Archives for November 2013

224 – M.O.A.N. – So many gags present themselves…

November 30, 2013 by Andrew Christie 3 Comments

What to say about M.O.A.N.? Well for a start – what the hell were they thinking? Moan? Really?

This place used be called Cicciolina (the name is still on the awning), seemingly named after the Italian porn star/politician. It famously used to have a sculpture of a giant clitoris on the wall, which was presumably a very particular part of the theme. The sculpture disappeared after a while – presumably looking a giant clit in the eye was putting the punters off their Spaghetti alla puttanesca. I tried to find an image of it for you on the webz, but when I entered cicciolina + clitoris into Google Image Search the results were so distracting that I had to have a little lie down.

So, MOAN. Well why the hell not? It is Newtown after all.

Strop assures me that M.O.A.N. stands for Menus Of All Nations or possibly Mix Of All Nations. Either way it is a completely stupid idea, and demonstrably untrue. The place is pretty much Italian, with a big dollop of oz-pub burger cuisine on the side. All the infrastructure (except for the sculpture) from Cicciolina days seem to have survived including the wood-fired pizza oven, and this drives the menu. The beer list does have a touch of the international about it. You’ve got Australian, Belgian, German, Japanese, Australian, Mexican, and another Australian. So, all nations.

Strop and I have fortified ourselves with a regulation Dogbolter before entering the fray, so we are full of confidence as we swan in and choose a table at the front so we can look out the window at the passing parade rather than having to talk to each other. The M.O.A.N. is not crowded, but there is a large and very excitable birthday group up the back next to the kitchen and the toilet. I imagine that they are warmer than we are, being closer to the pizza oven. Its a cold evening and I only have a nylon raincoat over my tee shirt but Strop says I can’t zip it up because I will look too much like a trainspotter.

I order a Belgian beer and Strop orders a Merlot Of All Nations to go with our entrees of pulled-pork pancakes, and char-grilled vegetable salad. For mains we choose a pizza with sausage and mushroom. Strop pushes the idea of the Thai beef salad for a while on the grounds of All-Nationism, but I veto it on the grounds of stupidity. You don’t go to an Italian joint for Thai food – especially in Newtown.

The pancakes turn out to be small and skinny. They are almost lost on their big fluffy bed of salad leaves. But at least the pork filling is tasty. Tangy, sweet and salty. Really quite salty. The char-grilled veges are similarly lost in a sea of salad leaves as though someone has emptied a bag of mixed leaves from the supermarket, and put too much balsamic on it. The zucchini and eggplant are nice enough but the sweet potato is a bit undercooked. Oh well.

The pizza takes a while. In the meantime we argue about the political correctness of early birthday present giving in the context of grandchildren whose birthdays are only 3 days south of Xmas. We also discuss this year’s Christmas Tree strategy, next years holiday strategy, and try to figure out a retirement strategy that doesn’t involve pet food. All this strategising leaves us with empty glasses. Another round is called for. Unfortunately the glass of wine Strop gets is different from the one she had been drinking, but she doesn’t realise this until she has poured the dregs from the first into the new glass. All class.

Meanwhile in the kitchen they have been putting the wood-fired oven too good use. The pizza crust is excellent, but it is let down by the disks of Colesworths Best English Beef Sausage that are sprinkled generously on top. I mean, I was expecting Italian sausage. Is that an unreasonable expectation?

So don’t M.O.A.N. Just don’t. We went there so you won’t have to.

222 – Twelve – Twelve what?

November 30, 2013 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

Strop and I were a bit nervous. Well actually, we were very nervous. Friends are coming from all the way over-the-seas, and we want to show them a good time on the quest, impress them with the wonders of Newtown – but all we have to offer is Twelve. What does that even mean? Twelve what? The reviews aren’t exactly inspiring. We considered changing the order, but there wasn’t anywhere much more appealing coming up in the next few blocks either. There didn’t seem to be any point in swapping Twelve for Moan. In the end we thought fuck it, let them take their chances – that’s what we do every week. Ha! We laugh in the face of danger. We’re out there on the edge, risking food poisoning, and each other’s company, putting up with hipster irony and onesies, week in and week out. If we can do all that, our guests can take a chance on some less than spectacular looking eatery.

