The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
After MAKING A BOOKING at nearby Italian restaurant Il Grappolo, we arrived in the pouring rain to find that that restaurant was closed without warning. Luckily, Alegrias was only a 1 minute drenching walk away, with walk-in availability on Christmas eve.
These are the ALBÓNDIGAS EN SALSA MADRILEÑA ($22), wagyu beef meatballs in a tomato sauce. They were very meaty, with a coarse texture and what my partner thought was a very beefy flavour. Though this sounds like a recipe for success, we did not particularly care for them. The tomato sauce was good though.
The PATATAS BRAVAS ($18), not pictured, was a relatively large serving of deep fried potato wedges with bravas sauce and aioli. The serving size was quite good for the price, especially compared to the other things we had, and they were really quite good. The potatoes were moist and fluffy inside with a good crisp on the outside, and the sauce, a combination of slightly spicy tomato and aioli, was right on.
I’m not a big paella fan, but this was a big paella. The PAELLA DE CARNE ($69 for a 2 person serving) was a large but shallow dish of paella with pork, chicken drumettes and wingettes, chorizo, and a bit of seasonal vegetable which in this case turned out to be mostly capsicum and peas. My partner liked it, but it didn’t feel special to me and it didn’t feel like something I’d like to spend $69 on. I honestly think I could make this at home, in our 30cm paella pan from DARTO, but I wouldn’t want to, because I didn’t enjoy it. I can’t pinpoint any particular faults, though of the three animals I felt that the chicken drumettes and chorizo were better than the pieces of pork, which had a tougher consistency than it necessarily had to. The serving was quite large for 2, and would be suitable for 2 only if it were the only thing you were eating for that meal.
Thoughts Maybe I just don’t like paella, but my partner wanted to try it and it was just so much food and money that it stopped us eating other things I would’ve liked more.
The main take-home message from this review is really that the food was good, but we spent 40 minutes waiting.
This mango smoothie ($9) was $9 expensive, but pretty good, and came soon after ordering, which was more than we could say about the rest of our meal.
The Mediterranean Potato & Eggs ($21) featuring spiced (mostly vinegary) potato, egg, and zaatar was pretty good. The potatoes were a bit more sour than my partner would’ve liked, and though she wasn’t particularly keen on them I felt the eggs were quite good, as was the surprise zaatar which I think was just mentioned in the menu as “coriander… and a side of pita bread”.
The Italian Meatballs ($22) were pretty good. The Turkish bread was probably the best part – light and airy, a bit oily, a bit crispy, and nice and warm. The beef meatball was a bit weird, a brown exterior with an unexpectedly pink interior displaying a gobstopper like quality that the waiter PROMISED was normal and intentional (but why?) We did eat it and did not get sick. The Napoletana sauce was fine, and the rocket was plenty, but I do feel like a bit of extra bread to soak up all that extra sauce wouldn’t have gone astray. I don’t know why there’s a separate option on the menu for a meatball sub which seems essentially the same dish with different bread and cheese but vaguely the same deal. It was a difficult choice, but I think with this delicious Turkish bread we probably made the right one.
OTHER THOUGHTS We didn’t really complain about our meal taking an extremely long time to come, but the couple next to us who ordered after us and got their food fractionally before us did, and I think they were offered something free out of it. The food was reasonably good, but I’m just glad we had nowhere else to be that morning, because 40 minutes is too much.
Bar Biscotti 24 George St, North Strathfield NSW 2137 0424 195 732
Kinx is an absolute gem of a cafe tucked away in the culinary wasteland of South West Sydney. Kinx’s creative Asian-fusion brunch menu exceeded all geographic expectations, and our visit instantly propelled Kinx to the top of our list of cafes we enjoy in Sydney.
The Pho Beef Ribs were the reason we drove half an hour to go to Kinx in the first place, and boy did they not disappoint. Our waiter suggested a half serve ($20) rather than a full serve, as the kitchen was running low on ribs and we hadn’t had the foresight of booking ahead for this magnetic weekend special. The beef ribs were extremely tender and were in the perfect sweet spot where they fell right off the bone but retained enough internal structure for a good mouthfeel. The pho marinade was true to specification, with a delicious herbal umami taste. The rice noodle cakes, lightly deep fried were absolutely delicious, crisp, and soaked up the saucy marinade well. My partner thought that they had a much more delicate flavour and mouthfeel than just plain old rice cakes, and thought that they emulated thin noodles very well. The small amount of salad with bean sprouts, pickles, chilli, coriander, and Thai Basil was fresh and delicious, cutting through the strong umami flavours of the meat. Overall an excellent dish that I hope all beef-eating readers of this blog can have the opportunity to try.
The All You Can Beef Rice Bowl ($16), was nice but very much overshadowed by the pho beef ribs. The rice bowl features a smoky soy rice, 63 degree egg, and a wagyu beef hamburg katsu patty in bulgogi sauce. Whilst I enjoyed the menchi katsu (the first I’ve found outside of Japan), I thought that the smoked flavour of the rice was a bit too strong, and not to my taste. The 63 degree egg was excellent as always, and the bulgogi sauce was a good pairing for the patty, but neither of us ended up keen enough to finish the rice on account of its smokiness.
The Mama’s Siu Mai was essentially vietnamese pork meatballs in a tomato based sauce, served with bread – a Vietnamese spin on what you would often find on the menu of an Italian restaurant. The meatballs were yummy, as was the sauce and bread, though I think if I’m being honest we could’ve done with only one of this dish or the smoked beef bowl. My partner also wanted to get chips, and I’m glad I said no.
