Archives for March 2013

Crime and Sustenance on Good Friday – 107 Thai La-Ong 2

March 30, 2013 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

In which your humble correspondents plough onwards through the thick of Kings Street Thai-foodery only to come hard up against the gritty underbelly of Sydney street crime.

First things first though, before we get all gritty and crimey. Thai La-Ong 2 is not so much a sequel to Thai La-Ong, as an annexe of it – with yellow walls instead of green. The menu is the same, the food is the same, with the same degree of deliciousness, the staff are the same – we had the same waiter, and the bill is of the same degree of lowness that you will be shaking your head in wonder. Go to either. They are good. Go on, go now, you can choose between yellow and green.

You can only tell them apart by the yellow walls

We are joined by Stropolina tonight to entertain Fiona and Renald, guests from Canberra. They are ex-neighbours and old friends, whose kids and ours used to ricochet from house to house in a tight little playgroup pinball. Until they all grew up and began bouncing around the planet instead. Fiona and Renald are keen to join us on the quest, and we are reasonably confident that Thai La-Ong 2 will at least be good enough that we are unlikely to risk permanent damage to the friendship by inflicting it on them.

We are greeted with yellow walls and prawn crackers at the restaurant. It is smaller and emptier than it’s partner, which is good as none of us have 20-20 hearing anymore and there is a fair bit of catching up to be done. Hilarity ensues, with tales of old friends and new lovers, Bambi and Thumper, twitterpation – nothing to do with the internet apparently, summer camp employment, young people in general, and arguments over the menu. We have already tried number 37 up the road, so should we go for 73? Or maybe 10 (3+7 – I had to have it explained to me). Then Renald arced up, demanding a whole snapper, and Strop took command of the ordering to prevent an outbreak of chaos. She was doing relatively well until she got distracted by the shiney little shrines dotted around the restaurant and felt the need for a bit of cultural enrichment and education. Soon she had the waiter stretching his limited English vocabulary trying to explain the various statues, pictures and little fabric banners with green crocodiles on them. Ironically we learned that Thai crocodiles have a propensity for gobbling up cash at the same time that a couple of home-grown Newtown crocodiles were helping themselves to Fiona’s cash.

The first we are aware that something is wrong is after the young couple seated behind Strop and Fiona leave abruptly without ordering. Then the manager from Thai Riffic next door comes in and the staff gather at the front of the restaurant. They are suspicious, they ask Strop and Fiona to check their bags, the ones hanging invitingly open on the backs of their chairs.

Shit.

At least the Newtown crocodiles only took the cash. They left the wallets, cards and phones.

In hindsight of course we are all experts on how suss the crocodiles looked – that girl was totally off her face – I thought there was something dodgy about them – didn’t you think it was weird how they chose to sit right behind us – she was pretty though – pity she’s buggered up her life. But unfortunately no one actually saw anything and no one said anything about their suspicions when it might have been useful. We weren’t on our guard. We weren’t in a foreign country. We were having a lot of fun.

Oh well, we probably got off lightly – how silly, leaving our bags unzipped – what bastards.

While we are waiting for the cops the food arrives and distracts us with yumminess, especially the rich beef Gang Masamun and the aniseedy fish, Pla Rard Prik.

After gelatos at Gelatomassi, where we are exorted by the proprietor to “sit out the front and make my place look busy,” we finish off an eventful evening with a visit to Newtown Police Station. While Fiona and Strop are giving their statements I check the photos on my phone and realise I have taken a photo of one of the crocodiles. I thought this was a major breakthrough in the case, even if it was poorly lit and largely out of focus, but the police didn’t seem as excited as me. CSI Newtown will have to wait.

Next up is Thai Riffic, our first pun and our last Thai for a little while. I can’t wait, but we will be keeping our handbags firmly in our laps and our eyes peeled. It’s a jungle out there.

105 Newtown Thai II – Never see the sequel first

March 28, 2013 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

We are back in the saddle after a holiday hiatus and Newtown Thai II is the first of 3 Thai restaurants before we cross Elizabeth Street and begin the run to Missenden Road.