After that little rant we felt better for a while, then we felt guity, then we thought fuck it again, and then it was time to go to the restaurant.

I was on time but Wendy (a little surprisingly after her last outing) was even earlier, sitting alone at a big table with a beer and a little plate of warmed olives. I was impressed by the olives, especially as I thought they were some sort of complimentary starter thing. But no, after I had scoffed a fair proportion of them I discovered that Wendy had actually ordered them because she was hungry. Still they were very nice with a beer on a thunder-stormy Sydney evening, with the public transport system once again demonstrating its complete lack of water-proofness. The others eventually arrived, dripping and muttering about traffic snarls and dissolving trains. Tonight was not just a simple meeting of very old (bordering on ancient) friends to share some food and wine. We were also taking part in a new Underground Railroad involving the handover of Bruce and Laila (refugees from over-the-seas), from the care of Roy and Jill, to Wendy, the next stop in their secret journey to a new life (well a couple of months anyway) of freedom and safety. Though God knows why they would want to come to the land of #Abbottism.

By now everyone had arrived and was talking very fast. Wine is called for. We peruse the list, make some choices, tell the waitress, get told, “Sorry, that’s the old list, the new list is over there on the wall,” peer around the column in the middle of the room that is screening the new list, and wonder why the hell they gave us the old list in the first place.

The wait staff were very friendly though, despite their slap-dash attitude to fine dining. They were very prompt bringing the wine to the table but obviously thought that we were all big enough and ugly enough to take the screw cap off the bottles by ourselves. Which of course we are, we do it all the time at home. And the tables were jammed in quite close in the corner, so getting plates passed across was obviously more efficient than squeezing through. And they smiled. And they took a photo of us too. Twelve is that kind of place – comfortable and relaxed and suburban – a John Howard eatery, if John Howard was a Modern Australian – slash – Italian. Going there is like a slipping into a comfy pair of slippers, or a onesie, for an evening in front of the teev.

But what about the food? Well it was mostly pretty good really. Certainly better than the reviews had led us to expect. And there was plenty of it. We probably over-ordered on the entrees. The zucchini flowers were big enough to be mistaken for crab claws, the polenta chips were crisp and creamy all at the same time, and the antipasto stuff was good too. (I didn’t write much of that down – more olives I think, some meaty stuff too).

The only disappointment in the mains was my pork belly, which over-achieved on size, crispness and cookedness, and under-achieved on tenderness and digestibility. But everyone else seemed to enjoy theirs. Laila said the barramundi was perfect, and Roy’s lamb shanks disappeared so quickly, Jill didn’t even get a chance to taste test them. Strop enjoyed her lamb rump, particularly as it was better than my pork.

The most popular dessert was a mango-passionfruit-coconut something, that everyone except me ordered. I had an affogato with a generous slurp of Baileys over it instead (and I can report that this is an innovation worth pursuing). I didn’t taste the mango-passionfruit-coconut something but there was none left on any of the plates so you can draw your own conclusions.

In between the eating there was lots of chit chat about this and that – the usual stuff for our demographic: hearing aids, knee repairs, insomnia, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas…

As we stumbled out into the night Strop could be heard singing “ging gang goolygoolygoolygooly wish wash” which was apparently part of a combined apology and explanation of the cultural imperatives that require her to refer to Bruce and Laila collectively as the Laila-Shayler-Waylers. They’re still talking to us, so presumably they bought the story.

Outside the restaurant we decided to split up and make our way separately to a rendezvous in a dark Camperdown back alley for the refugee and suitcase handover. That way we would confuse anyone trying to follow us. It seemed to work.

Next up is the worryingly named M.O.A.N.

Gingganggoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolyginggganggoo

Onesies – suitable for any season

Onesies - suitable for any season — Gingganggoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolygoolyginggganggoo

Onesies – suitable for any season

221 – Coopers Hotel – Round 4 of the Burger Wars

November 16, 2013 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

My first thought as I sat down at the table Strop had snagged at the back of the Coopers Hotel bistro, was that it was a pity this wasn’t a named restaurant, because then I would be able to order the Crispy Skin Barramundi special that I can smell being prepared in the kitchen. Damn the rules – we will have to stick with burgers or be in flagrant contravention and at risk of letting chaos run amok. But damn that fish smells nice.

Coopers is a contradictory place. Downstairs is all old school pub style with an overlay of hipster grunge while upstairs is kind of modern-bland suburban pub bistro. There are even flowers on the upstairs tables. The only bit of downstairs grunge to make it up the stairs are the menus and the mural we are seated beneath – a colourful streetscape of King Street, featuring the pub on the corner, a punk carrying an Olympic torch, and a ladder leading from the pawn shop up into what looks like a UFO infested sky. It seems to be a fairly accurate rendition of King Street except for the skateboarders on the footpath. In reality they are usually out on the road mixing it with the traffic.

The menus come artfully buried inside actual comic books. At first I thought they were just printed with a comic book style cover, until I noticed that each one was different. It’s a fun idea, but it does seem a bit of a waste of comic books. There is a pretty good rock soundtrack playing when we arrive, which seemed to get louder, to compete with the voices of the punters, as the evening wore on.

The menu is made up of fairly standard pub grub. There are four options in the burger department (Nice Buns). You’ve got your beef, your chicken, your vegetarian option (lentils), and your steak sandwich. We both opt for the Cooper’s Classic Beef Burger, accompanied by a Cooper’s (no relation I’m assuming) Pale for him and a Pinot Noir for her. Strop grimaces at her first taste of the wine, “Bit tart for a Pinot.” My beer tastes like beer.

The burgers arrive on large rectangular plates with the chips up one end and the burger speared into place up the other end. (How did they serve hamburgers in the olden days, before satay sticks became available? You young people probably think that satay sticks have been around forever, but no, they haven’t, at least not in Australia. They probably had them in places like Indonesia and Malaysia where they invented satay, but they’re a bit of a Johnny-come-lately around this neck of the woods, I can tell you – but I digress.) The chips are all gold and yummy looking and there is a little pot of tomato sauce on each plate too. “Is there any aioli by any chance?” Strop simpers before the waitress can scamper out of range. “I can’t be doing with tomato sauce.”

The aioli arrives in another, larger pot, and looks remarkably like mayonnaise. Tastes good on the chips though, especially when mixed with tomato sauce. One nice touch – The Coopers Hotel trusts you with a pepper grinder. There is one on each table. Now there’s a novel idea that we can only hope catches on.

The burgers come with beetroot (tick), cheese with holes in it (tick), aioli (tick), and relish (tick). When Strop takes her first bite the aioli and relish make a break for freedom by squeezing themselves out of the wound in the bun left by the satay stick, which leads to much licking of fingers and lamenting the lack of Wet-Ones. The burgers are pretty good. More stable and less messy than the Burgerlicious burgers. Are they better than the Marly burgers? To tell the truth I can’t remember. As Strop put it, “The burger in the hand is better than the one you remember.” She is full of insight. We enjoyed the burgers but found the chips had us outnumbered, even with the added lubrication of aioli.

With the music getting louder and the lights getting dimmer we decide not to risk dessert (I was almost there with the lychee and coconut parfait, but the mixed berry coulis killed it for me) and head home to drink the last of our whisky. Which we did, all that is left now are two scary looking miniatures of uncertain origin.

Next week we will be crossing the road to Twelve and entertaining Overseas Guests. To tell the truth we are a bit nervous, the word on Twelve hasn’t exactly been glowing – what are we letting our guests in for? Maybe we should dump the quest and head for Enmore Road which everyone says is far funkier. Head says yes, heart says no. Stomach just grumbles.

