Greek

Bauhaus West and Kafenes via a hipster parallel universe

May 28, 2016 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

Last night someone served me a beer in a jar. It even had a picture of a hipster on the side, just in case you missed the joke. This cannot be allowed to stand. This is just taking irony too far. I’m looking at you Batch Brewing.

However, this assault on my drinking standards may have been just the impetus I needed to get me blogging. I have been bogged down last few weeks, working hard on the new book. Working with my editor and the beta readers, trying to get past fourth draft and into the fifth. It’s coming along now, I hope, having lost a few thousand words from what turned out to be a fairly flabby middle. (I could do with a bit of that myself, just have to find my own personal metabolic delete button). I’m currently editing in hardcopy which makes it all seem more substantial and as if I’m actually getting somewhere. It also makes it easier to get a sense of the thing as a whole, not just a series of scenes. The book will be called Tunnel Vision, and it will probably be finished sometime in September. Fingers crossed. It even has a cover ready to go which I’ll be flashing around like a mad thing at some point in the future.

So anyway, last night Strop and I hit Enmore Road without much hope or inspiration, as we are discovering that Enmore Road is mostly doldrums with a few islands of brilliance. We were meeting up for a drink after work and I’d suggested Bauhaus West, mainly because I had heard good things about it and I didn’t feel like another noisy Friday-night pub. We went to Bauhaus for a drink but ended up staying for a meal once we had a look at the menu. It looked a lot better than a lot of the other offerings nearby. Bauhaus W is somewhere between a bar and a restaurant. It has high stools like a bar, but with restaurant sensibilities.

We started out with a pair of excellent whiskey sours, followed by a Pinot Noir and a very nice beer, spoiled only by its container, which was straight out of some hipster marketing parallel universe.

Deep breath. Move on.

Anyway the menu sounded good, so we ordered a duck confit, some Chinese-y beef ribs, a side salad (not on the menu but happily provided), and chips. The food was very good, but very salty. Especially the ribs. On a Deb rating they would have been off the scale. When we mentioned this to the waiter, he came back with a message from the chef saying that he hoped it hadn’t spoiled our meal, but that we had managed to order the two saltiest dishes on the menu.

The atmosphere at Bauhaus was refreshing, good music, not too loud for us old people, and tables with views out to the street. Not much wrong there. It wasn’t cheap (3 Wendys) but I’d go back for the whiskey sours and the duck confit.

In terms of accessibility at Bauhaus W – okay as long as you don’t want to go to the loo. 1 Susan.

Our progress along Enmore Road has been fairly haphazard, and it will probably continue to be as we have given ourselves a couple of new rules. We will not eat at an empty restaurant, and, we reserve the right to avoid places we don’t like the look of. Which basically means we have no structure at all. Just like everyone else. It also means that our quest has lost any heroic pretence, which was basically all it had going for it.

Oh well.

A couple of weeks ago we had a lovely night out at Kafenes, which is a bit of an institution on Enmore Road. We had been there a long time ago to celebrate a birthday with Wendy, but I couldn’t remember much about it other than the generally warm vibe of a good night out. This is what Kafenes is excels at.

On our recent visit, we dined with Roy, Jill, John and Pauline, not to celebrate anything in particular other than just that we have known each other for a very long time. And that we were all available.

Jill had just had a procedure on her eyes and was successfully carrying off the nighttime sunglass look. It is a look usually favoured by rock stars, but Jill was managing to draw a few glances from people obviously wondering if she was part of the late show at the Enmore Theatre.

It is easy to see why Kafenes is is always full. The food is great, the service is warm and the whole place is completely free of irony. The menu features plenty of grilled protein and lots of hearty oven dishes. It is welcoming and homey in the most excellent of ways. We started out with all the dips and lots of bread. And quite a few wines. I seemed to have been left in charge of the pouring, not a role I am comfortable with, and I may have overcompensated. There was quite a bit of chat too. Then the mains arrived. When Kafenes says main they mean it, the serves are generous. There is still a little Greek doggy bag in our freezer, waiting to be thawed one night when cooking inspiration fails to strike.

I didn’t notice any salt, so I guess that’s 5 Debs. Money seemed okay so I’m going to say 4 Wendys. And I didn’t go to the loo so I can’t comment on that aspect of accessibility so let’s say 3 Susans.