“Look how far we’ve come,” I said to Strop as we sat outside on the pavement sipping our wine. And unfortunately you could see exactly how far we had come – it’s not that far and there aren’t even any bends yet to give the illusion of distance. Obviously more dining is required.

Newtown Thai II is our first sequel and I am a bit wary of seeing the sequel before before the original. Newtown Thai is up the road aways, at 177, next to Guzman Y Gomez. We have eaten there before but it is so long ago I have no memory of the food. They both sport the same kind of painted surfboard signage so I presume there has been a relationship between the establishments at some stage, even if there isn’t at the moment.

It is a balmy Sunday evening and I have been feeling pretty crap with the flu all weekend so I am rather looking forward to a cold glass of wine and some tasty Thai tucker. The greeter and seater turns out to be a Pom in shaved head and yellow tee-shirt. This strikes me as unusual at a Thai restaurant but, you know, it’s the quest, let’s just get on with it. It is such a pleasant evening that we decide to sit out at the street tables, live dangerously and run the risk of smokers. There are a lot of people out and about, family groups and young students away at uni for the first time, having their parents take them out to the King Street strip for a good solid feed. So at least the parents can be sure that young Eric or Erica or whoever, has had at least one meal that week that doesn’t consist of Nutrigrain or pot noodles. As it gets darker the passing parade gets a bit more desperate to make a dining destination decision. There is a lot of neck craning to check out the restaurants and the dishes on peoples tables. Menus are read, discussions are had, and decisions are often avoided so they drift along to the next one. Newtown Thai II seems to pick up more than it’s fair share of this passing trade. It looks safe, it is tastefully decked out – no lime green walls here – and has a sensible name with a bit of whimsy in the II part. It’s plausible. Until you taste the food.

I am disappointed that our regular Thai restaurant randomiser, dish number 37 on the menu, is stir fried hokkien noodles. I’m sure that it was something else, something a bit more Thai sounding, in the online menu. Oh well, rules are rules. Strop heads straight for the specials board and picks duck spring rolls and a pork belly dish for mains. I add an entree called Heavenly Crab that I mistakenly imagine will be soft-shell crab. I mean, what else could it be? Crab meat on a stick. Where the stick is a crabs foot, and probably not the same crab. The spring rolls are ok, but the dipping sauces are ordinary, the clear one for the spring rolls seems to be just sugar syrup. Not a good start, but it doesn’t get any better with the mains. Like the restaurant they look plausible, all glistening green and brown. The noodles smell good too with a smokey, wok-ey smell that has me tucking in straight away. But it is an illusion. The only flavour is salt. And lots of it. The pork belly seems to have been deep fried, is over-cooked, and is also far too salty. There is no delicate balance of complex flavours in these dishes.

I am just relieved that we hadn’t talked any of our friends into coming along to this one. As we finish our wine Strop advises one large family group that is checking out the menu board and our left-overs, to keep on moving, down to Thai La-Ong. Yellow tee-shirt guy asks us how our meal was so we tell him. He seems surprised, but I’m not sure if that is because we are honest or because it is not the usual quality of food. We won’t be going back to find out.

Next up is Thai La-Ong 2 where we know the sequel is related to the original because we watched waiters going back and forth along the footpath carrying various raw ingredients between the restaurants. Hopefully the finished product there will be the same quality as at the original.

Number 101 Rowda Ya Habibi – It’s not Swahili

March 21, 2013 by Andrew Christie 5 Comments

Rowda Ya Habibi – I spent a bit of time mucking around in Google translate trying to work out what the name acutally means but gave up when Mr Google reckoned it was Swahili. I’m pretty sure it’s not, almost a hundred percent.

We are back in Sydney with the Davo’s after a week’s holiday gallivanting around the hinterland, during which Ian and Strop spent a fair bit of time discussing the ins and outs of punctuation (Davo’s with an apostrophe to replace the missing letters apparently, not Davos because he is a greek bloke, or possibly a Dr Who arch-villain). Oh, and I should avoid brackets (as their verticality interrupts the flow of the reader’s eyeball) whereas dashes – being horizontal – are oriented to present less resistance.

