Tag: hash brown

Categories
Café

Halfday Deli – Wollongong NSW Restaurant Review

It’s rare for me to pay so much attention to the fitout of a cafe or restaurant, but Halfday Deli’s grey and red colour scheme really got me going – looking more like something out of the inner city than a shop on the podium level of a Wollongong apartment building.

The food was good, though our first and second choices were sold out for the day.

The beef & dip ($20) was a sandwich on ciabatta with three key ingredients – roast beef, provolone, and horseradish dressing, and the alleged inclusion of pickled fennel, which was neither here nor there. The tanginess of the mustard dressing was strong and delicious mixed with the roast beef, which, though less pink than in the online marketing photos, was still adequately moist and tender.

I enjoyed every bite of this sandwich both with and without the chicken gravy dip, though my wife thought that the dip was necessary to add saltiness and temper down the strong tangy horseradish taste.

The sausage & egg ($18) with a pork and fennel sausage patty and a slab of egg was the lesser of the two sandwiches (in my opinion), with a relatively mild unexciting flavour and texture carried mostly by the yoghurt ranch and dill pickles. Not something I’d visit for, though the beef and dip definitely was. Seeing as the chicken cotoletta focaccia option was not available, the staff were gracious enough to make this one for us on focaccia rather than the ciabatta that it usually comes with.

We also chose to add a small giardiniera salad and two hashbrowns for $9.50, which was the right choice. My wife enjoyed the crispy pickled vegetables, especially the cauliflower, as well as the sweet roasted walnuts – to name just a couple of the salad’s components.

The dressing of yoghurt ranch was the same white fluid that carried the sausage and egg, and equally enjoyable drizzled on vegetables as it was in the sandwich.

The hash browns were decent – crispy on the outside, unusually soft on the inside, and definitely too salty to eat by themselves.

Overall Really quite a good sandwich, and a good salad, from an outlet with many more options I’d like to try. I’d be open to coming back both for breakfast/lunch and their pizza dinner.

Halfday Deli
Shop 1/38 Atchison St, Wollongong NSW 2500

Categories
Café Middle Eastern

3 Tomatoes – Ashbury NSW Restaurant Review

3 Tomatoes is an unusually bustling cafe on an otherwise quiet suburban Ashbury street, a provider of a wide an interesting range of food options on their all-day menu as well as a selection of artisan groceries at their counter up front.

The Syrian falafel bowl ($17) with additional poached egg ($3.50) was a green and fresh bowl of sliced cucumbers, sliced tomatoes, sliced radish, unsliced salad leaves, unsliced pickled chilli, and four or five freshly cooked falafels, all drizzled in tahini and parsley. This bowl was an enjoyable and fresh treat, promoting a healthful feeling with each bite of its salad-like ingredients. The falafels were warm and fresh, with a good crunchy external layer and warm, moist, textured interior. The first bite of any fried food is always the best, and while my enjoyment of the falafels waned as they radiated heat into the surrounding environment they remained reasonably good by the end, especially when paired with the mildly sour and mildly spicy pickled chillis. While I was initially concerned by the number of falafel served, they proved to be in the perfect ratio to the salad, and we did not find ourselves wanting for more at the end of the meal. The poached egg, an addition onto the base bowl, was well done with mastery shown in timing. Overall quite good. Very sesame flavoured.

It’s a shame that I don’t have a proper photo of the beef brisket ($18) without it being covered in part by the gigantic extra handmade 3T hash brown ($7). I would have liked to be able to comment on them individually, but the layering of the hash brown within the beef brisket dish made this impossible. The beef brisket dish with date molasses, capsicum, tahini, cooked greens and a fried egg was warm and tasty, if less fresh and wholesome compared to the aforementioned salad. The meat was a particular highlight, given that we have had some relatively disappointing red meats in brunch meals of late (at other establishments). The fried egg, similar to the poached egg, was cooked to a high degree of runny perfection.

