Category: Modern Australian

The term Modern Australian arises when the influence of globalisation, mainly the exotic flavour of South East Asians, is fused with contemporary food.

Vine Bar Double Bay

Vine Bar Double Bay Experience:

We went to Vine in Double Bay by invitation from the restaurant and I.AM.STRATEGIST. Vine has undergone a renovation for their Short Street restaurant in Double Bay. They had their grand reopening party one day before our visit.

Vine Bar have quite a simple menu. I like a simple menu because I don’t need to think hard on what I want.

Baguette | Salted butter – $3

Our kid really loved warm baguette with salted butter. I also couldn’t stop eating them.

½ roast chicken | sauce Provencal | eggplant – $26

This meal is still for the little one. However, being half a chicken, we managed to have a few bites. The semi-boneless chicken was wonderful. It was also the most complete main dish of the night (i.e. you can pretty much have this for dinner without anything else).

Oyster | Mignonette – $4.5 each

You need to order a minimum of three oysters. It’s always nice to start the night with a couple of oysters.

Terrine du jour | brioche | pear chutney | cornichons – $14

The terrine of the day was venison. We could not get enough of it!

Curiously, in this plate we received two slices of toast and not brioche.

Salmon carpaccio | yuzu & trout roe vinaigrette | marjoram | toast – $18

The idea of having salmon carpaccio with yuzu and trout roe vinaigrette was exciting to me. However, I still prefer the terrine over this.

Beef Tri-tip | caramelised fennel | pomegranate – $29

Beef tri-tip is the only red meat dish at Vine Bar that night. Personally, the portion was quite small(It must be noted that being a meat eater, I’m used to gigantic portion of meat). I love the caramelised fennel.

Goat cheese soufflé | peas | nuts | seeds (v) – $25

My wife ordered the goat cheese souffle and seemed to be enjoying it a lot. It reminded me of an Indonesian dish called macaroni schotel.

Crème Brulee | pistachio | Amarena cherry – $12

Pistachio and crème brulee… they are a match made in heaven!

Vine Bar Double Bay

We enjoyed our dinner at Vine Bar Double Bay. Most notably, it was reasonably priced – Nothing is over $30 (except for the shared desserts).

Did you know?

They have a big shared plate for dessert, called Assiette Mignardise. It looked quite tempting when searching in google. However, I had no one to share it with.

Details:

2 Short St, Double Bay NSW 2028

+61 2 9363 0010

http://vinebar.com.au/

Feb 23, 2017
Butcher and the Farmer

Butcher and the Farmer Review:

We went to butcher and the farmer because our little one saw the tram that we could dine in when we first visited Glebe Tramsheds.

The menu is predominantly showcasing different (steak) cuts from different parts of the country.

Steak Tartare with traditional garnishes – $18

It was quite a boring-looking steak tartare. It was pretty decent but definitely not the best out there.

Smoked Beef Short Rib 2 year old grass fed Angus – $37

I love their short rib! I think this is the dish worth coming back for.

Also, it’s worth noting that (just like in other fancy steakhouses), their steak does not come with side dishes and condiments. You have to order them separately.

Grilled Asparagus with lemon and parsley – $8

Grilled asparagus was one of the side dishes we ordered that day. There wasn’t anything worth noting.

Chips – $6

We consider chips to be an integral part of dining experience in great steakhouses. Considering that these restaurants have top-of-the-range cuts, poorly-made chips could ruin the overall dining experience.

I think the chips could carry its own weight.

Spit Roast of the Day 350gr – $25

The spit roast of that day was lamb. It was beautiful. Also, I think it was the best value for your money in the restaurant.

Kids fish and chips – $10

It is probably one of the fanciest fish and chips for kids I’ve ever seen. Instead of battered fish, it was grilled fish.

The final verdict for Buther and the Farmer

Dining in a tram is a big plus for kids (and adults alike!). We are happy that Butcher and the farmer also has nice and reasonably-priced dishes to go with it.

Did you know?