So on Sunday evening we decided to resume the quest and get back into some semblance of numerical order by visiting number 101. Rowda Ya Habibi has been a bit of a favourite for quick meals and takeaways for a long time. It’s an unusual establishment with a pretty standard looking takeaway place at the front, a large dining room in the back and, apparently, a banquet room with on-floor seating arrangements upstairs.

We usually don’t get further than the takeaway section at the front, which is overseen by a lovely woman who welcomes everyone with a loud “Hello my darling. What can I get for you?” She is supported by a chorus of old people who sit at the corner table, make comments, read the paper and help out when needed. It is a warm, friendly, family kind of place – perfectly fine as a takeaway.

Tonight though we are trying out the restaurant out the back where there are tablecloths. The large room is empty when we arrive, and stays that way for most of the evening. Out the front we can hear the takeaway section doing a steady trade in falafel rolls and shawarmas.

Not being able to find any wines from the Bekaa Valley at the local bottle shop, Ian has chosen a New Zealand white and an Oz red to accompany the meal. It’s a Lebanese restaurant so we order some baba ganoush and hummus to start while we make our way through the menu. The conversation ranges near and far. Lebanese wines, Lebanese wars, Terry Waite, hostages, and Israeli archeological sites all get a mention. Then there is something about the way smartphones are ruining the art of pub conversations by making it too easy to check the facts, but I don’t manage to get all the details typed into my iphone before the food arrives.

We have ordered a variety of dishes to share including Strop’s special favourite fried cauliflower, grilled chicken and kofta, as well as something called foul which turns out to be broad beans and is very nice. But overall we find the food disappointing, ok as a takeaway, but for a proper sit-down meal it was less than we hoped, less than we’ve come to expect at other Lebanese restaurants. Which is sad because we had been very fond of the whole idea of Rowda Ya Habibi. I suppose that is the risk of going to so many restaurants, the harsh light of comparison doesn’t leave any room for fondly held delusions – it’s a bit like smartphones and pub conversations, I suppose.

We ordered baklava and turkish delight for desert, trying to end the night on a high note. They are ok, and the bill is very reasonable.

We’ll probably still visit for the odd mixed plate or Strop’s favourite cauliflower roll, but it won’t be quite the same.

Pizza Orcs and the Pizza Fires of Mordor – Number 379 Gigi

March 9, 2013 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

How did we get all the way over here?

Well, it turns out that if it’s your birthday, you can eat where you want to, can’t you?

Really? But the only thing we’ve got going for us is our dogged dedication to numerical order. Without that it’s chaos, we’re just another review site.

It’s my birthday.

I know…

And we’re eating wherever the hell I want. Alright?

Well ok, of course we are.

So after a bit of pressy giving and receiving, here we are at Gigi for a hastily arranged birthday celebration. The proper one is being rolled into a week-long festival of welcome for the Davos – dear friends and English gentlefolk who will need us to chaperone them about the countryside and introduce them to some serious eating and drinking.

Our party for the evening includes the Stropolina who is eager to be part of the quest. I have just got off a plane from Wagga Wagga, so by the time we set off at 8:30 I’m pretty keen for a feed of any kind, even if we do have to walk halfway to St Peters.

Gigi has been floating in and out of Strop’s field of vision ever since we started the quest. It was recommended to her by Stef as The-Best-Pizza-In-Newtown, “and she knows about pizza, she’s a proper Italian … both parents!”. I’m not entirely sure that The-Best-Pizza-In-Newtown is setting the bar terribly high, but I’m always up for pizza.

It’s 9 o’clock by the time we get to number 379, but Gigi is still abuzz with a youngish trendy crowd. The decor is cool and hip, with lots of exposed brickwork, ducts and a distressed concrete floor. We squeeze into a table near the front and prepare to be impressed. As we peruse the menus the Stropolina notes how good looking all the floor staff are and Strop agrees. They don’t look anything special to me but perhaps I am not their target audience, and anyway I’m busy watching the pizza station and the wood-fired oven which are located in the middle of the restaurant. It is manned by four very serious looking blokes – shaved heads, tatts and scowls aplenty – it’s obviously serious business on the pizza frontline. The Stropolina decides that these are the pizza orcs and they’re stoking the fires of Mordor – she had just been to see the Hobbit so we make allowances.

