Tag: burrata

Categories
Italian

La Disfida – Haberfield NSW Restaurant Review

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?

La Disfida
109 Ramsay St, Haberfield NSW 2045
02) 9798 8299

Categories
Italian

Ragazzi – Sydney NSW Restaurant Review

My ragazza and I went for a quick walk-in Sunday afternoon meal at CBD Italian restaurant Ragazzi. That it was a walk-in at 3PM in the afternoon is an important detail to mention, as though the website didn’t list any tables available for reservations, they had plenty of walk-in availability for outdoors seating at the time.

We started with this trevally crudo ($20) with buttermilk, jalapeno, curry leaf, and nigella seed. While the fish used changes seasonally, looking at previous menus I think that there is generally always a form of fish crudo on their menu. This was a great mixture of tangy, fresh and creamy, on some pretty crispy pieces of cracker. Very enjoyable.

A little less convincing was the smoked duck and mozarella croquette ($6), which was good in its fried-ness and creaminess but less forthcoming in its duckiness.

The raw beef, corn and black bean miso with almond ($9) was seriously good. We love a bit of raw beef handled in a safe and appropriate manner, and this particular raw beef was juicy and umami, with good texture and mouthfeel. The mixture of corn and miso was an unexpectedly strong pairing, and the cracker was crispy and delicious also. Our only regret was that we didn’t get two of these, but that did mean that we get to try more different dishes.

The trottole with duck sausage and purple kale ($32) was a decidedly more successful showing of duck than the duck croquette. This was a very tasty, buttery pasta dish with a huge amount of tasty duck sausage, interspersed with crispy and unusually delicious purple kale. The sauce coated and stuck to the pasta remarkably well, making each mouthful a consistent textural and taste experience. This is one of our best pastas in recent times.

Our meal probably should’ve ended there with the great duck sausage pasta, but my partner was keen on the burrata with roasted grapes, pine nuts, thyme and fried shallot ($21) for a bit of dessert. While this was fine, and in fact pretty good, with its mixture of sweetness from the grapes (I think there was some honey as well) and saltiness from the burrata, it wasn’t particularly $21 extra-ordinary. The day I discovered you can buy a pretty good burrata for $6.50 at the local supermarket was the day expensive restaurant burrata was ruined for me.

OVERALL this was a pretty good dining experience. Plenty of The White Lotus chat at the table next to us too. I’d go back.

Ragazzi Wine and Pasta
1 Angel Pl, Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 8964 3062

Categories
Café Middle Eastern

Kepos Street Kitchen – Redfern NSW Cafe Review

Kepos Street Kitchen came highly recommended by a vegetarian colleague of ours. Naturally we went without him to share a meat-heavy meal before a swing at nearby Moore Park.

The Charred broccolini salad, shredded chicken, coarse burghul, herbs ($18) was delicious. As a group we are not the biggest fans of salad, but all members of our party ended up enjoying it. There is a surprisingly generous amount of chicken tucked in with all the greens and grains.

The Burrata cheese, Persian eggplant, pine nuts, volcanic salt ($22) was pretty good. The cheese was firm on the outside and less firm on the inside, as expected. The real star of this dish was the crusty, freshly toasted bread. Delicious.

The Grilled prawns, chermoula, grilled lemon ($27) came with five prawns. The prawns were quite large and tasty, and the lemon was too (though I was tricked by a colleague into an entire quarter of the lemon pictured in one mouthful by itself). I’m still trying to come to terms with paying $5.40 per prawn though.

Kepos meatball sub, coriander paste, grated haloumi, ciabatta ($18) was very good. Plenty of meat and red sauce on crusty warm bread. Very yum and a good serving of meat. A strong recommendation for this one.

The Arayes pita of wagyu mince seasoned with parsley, onion, olive oil, cumin and paprika, chili tomato salad, tahini, pita ($18) started off good, however quickly we found it to be too flavourful and too saucy. You will recognise this complaint of “too tasty” from many of my reviews, and in this case you can rest assured that this was a view that was held by the majority of our group. I would not recommend Kepos Street Kitchen’s Arayes pita.

Pictured here is a half serve of chips, which were provided complimentary as they had forgotten to make our chips. Even this half serving was quite a lot of chips. The chips were fresh and fluffy on the inside, with a cripsy exterior. They may just be the best hot chips I’ve had in a long long time. There’s definitely something special going on, owing perhaps to a proprietary cooking method. At $7 (for twice the chips listed) I would give them a go.

Overall

Pretty much everything we had hit the spot. I can recommend.

5/5

Kepos Street Kitchen
96 Kepos St, Redfern NSW 2016
(02) 9319 3919

Categories
Asian Fusion Italian Japanese

Casoni – Darlinghurst NSW Restaurant Review

Casoni is one of the nicest meals I’ve had in some time. The menu was described to us as “Modern Italian”, with a selection of Italian staples fused with some Japanese inspiration.

We started with the Wattle Seed Flatbread ($6). Originally our choice of topping was going to be the salmon roe, however as they were out of stock we had to improvise. After the reassurance of our host that the serving of bread would be “quite generous” and suited to having two sides/toppings, I chose the ortiz anchovies ($6) and green garlic burrata ($10). While the bread was warm, soft, fragrant and delicious, it turns out that “quite generous” was a straight out lie. I would not characterise the bread as being suited to having two toppings. One was more than enough, so much so that we weighed up whether or not we should order a second serving of flatbread to mop up voluminous sides.

