pub

Lady Hampshire – welcome back to the local

December 22, 2016 by andyadmin Leave a Comment

After a lengthy closure, our local pub, The Hampshire, has reopened with a gender re-assignment, as the Lady Hampshire. The closure was long and unexplained, although there were mutterings about fire regulations whenever the locals gathered to gossip. On a couple of occasions I did a bit of lazy googling to see if there was any mention of what was in store for the pub, but never found anything. Over the years we have had a bit of a rocky relationship with our local. When we first arrived, in the ‘hood, the Hampy was a venerably run down but functional local institution. It was good for a quiet beer, but the dining room was always plagued by the sickly sweet smell of urinal cakes wafting out of the Mens every time the door opened. It was enough to put you off your parmy.

Then someone got the idea of putting someone with a bit of nous and vision in charge of the kitchen. For one shining year we had a local pub that was still run down and smelly, but which served wonderful food. Proper food too, not just schnittys and burgers. The chef, Tony, was the real deal. The main menu changed according to the markets and the seasons, but there were regular favourites. A standout was a dessert whose name escapes me, but which lay hidden within a cloud of spun sugar. And Camperdown Fries: crisp roasted smashed spuds. Served with everything, they were Tony’s version of chips.

But it didn’t last. Tony left. We never found out where he went to, presumably somewhere he didn’t have to work seven days a week. Then the pub was sold. New owners took over and in the kitchen, the faces changed regularly. With each change the menu slumped further into mediocrity. Saggy and uncomfortable lounges started to creep in from the back lane, as the new managers tried for a grunge vibe. A lone pinball machine appeared. Never a good sign. We still went along occasionally. Tuesday night trivia was fun for a while, till the quizmaster had a falling out with the management.

Then we stopped going altogether, so it was a while before we noticed that the Hampy had stopped opening. For nearly two years the only sign of life was the growth of an increasingly dusty pile of unopened mail just inside the door of the main bar.

Then last month, signs of activity. Open doors giving glimpses of ladders propped against walls, and extension cords snaking across carpets. Oh ho, I thought. Someone is going to give the Hampy the renovation it needs.

Not quite. More of a spit and polish, with a spray of graffiti on the side.

Within a week there was a some new Lady Hampshire signage up and the doors were open. There wasn’t any fanfare, just a chalkboard scrawled with “Yes We Are Open”. And of course a few lights on.

I dropped in for a quick one on what might have been the first afternoon, using the flimsy excuse that I needed somewhere quiet to read the last piece of work from my writing group before our meeting.

After such a long closure I had been hoping for some change, but the main changes were new carpets and a bunch of murals. The only structural change is the closure of one of the doors to the men’s toilet, which at least means that there is less of the urinal cake smell.

One of the major pluses of the new Lady is having Wayward Brewing’s excellently drinkable Camperdown Ale on tap. But this has to be balance by a front bar that is dominated by enormous screens, all showing competing sports channels. On that first visit, in the middle of the afternoon, the front bar was empty, probably because of the loud and unnecessary commentary accompanying a US college basketball game.

The dining room has been spruced up a bit with murals everywhere, and all the fashionably uncomfortable lounge furniture has gone. It was probably an requirement for OHS complience. Out the back nothing relieves the domestic landscape tragedy that has always been the courtyard / smoking area.

The kitchen follows the current trend towards Americana. There are tacos, and fried chicken, and a bunch of other stuff that I haven’t tried yet. So far I have had trouble getting past the taco section of the menu. Two for ten bucks – it is too good a deal for me to overlook. My favourites so far are barramundi (fresh, clean flavours) and beef brisket (smokey, melt-in-the-mouthness). Obviously there is going to have to be a lot more research done. A lot more, just as soon as I’ve made sure about the tacos. The American food trend is marked by a proliferation of those red plastic baskets, which seem to be some kind of symbol of authenticity. Still I suppose they are step up from serving food on wonky chopping boards.