Afterwards we stepped up the road to Cow and Moon for a gelato hit. These days we seem to be spoiled for choice, sharing our after-dinner gelato business between Cow and Moon, Gelato Blue, and Hakiki. And I don’t really have a favourite amongst that lot.

365 – 3 Olives – You’ll need to book. Do it now.

June 28, 2014 by Andrew Christie 3 Comments

Pre-dinner drinks. The prospect of a pre-dinner drink with Strop, has lured me out of the comfortable anonymity of a pub, into the irony-plagued awkwardness of a hipster cocktail bar. Unfortunately Strop can’t make it, she is stuck at Parramatta Station due to Transport Turmoil (and it’s not even raining), so I am alone except for the new Miles Franklin winner to read on my phone, and an excellent whisky sour to sip. Actually it’s not a bad trade. Except for the bill shock – oh well, I guess that is the price you pay for having a maitre de with a waxed moustache, and a 1980s soundtrack designed to make you feel old.

Tonight we are eating at a Greek restaurant called 3 Olives, we’re being joined by Matt and Jim, who last appeared in these pixels back at The Animal which, strangely, is also a Greekish joint. Matt and I are first to arrive at the rapidly filling restaurant. After a quick discussion about increased hangover propensity with age (there’s definitely a thesis in that) we get things under way with a bottle of wine and some dips. Matt is momentarily confused about whether the three dips are free dips, but luckily the waiter and I are clear about what is going on. We are soon joined by Strop and Jim, who help us finish the first bottle and the free dips. Then it is time to get serious about food.

Our enthusiastic and overblown first draft of the food order elicits a little shake of the head, and a quiet “That’s a lot of food,” from the excellent waiter. With his editorial guidance we pare it back to three shared entrees and three mains. The entrees are haloumi, white bait and octopus, and the mains are lamb cutlets, meatballs and quail. Because we don’t want to risk malnutrition we request that an emergency beetroot salad be held in reserve.

Now that we have got the decision making out of the way, Jim takes the opportunity to admonish me for not writing enough about the other punters. So here goes. There are a lot of them – the place is full by about 7:30, and is still full when we leave at 10:00. They are happy. They don’t look particularly Greek, but they are loud. There are a lot of family groups with young children. They are well dressed. They are mostly not teenagers, and they are definitely not hipsters. Although our waiter might be, sometimes it’s a fine line. And they know something that we are only just discovering: 3 Olives is a great place for a night out. It is a family affair, which is as it should be in a Greek restaurant, overseen by Olga, the matriarch who puts the hospitality back into Hospitality Industry. Throughout the night she befriends each table, smiles, makes jokes, and makes you feel like a friend. You will want to come back.

The food is all good. It is not stunt food, just really good, well-cooked simple food. And plenty of it. The octopus is excellent, the meatballs are delicious, but then so are the lamb cutlets and the quail. The accompanying salads are fresh and generous and the chips are crisp on the outside and soft and mushy inside. We didn’t need the beetroot salad.

Meanwhile the conversation was bouncing all over the place. Book writing, Matt’s near miss at being a Famous Author; who is the most passive passive-aggressive person we know; the glamorous new upgrade of Newtown station; drug dogs; young people en-masse; young people singing, and the end-of-an-era deaths of Sue Townsend and Rik Mayall. We probably talked about a bunch of other stuff too, but by that time I had drunk quite a lot and had stopped taking notes. We were having too much fun.

After a short hiatus we turned our stomachs to the subject of dessert. And sweet sticky wine. Jim was keen on the baklava, and Strop wanted galaktoboureko because “It’s the best dessert in the world.” After they had both received lessons in Greek pronunciation from Olga, we decided to share again and have some port as well. The galaktoboureko was good, but I thought it was surpassed by the baklava, which was the best I have ever had.

So get along to 3 Olives, you won’t regret it.

324a – Kerasma Souvlaki Merchant – An unexpected treat

April 18, 2014 by Andrew Christie 1 Comment

I think I was hoovering up my tenth, or maybe twelfth, loukoumades, when I noticed that Strop and the Stropolina had stopped eating, stopped talking, and were sitting back just watching me devour the crispy-sweet, cinnamony morsels.

“Aren’t you eating?” I asked, reaching in, to spoon up another one.

“No. We’re full, but you go right ahead.”

Now I know that tone, but I kept eating anyway. Those things were too delicious to be wasted, and I refuse to be defeated by what is basically a donut. I even soldiered on through a coughing fit induced by inhaling a cloud of powdered cinnamon. I kept eating till I could barely move.