The handmade 3T hash brown ($7) was my partner’s compromise after I told her she shouldn’t order the shoestring fries. It was quite large, though I guess if it had been any smaller we would’ve been upset at the $7 asking price. It had an crispy exterior with a moist interior, and was strongly herbed for additional flavour.

The pastel de nata ($4.50) from Tuga Pastries will be reviewed individually in a separate post if I ever make it to one of Tuga’s stores, but suffice it to say it was good, and I didn’t even have to wait thirty minutes in line to eat it.

Sticky Chai ($5.50), Soy Latte ($4.50). Coffee by Will & Co. Good foam on the latte.

THOUGHTS
It’s a very nice, doggy cafe in a very nice and doggy neighbourhood. I’d like to come back. I will admit that I looked online at real estate in the area after I got home. I am in the right age and stage chronologically but not financially. Pegfeeds is why.

A human, in double denim, petting a dog, not in denim.

3 Tomatoes
121 Holden St, Ashbury NSW 2193
(02) 8065 1288

Categories
Asian Fusion Café Chinese

STIX – Marrickville NSW Restaurant Review

My partner and I have been eating a lot of good food recently, much to the disappointment of my healthcare team and our mortgage deposit. This morning’s late start for my partner found us at STIX, a farm to table café with a much appreciated all-day menu.

We started with the potato hash ($8). I couldn’t stop her. For what it’s worth, these were great. These were extremely buttery and luscious, multi-layered with a thin crispy of an exterior and a soft interior. Pretty tasty.

The smoked trout rillettes ($24) with fennel and kohlrabi remoulade, celery, pickled eschallot, apricot jam and sourdough toast was next. I enjoyed the taste and texture of this dish, as something I could not dream of making myself. The base of sourdough bread was nice and crusty, with good structural integrity and able to carry the weight of its toppings with ease. The brightness, freshness and crunchiness of the celery was excellent with the more creamy textures of the remoulade and trout rillette. The taste and texture of the rillette, something difficult to make or find outside of a restaurant, were both good, and a reasonable volume was provided with our order.

The poached egg was comically small, though we do understand that when you’re raising the hens yourself there is a spectrum of eggs produced, and it’s not possible to only have 58 gram eggs. Unfortunately the small size of our poached egg may have contributed to its overcooking – I have no photos but it was 0% runny compared to what a normal poached egg is.

The last thing to mention would be the apricot jam, which was just a little bit sweet but added so much to the overall flavour of the dish, complimenting the saltiness and savouriness of the rest of the meal. My partner particularly liked that it was dolloped on in discrete bits, so that some mouthfuls would have some sweetness and others would not.

The very good chicken and sweetcorn congee ($21) was a dish that I felt I could probably make at home, and am in fact probably ethnically and genetically obliged to make at home at some point. It was a really tasty and hot bowl of congee, with a bit of spiciness from some tamari chilli relish, some sweetness from the corn, some ginger, and some saltiness from what I presume is just plain salt. The texture of the rice was very nice and soft, and has prompted me to freeze a bit of washed and soaked rice in my freezer just now so that I can make something similar soon. The chicken was not particularly plentiful, with a shredded grocery store rotisserie chicken kind of quality (though I do not mean to defame – I’m sure it was much fancier than this), but enough for enjoyment. This was ultimately a simple but very well executed dish, one that will inspire me to be a better Asian this week.

I made my partner wait a full twelve minutes after the end of our meal to decide if she still wanted this tea and toast croissant ($9.50). $9.50 is a lot to pay for a croissant. I thought that the earl grey tea cream filling of the croissant was plentiful in volume, but sadly not so in taste. It felt highly calorie dense, fatty and thick, but without the taste payoff that such expenditure should entail. I would’ve much preferred a stronger earl grey taste in this situation, preferably also without as much volume of cream. Filling aside, the marmalade glaze on this croissant was enjoyable, although in my imaginations of Beverly and Betty tea and toast diets (I am, for these six months, a geriatric medicine advanced trainee after all) I had always assumed it was plain toast straight out of the toaster that they were eating. I doubt you would get too malnourished if this croissant were your staple meal.

