Category: Rosebery

Mentmore and Morley Review:

I walked past this restaurant pretty often but have not been to it until recently. The price point at Mentmore and Morley isn’t exactly within my ‘office lunch’ budget. We had a chance to taste it when one of our colleagues had a farewell party.

They serve quite a modern-esque Australian cafe dishes with dishes like haloumi and polenta, burgers, and poke. They also serve quite a few local beers.

M&M Burger & Sweet Potato Fries – $18 – 160g prime beef pattie, bacon, provolone, dill pickle, tomato chutney, cos leaves

My friend told me that the burger was pretty good. He would rate it a ‘7’. You can also choose chicken burger instead of beef pattie.

Polenta & Haloumi – $18 – fried polenta, haloumi, asparagus, avocado, Raw Sisterhood sauerkraut salad, fried egg, yuzu dressing

This dish is very pretty! I’m not usually a veggie eater, but I would gladly eat this dish!

Caesar Salad – $14/18 – anchovy aioli, cos lettuce leaves, streaky bacon, grana parmesan, free range egg, sourdough croutons

If you are more into the traditional dish, then the Caesar salad is for you.

Chilled Soba with Salmon – $16/20 – Tasmanian flaked salmon, chilled soba noodles, cucumber, spring onion, sesame seeds, chia seeds, wakame salad edamame, dashi broth, ginger & shallot dressing

Mentmore and Morley had a nice twist to the Japanese cold soba. The dish does look predominantly green and fresh.

Salmon Poke Bowl – $18 – with brown rice, edamame, wakame, enoki, avocado, ginger & soy mirin dressing

Poke bowl is part of the ‘dish of the day’ on the menu board.

The Great Roast – $15/18 – Beets, parsnip, carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato, shallots, mushrooms, sunflower seeds, pine nuts peas, salsa verde & goats cheese

I’m sure if all salad can look this good, kids will be happy to eat them!

Cape Byron Sirloin Steak – $28 – crushed kipfler potatoes, greek salad, salsa verde & jus

This is the dish that I actually ordered. The steak was grilled to my liking. There was probably a tad too much salt on it even after dipping in Salsa Verde. The crushed kipfler potatoes went really well with the jus.

The final verdict for Mentmore and Morley

Mentmore and Morley served pretty dishes. All of our dishes had that aura of ‘Oh… I don’t mind eating that although I don’t like what’s in it’. However, it is still beyond my normal office lunch budget.

Do you think I should go?
If I don’t live in the area, I probably would go here for weekend brunch.

Rating for Mentmore and Morley:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $18 – $28 main dish

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

55 Mentmore Rd, Rosebery 2018

+61 2 9697 3617

Three Blue Ducks Rosebery Review:

When I first visited Three Blue Ducks in Rosebery for brunch, I saw someone in the counter that I felt was quite familiar. After a quick browse, apparently Andy from Masterchef Australia has joined Three Blue Ducks as a partner for the Rosebery venue. Being a Three Blue Ducks restaurant and ex-Kitchen by Mike venue, I placed quite a massive expectation for it. Regrettably, that first visit was forgettable.

In my second visit, I was there with my colleagues for an office lunch. Three Blue Ducks Rosebery has a different set of menu for lunch.

We ordered almost all of their starters. The two dippings were pretty good. The sourdough was the best value for money. However $20 for roasted veggie bowl seemed to be a bit too expensive. Considering that they also served vegetarian main dish for only $18.

Iggy’s sourdough with butter – $5

Sweet potato hummus, charred onions, black sesame & focaccia – $13

Babaganoush, toasted almonds, sumac, chives and focaccia – $13

Roasted veggie bowl with grains & fermented veggies & dukkah – $20

Amongst our group, we also ordered almost all of their main dishes. I wouldn’t be talking about most of them, but I’ll just show you their pictures. Personally, I ordered their special of the day. It was a rather big squid with pearl couscous, vegetables and a very yummy sauce.

