• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation

Painting the Bridge

Andrew Christie

  • Quest
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Cookie Policy
  • Contact

eggplant

The Warren View kicks off the Enmore Road Encore

January 23, 2016 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

wv2

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.

wv6wv7JPGwv4

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.

wv3

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.

 

Filed Under: Encore Tagged With: burger wars, eggplant, Encore, Enmore Road, parmigiana, rain

576 Union Hotel – More connections than Telstra

June 6, 2015 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

576 union hotel

Tuesday nights. There is something about them and the renewal of old connections. Last time it was Uncle Carl, this time it’s Lisa from Carwoola, and Greg from Kioloa (this is starting to sound like ABC talkback radio). In the dark distant past when the Stropette was still a poppet, and the Stropolina still far in the future, Strop and I rented an historic (run down) cottage on a farm outside Canberra. There were other cottages and other young couples and a few children, as well as chooks and lambs and tiger snakes. That was the year the drought broke, and Hawkey came to power. I remember watching the election results on the television in the living room of one of our new neighbours. When it became clear that labour had won someone shouted out, “Fantastic, I’m applying for an arts grant on Monday.” Aah, those were the days. Lisa and Andrew, her partner at the time, lived in the cottage near the shearing shed, we had the cottage in the front paddock, Jane and Jim were almost next door and Bill and Janette were in the next paddock. The owners of the property lived in the Big House and didn’t mix with the tenants much. We all drifted away eventually, moving into town or down the coast, lost touch, as you do. Heard sporadic news, as you do. And then some nerd became extremely rich by inventing Facebook. And people started finding each other again.

576-2

We haven’t seen Lisa since about 1984. She’s been living down the south coast, while we’ve moved to the smoke. Her current bloke, Greg, grew up at Kioloa, which is by way of being one of our favourite little coastal villages. He works for National Parks. Strop and I used to do consulting work for National Parks. Do you know so and so? Really? How is she/he? What are they up to? I worked with them on Biamanga. Or was it Gulaga? Did you know that thingy had moved to Byron? All that. So many connections. Specific ones as well as the general stage of life ones, involving things children do, grandchildren arrivals, and parental departures. We are now the generation that bonds over the shared experience of spreading our parents ashes upon the waters. “They’ve got these recycled cardboard containers now. You put the ashes in them and float them away. Eventually they sink and the cardboard dissolves.” I want one shaped like a viking long boat.

There was a lot to talk about, but we needed food. And drinks. The Union is one of those trendy pubs (I’m looking at you too, Forest Lodge) that has an awful lot of beer taps for beers you’ve never heard of. All with silly names that aren’t really that funny. Strop likes this sort of thing because she is Open To New Experiences, I don’t because I Can’t Stand The Tension, and all I really want is a nice sessional beer. They have a lot of whiskys too, all with names I’ve heard of, and all of which deserve my attention, but that will have wait for another time.

When the front bar was taken over by the Trivia hooligans, juiced up on the excitement of showing off how smart they are, like a bunch of five-year olds who’ve had too much food colouring, we toddled out the back to The Eatery. Unfortunately the heating system didn’t accompany us, so we had to wear our jackets as we squinted our aged eyes to read the big blackboard menu.

The Burger Wars were then reconvened. It has been a while – the last pub on the Quest was the Newtown Social Club, and I can’t remember a thing about that experience. Lisa and Greg decided that they would go the burger as well. However, when Lisa chose the the chickpea fritter burger I had my doubts about whether she was really entering into the spirit of the Burger Wars. I suppose her claim that the last time she had eaten a burger was in 1973, should have been a clue. Greg and I went the meat route. Beef burger with bacon for me, Chinese style BBQ pork for him. Strop turned her back on the Wars altogether and had the salmon. A very disappointing effort.

576-3

My burger came with more bacon than the bun could cope with, and the bits that were sticking out beyond their bready blanket were quite cold by the time my gnashers trimmed them off (just a quick tidying-up skirmish before the main confrontation). Generally, the burger was excellent but there were some structural issues with the bun. Greg found his pork burger “Very tasty.” And Lisa really liked the eggplant (I think there is a hipster gag there somewhere but I just can’t get hold of it). She really liked the chips too, “They’re up there with the ones those two Italian blokes make down on the flat there at Narooma.” I don’t think there can be any higher chip praise.

Did I mention that Strop ordered the salmon?

Afterwards we left Lisa and Greg with icecream cones clasped in their icy hands as they headed for the station, while we toddled down the hill towards home. Strop decided that she had met Greg before, in one of the many, many meetings with stakeholders, that working for a Government agency involves.

576-4

Filed Under: Quest Tagged With: bacon, beer, burger wars, chickpeas, chips, eggplant, salmon, whisky

Copyright © 2023 · Author Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in