The side passage that connects Parramatta Road to the courtyard, and is potentially the Lady Hampshire’s most interesting space, has now been embellished with an extremely long mural featuring enough caricatures of Australian television personalities to populate anyone’s nightmares. It draws a lot of attention from the punters, trying to name all the personalities, which is something I suppose. The young people seem to like it.

So go and check out the Lady Hampshire. The food is good. Really good, so far. I’ll be going back, I plan to work my way through the whole menu. On our last visit Strop and I tried the dessert. It’s no spun sugar extravaganza but the deep-fried Golden Gaytime is exactly as advertised and does not disappoint.

Camperdown is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment with The Commons, Wayward Brewing, and now the Lady. And about time too.

The Forest Lodge Hotel – and the princess-castle screen time overrun

October 4, 2015 by Andrew Christie 3 Comments

The Flodge, as it is called around our neck o’the hood, is a reliable favourite when a pub meal is required. Which is surprisingly often. I only wish it was a bit closer to home.

Our latest outing to the Flodge was on the last night of our new grandson’s inaugural tour of Sydney. It was a very family affair with the Stropolina, the Stropette, the Heathen, and Pancetta, together with the great uncles (gruncles) Jim and Matt, and of course the guest of honour, the Mosster. For logistical reasons some of us walked to the pub and some of us drove. Strop, the Stropolina and I set off at a brisk clip along Parramatta Road, pushing the Mosster in his carriage, only to be overtaken and tooted at repeatedly by the hoons with the Victorian rego plates. Bloody Mexicans. On the upside, by the time we get there, a table has been occupied and beers have been purchased. The Flodge offers a bewildering range of Beers With Spectacularly Silly Names (BWSSN), which usually gives me a headache, but luckily the Heathen has it sorted. It may be called Feral Hop Dog but this BWSSN is acceptably sessionable so I won’t have to think about what to drink next. I’ll just have another of those feral thingies. Or maybe a jug full.

The Flodge is not a huge pub but it is busy. This is partly because it is close to Sydney University, but it is more than just the location. It has a comfortable homey feel. This doesn’t mean that it is one of those pubs furnished like a group house from the seventies with crusty mismatched sofas and dead televisions stacked in the corner. It is something to do with the scale of the spaces and the atmosphere. It is friendly, equally welcoming to families and student clubs, many of whom seem to hold their parties or meetings in the back room. It has a good and very reliable kitchen which serves up high quality pub grub, along with enough specials to keep things interesting. Even if they do always seem to sell out just before I get to the counter to order.

Our large table takes a long time getting its collective act together to decide on what we’re eating. This is mainly because of conversation. There is a lot of it going on, and quite a bit of competition for the attentions of the children too. The Stropolina has cornered the baby market, and is keeping the Mosster to herself, while gruncle Jim is exercising his child-whispering skills, getting the Pancetta to do him lots of drawings and writing.

Eventually someone breaks from the pack and stops procrastinating over the menu. In response, the rest of us firm up our decisions, change our minds, then switch back again at the last minute. Eventually everyone’s choices are locked in. The curly sausage and mash are a hot ticket item, while the nursing mother opts for a red-blooded steak. The Heathen surprises everyone with a last minute change to a chicken pocket, and Strop goes the fish curry. Pancetta settles for fish and chips from the kids menu. There, that wasn’t so hard was it.

While we are waiting for the food, more Hop Dog is obtained and the musical members of the family start singing Kookaburra Sits In an Old Gum Tree in rounds. The Pancetta takes a break from looking at photos of herself as a baby on someone’s phone, long enough to look bemused at this musical interruption to the pub sound system’s hipster-nostalgia soundtrack, made up of hits from Creedence, The Animals, Canned Heat, and Steppenwolf. The singing causes a frisson of panic in the enlarged brains of the students, causing them to look over their shoulder’s nervously, before leaning their heads closer together and resuming their earnest discussions of what the hell Ryan Adams is doing messing with Taylor Swift’s oeuvre.