215 Burgerlicious – Part 3 of the Burger Wars

November 9, 2013 by Andrew Christie 13 Comments

I have a funny feeling niggling away at the back of my skull that Burgerlicious may have been the first King Street eatery that we ventured out to when we moved to the district all those aeons ago. My memories of that visit are unclear other than the choice was left to a couple of young Canberra-raised teenage girls and we ended up with burgers and fries. No real surprises there. So Burgerlicious is a definite stayer, outlasting many other food slingers on the strip. It looks and feels exactly the same as I remember it, just a bit more worn around the edges. In need of an injection of love and capital, just like the table we sat at, which had one leg projecting at an alarming angle, seemingly only held on by blue tack.

Tonight’s outing is a bit unusual because:

It’s not Friday.
It’s Halloween – although on King Street, really, what’s the difference?
We are babysitting the Pancetta while the Stropette and the Stropolina worship at the glittering toenails of Beyoncé.

So it’s an early start and we are remarkable for our sobriety (responsible grandparenting 1.01 – don’t leave yourself open to an accusation of being drunk in charge of a toddler).

Burgerlicious has invested all its pretensions in its name. The room is just an unembellished cave, completely open at the street end, with tables along both walls, a counter across the back, and presumably a kitchen behind that. We choose a table near the entrance to the cave so that we can watch any Halloween hi-jinx on the street. The Pancetta is still a bit wary of us, wondering where the hell her mother and aunty have gone, and why Granma and Grandad have de-skyped themselves off the computer screen and into 3 dimensional touchy-feelyness. In order to allay her fears, it is important to feed her quickly and buy her goodwill with chips and ginger beer.

It's only ginger beer... — It’s only ginger beer…

While Strop and the Pancetta venture to the back of the cave to do the ordering (Pancetta is in charge of holding the purse – how cute is that!!), I am left in charge of the bags and the stroller. Strop reckons she has just seen the chief suspect in the Good-Friday-Purse-Lightening-Affair, out on the footpath, so nothing is to be left unattended.

The order is a Jalapeso, a Bostino and a Cheeseburger, plus chips and ginger beers. While we are waiting for the burgers, Strop introduces the Pancetta to the joys of ginger beer and we watch the passing parade of tranny’s dressed as sexy-nurse-zombies. Just another weekday evening on King Street.

The burgers arrive on actual plates, and with chips (not fries) on the side. They are big lumps of deep-fried potato that you can sink your teeth into. Pancetta is a natural. She cottons onto the concept of chip eating so quickly that Strop and I have to quickly invent a new rule: One bite of chip / One bite of burger. She doesn’t cotton onto this quite as quickly. The burgers are delicious but messy to eat and we soon find ourselves running off for more napkins (Note to the Burgerlicious management: this is the kind of food that napkin dispensers on the table were invented for). I am very impressed with the Pancetta’s expertise with the napkin, dabbing and wiping her fingers like a professional. The girl is obviously very advanced.

The only other customer is an old guy sitting on the street wearing enormous DJ earphones and sporting an I ♡ Phoenix Arizona tee shirt. It is a pity that he doesn’t want to listen to the Burgerlicious soundrack because it is quite good, featuring a selection of hits by the late, lamented Chrissy Amphlett. When Cyndi Lauper comes on she is accompanied by the arrival of a giggle of ten year old girls, who look like they just want to have fun too. The Pancetta is smitten of course. She can see the future, and it is looking goood. While she goes down the back of the cave to stand in awe, watching the big girls having fun and eating burgers, Strop and I discuss burger ratings. Very nice but tending towards structural failure is the general conclusion. Probably better than Burger Fuel, but messy to eat (a six napkin effort), and not as good as the burgers at the Marly, which is still the one to beat.

The Cooper Hotel is next up so we will continue the Burger Wars there.

Hey this ginger beer is good stuff... — Hey this ginger beer is good stuff…