Kerasma was a bit of a surprise package. What does Souvlaki Merchant mean anyway? Are we talking retail or wholesale souvlaki? I admit I didn’t have very high expectations as we rolled out of the Bank Hotel, after a few meeting-up beers, but the charcoally-meaty smells wafting out of Kerasma had my stomach on its knees, crying out for food.

Apparently kerasma is Greek for a tasty treat to give guests (if it was up to me I’d choose the loukoumades for my treat every time). I hadn’t expected Kerasma to be Greek, although I’ll admit ‘Souvlaki Merchant’ was a clue that I should have cottoned on to sooner, but I’m a visual person and there is not a skerrick of blue and white about the place, let alone a picture of the Parthenon or Nana Mouskouri. Kerasma is all dark and red, with music that could just as easily be Middle Eastern as Greek to my untrained, bogan ears. It is actually a fairly small place but the dark interior, and the mirrors on the wall make it look bigger. The kitchen takes up a large area with a big charcoal grill up the front. It looks and sounds like a high end middle-eastern restaurant, but it’s Greek and it does takeaways too. Which is something I am going to keep in mind next time I feel a bit peckish in Newtown, because I like what these guys are doing.

My brother Steve was supposed to join us but he had been waylaid by an aged-parent-wrangling crisis that involved too many pharmacists and not enough doctors, so the three of us decided to start without him. The menu is small. Literally. It is another anomaly, a small folded piece of paper that looks more like an advertising pamphlet than a menu. In fact it is not so much a menu as a build-your-own, step-by-step guide to souvlaki ordering, which is again, at odds with the aspirational decor. On closer examination though, the need for this level of guidance becomes clear. The list of ingredients available to fill your souvlaki is large and exotic. Ocean trout? Liver? Tongue? Snail? And what is a sheftalies? Anyone?… Beuller?… Luckily the very helpful waiter is able to explain. It is of course a sausage. Yumm… sausage.

You can have your souvlaki in a pocket, a wrap, or they’ll even deconstruct it onto a plate for you. Then there’s the pickles… and the dips… It was definitely time to start over-ordering.

Dips, we want some of those, and olives, what about tahini, yes that too, and some of the sweet potato one. Don’t forget the beetroot one. Strop went for one of the sausage souvlaki options, while the Stropolina and I stayed traditional with lamb. We chose a Greek wine, a syrah, which is what shiraz used to be, according to our waiter. It was good. Soft and intense, but not as spicy as shiraz. Soon there was food everywhere. There was talk, there was laughter. There was hysterical laughter from the table next to us, which was full of fairly inebriated twentysomething women and one bemused-looking young man.

The food was pretty good, but when it felt as if the earth was moving I realised that this had more to do with the restaurant being perched on a bridge above the railway lines, than the transcendent nature of our dining experience. There is even a window just outside the loo that looks straight down onto platform 1 of Newtown Station. Hellooo. I tried waving but no one noticed.

By this time we had made the mistake of reading the dessert menu. There are only three sweets, we thought, so that’s easy, we’ll have all the desserts. They were plentiful and they were good. The loukoumades come with a warning that there is a 20 minute wait, but trust me, they’re worth it. Relax, have a coffee.

I was very sticky when it came time to pay the bill.

On the way home Strop notice this charming tableau in the Discount Store window. Happy Easter.

Off the Map to Brunswick Heads – fatbellyKaf

January 12, 2014 by Andrew Christie 3 Comments

Well, it’s me, Strop, and this is a special off-the-map guest blog, because Andy refused to write while on holidays.

The daughters, the g-daught, the son-out-law, Andy and I have all been on a summer holiday. This outing was planned as a last night celebration of our two weeks together in Brunswick Heads.

We’ve been to fatbellyKaf twice before, and we’ve never found it wanting – so we are really looking forward to this treat.

One of the best things about Brunz is that you don’t really need to drive anywhere, ever. It’s all walkable.

For instance, the Brunswick Hotel, as some of you may know, is perfectly located on a bend in the tidal creek. It is well-appointed, with many tables and seats under generously proportioned poinciana trees, a variety of beverages and tasty food. It is perfectly designed to entice on the way home from the beach.

The IGA has everything you might need, including local delicacies, and the fruit and vege stall down past the Bowlo offers a wide range of fresh and often local fruit and vege (surprisingly).