I had the sausage. It was long and curly and tasted great. The Stropette is a bit of a connoisseur of the condiments, and even she was impressed by the range on offer at the Flodge. A particular standout was the bbq sauce. It may come in a plastic squeezy bottle but Sweet Baby Ray’s Sweet ’n Spicy is the business. You can taste the good-ol’-boy smokiness in every squeeze. The Pancetta’s meal was notable because even though it came from the kid’s menu it looked like regular food. No nuggets, fish fingers, or other processed junk here. It was battered fish, proper chips AND a salad. Children are little people – they deserve people food. As a reward for hoeing into her fish and chips, Pancetta was allowed to order ice cream for dessert. On hearing this news she gave a very cute little fist pump. Yes! The rest of us couldn’t make up our minds – twice in one night was asking a bit much – so we ordered one of everything to share. We might not be able to make a decision but FOMO rules okay?

Pancetta greeted the arrival of her ice cream with a very smug smile, but then gruncle Matt wrapped her up in one of his conversational spells, complete with illustrations in the form of holiday photos of French castles on his phone. Pancetta of course wanted to know where the princesses were, which led to a long and involved discussion on the fate of princesses in post-revolutionary France, and a lot more photos of castles and chateau. While Led Zeppelin kicked in with a Stairway to Heaven soundtrack, the rest of us were in awe, watching the ice cream slowly melt as the Two Great Conversationalists went at it. The Stropette was a bit less charmed than the rest of us, speculating that it was just a very sophisticated ruse by her daughter to increase her daily quota of screen time. Pancetta didn’t come out of her revery until the rest of us were getting up to leave. Suddenly the spell was broken and she remembered the ice cream. No!!! Not yet, I haven’t finished.

Nor have we.

Forest Lodge Hotel. Put it on your list.

597 Darley Street Bistro at the Botany View Hotel – Food reviewing gets hijacked

July 18, 2015 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

“Hey, Mr Andy,” Mark said, following me as I got off the train at St Peters, with my Opal card held tightly in my hot little hand, intent on getting to the scanners before the crowd. St Peters is a very popular station, lots of people get off the train there, but I think we were the only two on that train who were going to the Botany View.

It’s going to be a big night, lots of guest appearances. Strop who handles the bookings and general socialising, is expecting upwards of 15 Quest veterans, and possibly a few noobs, because the Botany View is really the last opportunity to get a reasonable sized crowd together. From here on, until St Peters it’s just a couple of cafes and a small pizza joint. So tonight is a bit of a celebration of the Quest, and of friendship. Or possibly acquaintanceship. Anyway we’ve got people coming from far afield just for the occasion. Uncle Carl will be dropping in from Brisvegas courtesy of Quaint-arse, and Jude is coming from Canberra courtesy of Murray’s and free WiFi. I am feeling a bit of trepidation at the thought of so many guests, because I am not very good at paying attention to what is going on and taking notes, particularly after the second round of drinks.

I am quite fond of the front bar at the Botany View (I like its chaotic pubiness and lack of pretence, but Mark is not so keen – probably due to his latent hipster tendencies), but I have never ventured upstairs to the dining room before. Tonight when we arrive Strop is already ensconced at the centre of a huge table, beer to hand, ready to greet all comers. Once drinks are obtained we start telling Mark about the play we saw the night before: The Dog/The Cat. Two plays really, different writers, but about relationships and pets. Excellent theatre. Strop has been soc-meding it up all day, “I even got re-tweeted by Brendan Cowell,” she exclaims.

Talk of pets, naturally leads on to Mark’s current and lamentable, dog-less status. And something about the RSPCA. Mark notes my attempts to take notes and wonders “What are you writing? No one’s said anything interesting yet.” If I waited for that I wouldn’t get anything down. He suggests that I mention the Botany View’s total lack of a view of anything other than a carpark. Seems like a bit of a cheap shot to me though

We are soon joined by Jude and her friend Debra, and Uncle Carl straight from the airport, on time. Naturally all the locals are running late. The new arrivals trigger off another round of drinks and a halt to my attempts to take notes. Even if I had tapped out more notes it probably wouldn’t have helped. My last entry is QAnya’s tales, and no, I have no idea either. Thank you Mr Autocorrect. Eventually the locals arrive, Wendy, Keren and James, Linda and Matilda, and last but not least Rebecca and Duncan. A few prospects have pulled out at the last minute so we are a total of thirteen. Obviously a lucky number. We set one of the tables adrift as there are plenty of other punters looking for somewhere to park their plates, and squeeze up nice and close. It’s talking time. Quite loud talking, including lots of “And how do you know them?” discussions. Despite the disparate nature of the group everyone gets on alarmingly well. There might have been some more drinks. Every time I turned around there seemed to be more wine bottles on the table.

