Archives for January 2016

212 Minoya – I blame the tree

January 30, 2016 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

minoya1 — The Friday-night thousand-yard stare. The woman needs a beer.

On the Friday night of a strange, disjointed week, the weather was having its usual effect on Sydney’s transport. A couple of thunderstorms in the middle of the day meant that the trains would be stuffed until the following day, so Strop and I were going to be a bit late rather than the half an hour early that I had anticipated. No quiet beer beforehand this week.

The target for tonight, the first actual, on-Enmore-Road eatery of the Encore, was a Japanese restaurant. We had thought it was called Oganoya, but it seems to have mysteriously changed his name to Minoya, according the the sign outside. Luckily, it was still Japanese, so the bottle of Reisling I had bought at the bottle shop, wouldn’t go to waste.

Strop and I arrived within minutes of each other but there was no sign yet of Marie. Strop had warned her that we were running late, so she had no doubt adjusted her own travel plans. The room at Minoya is large and sparsely decorated. The main feature is a large and luridly autumnal, plastic Japanese Maple tree in the middle of the room. Like some sort of bento-based fairy tale, the room is frozen between summer and winter. We were directed to a table tucked behind the tree which I suspect may have contributed to some of the erratic service that followed.

Both Strop and I had been subjected to “interesting” work weeks, but now it was the weekend. We opted to save the wine for the moment and have a quick beer before Marie arrived. Strop decided she wanted an Asahi, so I took the other option and went Sapporo. Suffice it to say, I won the beer wars.

Marie arrived soon after we had determined which was the superior beer, and by inference the superior judge of a good ale. It turned out that Marie had been sitting in a bar on Enmore Road, having a pre-dinner drink of her own, and had seen both Strop and I hustling up the road, thinking we were late. Which we were, but as it turned out we needn’t have rushed. Marie had no sooner plonked herself down at the table, than her phone started ringing. She is a popular woman, obviously in demand, even by Strop’s standards.

When the phone calls had been dealt with, the conversation somehow flipped over to Marie’s arrival in Oz 37 years ago (she is originally a French-Canadian), and how she was disappointed when she arrived that no one spoke French. It does make you wonder about who teaches geography in Canadian schools though. As a 24-year-old world traveller, she ended up in Singapore with no money and no visa, so she did what all good travellers do. She married the first Australian she met. It seems to have worked out well for her though, she and her first husband are still good friends. Of course while Strop and I were taking all this in, we had been neglecting the menu. The waiter kept coming back, asking if we were ready to order yet. It was only when we decided to pay attention that we realised that they had only given us one menu. I thought maybe there was a global shortage of menus, but all the other tables seem to have plenty, so I think the maple tree is to blame. When we pointed this out to the waiter, he was very apologetic, but we still had to wait until he had seated a new table and taken their drink orders before we got any more menus.

When we finally made some decisions, we ordered prawn gyoza, grilled eggplant and chicken karaage, to start and for mains, a sashimi platter and sizzling pork. While we waited for the food I grilled Marie about her Air BnB experiences. This was by way of research, my new book has a character who hosts an Air BnB, funnily enough, in a quite similar situation to Marie. This discussion soon veered away from the amount of time that tourists spend in showers, and skipped lightly over vanity-publisher rip-offs, our first Japanese restaurant experience (the Fuji Tempura Bar, of revered memory), travel reminiscences, children’s relationships, tertiary education, and the important question of which is more important in a friendship, loyalty or honesty.

Luckily the food turned out to be better than the service. The gyoza were plump and tasty, the eggplant meltingly delicious, and the chicken sweet and crunchy. The sashimi platter was generous and all the fish very fresh. It even came with a side salad that featured a wedge of orange. Always a welcome bonus. The sizzling pork came with lots of veggies and a sweet soy sauce. It was excellent too.

By this time, the first bottle of wine had disappeared. We asked the waiter for a bottle of sauv blanc from the menu. He was very apologetic again, explaining that his staff had only put one bottle of each white in the fridge that afternoon, so basically we could have a warm sauv blanc, or a cold Chardonnay. We went with the Chardy, even though this goes against Strop’s religion, she had drunk enough by this time to be agnostic on the issue.

The disappearance of the second bottle of wine coincided neatly with the disappearance of the last of the food. We took this as a sign and made our way out onto the street, where we battled our way through hordes of scantily clad and sweaty youngsters outside the Enmore Theatre, and paused for a quick dance to a 70s revival band, playing up a storm outside the Hub. A great way to finish our first Enmore Road outing.

