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Andrew Christie

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parmigiana

The Warren View kicks off the Enmore Road Encore

January 23, 2016 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

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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.

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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.

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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

523 Pastizzi Café – The Italian local we wish was a bit closer to home

March 29, 2015 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

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Pastizzi. They make a mess sure, dropping crumbs everywhere, but they’re crunchy, tasty and obviously really good for you. Basically, they’re just Italian sausage rolls. With more flavours maybe.

Pastizzi Café, as its name implies, has made a speciality of them, and does a hectic take-out trade, selling a wide variety, including sweet ones as well as savoury. But the café is also a restaurant, a very busy one, as I found out when I arrived at 7pm on a Friday night. As I approached, I thought I was in luck. There were two empty tables out the front, but as I got closer it became apparent that the empty tables were occupied by nasty little Reserved signs. Inside the café, all the tables along the side of the narrow room were full. When I asked one of the busy looking waitresses if they had any tables, she said “Sure,” and disappeared so quickly towards the back of the restaurant that I nearly had to run after her. She went out a door at the back, and by the time I got there, I was just in time to catch a glimpse of her disappearing again at the other end of a very narrow passageway. It was so tight that my shoulder accidentally bumped the fence, which was immediately followed by a crash and some muttered swearing. It seems I had upset the neighbours, or at least something that had been balancing on the fence. When I finally caught up with the waitress she was standing beside an empty table in a makeshift dining area that had been created by putting a roof over the backyard. There were a couple of other occupied tables, and at least it was close to the toilets. When this Speedy Gonzales of waitressing had set me up with a menu, cutlery, and napkins, she put some music on and disappeared again. The music was a disco version of Sweet Child of Mine, which she must have like because she had it turned up really loud. When Strop arrived we could hardly hear each other until a second waitress, this one with tattooed legs, turned it down again.

The menu Pastizzi Café is fairly simple and very Italian as you would expect. Lots of fresh pasta options, some fish, chicken and beef. There were some specials too but we decided to stick with the basics. There is home made ravioli and, of course, pastizzi. Strop had the bright idea of topping and tailing the meal with pastizzi. So we ordered a couple of salmon, dill and ricotta pastizzi to start, figuring we’d have a couple of sweet ones for dessert. In between times, she ordered ravioli and a small salad, while I opted for chicken parmigiana. Having decided on the food Strop headed for the nearest bottlo for some wine and I looked at my phone. When she came back with a very welcome bottle of Pikes Clare Valley Riesling, she wrinkled her nose and muttered “I can smell dope.” Now this is a bit of a thing with Strop. She reckons she can smell people smoking dope nearly everywhere she goes, and especially in Newtown. There must be a lot of it about, either that or she has a very finely attuned set of nostrils because I can never smell it. These days I need to be actually handed a joint before I can smell it. When the waitress started pulling a strange face and mouthing something, which, after we gave her a series of bemused looks, turned out to be “Can you smell weed?” She had to whisper it because there were a couple of impressionable children at the next table. Strop was delighted to have her nostril’s accuracy confirmed, “Yes!” she exclaimed, “I think your neighbour is smoking dope.” It was at this point that it occurred to me that the thing I had knocked off the fence earlier, may have been their bong. It would account for the swearing.

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Our salmon pastizzi were hot and crunch and tasty. They didn’t last long and were soon followed by the mains. Strop had opted for the entrée size spinach and ricotta ravioli, which was a smart move because the serves are generous. Her small salad was enormous, and my chicken was so big that there was only a bit of room at the edge of the plate for a splodge of mashed potato and a few vegetables. The ‘parmi’ was the best I have had in a long time. There was plenty of eggplant, the chicken was tender and moist, and the tomato sauce fresh, tasty, and abundant. Yum. The ravioli was good too, with a similarly tasty sauce.

Strop wasn’t able to finish the salad, so we decided to take it home, together with a couple of dessert type pastizzi – to have at home, or for breakfast in the morning. Either or.

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Filed Under: Quest Tagged With: bong, dope, Italian, joint, local, parmigiana, pastizzi, ravioli, weed

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