And then there are the choice swimming locations: our preferences are for Torakina, a small beach inside the Brunswick River’s breakwalls, or a couple of locations on the Creek. The surf beach is often a bit wild and wooly, not so good for 2 year olds, whereas Torakina has very good sand for drizzle castles (one of my personal favourite activities at the beach) and in fact many other type of sandy constructions – there was a sand car there one day! The creek’s depth fluctuates from very deep to very shallow depending on the tide, so about half of any day there are plenty of places to swim.

The only real reason to get in a car is to visit the splendid farmers markets in New Brighton (Tuesdays) and Mullumbimby (Fridays). They are a must if you have a vehicle, the local food on offer inspires great holiday cooking, in our family at least.

So, on our last night in Brunz we head for fatbellyKaf, which is a short walk along the old highway from our homely accommodation (what a different place it must have been when trucks went hurtling through day and night). We got their right on 6pm as we had the g-daught to feed.

Straight away we were warmly welcomed and settled. It is a family-run business and super toddler-friendly – probably missing their own kids, as we find out later in the night that their kids have been evacuated to the grandparents in Adelaide for the silly season. Within minutes of the g-daught sitting down, a pink cup, plate and eating-irons are delivered especially for her – nice.

We um and ahh over the menu, eventually taking the son-out-law’s lead of several cocktails – I have a whisky sour, mmm-mm. The others enjoyed their fbK specials: Rubejito (manzanilla sherry, mint, lemon, bubbles) and Vissitini (vodka, Cointreau, lime, rose, sour cherry)

Uncharacteristically, at least for me, we opt for a banquet: The Fisherman or O Psaras, for 4 with the addition of a Greek Salad and a Dry Aged Binna Burra Beef Rib Eye Steak with Bravas Potatoes. I’m usually reluctant to commit to a banquet because I expect them deliver the cheapest, least authentic and most mundane options, so Andy is a bit surprised at my willingness here, but I figure that fatbellyKaf will be aiming to showcase the very best of their Mediterranean-influenced sharing fare…

After our delicious, colourful cocktails arrive but before the food, (and before all the other people arrive to detain the him with their needs) out Host comes over to ask, “Is it ok if the kitchen takes a bit of artistic licence?” We all nod enthusiastically.

Through the meal, the bestest Aunt and I take turns to go for an occassional wander with the g-daught – I fail miserably at the first hurdle, bringing her back with not one but two bleeding knees. She is pretty stoic and brave, so is quickly settled with bandaids from the ever-accommodating staff.

The delicious food arrives, perfectly paced and impeccably presented. Happily there are no food fights (though there was one slight altercation about eating the tiny candle before the actual food arrived). The g-daught enjoys many tasty morsels, though there is a bit of bribery action to encourage her to try everything, including the spicy calamari. Her inducements are pretty jewels of pomegranate.

Here is the list of food (Andy would never do this) – but imagine that eating them is even better and more delectable than they taste in your head:

Garlic Bread
Plenty of local oysters some raw, some lightly chargrilled with various delicious dressings such as Pomegranate and Tomato; Finger-lime Pearl; Gin and Fried Onion Butter Gratin – salivating yet?
Tuna á Crudo with Fennel Tomato and Sherry Vinaigrette
Chilli Spiced Calamari with Mojo Picon
Beef ‘Pinchos’ with Olive Oil potatoes
Clear Water Scallops with Confit Duck & Pea Skordalia
Ocean Trout with Fragrant Salt, Fennel Salad& Tunisian Tarator
The beef I mentioned above and the simple tasty salad …

The following words were uttered between smacking lips and splitting everything 5 and a quarter ways: “stunt cooking with terrific local ingredients” – “so delicious, its ridiculous” – “exceptionally good food” – “so much better than anything we’ve had (so far) on King Street”.

The g-daught reckons she isn't getting enough beef in her diet — The g-daught reckons she isn’t getting enough beef in her diet

My only regret … was that I didn’t order a serving of the extraordinarily delectable and creamy Greek Custard Pastry scented with Orange Blossom that I had last time. Our banquet came with rich buttermilk ice-creamy cone, but I immediately got food envy when a huge serving of the custard was delivered to a neighboring table and my mind flashed back to the extreme deliciousness of this desert.

So, if you are ever in Brunz be sure to make time to eat at fatbellyKaf – try to book if you’re there in the silly season, it was packed out Thursday night, but the service was super.

If there is next time in Brunz for us, we’ve vowed to visit fatbellyKaf earlier in our stay, instead of leaving it to the last night – it is such a wonderful treat.