The Warren View kicks off the Enmore Road Encore

January 23, 2016 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

Well, it’s official, we are back in the saddle for what I have decided to label The Enmore Road Encore. And Strop is extremely excited about it. So excited that she feels the need to keep reminding me by saying “I’m really excited,” in a voice that is not quite a squeal, but which probably went to the same school.

We’re starting at the far end of the Enmore Road strip, and rather perversely our first stop is a pub that is not actually officially on Enmore Road, but The Warren View is a bit of a landmark and it has been on our radar for quite a while. Whenever we drive past on the way to the airport we remind ourselves that we should check it out some time. And it has an intriguing name, which is all the excuse I need. I’m hoping that it is named after a long forgotten race of warrior rabbits who loped along the banks of the Cooks River in the old days. That would be cool. I did a bit of research, but all I found out was that the Warren View likes to boast about the quality of its beer garden.

We decided to meet at the Bank Hotel for a drink first. Unfortunately it was pissing down, and a lot of young people had turned up with the exact same idea. So the pub was fuller than usual, with half the outdoor areas unusable due to a lack of effective roofing. I arrived first and managed to find a partially dry table out the back under an umbrella, but I then had to spend half an hour fighting off groups of desperate young smokers looking for somewhere dry to light up. By the time Strop arrived I was sharing the table with a group of Irishmen who had promised not to smoke and who were busy chatting about Harley-Davidsons. We had a beer while the rain continued to bucket down and chatted about how busy work was, and it not even being Straya Day yet.

Our glasses became empty just in time for an unscheduled break in the rain, so we left the young people to get on with blackening their lungs and headed off along Enmore Road to check out what we were letting ourselves in for. The Enmore Road strip has some interesting looking places, some worrying places, and quite a lot of massage joints along the way. It will be an interesting ride.

As the rain started up again we stood outside the Warren View and had a brief discussion about the colour scheme. Strop is inexplicably fond of the icky olive green paint job, and would like to paint our house the same colour. This cannot be allowed because she is wrong. It is an awful colour, suitable only for wattle trees. Luckily, the weather forced us to scuttle inside before things became too heated.

There is something endearing about the front bar of the Warren View. I’m not sure what it is exactly. It could be the odd way you enter, stepping down from street level, or the complete lack of decor, or even the nicely proportioned rectangular bar. Whatever it is, the Warren View is very welcoming in a completely unprepossessing way. By this time we were getting quite hungry so we headed straight out the back to the “famous” beer garden, wondering if there would be anywhere dry enough to sit. No worries. Most of the outdoor area (it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a garden) is covered by a variety of roofs, and as a bonus there were plenty of free tables. A pleasant change after the damp and crowded outdoor areas at the Bank.

Before we sat down, Strop reminded me once again how very excited she was to be back on the Quest. She even danced a little jig, and was grinning so much that it was starting to worry the people at nearby tables. It turns out that she has been deeply unsatisfied by our recent habit of making unpredictable forays to random restaurants. Strop is a woman that likes a list, likes to check it twice, and thinks it’s nice to tick off those suckers one by one

The Warren View menu is standard pub fare with a few blackboard specials on the side. I felt the need to continue the Burger Wars, but Strop decided to try one of the specials and ordered the eggplant parmigiana. When I was at the counter ordering, the woman serving me asked “you do know it’s vegetarian don’t you?” That sort of caring attitude is part of the charm of the Warren View.

Our food arrived quickly, somewhat limiting our social media engagement, and prompting us to put our phones away, so we could engage with the food instead. My burger was very nice. It had a good bun – firm but undemanding – good quality pickles and a tasty beef patty. The meat was on the well done side, but it was still very enjoyable. And the chips were excellent – fat crisp and crunchy. Strop’s parmigiana looked the goods, with lots of cheese and tomatoey stuff between layers of eggplant. It came with a couple of slices of garlic bread and a better than average salad. Needless to say we cleaned our plates.

On the way home we stopped off for Turkish ice cream. Those cunning Turks at Hakiki, not want to do things the same way as everyone else, have their own take on what ice cream should be. They mix it with some gummy stuff that makes the whole thing slightly sticky and more substantial. (Note from Strop, straying off on a bit of a research jag: they add salep, a flour made from the tubers of orchids from the genus Orchis. Okay? Got that?) And the flavours are exotic too. We had orange blossom, melon and feta, baklava, and a little bit of wild cherry. Yum.

I’m not sure what’s up next for the Encore, I forgot to pay attention, but I’m sure Strop will have worked it out. She is adamant that we are going by street numbers again, but this time in reverse numerical order. We will however reserve the right to avoid anything that looks too scary, and to go off-piste if we see something tucked away that looks interesting. It should be fun – see you next week.

