Tag: bread

Categories
Middle Eastern

Pazar Food Collective – Canterbury NSW Restaurant Review

Pazar Food Collective identifies as an Inner-West restaurant, which as someone who lives two minutes down the road I think it’s a bit laughable. As I told our dining companions on the night, the only people who consider where we live to be the Inner-West seem to be real estate agents. Regardless of which highly-priced clique of Sydney we were or weren’t in, we had a pretty good meal. Prices noted below are inclusive of a 10% weekend surcharge, which, given they’re only open Thursday-Saturday, I think bears mentioning.

We started with this wood baked sesame nigella bread with salted wild oregano butter ($17.05 – $13.20 without the butter). Both the bread and the butter tasted good and fragrant, with a density that might just be in keeping with its own style. Though I enjoyed the bread, I do wish that there could have been a cheaper or even no-cost option (like a flatbread or something, especially because we ended up getting multiple servings, given that such a large number of their entrees are so sauce focused.

People liked the muhamarra ($18.70), but I didn’t. It is a dip that that the menu describes as consisting of roasted almonds and walnuts blended with blistered red peppers, pomegranate molasses, and chilli. It’s hard to pinpoint why I didn’t like it – I think it was a bit loose and watery textured, though clearly no one else around the table had any problems with it. Bread was essential, and again a bit of pita would’ve gone a long way.

I am a lover of meet, and yes the sujuk with hummus and blistered tomatoes ($25.30) was enjoyable. The sujuk was helpfully presented as a mince rather than as slices of sausage, which made a lot of sense for a dish that ultimately surmounted to a multi-textured dip. I tend to eat quite a bit of sujuk during my Western Sydney culinary adventures, often without enjoying it, but I must say that this time I was thoroughly impressed by both the flavour and texture of the mince. Similar to the last dip, the reds were again blistered to this time produce cherry tomatoes that brought with them discrete pops of juice and flavour. The hummus didn’t really register for me. It was merely a creamy carrier for the other tasty ingredients rather than the focus of the dish.

Wow, another sauce, and need for another bread. The braised Japanese eggplant ($23.10) with roasted red pepper tomato sauce, garlic labneh, and chilli crisp did nothing for me. Apart from the slices of eggplant itself (which did not feel extremely Japanese to me) this tomato and capsicum dish felt more or less the same as a combination of the other two dips. Quite missable in my opinion.

We chose to have both the mains to share between us. This is the wood smoked roast lamb ($51.70 – 2 person serving size), atop a bed of bulgur pilav and garnished with pickled chillis, sumac herb and red onion salad. Though I wasn’t wowed by the meat, I did enjoy the bright pickled chillis, herbs, and lemon, which helped to keep mouthfuls of lamb moist and flavourful. This was my first time having bulgur pilav, which from what I can gather by my mouth and by Google is a wholegrain dish very similar to but distinct from wholewheat couscous and quinoa. It had rice energy.

Tied favourite with the sujuk mince was this terribly photographed harissa roasted chicken ($40.7). This half chicken, roasted on charcoal, was super tender and flavourful, marinated in a tahini lemon sauce, and served with chilli garlic and green chilli toum. Each bite of the chicken was really superb, and though it didn’t need the salad to help keep it fresh and moist, its presence was appreciated because it gave me something to eat whilst I respectfully let my co-diners have their fair share of the chicken. Strong recommend on this one.

Comments
This restaurant really has a lot of saucey and dippy entrees for a place that only offers $13.20 servings of bread. It would really make a lot more sense to just have bottomless pita, but it would probably cut into their bottom line and $13 bread sales. The sujuk and the chicken were particular standouts. We also had some pretty good sangria, which I promise I only had a couple of sips of.

Pazar Food Collective
325 Canterbury Rd, Canterbury NSW 2193, Australia
+61 411 727 874

Categories
Italian

Scopri – Carlton VIC Restaurant Review

Full disclosure, I’ve had these photos sitting on my computer for the past six months because I’ve been a bit burnt out from Pegfeeding about my Melbourne trip, especially as out-of-Sydney experiences aren’t really why anyone reads this blog anyway. Keen noticers will have noticed that Melbourne reviews have been going up outside of the regular schedule, as they do not form the core content of this blog. I think ultimately the delay is OK though because this is going to be a positive review.

The prelude to our meal at Scopri was us calling an unnamed popular CBD Italian restaurant, confirming that they were still open in the early afternoon, then arriving there about 15 minutes later only for them to gaslight us and tell us they were closed until their dinner service. It is only thanks to them that we were able to have quite a nice meal in a suburban neighbourhood restaurant a little bit out of the way.

The house made bread was pretty good, and complimentary, which made it even better. It was rusty on the outside and gooey and glutinous on the outside, served with some olive oil for dipping.