At some point food was suggested. I started talking about a burger but Strop interrupted me. “It’s a named restaurant at a pub! No burgers are necessary.” Really? Yes, she’s right, we are at the Darley Street Bistro apparently, so the Burger Wars are cancelled. We haven’t had a named pub restaurant since Animal at the Newtown Hotel, which was quite a long time ago.

Despite having a name the arrangements are all very pub: you order at the kitchen and get buzzed when the food is ready. There are acres of blackboard menus covering the walls, so you have plenty to read as you queue up to order. Strop and I timed our run to hit the peak, when the queue stretched halfway up the stairs. But that was okay, we weren’t in a hurry, we had plenty of chatting and drinking to do. The menus start out with pub staples (burgers, snags, etc) and get more exotic (and expensive) as you approach the kitchen. I was sorely tempted by the beef shoulder wrapped in pancetta, but finally settled on the salmon with scallops. Everything sounded good and looked good too. One of the advantages of the queue is you get a good view of everyone else’s food as they squeeze past with their orders. Strop went for the Orecchiette (pasta – I had to ask), with Swiss Brown mushrooms. We were nearly the last of our table to order, so we were able to keep drinking while they were getting stuck in. Linda and Matilda must have been disappointed by my lack of note taking because they started doing it for me, and emailed it to Strop.

A bit presumptuous I think you’ll agree, but here you go, this is what they thought:

Chicken breast w rosemary and celeriac mash. Delicious. The beans were cooked to perfection, as was the chicken – moist with crispy skin. OMG

Pork belly w crispy crackling, yummy cabbage stuff and celeriac mash. Oh my. And very tidily presented. Neatest parcel of pork belly I’ve ever seen! I don’t even remember them collecting my plate.. Maybe I ate it 😐

Fish and chips. “It’s good but not amazing.”

Orecchiette “very tasty and creative. A bit too oily but great flavours and very yummy crumb”.

Barramundi quesadilla – tex mex with a twist. Lovely, wouldn’t say it’s mind blowing but I blame Matilda for suggesting that it might be. Now onto the duck pasta thingie….

Duck farfalle – looks better than it tastes – it looks like a bad hair day and it tastes like a bolognese. It’s more complex than first thought. Something crunchy (hazelnuts?) gives it a few extra points.

The sticky date pudding came with a drunken date. Do I need to say the rest? Very nice – salty caramel and just yum.

The last crumble in Newtown is hot and once my tongue has recovered I will tell you if it tastes any good. Quince crumble. Officially delicious according to James.

41 years of relationship mistakes and we’re still going says Cath who let Andy choose the sticky date pudding while she was left with some cheesecakie thing that was less than perfectly satisfying…

I think I am just going to leave that last bit alone – except to say that the quince crumble had been my first choice, but unfortunately Keren and James nabbed the last one. I would have been cross with them, except that James recommended that I try an excellent hipster stout. Which I did, a couple of times, just to be sure. This may explain to the next day’s paracetamol consumption.

On the food front I will add that the salmon was probably worthy of a double yum and that Mark wouldn’t shut up about how good the beef shoulder was.

All in all it was a wonderful evening which only ended when the staff requested that the last of us vacate the dining room. Duncan and Rebecca stumbled on to a conveniently timed bus, Carl tottered off down Union Street to visit a friend, while Strop, Mark and I wended our weary way home along King Street. Just as it should be.