Here is some more research from Strop who obviously finds my level of interest in actual facts a bit wanting:

Thomas Holt (1811–1888) was a Sydney business tycoon who built a castellated Victorian Gothic mansion named ‘The Warren’ in 1857 in Marrickville South. It was designed by architect George Mansfield, and contained an impressive art gallery filled with paintings and sculptures from Europe. It had elaborate stables built into imposing stone walls, and large landscaped gardens filled with urns overlooking the Cooks River. Holt gave it that name because he bred rabbits on the estate for hunting, as well as the grounds being stocked with alpacas and other exotics. The Warren was a landmark in the district for some decades; the still-operating Warren View Hotel in Enmore is evidence of this.

Malacca Straits via Hilux merger and Naz ignoring

January 16, 2016 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

Hello and welcome to the blog. Today we are venturing once again into the Sydney Festival and later we’ll be trying a bit of authentic Malay hawker food…

Sorry, I’m writing this using dictation software which makes me feel as if I want to talk like a 1960s radio presenter. I’ll try to resist the urge to be a prat.

*pauses to scratch ear*

The headset I am using is very old and the original earpiece covers have long since rotted away so I’ve fashioned some new ones using leftover felt from Strop’s many felting experiments. The covers are wool though, and they are making my ears a bit itchy. The Stropolina reckons that this kind of making-do behaviour is the technological age’s equivalent to repairing your glasses with Band-Aids. Something my father is famous for, and something I’m pretty sure he would still be doing if the nursing staff didn’t control his access to Band-Aids. But that’s another story.

As many of you will know this summer has been very strange. With a big fat El Niño lolloping around in the middle of the Pacific, our weather has taken on a schizophrenic character. In fact it’s not really our weather at all. We seemed to be borrowing weather from our neighbours on short term loans. One day a large chunk of Darwin weather will slide down the weather map and sit on top of us for a few days, then it’ll get pushed out of the way by a violent slab of Antarctic weather. It makes the whole concept of seasons rather redundant.

Thursday was one of those days. First, we had the humidity of Darwin, then the baking dry heat of Alice Springs, closely followed by the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding a line of thunderstorms ahead of a blast straight from Davis Station. Obviously a perfect evening to listen to some music in a tent.

Spiegeltents don’t have allocated seating so you have to queue to get in, and we had arranged to meet Wendy and her friend Marina, in the queue. (Wendy and Marina were standing in for Bruce and Laila, who are stuck in London – although from what I hear it is probably warmer there.)

The heavens opened just after we had found Marina, who we hadn’t met before. With umbrellas deployed, we huddled close and started to introduce ourselves. Wendy texted to reassure us that she was nice and dry in a large marquee somewhere. That was a huge relief, we had been worried that she might have had cold water dripping down the back of her neck. After the worst of the rain had passed the Spiegeltent opened its flaps and let us in. Wendy timed her arrival to perfection, meeting us at the door, and looking very dry.

The show we were there to see was an Ethiopian jazz musician called Hailu Mergia (not Hilux merger, thank you dictation software). He had a three piece band: drums, bass and keyboards. It seemed like Hailu would have a go at anything with a keyboard – as well as electronic organs, he had a piano accordion, and even a melodica.

It was unusual music, a tight driving rhythm section, with slippery and almost pause-less keyboard riffs sliding around over the top. It was quite repetitive and sometimes hypnotic, drifting between African rhythms and what I think of as 1970s jazz.

Towards the end of the show another storm came through, drumming ominously on the fluttering canvas. When we emerged from the shelter of the Spiegeltent, it was blowing a gale and pissing down. The patrons waiting for the next show were gathered in the bar, watching one of those fountains that uses computer controlled water drops to write words. The fountain was trying to compete with the wind and the rain and it was losing big time. While we couldn’t make out the fountain’s messages, it was quite clear what the weather was telling us. We took the hint and scurried across College Street, pausing only to put our umbrellas back the way God had intended, and climbed into Wendy’s car.

Our destination was a Malaysian restaurant called Malacca Straits. It is in the courtyard of that big apartment complex on the north side of Broadway. There were excellent smells as we were blown through the laneway and into the relative calm of the courtyard.

Malacca Straits promotes itself as an authentic Malaysian dining experience, and the menu had a lot of dishes that featured duck eggs and banana leaf wrappings.