OTHER THOUGHTS
I don’t know how I feel about a place that only takes card, with a mandatory card surcharge for all payments. It feels like any mandatory, unavoidable surcharge should be built into the menu price from the start, but I guess the gods of the ACCC disagree with me. Pretty good food. Worth a visit.

STIX
20 Chapel St, Marrickville NSW 2204
(02) 9550 2772

Categories
American Café

Happyfield – Haberfield NSW Restaurant Review

I loved the bright, energetic yellow colour scheme of Happyfield, Haberfield’s latest American-style diner, but nice colours don’t stand just on their own. Happyfield’s menu is also a force to be reckoned with.

This Savoury Stack ($21) was amazing. The best pancakes I have ever had, even better than the sourdough pancakes that DTC made for HMB and me in his own home. These pancakes were just so light, creamy, and fluffy on the inside. The maple syrup was not too sweet, and added rather than subtracted from the experience. Pepe Saya’s butter, one of the best widely available Australian artisanal butters, was a worthy splurge by the restauranteurs, as it kept up the delicious and premium theme. The bacon was well cooked, with just the right amount of softness and crispiness without venturing into hardened territory. The two fried eggs, sunny side up, had perfectly runny yolks that mixed in with the maple syrup and butter to form a umami sauce. Perhaps best of all was the slightly spiced, slightly sweet brown powder on top, which may have been cinnamon (this is not confirmed). The child on the table next to us hated it (his mother asked their waiter what it was, but she didn’t get a straight answer), but to be fair children generally have limited palates. Said child didn’t finish his breakfast. Perhaps when he grows into adulthood he will come back and experience this pancake dish for the masterpiece that it is. The best pancakes I’ve ever had.

The Drippy Eggs with Salmon Roe ($18) was well-loved by my girlfriend. She’s always been a big potato fan, and the pomme puree with horseradish was no exception. The mashed potato was silky smooth, and the addition of codded eggs and a bit of salmon roe (for an extra $3) added good and varied flavours. I wasn’t a huge fan of the focaccia sliders (bread for bread’s sake), but I did like the dill in the salad. I don’t think this was as good or as special as the pancakes, but she liked it so I am duty bound to tell you.

The McLovin Muffin ($13) is a McDonald’s style breakfast muffin filled with folded eggs, cheddar cheese, and two chicken sausage patties. I enjoyed the light, slightly herby flavour of the housemade chicken patties, as well as the softness and runniness of the eggs. It is a sign of culinary expertise when the eggs and the cheese of a dish mixes into one, and even though they were discrete layers in this muffin I do feel like they had an omelette-vibe to them. I have been thinking about this muffin for some time. I can’t wait to have another.

Even the baked beans ($5) were good. I have tried to avoid cafe baked beans, ever since I had some very average ones at Grounds of Alexandria in February 2020. It is surprising, therefore, that Happyfield with its Grounds alum has such nice beans on offer.

VERDICT
Happyfield lives up to its name, inspiring happiness through its bright yellow fitout, pleasant service, and delicious food. I can’t wait to go back.

UPDATE OCTOBER 2024
We went back. It didn’t quite live up to my recollections.

The citrus confit salmon ($7.50) was super middling, though I don’t know why I had pictured a tetsuya-style confit fish for $7.50

On our second visit, we had the McGruber Muffin ($18) with pork sausage patties rather than the chicken McLovin Muffin. The taste was generally good, with a nice and runny fried egg included, however overall too salty for my liking.

The Potato Hashbrowns (2 for $6) were similarly very salty, and I found it difficult to enjoy the added flavour of the house-made chilli mayo on top of the already ‘happy salted’ potato.

Luckily the pancakes were as good as ever.

Happyfield
96 Ramsay St, Haberfield NSW 2045
(02) 9716 5168