Jumping into their website, I could see a few different menu items for different occasions. They are also open from 8 am – 10 pm 7 days a week. That’s quite a long opening hours!

Rating for Butcher and the Farmer:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $18 – $37 main

Place: 8.0 / 10

Details:

Tramsheds Harold Park, Shop 7

1 Dalgal Way, Forest Lodge NSW 2037

+61 2 8629 8800

http://butcherandthefarmer.com/

Dec 23, 2016
Revolver Café

Revolver Café Review:

A few weeks ago, I met with Mike from Race Brunch Repeat in a Christmas party. In our conversation, he mentioned a café called Revolver in Annandale. Mike actually wrote two articles in his blog about Revolver Café… that has to mean something!

I decided to have a brunch at Revolver Café on a Thursday afternoon. The café was located in a quiet corner in Annandale. However, the café itself is definitely not quiet. They have quite an assortment of dishes for brunch and their baked eggs are quite famous. On this occasion, we had to skip the baked eggs for its special.

Lamb Cutlets – Special – Lamb cutlets with Harissa, quinoa, and feta cheese.

This dish was their weekly (?) special. We were sold on the combination of lamb cutlets and harissa. The cutlets were beautiful and the quinoa was very refreshing. To top it off, they served the lamb cutlets with a side of pita bread. It became this monstrous entrée and main dishes!

Trout Rosti – $17.5 – House smoked, Tasmanian ocean trout on a corn rosti with caper crème fraiche, baby spinach and avocado DF

I love ocean trout… I love smoked ocean trout… I love corn rosti (we, Indonesians, know it as bakwan/dadar jagung). This dish was begging to be chosen!

I was pretty happy looking at the gigantic rosti arrived on my table. It was so big that the trout looked like tiny sprinkles. The caper creme fraiche managed to tie the different elements beautifully.

Boost – $4.0 – Echinacea, Siberian ginseng, spearmint, ginger & yuzu citron honey

Sometimes presentation is equally, if not more, important than the actual taste. It gives you an extra dimension of enjoying something, even if it’s as simple as drinking tea. With Revolver’s boost tea, they give you a little hour glass to let you know when the tea is ready to be enjoyed. Oh, last but not least, the boost tea tasted great!

Iced Coffee – $4 small / $6 large

When it’s 37 degrees outside, you will want this iced coffee!

The final verdict for Revolver Café

With everything costs less than $20 at Revolver Cafe, it is obvious that they are one of the best brunch destinations in Sydney! To top it off, their dishes, drinks, and service were great!

Rating for Revolver Café:

8.0 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $10 – $17.50

Place: 8.0 / 10

Details:

291 Annandale Street, Annandale NSW 2038

+61 2 9555 4727

http://revolver.com.au/

Dec 6, 2016
Pancakes on The Rocks Beverly Hills

Pancakes on The Rocks Review:

Almost seven years ago, I wrote my very first article on All About Food Blog. The article was about Pancakes on The Rocks at its original place at The Rocks, Sydney. The restaurant is now more like a chain restaurant with seven restaurants spread across Sydney and Gold Coast. Pancakes on The Rocks Beverly Hills was quite full when we got there and we were there for early dinner.

Calamari – $9.95 – Crumbed and deep fried, served with tartare sauce and a wedge of lemon.

This calamari is quite possibly the worst dish that you can ever order in Pancakes on The Rocks. If you want something to share at the beginning, I suggest having the wedges or nachos.

Mexicana – $15.95 – Spicy Mexican beef sauce, spicy Tomato salsa, special tomato sauce, tasty cheese, guacamole, sour cream and shallots, served on a bed of mixed lettuce….. One of our best sellers!

Crepes is one of their main attractions at the restaurant. Mexicana is my friend’s favourite there. It was pretty refreshing.