The Stropolina and the pizza fires of Mordor

One of the attractive young waitress takes our order: patate, the birthday girl’s favourite, capricciosa and gamberi e rucola pizzas, as well as a Peroni and two of their finest house Shiraz. Oh, and there was a salad in there as well.

Then the conversation turns to the picture of an attractive young woman making a pizza that adorns a wall of the restaurant. Is she Gina Lollabrigida we wonder? Was she in a movie call Gigi? Is she, in fact, a kind of 1950s Italian Nigella? In the 1950s there was only the Galloping Gourmet. No, that was the 1960s. What was his name? No, its not Gina Lollabrigida, it’s Sophia Loren. Was she in a movie called Gigi? No. There was a movie called Gigi, but it was set in Paris, not Rome. Or Naples. It had Maurice Chevalier in it. So what movie was Sophia Loren in that featured a pizza? It doesn’t matter, she looks dead sexy behind a pizza anyway. As of course, do Strop and the Stropolina when our pizzas arrives.

After a bit of manoeuvring we fit it all on the table and then settle down to eat. The pizzas are good. The toppings are very good but I find the crusts, especially the patate, a bit soggy in the middle. Everyone else thinks they are fine so maybe it is just me. Perhaps I let Gigi’s reputation be built up too much. Anyway we eat it all except for a couple of foil clad slices of capricciosa to take away for lunch the next day. On the way out the door we pick up gelatos in cones to lick as we wander home. The gelatos are great, not many flavours, but what they do, they do extremely well. Especially the strawberry. And the chocolate. The lemon wasn’t bad either.

Next time we’ll be back to numerical order I hope, but nothing is guaranteed as we will be escorting the Davos then.

Thai La-Ong – say it out loud, it’ll make you happy. Number 91

March 4, 2013 by Andrew Christie 1 Comment

Mark said “I’ll come… as long as it’s somewhere good.”

We said “That’s not how it works Mark. We don’t know what’s good till we get there.”

So on Mardi Gras eve, Mark came along with us, and it was good. It was in fact, excellent.

Thai La-Ong – there is something about the name that just makes me want to keep saying it aloud with a cheesy faux-oriental accent, stretching out the ong. It put a grin on my face even before the food arrived at our table.

Don't let the green put you off — Don’t let the green put you off

Thai La-Ooong is a shockingly green, double-wide restaurant occupying two shop fronts. It was busy when we arrived, with a young, happy and loud crowd, so there was no chance of a window table. We settled down at a table in the middle of the second room, and Mark immediately showed off his Thai language skills by addressing the waiter in lingo (he can say hello and goodbye apparently), so we immediately appointed him our ongoing expert in all things Thai . He further impressed us with his local knowledge by pointing out that this place used to be a Vietnamese favourite called Old Saigon (he was close, Old Saigon was down the road a bit where Thai La-Ooooong 2 is now, according to Strop’s inter-webby research).

Number 37 on the menu turned out to be in the stir-fry section: Pad Katiam Prik Thai – pepper and garlic with vegetables. In what seems to be a Thai restaurant tradition, the stir-fry and curry parts of the menu give you a choice of species for the protein component of your meal. We had a lively discussion about whether to double up on poultry or ungulates, chicken and duck versus beef and pork, until we realised that for an extra $4.90 we could rope in seafood by choosing prawns for the Gang Dang red curry, and avoid the issue altogether. We opted for pork with number 37 and also ordered Yum Ped Yang, the roasted duck salad.