We started with two of the banana-leaf-wrapped-parcel dishes. One was a spiced fish mousse, and the other, a tasty lump of glutinous rice and shrimp paste. Yum. The Nasi Goreng (not Naz ignoring,), was full of large chunks of chicken, prawn and vegetables. Another yum. Kapitan Chicken was a rich, smooth curry, mild but full of flavour and with loads of coconut. The Assam Udang was a bowl full of prawns, tomato and okra swimming in a tangy tamarind sauce. Much flavour, so yum. Our last dish was very late arriving, and there was some discussion about whether we still actually wanted it. Luckily we took the path of least resistance, because The Salted Egg Eggplant turned out to be Oh So Yum. Eggplant chips, in a light duck egg batter with curry leaves. Light and crisp outside, creamy on the inside.

Malacca Straits made me want to go back to Malaysia and Indonesia. And I will one of these days, in the meantime though I will definitely be going back to Broadway.

Jacks Newtown – A new year and a new front opens up in the Burger Wars

January 10, 2016 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

Happy New Year. We’re back. I’ve been on a bit of a break over the last month, occupying myself with a fishing trip down to the Snowy Mountains, some eventful family Christmas celebrations, and a lot of work on my new novel.

But now we’re back to take 2016 seriously, noses to the grindstone, applying our stomachs to the eateries of Newtown.

While I was on holidays, I received a Christmas present from my employers – two tickets to a Sydney Festival event at Carriageworks. A German play called Woyzeck – a klassic, according to the interwebs.

It has to be said that Strop and I were a bit dubious, having already dismissed it back in October when we were in the process of choosing what Festival events we would attempt this year. The prospect of a play that was both in German, and very old, started alarm bells clanging away, but then, free tickets…

So on Saturday night we toddled up the hill. One of the benefits of living where we do is that we can walk to Carriageworks and home again easily, which is fine as long as it’s not raining. And Saturday night was dry and balmy, almost as if it was summer.

The plan was to get something to eat on King Street on the way to the theatre. Strop suggested a run at Rowda Ya Habibi because she never passes up an opportunity to have some of their cauliflower. I objected however, as we’d had barbecued cauliflower the night before. As a compromise, I suggested that we walk towards Rowda Ya Habibi and if nothing on the way took our fancy, there was the cauliflower as a fall-back. As it turned out we didn’t even get to King Street. The first new place we came to was Jacks Newtown, and Strop said “Ooh, let’s go there. I really fancy a burger.” Unlike the previous times we had walked past, there was no queue and it didn’t look as if they had already sold out.

Jacks is very minimalist with a spare, almost industrial set up. Lots of stainless steel and no clutter. It is very clean and efficient looking. There aren’t even any cash registers, just iPads.

The menu is minimalist too. You can have a plain burger, a cheeseburger, or a cheeseburger with bacon. And you can have any of those double. You can have fries, soda and Jack’s sauce (a kind of mustardy aioli). No chicken, and no fish but there is a vegetarian option. It is Newtown after all.

The burgers are modestly sized and reasonably priced, which is refreshing after years of bloated aspirational Gourmet Burgers. They come with lettuce, tomato, some kind of pickle and a mustardy sauce. The meat in our burgers was medium rare-ish, tender and tasty. The only thing I didn’t like about the burger was the bun. Which was soft, pappy and sweet. In other words it was American. Which I suppose is fair enough as Jacks is nothing if not a purveyor of American-style burgers. Anyway the buns are really just there to keep your fingers clean.

The soda comes out of a mixer machine in big paper cups. Strop has a set against all things Coca-Cola so she got tap water, also in a big paper cup, with ice delivered with a smile. Everything came in paper; the burgers and fries were on little paper trays as well. The fries are crinkle cut and come with lots of crunch.

There’s nothing fancy about the décor, a big black and white mural at one end, a big neon logo on the wall, and some tables and stools. That’s pretty much it.

All in all I’d be very happy to go back again.

So with our tummies full, but not too full, we set off to walk the rest of the way to Carriageworks.

Unfortunately, Woyzeck lived up to our fears. A Minimalist stage mostly occupied by a huge suspended net, German dialogue, and a cast who were so busy navigating their way around the constantly moving net that they barely had time to relate to each other let alone the audience. The music was good, but it was unclear why most of the cast we’re trying to sing like Tom Waits, other than because he wrote the music. The surtitles were positioned so far above the stage that you couldn’t read them and watch the action at the same time. It was drama without drama – or any emotional connection to the audience. Some of the audience must have enjoyed it though, judging by the whistling and stomping that accompanied the applause at the end. Strop and I looked at each other. Maybe it was just us, or maybe the others, who hadn’t drunk the koolaid had already walked out. There had been a few of those.

On the bright side though, our Festival experience can only improve from here.