Tag: salad

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
Italian

Pane e Vino Trattoria – Croydon NSW Restaurant Review

Pane e Vino Trattoria was actually not the Croydon pizza restaurant I had intended to visit, something I realised only as we drove past Mario’s Pizzeria. In spite of this, and the tail end of a protracted URTI, we had a pretty good meal.

My partner is on a bit of a health kick and requested the insalata di rucola ($17), a plate of mostly rocket drizzled with vinaigrette and with some walnut , parmesan, and a few pear slices mixed in. She enjoyed it, though I could not appreciate it much apart from the vinegar.

The rustica ($26) was a good pizza. Very tasty, well topped, and with a very crispy and chewy crust – a trait that is surely a class characteristic and not unique to this particular topping offering.

The pistaccio pizza ($27) is somewhat of a house specialty, and much more subdued in flavour compared to the rustica. As this pizza relied on subtlety rather than a combination of highly seasoned meats, I had difficulty really appreciating it at the time of consumption, apart from the creamy textures and excellent base. My partner however really enjoyed this pizza, going so far as to not even pick off the prawns. I hope to try it again in a more sinus-clear state.

Pane e Vino Trattoria
21 The Strand, Croydon NSW 2132

Categories
Australian Fast Food

Chargrill Charlie’s – Drummoyne NSW Restaurant Review

Our colleague from India is moving interstate to Victoria, and asked us for a suggestion of the pinnacle of Western cuisine to try in Sydney before he leaves. This was my friend’s suggestion. This review is from a visit to the Drummoyne store, but I assume can be applied broadly to any of the outlets in the chain.

The half chicken & chips ($15.90) was actually quite good. The chicken was very similar in flavour profile to that of a rotisserie chicken from Coles or Woolworths, but much moister and fresher. Charlie’s advertised smoke-free charcoal cooking technique did produce a less burnt product than for example El Jannah, whilst still retaining some charcoal flavour.

The chicken roll with mayo and gravy ($13.90) was very moist and flavourful, with enough tomato and lettuce inside to create a sense of healthiness similar to that of a KFC twister.

Full disclosure, I had this charlie’s chop salad ($7.90) after a day in the fridge. One of the problems I faced ordering at Chargrill Charlie’s was that very few of the online reviews actually mentioned anything about the chicken. Most reviewers raved only about the salad, but again without any direction as to which one to get. This was fine. I think it would’ve been bette rwarm.

I’d never had Chargrill Charlie’s before. It seems like Red Rooster for the Harris Farm crowd. The quality was pretty good, but I don’t know that I’d recommend it to a visiting cardiologist, dignitary, or ex-teen heartthrob Justin Bieber as a representation of peak Australian cuisine.

I’ve also been informed by my friend that her peak recommendations for this place are: “marinated chicken drumstick” and “avocado vinagarette salad”, and that I ordered the wrong thing.

Chargrill Charlie’s Drummoyne
172 Lyons Rd, Drummoyne NSW 2047

Categories
Café

The Garden Berry – Berry NSW Restaurant Review

Il Locale’s extremely limited business hours meant that we ate at Berry’s The Garden Berry (apparently their official name) for lunch instead.

This scone ($7) with cream and jam was quite expensive, but actually really very delicious, better, in my opinion, than some cafes that might do scones as a main attraction. The scone was warm and fresh and soft, and the jam was just out of this world. Just take a look at those chunks of berry. The value proposition is better if you order two scones for $10 (with an appropriate increase in the quantity of cream and jam), and it is a regret that I will have to live with because I really wanted another one.

I can’t say that I loved this Chicken Cotoletta ($26), self-described by the restaurant as “a fancy chicken schnitzel”. Though the sourdough breading is clearly and visually greened up by garlic, parmesan and parsley, I couldn’t really taste a huge difference in quality compared to just a normal schnitzel. The meat of the chicken itself was also not exactly top tier in terms of moistness, and I know it’s going to sound like I have a complaint about every element of this dish, but for some reason the chips just didn’t hit right – perhaps undersalted? (Recognising there was salt on the table for us to add ourselves)

Back to a happier state, this trout salad ($25.50) was excellent. My resident at work (JDK – seriously a great guy and a great future doctor for the local area) had recently made me a hot smoked salmon salad, and I wanted to replicate that experience at The Garden Berry. This house smoked Tasmanian ocean trout was equally wonderful, moist and appropriately oily and smoky, with a generous serving to boot. I loved the crispy capers and roasted leak which added textural and taste interest to the underlying greenery. I didn’t love the random tiny potatoes, which I felt didn’t really have any flavour do them, but my partner did and was happy that she got to eat more than her fair share of them. The dill and horseradish dressing was not particularly perceptible, but did add to the flavour of the potatoes. Overall and excellent salad.

COMMENTS

We chose to sit outside (in the garden, in Berry), so I guess I shouldn’t complain at the random spider that we saw climbing up the pole next to us. During our lunch we had no less than four groups of people rotate through the table next to us, including a couple who moved to an indoors table, and another couple who left without ordering. Their server was kind enough to offer them suggestions as to where else to eat in Berry. Super nice of him.

Get the scones.

The Garden Berry
103 Queen St, Berry NSW 2535
(02) 4464 1920

Categories
Café

Beans & Barrels – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

As a champion of the local Parramatta food scene and of all-day menus in general, I was excited to hear Beans & Barrels recommended online, and promptly took my sleep-deprived nocturnist crew comprising of CSJPH (and CSJPH’s SRMO), MJT, ES on a long 10 minute drive and 10 minute walk the next opportunity that I had.

Their all-day menu was quite extensive, with a number of highly customisable options that were available at any time of day.

I had the protein salad ($16), oddly named as it essentially featured all that you see above but without the actual protein components. It is a salad of beetroot humus, cherry tomatoes, spiced sweet potato, shaved fennel, dukkah, rocket, green apple, and lemon mustard dressing – completely inoffensive, relatively fresh, but not quite what comes to mind when “protein” is in the headline. To address this deficiency I added to it some very nice and juicy grilled chicken ($6) and two poached egg ($4) making it a good but $26 salad. I did end up leaving some of the greenery on my plate even having finished my additional proteins, which may either be testament to how much greenery there was (a good thing) or how much more protein was needed to balance it out.

I don’t know that I’ll come back, while good it was just a bit difficult to get to after a twelve and a half hour long night shift, but perhaps it will make its way into the rotation alongside our Parramatta favourites.

Beans & Barrels
Shop 6/180 George St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 9635 3877