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Andrew Christie

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349A – Buzzzbar – Blathering the night away

June 14, 2014 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

349A buzzbar

Buzzzbar seems a very relaxed place. When I arrived, a woman was just leaving, trying to pay her bill with a small dog under each arm.

After quite a bit of e-communication, we have been promised a largish group for tonight’s outing, but everyone else is running various kinds of late, so I am the first to arrive. Buzzzbar (I have to be careful to get the spelling right without falling asleep) is a big place, with tables and lounges and a back courtyard that opens onto a lane off Enmore Road. There are plenty of seating opportunities, but mindful of the group we are expecting, I nab the large lounge area. It is a bit too nippy to be sitting outside, and anyway it will be smokey. That is one of the problems with dining in Sydney, you can’t eat outside without having to put up with smoke.

The staff seemed very concerned that I had turned up by myself, and were disconcertingly attentive for a while – until I had ordered a beer and some chips. I told the waiter that I was part of a much, much larger group that would be arriving soon, but he tried to convince me that I should join another table anyway. I resisted, convinced that Strop and the others would not leave me in the lurch.

Eventually the others arrived, first Strop who wasted no time ordering a glass of something smooth and red. Then Linda, Sue and Julian find us, and lastly, we are joined by Matilda. This is the full complement, except for my brother Steve who is always a late starter.

Linda and Sue are aunts to Matilda, who is not-quite sister to the Stropolina. Julian used to be a local, but has defected to Melbourne now. The evening takes a short sci-fi detour when Julian lifts his shirt to show us the blood sugar monitoring device he has plugged into his side. “I’m not diabetic. I just wanted to try it out because my company makes them,” he said, showing the flat-line read out on the portable monitor that is linked wirelessly to the probe in his side. That’s dedication, that is.

Caught in the headlights of Bentley Continental GT fantasies
Caught in the headlights of Bentley Continental GT fantasies

Drinks are ordered and mistakes are made. Matilda is not drinking, which is a pity because she spent the rest of the night knocking everyone else’s drinks over. Linda and Sue ordered a bottle of shiraz from somewhere called Ram’s Leap which turned out to be eye-watering and drew unfortunate comparisons with Ram’s somethingelse, and a lame joke from mygoodself that involved crutching, and was poorly conceived at best.

Around about this time we moved to a proper table and started thinking seriously about food. The menu is fairly typical of pub/cafe fare. There is a From The Grill section, an intriguing From The Fried section, as well as a somewhat nostalgic From The Larder section. Under these headings there are burgers, steaks, schnitzels, lots of pastas, and some salads. In the end, our order ranges freely over the menu, with a couple of pastas, 2 bangers and mash, fish and chips, a burger and a schnitzel. Very democratic if you don’t count salad, which I often don’t.

While we waited for the food, conversation ranged far and wide. From the merits of the Bentley Continental GT as a form of transport to jazz venues and racist dogs. Somewhere during this interlude the Ram’s somethingelse ran out and was replaced by a much more pleasing Argentinian vintage. Dogs were a hot topic for a while, particularly Linda and Sue’s entertainingly loopy kelpie which, in the absence of wooly livestock at the local parks, makes do with cornering some hapless spadoodle and trying to eyeball it into submission. And we thought our dog was crazy.

There were nice tunes on the obligatory speaker system – everything from Hendrix to Duffy – but the atmosphere was spoiled a bit by the cigarette smells that kept wafting through, dragged inside by the flow-through ventilation. The courtyard space seemed to be very popular with teenagers, who seemed to be very interested in smoking in groups.

Not the one from the floor
Not the one from the floor

When the food arrived, everything came but the fettuccine carbonara, “It will be slightly delayed,” said the waiter, “as the chef has dropped it on the floor.” When it did arrive, it came with a poached egg on top, which seems to be a new trend according to my in-depth google research. My hamburger was good enough to hold its head up with the rest King St burgers, the bangers and mash were voted “Alright,” and the schnitzel “Fine.” There was no trace left of the fish and chips, but there was quite a lot of the fettuccine with prawns left, but this might have been because Matilda was so busy knocking things over.

In the end the food was kind of irrelevant. We were having a fine old time blathering away, (bulldogs vs pugs, Melbourne vs Sydney, Canberra hipsters – really?), and that is what Buzzzbar is all about. As we were getting ready to leave we were presented with complimentary homemade chocolate and orange truffle things on sticks. And they were extremely yummy.

349a-3

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bangers and mash, Bentley, burger, cafe, fish and chips, pasta, poached egg, schnitzel, smoking

The Double-Edged Courtyard at Number 70 – Urban Bites

February 25, 2013 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

70urbanbites

We forgot about the smokers. Easy to do nowadays, I’ll admit. There we were in our nice warm little bubble, getting on with our nice little quest, entirely ignoring the desperate need addicts of the filthy weed have for outdoor eating and drinking spaces.

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We have walked past Urban Bites many a time and thought “How nice, an airy, sheltered, outdoor eating apparatus right on King Street, full of nice young people being happy and content.” Well yes, that’s because they have found the only such venue in Newtown, and are busy smoking their blackened and mis-shapen lungs out. No wonder they look happy.

We didn’t look so happy as we sat down in the courtyard, our nostrils spasming and trying to turn themselves inside out.  Finally, the awful truth filtered through our age-thickened wits: this place is a smoker’s paradise, good food, cheap drinks and full ashtrays. Lots of room to smoke, right on King Street.

Luckily we have a magic ability to seriously raise the average age in any space we occupy on King Street, and just as we were contemplating a move to the much less desirable internal tables, it kicked in.  Our secret power drove the young smokers away from the tables immediately adjacent to ours, leaving a nicotine-free vortex, suitable for aged non-smokers. Able to breathe again we relaxed, ordered beer, and wine, and began to size up the menu.

The happy smile of a man with a super power
The happy smile of a man with a super power

It’s pub food basically. Grills and spills, Greek and Italian influence, and cheap drinks. The students and the local smokers love it. And why not? The food is good, we had crispy calamari, tender souvlaki, generous salads, and $5 beers and wines. If the service hadn’t got slower and slower as the place filled up with O-Week enhanced students, we would have tried the pancakes as well. This is relaxed Aussie-alfresco dining, low prices and a menu that doesn’t challenge the sensibilities of students away from home for the first time. It delivers what it promises.

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Having a courtyard opening directly onto the street means that you can see the passers-by, and they can see you. It is very sociable, so as the night deepened there were lots of shouted greetings and invitations to join the expanding tables of young people.

As we waited for our bill to arrive we contemplated the impending visitation from our English friends, and whether we need to manipulate the pace or the order of the quest to avoid inflicting some of the King Street lowlights on them. In the end we decided that we weren’t that clever, especially as there is a Japanese Restaurant looming that we can’t tell if it is open or closed, so the Davos will have to take their chances with the rest of us.

Number 74 King Street is next, Chedi Thai. Will item number 37 be revisited?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Food, King Street, Newtown, restaurants, smoking

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