamy flavour of the sauce pearà made for a mouth-watering, umami-filled dish. This chicken was well received around the table, and would be my other must-have at LP’s.

This dish of ember roasted pumpkin, chard, and anchovy did nothing for me. I thought that the flavours were too strong, with the pumpkin being particularly oversalted.

The chocolate tart with chantilly cream was made of very dark, semi-sweet chocolate. I liked it, and I think my girlfriend would have enjoyed this too, but she didn’t go so we will never know. It was a divisive dish, as a few of our friends did not like the bitterness.

The savarin au rhum, essentially wet sponge cake, was also just fine. The cream in both of the desserts was quite good, described aptly by my colleague GL as tasting of a melted vanilla ice cream.

VERDICT
Thank you for reading my pegfeed. The chicken and beef tongue were truly standout dishes that I would recommend a visit to LP’s for, whilst some of the other dishes – salads, mostly – did nothing for me. I had a good time, but would’ve had just as good a time ordering the big hitters off the a la carte menu.

4.5/5

LP’s Quality Meats
16/12 Chippen St, Chippendale NSW 2008
(02) 8399 0929

Diners: JW, HWJ, NT, GL, CJP

Categories
Indian

Nawaz Flavour of India – Glebe NSW Restaurant Review

Allow me to walk you through the items on Nawaz Flavour of India’s $41.50pp banquet menu, eaten in their private dining room with 20 colleagues. Though I am by no means an expert in Indian cuisine, it is currently my eleventh non-consecutive year living along the train line between Harris Park and Seven Hills.

The starters started us off strong.

The chicken tikka may have been the best I’ve ever had in my life. They were thick pieces that managed to remain tender and juicy both inside and out, with the perfect quantity and quality of flavouring.

The seek kebab were meaty and juicy, good but not quite as standout as the extraordinary tikka.

This jam was wild. Fruity and unexpected.

This Fish Pakora was extremely good. Again, very juicy and moist on the inside. Like the chicken tikka this fish was also able to avoid being too oversalted, something I can’t say for a number of my local restaurants. Also the best I’ve had.

I didn’t care too much for the Samosas, to be honest. They were very standard, potato stuff. But the other starters were great.

The Chicken Butter Masala was good, maintaining the tenderness of the chicken tikka that preceded it. Very mild, and widely loved. The colleague sitting next to me (JZHW) couldn’t stop talking about it.

This Dhal Makhni was my first oral introduction to dhal (having known about it as a food for some time). As a meat-eater I was less impressed. I’m a big fan of having something to chew on.

The Beef Vindaloo was good, though not particularly memorable.

Same goes for the Kashmiri Lamb.

Saffron Rice was ample.

Naan (not shown) was good in quality but unfortunately lacking in quantity, and given the volume of curry I think that we could’ve done with approximately twice as much around the table. We did order a piece of garlic naan (pictured) to share, though I don’t know if this was charged for on top of what we paid for the banquet.

DISCUSSION

I honestly don’t know if it’s just the fact that most of the Indian food I have is delivered after 9PM when all the non-Indian restaurants are closed, but fish pakora and chicken tikka at Nawaz were both the best I’ve ever had. Definitely worth a visit.

Nawaz Flavour of India
142a Glebe Point Rd, Sydney NSW 2037
(02) 9692 0662