According to my colleagues, the piri piri chicken was the best one. They actually got half a chicken! Charred occy, kingfish and sirloin steak were pretty good. Poke bowl was probably the one to forget. I also agreed with the justification for the poke bowl.

Poke bowl – raw fish, cucumber, avocado, radish, kimchi, brown rice, seaweed & softboiled egg – $27

Piri piri chicken, spiced yoghurt, chickpeas, parsley, tomatoes and preserved lemon – $32

Charred occy, corn, grapefruit, pickled chilli, mixed leaves & fermented radish – $28

Wood roasted kingfish on the bone, sweet potato puree, charred broccoli and corn, soy mirin – $34

400gr charcoal grilled pasture fed sirloin steak, burnt herb salsa, pickled onion & mustard – $34

The final verdict for Three Blue Ducks Rosebery

Three Blue Ducks is probably one of the better restaurants in Rosebery. However, given how good our dining experience in the Bronte one was, this one was subpar.

Did you know?

Looking at their website, there are actually three blue ducks restaurants in Australia (the other one being in Byron Bay).

Rating for Three Blue Ducks Rosebery:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $18 – $34 main dish

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

1 / 85 Dunning Avenue, Rosebery 2018

+61 2 9389 0010

http://www.threeblueducks.com/rosebery/home-rosebery

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Unfortunately, Kitchen by Mike has closed its doors in 2016. Chef Mike opens a new restaurant called No. 1 Bent St.

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Review:

Kitchen by Mike fantastically transformed a very old warehouse into a rustic, communal-type restaurant. Interestingly enough, they only served breakfast and lunch seven days a week. Their menu is constantly changing depending on the seasonal product available on the market. Instead of the usual table service with menu, Kitchen by Mike displayed all dishes they cooked today in a display table.

On the left most of the table were stacks of sourdough bread and a fattening-looking butter. It was a quite pricey Sourdough slice and butter ($3.5). However since my last sourdough disaster, this one tasted so damn good. To top it off, the butter was delicately soft and tasty.

The only meaty dishes for Kitchen by Mike were the first couple of dishes on the table. It was really hard to miss the Ham, Cumberland sauce and Champ since it was intimidatingly massive. The addition of Cumberland sauce gave it a nice and sweet flavour and champ (mashed potatoes with spring onion) added a smooth complexity of the mashed. At a price point of $11.5, this dish is really worth buying.

For the same price, we could also opt for Roasted chicken, sweet corn, and Harissa. Harissa is a chili (piri piri) sauce originated from Libya or Tunisia.

The bulk of their dishes are salad. They are both cheaper and vary in colour and taste. Although I am not a big fan of it, I still managed to order two dishes. Cabbage and walnut apple salad ($4.5) was the better of them two. It was a crunchy type salad with delectably refreshing. Woodfired butternut squash, pomegranate and coyo was the more expensive one at $5.5 and not the one I particularly liked.

Kitchen by Mike also catered for small eater where you could get a whole range of sandwich, tart and tartine from the next part of the menu.

Finally, dessert time! There were five options for this but our eventual choice went to Olive oil sponge cake with strawberry ($7) since we really couldn’t take that much for a lunch. I remembered my son really loved this dish but I just couldn’t get past our earlier dishes.

Even after tasting that many dishes, there were still a lot more that we didn’t try this time. There was a Chorizo and Chickpea soup in a pot that we could not see. Other salads, including Watermelon Salad, looked oh-so-healthy. There was also a massive looking pizza that was most likely be Margherita Pizza.

The final verdict for Kitchen by Mike

Kitchen by Mike is interestingly different than any other restaurants. Not only they are closed for dinner (with the exception of private functions), they also didn’t have a fixed menu. You can see and choose the dishes you want to eat.

Did you know?

Kitchen by Mike is connected to a furniture show room, Koskela. This joint space created a spacious effect to the restaurant.

Details:

85 Dunning Avenue, Rosebery NSW 2018

+61 2 9045 0910