The ortiz anchovies ($6) were salty. I think they always are. I’m yet to develop a taste for them. My partner straight up refused to try it (she’s a bit of a fish-o-phobe).

The garlic green burrata ($10) was quite delicious. The inside of the burrata was very wet. It was a great dish to spread on the bread.

Black garlic bread

The Black Garlic Bread ($8) is a must try. It is more of a dessert than a garlic bread, with a sweet glaze and sauce. The topping of miso butter was divine. It is a house specialty for a reason and I would recommend no one leave this restaurant without trying it (cats and other people who can’t have garlic aside).

Tuna Carpaccio

The yellowfin tuna carpaccio with wasabi cream and burnt mandarin dressing ($18) was quite good but straddled the line towards being too tasty. I thought that the wasabi cream and burnt mandarin dressing overpowered the fish to the extent where I couldn’t really taste the star ingredient. While the flavours were good I wonder if a bit of tweaking is in order to highlight the tuna a bit better. Wasabi-phobes need not worry, the wasabi itself isn’t too strong.

Sausage and pecorino pappardelle

The sausage and pecorino pappardelle ($?26) was delicious. The serving size was large enough to share between two. The pappardelle was fresh and soft and tasty – not too al dente for me. The serving of sausage was extremely and unexpectedly generous, there was enough for each bite, and the pecorino added a great sharp flavour to the dish. While I’ve read from other reviews that pasta isn’t Casoni’s strong point, my experience with this pasta would lead me to disagree. It was just fantastic.

Comfortable seats

INTERIM OPINION (DECEMBER 2020)

As I’m sure you can tell by now we really enjoyed our meal at Casoni. We can’t wait to go back.

5 stars.

SUBSEQUENT VISIT (APRIL 2022)

It turns out we could wait to go back, in fact we waited around a year and a half, taking advantage of Casoni’s late opening hours after a night at the museum.

The black garlic sourdough ($12) has now replaced the previous black garlic bread. The differences? This sourdough bread is now a bit more dense, as one could quite reasonably expect. Where the previous black garlic bread was quite sweet with its creamy topping, this dish was much more of a savoury affair, with the miso butter imparting quite a salty taste.

The wagyu tartare ($19) with sundried tomato and coriander seed matched with sunchoke crispy was a pretty solid, inoffensive and even tasty tartare. Its flavouring was a bit of a departure from your usual tartare, its sourness a bit sweeter owing to the use of tomato rather than your classic capers. I found the meat a bit overrepresented in comparison to the creme fraiche and crisp however, and we quickly ran out of yummy crisp to put the tartare on.

The signature croquette ($25) was a great addition to the menu. It featured an unbelievably creamy potato inner, coated in a delicious katsu-style crumb and fried to a somewhat unbelievable level of crispy perfection. The marscapone topping and abundance of salty umami salmon roe made for the perfect foil for the mild potato within. This dish reminded me of the roe course at Quay, but for a far more accessible price (plus, you don’t have to eat all the other disappointments there either).

The spanner crab tagliatelle ($31) with nduja, fermented mustard greens and burnt kombu was a solid pasta, though not revolutionary. The serving of crab was generous for the price, and the overall quality of the sauce and pasta met the high expectations set by our previous experience at Casoni.

OPINION
Sometimes when you revisit a beloved restaurant you are disappointed by the ideals formed during your first visit. This was not the case with Casoni. They remain reliably excellent.

Casoni
371-373 Bourke St, Darlinghurst NSW 2010
0449 516 798

Categories
Modern Australian

Acre Eatery – Camperdown NSW Restaurant Review

I’m told that Acre Eatery in Camperdown is one of the many cafes available to staff at the Centre of Excellence™. One of our friends and colleagues from said centre suggested we have lunch here, not knowing that lunch is a $70 per person set menu.

Acre is apparently a farm-to-bowl establishment. Some or all of the plant matter served comes straight from the tiny on-site organic farm, which I expect must be an extremely expensive piece of government subsidised real estate in the inner West.

So first of all, I love small foods in big plates. The Sweet potato fritti, spiced fruit marmallatta fits that criteria well, and also meets the additional hidden criteria of having two words I don’t know. These were basically crispy sweet potato balls that were probably fried but possibly baked. I’m scared to write definitively because I don’t want these inner city types to sue me.

I really enjoyed the Cannelini bean & almond hummus, roasted grapes, homemade lavosh, even though one of our colleagues said she could do it better.

The Local burrata with lemon oil was also great. One of my other friends was very keen on this and I think noticeably sad when they took it away unfinished. There was no explanation of whether it was the cow or the cheese that was local and I think this detracted from the experience.

The mains I didn’t get to take a photo of, but allow me to paint a poor picture in few words.

The Porchetta, celeriac puree, roasted quince was quite good. It was a large portion with a generous serving of pork, and good flavours.

The Pan-fried King trout, braised cabbage, pippies, capers was extremely disappointing. The trout itself was not faultable, however the accompanying braised cabbage and vegetables were reminiscent (in both form and taste) of the frozen cubed vegetable mix that you’d get from the supermarket.

The five of us did not stray from these two mains. There were some other choices available without animal but I guess we love animal.

I would probably not go back to Acre as it stands, but I would recommend it to a friend. There’s only so much of the exact same menu that you can eat and enjoy. Maybe they will change their menu in the post-COVID age.

ACRE Camperdown
31A Mallett St, Camperdown NSW 2050
(02) 9194 3100