Beef Ribs – $35.95 – Tender and juicy marinated and grilled in tangy barbeque sauce. Served with golden potato wedges and mixed lettuce. Add sweet chilli $2.00 Add sour cream $2.00

The price of beef ribs has increased by around $10 from when I started writing food blog. Unfortunately, this increase in price is not followed by increase in portion size nor increase in quality. The only difference was the wedges. Instead of the fluffy wedges, they now had this curly wedges. We were quite unsure about the shape, but it turned out to be better than the fluffy ones.

The Ultimate – $15.95 – Crepes filled with cream cheese and sultanas, served with raspberry coulis and vanilla ice cream.

The ultimate is probably the only reason why I kept coming back to Pancakes on The Rocks. As the name suggested.. it’s THE ULTIMATE!

The final verdict for Pancakes on The Rocks Beverly Hills

I guess 6 years without any meaningful updates to the menu did not really hurt the number of customers visiting Pancakes on The Rocks. However, it was probably my least favourite branch so far.

Did you know?

Beverly Hills in Sydney is vastly different than Beverly Hills in California.

Rating for Pancakes on The Rocks Beverly Hills:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 6.5 / 10

Price: $12 – $36

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

Corner of King Georges and Stoney Creek Roads, Beverly Hills 2209

+61 2 9580 7200

http://www.pancakesontherocks.com.au/

Nov 25, 2016
The Henson

The Henson Review:

In the last few years, we have seen a trend in Sydney where pubs tried to transform their image to a more family-oriented establishment. One of the more successful pubs to have transformed their image is The Henson in Marrickville. They transformed the back of the pub into this family-friendly garden with a spacious place for the little ones to play games including ball pit.

This week’s review of the Henson actually came from our two visits to the restaurant: one in the afternoon and one at night time.

‘K.F.C.’ Haloumi w smokey BBQ sauce – $8

The Haloumi cheese was shaped like chicken nuggets. It was looking okay-ish until we tasted the smokey BBQ sauce… whoa!

Avocado and Lime Smash – $6 and White corn chips -$4

We were planning to just order the avocado and lime smash. Then, the lady at the counter asked us whether we wanted the chips to go with the avocado. I guess it was pretty reasonable to have the chips!

½ Kilo Buttermilk Chicken Wings, verde picante – $17

The buttermilk chicken wings were the reason why I wanted to visit the Henson in the first place. In the picture below it looked like a regular chicken wings. However, I think it was the salsa sauce that got everyone hooked… just like the smokey BBQ sauce for the Haloumi cheese… better yet, mix the salsa with BBQ sauce!

‘Knuckle’ Sandwich – $19 – wagyu brisket, fennel slaw, swiss cheese, smokey mayo on rye + chips

I had the sandwich on my second trip to the Henson. I think it was the perfect lunch meal. It wasn’t the ‘traditional’ pull-apart brisket but it was more of a soft-textured beef. It was pretty good, but the sandwich was a tad small for me.

Dirty Bird – $26 – ½ flame grilled ten spice free-range chicken, yellow rice & raw slaw

My wife ordered the dirty bird. It was quite big and quite frankly too spicy for my taste buds. It’s also quite rare to have yellow rice in Sydney.

There is quite an extensive list of kids menu at the Henson. The two dishes below were from that list.

Beef Burger w/ cheese + chips – $10

Macaroni with Sugo Sauce + cheese – $6

Milkshake – $4 (kid’s size) – Salted Caramel, Real Vanilla Malt

The picture below is for the adult-sized milkshake.

The final verdict for The Henson

The Henson is a great pub restaurant to go to if you have small children in the party. We think that the finger food was a slightly better value than the main meal.

Did you know?

You should try their mulled cider ($6)… it’s a pretty good drink to be enjoyed in winter time! Also, there is a condiment called Tamari… get that! So Good!

Rating for The Henson:

8.0 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $14 – $30 per main dish

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

91 Illawarra Road, Marrickville NSW 2204

+61 2 9569 5858

http://www.thehenson.com.au/

Aug 9, 2016
Woodland House

Review:

Woodland House is a two-hat restaurant (based on 2016 Good Food Guide) located in the city of Melbourne – Prahran, to be exact. They have a 10-course, fixed-price degustation menu of $155. Since it’s quite a lengthy list, I will get on right away.