This Quail Risotto was excellent. It was a daily special so I don’t know how much it was, but whatever it was it was worth it. The sauce was incredibly rich, with a combination of the earthy umami of the mushrooms and the funk of the gorgonzola. The mushrooms were plentiful, and their texture interspersed within the al dente grains made for a good mouth-experience. It’s rare that the protein isn’t a highlight of the dish, and whilst the quail was juicy and also good, ultimately it was the risotto itself that did it for me.

This Agnolotti del Plin ($35) with roasted rabbit, pork, and veal finished in butter and sage was also delicious. The combination of different animals was not weird at all, and only resulted in a very meaty and satisfying filling to each angolotto. The sagey, buttery sauce was divine, and excellent to be mopped up with the aforementioned house baked bread.

The Pappardelle Ragu D’anatra ($35) was a more standard approach to a duck ragu pappardelle, which was tasty and good but not a highlight in view of the high level of excellence achieved by the risotto and agnolotti. But won’t disappoint if ragu is what your craving. This photo is of half a serving of the full size.

This is a good and gigantic tiramisu ($10) that is off menu and asked for specifically.

OVERALL The dining experience was pleasurable. As introverts we appreciated not being interacted with, just as we are sure that the other diners probably enjoyed being looked after more closely by the host. We also liked that each of the mains were split into two servings for ease of sharing, even though we had absolutely just planned to pass our plates around like uncultured animals. A nod from me.

Scopri
191 Nicholson St, Carlton VIC 3053
(03) 9347 8252

Categories
Italian

Osteria di Russo & Russo – Enmore NSW Restaurant Review

I am becoming increasingly convinced that Jowoon Oh is incapable of cooking a bad meal. As silent followers of his career ever since we first ate at Casoni back in 2020, my partner and I have been salivating over the perfectly framed overhead shots of pasta and other goodies on his Instagram all year, finally finding the opportunity to consummate things last night.

We started with this free bread and cultured butter. I don’t always have a lot to say about free bread, but this bread was actually different. It had a nice sweetness and fruitiness, reminiscent of a mild raisin toast without the raisins. I think it was delicious on its own, and actually better without the slightly herbed cultured butter. This bread inspired us to buy some raisin toast at the local supermarket on the way home. It was that good. I wonder if we could’ve had more bread. I guess we could’ve asked.

The photos in this review aren’t really good, and as I told our dining partners EH and EC they’re really just here to provide proof that we actually attended, lest anyone complain that I’m slandering them for no good reason (not that that’s going to be a concern here – this is going to be a generally positive review). Despite the poor photo quality, I’m pretty sure this shade of pink was the actual colour of the wagyu tartare ($6 each, 4 pictured). This snack of wagyu and corn on bread was really quite good, with a good synergy between the charred corn, a little bit of fermented chilli, and the wagyu beef. It was served on a tiny quarter of grilled focaccia, which was served warm and oily – a delicious contrast to the cooler meat topping.

I didn’t love the bone marrow on garlic bread with ciauscolo and salsa macha ($26), which I didn’t feel was a particularly cohesive dish. I enjoyed the nice and toasty garlic bread, which had slight hint of the memory of Casoni’s black garlic bread, but didn’t really know how the bone marrow went with or added to the rest of the dish.

I also did not love the chargrilled kingfish collar with blood lime salsa ($26). I find that kingfish collar is often quite fishy, even as someone who does enjoy both fish and kingfish specifically. I didn’t have much of this, but I did enjoy the 11chargrilled lemon as a juice on top of the fish.

This casarecce with spanner crab, sweet corn, caviar, and kombu ($34) was really good. So umami and creamy, and though the spanner crab itself was a little difficult to identify, this didn’t really detract from the experience.

The linguini with Moreton Bay bug, scallop XO, and salmon roe ($38) was also very good. We had this one first, thought it was great, and were blown away by how good the other pasta was as well. We thought that both pastas were on the top tier of pastas that we’ve had in Sydney.

The grilled duck breast with burnt mandarin and freekeh ($39) was probably some of the best duck we’ve ever had. We’ve been known to mostly enjoy Cantonese roast duck, and not enjoy any of the other more Westernised ducks that we eat, but this one was actually very good. The meat was tender, with a crispy and flavourful skin and nice citrus jus. I had actually forgotten that we had ordered this dish, and it was a pleasant surprise when it came.

We finished with the hazelnut semifreddo cremino, nutella, nougat and popcorn ($16), which combined coldness with sweet and salty flavours in a manner similar to salted caramel popcorn.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
We had a really nice meal at Osteria di Russo & Russo, enjoying most of what we had, but in particular the pasta. The Korean chefs of Sydney are doing great things in the Italian and French domains, and we continue to follow their careers with interest.

Osteria di Russo & Russo
158 Enmore Rd, Enmore NSW 2042
(02) 8068 5202

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