Archives for February 2013

We’re on a roll here at Painting the Bridge world, two King Street eateries in one weekend. Will the fun never stop?

We had been to a matinee movie session because that is what children under 12 and grown ups over 55 do on weekends. It was a new French movie called Amour and it was a harrowing but bizarrely uplifting story about love and death. Afterwards we felt the need to take solace in food. Chedi Thai was next on the list but unfortunately the matinee session had kicked us back out onto King Street in the hiatus between Thai food shifts. We ummed and ahhed for a little while on the footpath. Should we go home, eat leftovers, and watch Breaking Bad? Not a bad option, but as our new motto is “No Surrender!” we decided that we would not retreat from the task. We’d just put it off a bit, by going to Glebe to visit the aged G-Rents with an offering of luridly coloured profiteroles. After a pleasant couple of hours spent waiting for photos of the great granddaughter to download onto the ipad, and discussing who had collapsed this week in the retirement village, we said our goodbyes and slipped off for a fortifying pilsener and a pretzel at a Czech bar in Glebe Point Road. Pretzels suddenly make sense when they are too hot to hold and you slather them with butter.

Fortified with beer and stodge we wandered back towards Newtown, through the University. As we strolled down the main mall, being harassed by willy-willys, we discussed what our approach to Thai restaurants should be. There were three basic options on the table:

1. Go random,
2. Always order No. 37 on the menu, or
3. Always order Pad Thai.

We decided on option 2 for no very good reason. I just like the number 37.

We got to Chedi about 6:30 and chose a window table so we could watch the passers-by who are especially entertaining at this time of year. With shirtless crazy people and those in Mardi Gras pre-qualification mode to watch, who needs television?

After Strop had quizzed the waitress on the correct pronunciation of the word Chedi, and had been answered with the information that it refers to the pointy shaped thing on top of Thai temples, we opened our menus to discover that there were no numbers. This threw our plans into disarray and I decided that it meant we could order anything we wanted, but Strop stuck to the plan and immediately started counting. She takes her own rules seriously.

Number 37 turned out to be chilli basil duck, and that was enough to get my agreement. We also ordered a salad with spicy beef and a bottle of Tasmanian Pinot Grigio. The food came quickly and it was yummy. Suddenly we remembered what all the fuss is about with Thai food. When it’s good, it’s good. We were so chuffed that we decided to have dessert as well. As I looked over the menu again I noticed that chilli basil duck seemed to be a long way into the menu. It was at the bottom of the second page.

“Ah, Strop, are you sure that was number 37?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s the 37^th main.”

“What about the starters?”

“I didn’t count them.”

“But, the rule is number 37 on the menu, not number 37 of the mains. What if you had an entree as a main. It stuffs everything up,” I said, perfectly reasonably.

“Shut up,” said Strop.

I won on the desserts though. My banana fritters were a clear winner over her black rice and coconut milk.

Still, overall Chedi Thai was very nice.

Next up might be a Japanese place which may have closed down. Not sure of it’s name.

I don’t know if anyone else has spotted the fatal flaw at the heart of our quest. The problem is that as we are always moving along King Street, we won’t be able to go back to the nice places we find – well not for a couple of years at least. However this flaw will not be an issue with Noon and Night Thai Cuisine, as we won’t need to go back there.

The Noon and Night outing was a spur of the moment decision at the end of a busy week and weekend, with another busy week in prospect. We were also keen to get on to our first Thai and to try our first odd number (yes I know, sad but true). So we trooped up the hill to the King Street ridge, picked up a six-pack of Stella and made our way to Number 45. There has always been a Thai restaurant of some kind here, for as far back as the internet can remember.

Great names such as Thai Times 9, Thai Times Newtown, and now Noon and Night Thai Cuisine, have occupied this site. Cheap and cheerful is the first impression. Formica tables, smiling waitress… not much else really. It’s located at the cheap eats, student clientele, end of the King Street food market, so we weren’t expecting anything very much, but hoping for a surprise. We imagined that Noon and Night would serve as a baseline against which all the other Thai restaurants can by judged. Unfortunately it sets the bar very low. Strop and I had a quick discussion about how we should approach all the Thai restaurants that lie in front of us. Do we just take the opportunity to expand our (admittedly limited) knowledge of Thai food, or do we compare dishes (always order Pad Thai or something), or do we go systematic (always order No. 37 on the menu for instance). In the end we decided on a bit of each, ordering Pad Thai and No. 37 (Noon and Night Chicken) as well as a prawn and papaya salad from the specials board. Now we won’t have to make a decision on a system of comparison until we get to the next Thai restaurant.