Purple potato chip

It was quite an interesting amuse bouche. Three purple paper-like things were neatly arranged on a log. We were quite hesitant to eat it at first – the risk of looking pretty stupid before we even ate anything. It felt like munching an edible paper – which was quite fun!

Danish and Sourdough rolls with butter

This is available throughout the course should you want them. The Danish is probably why I would want to visit the restaurant again in the future… They were just so good!

Foie gras, kiwi

It looked like a very tiny croquette with a little kiwi decoration at the top. Expectations were quite high after this strong start.

Charred abalone, wood ear, wasabi and ponzu

Well, nothing really wows more than having an abalone as your first course, doesn’t it? It was probably one of the best starts of a degustation course I have ever had. Having ‘abalone’ in your dish’s title usually guarantees an instant favourite. This was also my first charred (and/or grilled) abalone ever.

Rock flathead, puffed quinoa, toasted corn, pickled cucumber

There was a bit of theatrics when the waitress poured the toasted corn sauce (?) into the plate for the second course. There was also a nice crunchy texture from the quinoa. However, it was clearly overshadowed by the abalone.

South Australian marron, chicken liver, finger lime

Third course was quite simple and artsy. To be honest, it was quite small for my tummy to realise what it was. There was a little crunch from the veggies and a strong chicken liver flavour. The marron itself was nicely done.

Pea bavarois, lemon sorbet, almond

Fourth course was the in-between course. To cleanse our palate for the main course that was about to come. It was quite a complex dish with quite a strong lemon sorbet.

Master Kobe beef, roasted onion, nameko and miso

Just like the appetiser, the main course also started off with a bang. Master Kobe is the highest marbled beef that you can get, with a score of MB9+. To illustrate how special (and expensive!) it is, the plate was minimally designed with only three small slices of meat. It went really well with the miso paste and nameko mushrooms.

Kangaroo, grilled kohlrabi, quandong and native fruits

Despite boasting quite a number of native Australian ingredients, this sixth course was a miss for us. The dish was quite bitter and very sweet… quite interesting I must say, but unfortunately it was a bit too strong for me.

White rabbit saddle and leg, turnip, mustard and yeast, polenta

It was nice to see carrot in the same plate as rabbit. The polenta could use a bit more crunch, but it wasn’t as disastrous as the previous one. However, given that the standard of the first few dishes were so high, this one was more on the ‘average’ side.

Coolea, walnut and apple cider

We had a doubt about what was actually in our dish. It was listed as above, but couldn’t work out the walnut and apple cider in the dish. It was quite a heavy one before desserts… or was it a savoury dessert?

Milk chocolate flan, toasted rice, fairy floss

Having a fairy floss was always fun. Although I’m not really sure how you eat the fairy floss with flan and toasted rice. It was more of a decoration than the integral part of the dish.

Fig leaf and smoked coconut sorbet, candied ginger, wild fennel

Now this is a dessert which elements worked really well together. There were quite a lot of elements that were in-sync. It was cold, slightly spicy, crunchy, sweet and sour at the same time.

They also gave us three kinds of petit fours: a jelly, nutty chocolate, and something that looked like dutch pancake.

The final verdict for Woodland House

Woodland House showed some flashes of brilliance in their 10-course degustation. However, it was apparent why they fell short of their third hat. Specifically, the sixth course, kangaroo, was a tad too adventurous for us.

Did you know?

Woodland House used to be known as Jacques Reymond. It was an iconic restaurant that was a three-hat restaurant when the chef for 23 years, Jacques Reymond, retired in 2013.

They also serve vegetarian degustation menu that I have uploaded to our facebook page. The price for 10-course vegetarian menu is $140.

Rating for Woodland House:

8.0 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $155 for degustation

Place: 9.0 / 10

Details:

78 Williams Road, Prahran, VIC 3181

+61 3 9525 2178

http://www.woodlandhouse.com.au/

Apr 4, 2016