326 – The Townie – It’s definitely a pub

May 10, 2014 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

It is good to have finally made it to the wrong side of the tracks. I feel that the eateries over here in South Newtown will be more interesting and exotic than the ones we have been visiting lately. I am optimistic – which is a bit of a strange experience for me.

The Townie is a pub’s pub, and it’s not trying to be anything else. It’s not trying to be fashionable, or hip, or Irish. In fact it is barely trying to be a pub. It’s a bit grungy and down at heel, and it attracts a crowd that is less shiny and monied than those across the tracks at the Bank. The Townie is the student-group-house-living-room of pubs. You suspect that most of the patrons at the Townie have a bit of a soft spot for heavy metal bands and playstations.

It has all the usual pub things: screens, bars, TAB, smokers’ terrace, 70s movie posters and a slot car track. What more could you ask for? Well, some food, but we’ll get to that in a minute. I have a bit of a soft spot for the Townie, it is the sort of pub where the stranger at the next urinal will engage you in conversation about the etiquette of talking to other blokes at the urinal. “These young blokes don’t get it,” he says as he zips up and makes his way back to the bar. “They think it’s strange. Freaks ‘em out.” I note that he hasn’t bothered to wash his hands and resolve to avoid shaking his hand if the situation should arise later in the evening.

The Stropolina and I are the first to arrive and we nab a table upstairs near the Bistro. The barmaid is very pleasant if a bit eccentric. She doesn’t talk directly to you, instead providing a real-time commentary on the transaction as it proceeds. “Oh another Coopers Pale, what a surprise. And crisps? Chicken and lime? Too exotic, ha. That’ll be twelve dollars. Weekend prices hey, what’s that about.” Most of the time I had no idea what she was talking about. I just smiled and nodded, and handed over a twenty. Later she came around collecting empties and said, “Ooh look, you’ve made bowls,” (commenting on the way our family open crisp packets by tearing a hole in the side to create a bowl shaped receptacle that allows easy and efficient access to the crisps), “My lab partner taught me how to do that, I’d never seen it before.” She was gone before any witty responses had time to bubble to the surface, so we just kind of smiled and said “Who is she?” and, “What is that accent?”

When Strop arrived the conversation moved on to holidays and the Stropolina’s experiences in Morocco when she was on her first-year-out-of-school-overseas-adventure. Strop and I heard about her encounter with a group of local lads, who invited the Stropolina and her friends back to their apartment. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t mentioned this bit to us before, and luckily they turned out not to be white-slavers, but tagine cookers. They took the girls out around the markets buying ingredients for a slap-up tagine prepared back at the apartment. She didn’t go into what happened after the tagine was eaten. Strop and I like a bit of cous-cous, so maybe we should go to Morocco too, but in the meantime all this talk of food has us hungry. Time to get on with ordering some food of our own.

We are at a pub and that means the burger wars are back on. The menu is a big wall mounted affair featuring all the usual pub offerings. There are pizzas, schnitzels, and steaks, but surprisingly, only two burgers. One is the Townhall Beef Burger, and the other is a schnitzel and bacon burger. I note that there is also a schnitzel and bacon pizza – something of a theme developing there. I choose the eponymous Townhall Burger as does the Stropolina but she is adding cheese to hers, and Strop goes for the schnitzel and bacon burger. There is also a bowl of salt and pepper squid to share.

Having ordered the food, Strop goes to get another round of drinks, returning with three schooners and the news that “She’s the best barmaid in the world, but I don’t want to sleep with her.” It takes me a moment to realise that this is a reference to my experience with the barmaid at the Bank. She then informs us that the barmaid’s hard to place accent, is Israeli. So there’s that mystery solved.

It was only when I saw a collection of burgers lined up on the counter that I noticed that we didn’t seem to have a buzzer or a table number or anything to connect us to the food that we had paid for. Apparently the young woman taking orders had forgotten to give Strop a buzzer, so it was just lucky that my stomach had been getting my eyes to pay attention. Napkins were another absence. Strop eventually ducked behind the counter and helped herself to a handful for the table.