Unfortunately the food was ordinary, especially the salad, which came with whole garlic cloves and large flaps of chilli that had obviously not made it to the spinning blade end of the food processor. Oh well, at least it was cheap.

We finished our beers and headed outside into the King Street twilight. Strop consoled herself by photographing wool in the shop window next door and I found the strangest piece of art in the world, so the evening wasn’t a total loss.

When we tell friends about the quest they often say things like, “Really? All of them? Are you sure? Some of them aren’t very good, you know.” Up until now, I thought our pessimistic friends were exaggerating a bit, or maybe our standards were too low. The first four eateries were all very pleasant, but maybe we are just easy to please. Noon and Night has filled me with confidence again. It’s not us, it’s just that the food has been pretty good. Up till now.

It has been a strange couple of weeks here in Painting-the-Bridge land, dominated by the long-expected and extremely sad death of a dear friend. So our pre-arranged date for a show at The Vanguard on the night before the funeral did not feel like the right thing to be doing. But we were wrong, it was exactly the right thing to do. We were cheered up, and diverted, and we remembered how much Gordon loved live music too. The food wasn’t bad either.

It all began as a wish to get together with some dog-park friends, to have a meal and catch up on post Christmas carrying-ons. Dinner was proposed, venues discussed, we said we’d never been to The Vanguard, they said they go all the time. Let’s go there. This was before Painting the Bridge leapt off our synapses and onto the interwebs, and we have only just got around to it because things move very slowly in dog-park time. Serendipitously, it slotted in perfectly with the quest timetable if not exactly perfectly with our lives.

So on a Wednesday night Strop and I found ourselves duded-up and queueing to get stamped at The Vanguard with Amanda and Michael, and their Melbourne friend Fiona. Apparently we were going to the launch of an EP and the star was someone called Jess Starreveld. No, I hadn’t heard of her either, but then I wouldn’t expect to as she was born after 1960. There were lots of young people going too, and a few other old people who turned out to be parents of the band members. It was that kind of show, people were there to enjoy themselves.

There were three acts, the sets were short and sharp (all gold, no mould) and the bands got bigger as the night went on. The rhythm sections and the harmonies were tighter than the proverbial. They probably all had multiple degrees from The Con. I was pleased however, that the resident guitar hero was an old fart of our vintage who seemed able to wipe the stage with the young whipper-snappers around him. The music ranged from gospel to folk to funk, and my only criticism was that they needed to relax into the groove a bit more in the funk numbers. [Strop: He’s searching hard for something to criticise, I loved the groove.]

Between sets we ate and talked about the burdens of dog ownership, council rangers, whether there was a point to city farms, how to build a Moroccan garden entirely from materials bought at Bunnings, and where is that glass of Pinot Gris I asked for 15 minutes ago. The food was generally good, certainly much better than we expected after our last venue-slash-restaurant outing to The Basement. I  couldn’t go past something called Samoan Kokoda (which turned out to be raw salmon in coconut milk and other good things) and Pork 2 Ways . I’m a sucker for things more than 1 way, although it did seem that only 2 ways was a bit on the lazy side. Still the second way was black pudding so you can’t complain about that. Strop had Gnocchi and Prawn Sausage. The sides were mushrooms and potatoes. The mushrooms were dripping with butter and garlic and the potatoes didn’t last long either. For dessert we had a kind of tasting plate of all the desserts which meant we could avoid making decisions.

After the show we stumbled back onto King Street with full tummies and big smiles. It was what we needed.

Next up we will be breaking new ground 2 ways: crossing the road and our first Thai restaurant. There is some confusion about the name at this stage (it is either Thai Time Newtown or Thai & Night we think) but this is bound to be clarified by the time we sit down and open the menus next week.

We went to see the film Argo before dinner, which was a good choice because the next day it won a Bafta or a Grammy, or something (I wasn’t really paying attention). The film was good, a slick well made thriller without too much jingoism. The best bit was Alan Arkin’s schtick as a hollywood producer trying to explain what the fake movie Argo was about to a persistent reporter. In the end he comes out with “Argo… fuck yourself.” Maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, after the movie food was called for, and a date with Doughboy beckoned. On the way up a rainy King Street, Strop decided that we should count all the restaurants between Church Street and Doughboy. I didn’t think this was a great idea. Seeing the scale of the challenge might be too much for our puny reserves of resolve. I’m more of a one step at a time kind of guy, but in the interest of marital harmony I joined in the count. We confused ourselves a couple of times by shouting out sightings on opposite sides of the road at the same time but eventually we came up with a mutually agreed and arbitrarily vetted figure of 48.