The service was quick, we had hardly cracked our bottle of NZ Sauv Blanc before the first dish arrived. It was number 37, and it was good, with clean fresh flavours. The other dishes arrived in rapid succession, the curry and then the salad, and the food kept getting better and better. The duck salad was the clear winner but it was all very good. The only hiccup came with my first bite of the prawn curry, and unfortunately it wasn’t alone. Much to Strop’s amusement, I have developed Late Onset Chilli Induced Hiccup Syndrome, and it doesn’t take much chilli to set me off, the prawn curry wasn’t exactly a scorcher. I suspect that I may have missed out on my fair share of the food as I clamped down on my spasming diaphragm, trying to break the cycle of amusing convulsions.

Can I hiccup and take a photo at the same time?

When it came time to pay we had the good kind of bill-shock. Mark thought they had given us someone else’s bill, presumably a lone diner’s. This place is way better than you would guess from the colour of the walls – very good and very cheap.

Next up is an old favourite of ours, Rowda Ya-Habibi. It will be the first time that we have applied the Painting-the-Bridge blowtorch to the belly of somewhere we know. Will it survive intact?

Cheap and cheerful Japanese for the under-dressed – Number 87 Miyama

March 2, 2013 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

Strop’s birthday is looming on my horizon, so on Thursday night I thought, what about a bit of after-work retail research on a theme to be provided by her Stropness. It was a nice idea and the sentiment was appreciated, but it soon became apparent that the details had not been thought through. Firstly, I had not let Strop know of my generous-spirited brainwave in time for her to change into civvies. (“I hate going into town in my uniform, the shop assistants look at me as if I’ve got elephant shit on my boots”). Nor had I taken into account the sudden, mid-afternoon climate swap someone in a position of influence seemed to have arranged with the people of Hobart (I hope they are enjoying our nice warm February). We were not dressed for night shopping in Hobart, Strop was in shorts and I had on a thin cotton shirt only suitable for summer (I can’t roll the sleeves down because I have been putting off sewing new cuff buttons on it for about 18 months). So we tried to stay indoors.

We spent a while checking out jewellery in the Strand Arcade (seriously, credit-worthy or what?) before Strop decided that what she really wanted was outdoor furniture. Our last outdoor ensemble had suffered catastrophic structural failure at a Saturday afternoon drinkies event, sending a dear friend sprawling onto our nice sandstone and weed pavement. Come to think of it, the ensemble before that ruptured in the seat area at a breakfast event and we watched our recently acquired son-out-law disappear beneath the horizon of the croissant-laden table. So we’ll be looking at structural steel furniture this time I think.

As we gave up on the city’s retail core I suggested pizza at the GPO, (it was my turn to cook) but Strop insisted we should stick to King Street. We climbed aboard a trusty 428 bus, and passed the time till we got to Newtown playing with our phones and chatting to a fellow traveller about the shit-ness of the weather.

Miyama has been a bit of a mystery to us. We thought it was shut, just another King Street casualty. The only time we peered through door into the dark interior there was a huge stove just inside the door and mail on the floor. Not good signs. But this Thursday night Miyama is open and welcoming. The room is bright and airy – too airy really. The staff have got the door propped open in the hope of attracting punters, despite the gale, and horizontal rain outside, so we give up on our newly acquired tradition of sitting at window tables, and opt for one as far from the door as possible.

Bonito, apparently... — Bonito, apparently…

The menu has pictures and quite a few pages devoted to sushi. We ignore these and head straight to the pictures of hot food and warming broths. Some nice warm sake would be excellent but unfortunately it is not available, so we settle for green tea which is made at the table for us with fresh teabags. The prices are very cheap, so we order entrees (gyoza and vegetable tempura) as well as mains (chicken katsudon and a unage set meal, that comes with miso soup). Everything comes at once, except the miso soup which arrives soon after with apologies and cute Japanese mouth-covering hand gestures. And it is very nice. And warming. I remark that my broth for the udon noodles is really good and Strop points out that it’s because you can taste the bonito. I’m impressed, I just thought it tasted nice. Strop’s eel is very sweet and tender too. The gyoza is gyoza-ey and the tempura comes with mayonnaise squiggles which is kind of weird but tastes ok.

So cheap and cheerful, tasty and warming. Just the thing. Now all we had to do was get home without the wind destroying our umbrellas.