The burgers came in the open position, which always intrigues me. Do they think we’re going to eat a burger with a knife and fork, or is it just to make the application of tomato sauce easier? Assembling the burgers required a bit of manual deftness to avoid spillage, as I soon discover. Strop came a real cropper when her first bite resulted in her burger disassembling itself, and landing in her lap. “Bacon from arsehole to breakfast,” she commented, putting the napkins to good use, scraping aioli off her clothes.

The beef burgers are the traditional burger size (i.e. not too big) which I think is a good thing, and they come with pineapple, beetroot and the now ubiquitous aioli. But they haven’t been made with love, and unfortunately the burger experience is less than the sum of its parts. The chips were disappointing too, and for the first time in living memory I did not finish mine. None of us did.

The Townie has me conflicted. I enjoy the fact that they are not trying too hard, and are happy to just be a pub, but it would be great if they tried a bit harder on the food front. You can still be quirky and laid back, while putting a bit of love into the food you are offering.

Next stop is the Cafe Newtown, which is as close to the exotic temptress that is Enmore Road as we are going to get – for the moment anyway.

Number 145 – The Marly – Let the burger wars begin

June 9, 2013 by Andrew Christie 7 Comments

Hooray. First pub, first burger. But first I have to wait for Strop to return to civilisation from the outlands of Parramatta where she is working late, finishing things off before going on holidays. So I down a Dogbolter or two, read my Kindly book (Wool – it might be overrated but I am only halfway through), go for a walk, look at the young people, have another Dogbolter…

When Strop arrives she is in a very good mood due to being on hols and going to Fiji in a few days time. I have managed to appropriate a table in the crowded Garden Bar, conveniently close to the loos. The Marly is a Newtown institution, which is not necessarily a good thing in my experience. It has recently had a bit of a makeover though, and the vortex of the redecorating whirlwind seems to have settled on the back bar which has become quite girly and gardeny. There are friezes and murals on the general theme of plants, lots of exposed brick, and even internal window boxes with plastic lavender (I wonder how they dust those).

It’s all a bit gorgeous really. Still, the vibe is lively and the staff are very efficient and friendly. As they all have beards, tatts and oversized earings, the only way to tell them from the punters is by the tea towels they all wear, hanging jauntily from their waists.

Rule Number 6 says burgers, so that’s what we’re having. At first I like the look of the Newtown Cheeseburger – well it’s just the name really, I’m a sucker for a good name – until I read the fine print and realise it is a No-Meat option. No thanks, I’ve been waiting a long time for this burger opportunity and the presence of meat is non-negotiable. So the order at the bar is two Beefburgers With The Lot, another Dogbolter for my good self, and a glass of Rioja for the missus. While at the bar I notice that the top shelf is brimming with single malts and decide to forego dessert in favour of a Talisker later on.

There are pot plants in macrame holders hanging over the bar. I’m glad to see macrame is making a comeback with the hipsters, but it is an odd feeling when the trappings of your formative years become the next generations ironic plaything. Luckily the burgers arrive before I get too depressed by this thought.

Old school burgers - well apart from the girly red basket — Old school burgers – well apart from the girly red basket

The burgers come in little red baskets with chips on the side and they are excellent. Nothing ironic here, just a reverential tribute to the old-school definition of The Lot: egg, bacon AND pineapple. There may have been cheese in there too but I didn’t pause long enough to be sure. And the burgers are not too large in the diameter dimension. They are a traditional burger size, although piled high enough with fillings to warrant spearing with a bamboo reinforcing spike.

Strop decides she would like a bit of mayonnaise to go with the chips. The staff are apologetic, “Sorry we only have aioli.”

“Even better,” says Strop.

The only negative we find is that the buns are a little on the sweet side. This doesn’t worry me but Strop likes to make constructive criticisms. To my mind, the role of the bun in a burger is similar to a napkin, it is only there to keep your fingers clean. All you want to notice about the bun is the toasty inner surface, nicely softened by barbecue sauce and fat.

We finish off the evening with a Lagavulin and a Talisker before stumbling home to fall asleep in front of the television. The Marly has set a high pub-burger standard. I wonder how the others will compare.