174 The Animal at Newtown Hotel – The lion doesn’t sleep tonight

August 17, 2013 by Andrew Christie 6 Comments

We’ve drifted beyond the Marly’s sphere of influence, so no stop for a quiet Dogblister tonight. Instead it’s straight on to the renovated and spit-polished grunge of the Newtown Hotel. Up the stairs, past the big lion mural, stepping carefully over the lion tracks, to The Animal. No burgers tonight, this place qualifies as a restaurant, even though it is in a pub (Refer to Rule #6). As pubs go the Newtown is loud and dark, and upstairs, The Animal is louder and darker still. We are after a table for five – I tried to book but the website is one of those annoying impenetrable ones that makes you want to drive a fork through the forehead of the person who designed it. So, unable to make a booking we are living on the edge, just turning up and taking our chances.

“No worries,” says the young man who greets me at the front desk, “I’ll just check with the boss”, a young woman, whose rank seems to be indicated by the number and quality of her tatts. I have now been joined by Jamie, and we wait patiently while the gatekeepers poke at a screen and conduct a rapid fire discussion. Eventually we are told, “That’s fine but we’ll need the table by 9:15.”

Suits me, I’m usually in bed by then.

The decor seems to consist of bare brickwork, horse heads, and faintly glowing dangly light bulbs. What little light there is, is provided by a single tea-light candle. We are soon joined by Strop, resplendent in a bright red dress. Wendy and Matt are both running a bit late so we decide to get on with ordering. Jamie pulls out his iPhone and deploys the flashlight/magnifier app in order to read the menu. I have left my head-torch at home so I have to wait for him to interpret the menu for me. Apparently we are in Greek spit-roast territory here – which is a fine place to be. As we are hungry, and because we have no idea when the others will arrive (it depends on a complex formula involving chaos theory as applied to the interaction of friday night traffic, Sydney buses, and Newtown parking), we decide to go ahead and order. We choose a kind of banquet menu for the table which promises roast lamb and lots of other goodies.

Have I mentioned the music? It is loud and very bassy. And the restaurant is full, so everyone is shouting to be heard over the music. Every now and again I think that I recognise a tune. “Is that Echo Beach?” I wonder aloud, but no one can hear me.

Food starts arriving very quickly. First some delicious hot bread, warm olives (this seems like one of those “why doesn’t everyone do this?” kind of ideas), and yummy taramasalata. While we are fighting over these, haloumi and meatballs join the fray. We are just wondering if the others would even notice if we ate all the haloumi, when they spoil the fun by arriving. Damn.

We are inexplicably provided with some trendy little tuna tins – an empty one which is presumably for the olive pips, and one with a mysterious black substance. Wendy wonders if it is an ashtray (and in the dark it could well be) but it turns out to be some exotic variety of black salt. Squid-ink salt perhaps? Bitumen dried salt? God knows, I’m still coming to terms with pink salt.

We are moved quickly on to mains. Lamb, potatoes, beans, and a Greek salad presented with a big slab of fetta balanced on top of the tomatoes and leaves. Conversation is suspended. All is good. All is excellent.

Conversation gradually re-merges as the plates empty. The music is getting louder (could be Echo Beach again – not so far away in time – or maybe Led Zeppelin) and Strop is the only one who is not leaning forward and cranking her head sideways to try and hear what is being said. This is because she has elegant new bionic ears that target the speaker and create a special little space-time vortex to carry the conversation straight to her receptors. There is a fair amount of “Oh, aren’t they small” and “You can’t see them at all,” type comments when she shows them off. We’ve come a long way since my grandmother had to carry a suitcase full of batteries and valves around with her in order to hear.

Wendy's phone provides the light so Jamie can count the money for the bill — Wendy’s phone provides the light so Jamie can count the money for the bill

Dessert comes in two bowls to be shared. It consists of cake, orange slices in syrup, and a white frozen substance that doesn’t seem to be Streets’ vanilla. ”Froyo?” Strop suggests. Jamie is put to the task of dividing it up as he comes from a large family where accuracy of portion allotment was a key to survival. The dessert doesn’t last long.

We toy with the idea of retreating to the balcony for a cocktail, to get away from the unrefined sounds of Robert Palmer and The Power Station inexplicably playing Echo Beach, until we realise that the balcony is where all the smokers are.

Oh well, time for home then. And perhaps a couple of whiskies.