We also rolled for a wild card on the expensive but delicious Taro Coffee ($8). It is a very thick iced drink, of mostly taro with a hint of coffee mixed in, topped with some mixed cereals. It is a special and different experience, and quite good to boot. Sweet but not too sweet, kind of like the taro milk tea of your childhood but all grown up.
The regular coffee is regular.
SECOND VISIT We spaced out our second visit to around twelve months after our first, taking advantage of their seasonally updated menu as well as a chance to try their weekend special.
The weekend special was the Braised Beef Cheeks ($23) in bio kho sauce with potato puree, baked onion, charred enoki, and scallion oil. This was a surprisingly large dish for the price, which we ultimately found we could not finish. The beef cheek was incredibly tender, and melted in the mouth without much need for chewing. The potato mash was rich and smooth, made in a French style. The sauce and the onions imparted a milder taste to this dish, which started off welcoming but towards the end became all a bit samey. I think that ultimately with such a large volume of food in a dish it can help to incorporate a few more flavours, and while we started eating these cheeks with enjoyment we just couldn’t finish it in the end.
Though the braised beef cheeks were a fumble in sameness, the Pork-E Pot ($21.50) was an absolute masterclass in variety. Arriving in three separate bowls in a wooden tray, each component of this meal had a refreshing and delicious uniqueness to it.
The claypot braised pork belly was sweet, rich and herby, with a melted egg tossed in for good measure.
The pickles, herb, and beansprout salad was extremely fresh and an excellent foil for the richer claypot pork and rice dishes, and the ginger and shallot atop the bowl of sticky rice was just a divine use of one of the best condiments from Chinese cooking., with these little buttery but crunchy bits of likely fried lard that just made the whole thing come together.
I just can’t say enough good things about this dish, and I hope that anyone reading this can find their way to Kinx to try it before it leaves their menu.
The girlfriend, now fiancée, enjoyed a very good soy matcha latte, with a small warning from our waitress that it was not very sweet and that we may not like it without sugar. We found the sweetness level perfect however with soy milk.
INTERIM THOUGHTS AFTER TWO VISITS Wow. What a wonderful place. You owe it to yourself to pay them a visit once the southwest is liberated.
THIRD VISIT (Dinner)
We had the opportunity to have dinner at Kinx just as they started to field their dinner menu in August 2022, and thoroughly enjoyed everything they had.
The charsiu pork jowl skewer (3 for $18) with apple slaw was quite good. The fatty meat was soft and melted easily in the mouth, and though jowl is fattier than the leaner cuts of pork used in traditional char siu the fattiness was not at all overpowering. The marinade was again sweeter than your stock standard Chinese char siu but with an excellent charcoally smokiness which was evidence of excellent grilling. The apple slaw was crisp, fresh-tasting, and a good complement to the fatty pork.
The pulled pork & wagyu brisket pad kee mao ($26) with 63 degree egg, gailan, basil, and bean sprouts was excellent. There was a great sense of wok-hei, plentiful vegetables and tender and flavourful meat, though I must admit the fact that there were two different animals in this was lost on me during eating. The use of cheung fan (肠粉), rice noodle rolls (like the things you would fill with prawns or pork for steaming at yum cha) rather than your standard rice noodles was excellent, as these are much softer and more delicate, easily chewed and great for soaking up the chilli and basil flavours. I don’t understand why chángfěn isn’t used more for Thai noodle dishes. It’s not traditional, but it’s absolutely amazing. Kinx’s pad kee mao is my all time favourite pad kee mao, and by extension my all time favourite Thai style stir fried noodle.
My partner was a big fan of the ox tongue taco ($10 each) with salsa verde, pickled onion, herbs, and khao khua. She really enjoyed the “flavours” of it, though she couldn’t quite elaborate on why. Possibly it was the mixture of herbs and avocado that did it for her. The meat had a bit of texture to it as ox tongue is meant to, and it was overall a pleasing dish, though not extremely different like the last ox tongue taco we had at Cafe Paci. I liked the thoughtfulness of providing each taco with two tortillas, though I realised too late that the intention was probably so that each taco would turn into two tacos after consumption and loss of the original taco’s fillings onto the second one.
Finally, the Smoked and Fried Quail with Lime Pepper Dipping Sauce ($25). Not every part of every meal is always amazing, and their nightly special, the smoked and fried quail, was certainly not. Chicken and duck are by far my favourite fowls, and while I like to eat quail eggs, quail as a bird meat is not something that I really go for. That was not the problem with it. What I didn’t like about this was the completely unexpected and weird batter, which was not at all hinted at in the photo (see below). I guess that it makes sense that smoked and fried bird would have a bit of batter on it, but this pale thin batter with a smokiness that tickled the same neurons as staleness just really didn’t do it for me. I really wish that the batter hadn’t been a part of it, as the lime and pepper dipping sauce was actually really tasty, and would’ve gone well with just a regular bird. Not even peeling off the batter could make me feel better about this, and so we ended up having like one and a half pieces each and leaving the majority of the plate untouched. We didn’t even take it home. I could not see a future in which I wanted to eat it.
Compare expectations vs reality. My partner tried to tell them about our disappointment at the quail but she dropped her spaghetti in the worst possible way, and failed to use a compliment sandwich. I fear that my partner might have been a bit rude and I really hope they let us back. We loved every other component of our meal, and Kinx remains one of my top cafes and restaurants in all of Sydney. This quail does not make me want to go back any less, and I will continue to go back and recommend them to anyone who reads this blog.
FOURTH VISIT A quick update for our fourth visit (August 2023)
The Pork Claypot (kho quet – $22) was pretty good and tasty, with a good mix of lean and fatty pork, and steamed rice to soak up the flavourful sauces.
The bun bo hue ($21.50) with extra ribs ($6.50) I really did not love.