So we might get back to Church Street by Christmas. I knew it was a bad idea to look too far ahead.

We stumbled into Doughboy a bit damp and overwhelmed by the task ahead of us, but at least all the counting had made us hungry. The restaurant was empty at that stage, so we plonked our bottle of red on a table as far as we could get from the video game machine. Doughboy is a pizza joint (and a chain), not fine dining, so we adjusted our expectations accordingly. But it was very relaxed, the guy behind the counter was very friendly, taking our order at the table, bringing water and wine glasses and playing a fine soundtrack of classic Rolling Stones.

While we waited for the pizzas and salad to arrive I was given the task of quizzing Strop to prepare her for a job interview the next day. I enjoyed it because a could ask a nice public servant-y type question then tune out and check out the decor or Twitter or listen to the conversations of the pizza delivery guys, while Strop waffled on about outcomes and expectations and… sorry I missed the rest. The decor is a bit Andy Warhol meets Mambo, but the art is better than Rubyos.

The pizzas were very good without being great. The crusts were nice and thin and crisp but the toppings were pretty standard. We had cheated and had a Doughboy home delivery earlier in the week (for research purposes only) and those had been a bit over-done which was disappointing. But on the night of our visit the pizzas were fine and I’d happily go back again. After the pizza I made the mistake of assuming that because Doughboy had their own brand of ice cream in neat little 1 serve pots, I should try one. I shouldn’t have.

There was lots of lightening and rain as we walked back past the 48 eateries (Newtown’s gutters were working overtime). But we managed to put the task ahead in perspective, and we’re quite looking forward to the first of many Thai restaurants. But that will have to wait until after the Vanguard which is next up.

When we got home our perfect evening was somewhat marred by an unseemly argument about whose responsibility it is to find cat vomit under the bed. I’ll just say that I don’t think I can be held responsible for what is concealed behind the overhang of the bedspread, and leave it at that.

First up we need to acknowledge those who have gone before us into the King Street Culinostromy. Conquering King Street has blogged her youthful way around the strip before us. So we must face the fact that we are not pioneers but merely pilgrims travelling a well worn path. I believe however that our pilgrimage still has validity, our quest differs from Conquering’s in that we bring a winning combination to the table: an obsessive structure, poor research and not much knowledge of food. She has the runs on the board, but we still have the job in front of us.

So on to Rubyos. This place is something of an anomaly, it is an outlier, it doesn’t look as if it belongs in Newtown. There is the name for a start. What does it mean? Is it some ethnicity I’m unfamiliar with (no shortage of those)? Is it one of those weird invented combinations of two peoples names? Then there is the graphic style… the tastefully restored corner heritage building, the sparse interior with Miles Davis soundtrack and the weird paintings of large eyed girls (one of whom seems to be sporting a giant cold-sore). But it has survived and prospered at this end of King Street while lesser establishments have withered and died. So it must have something going for it.

Well, yes indeed it does – firstly the staff are excellent, friendly and attentive. Secondly the menu is basically made up of a collection of entrees for sharing. That right there is Strop’s idea of heaven. She is very big on small serves and the whole sharing thing, especially if I’ve ordered dessert and she hasn’t. There is lots of wine by the glass and a good cocktail list as well.

The ‘Grazing’ menu is eclectic. It combines European, Asian, American and Middle Eastern influences. Is fusion the correct term I wondered as I tried to decide between the isan style turkey laab, the Javanese chicken breast and the French charcuterie plate. As there were only two of us we were unable to try all the yummy things being offered. We were also limited by Rule Number 5, however when we checked the fine print it was clear that the $100 limit didn’t include drinks or anything ordered before all participants have arrived at the venue. So we settled on oz Chardonnay for him and frog Beaujolais for her to accompany the charcuterie plate, green pea and pistachio felafel, green beans and feta, and rendang coated lamb rump. The felafel was the stand out dish of the evening – bright green and mushy sweet on the inside, dark brown and crispy on the outside. Double yum. The lamb was a bit disappointing, hotter than it needed to be and lacking that characteristic aromatic rendang-ness.

When it came to dessert we neatly side-stepped Rule Number 5 by choosing Dessert Cocktails. The Lemon Meringue Pie and the Toblerone went down very well. As Strop ran her finger around the inside of the glass and licked off the last traces of her Toblerone, she summed up the evening, “We’d neverly normal do this, would we?”

That is the power of the quest.

Next up will be Doughboy Pizza at number 30.