Sweet lamb buns at Din Tai Fung

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014

Depending on who you ask, 2015 is either the year of the sheep, the goat or the ram. Whatever woolly can-eater you choose to honour this Chinese New Year is fine by us, but we’re putting our faith behind the sheep, only because of these super cute sheep buns Din Tai Fung are selling over the next two weeks.

Anyone who’s eaten a xiao long bao dumpling from Din Tai Fung will understand our decision to trust them with our zodiac year. The little sacks of soupy perfection are a gift from god – and after you’ve swallowed a good 12 of them, there’s no better dessert than an adorable spongy sheep bun.

Looking like a Pokemon that so very few of us could be bothered levelling up, the sheep buns come steaming hot, their puffy bodies releasing a river of molten chocolate when bitten into, with a nice chunk of taro in the middle. There’s a small amount of guilt as you bite through its little face, but if you ever wanted to eat a beanie baby, this is as close as you’ll get without actually ingesting cotton.

The wool-less sheep buns are available at most the Din Tai Fun locations for dinner and lunch, from now until the 5th of March. After then you’ll have to wait until next year’s Monkey buns.

Levins’s First Annual Christmas Movie Trivia Extravaganza – the answers!

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014

Here they are – the answers to our First Annual Christmas Movie Trivia Extravaganza! Absolutely no apologies in advance to any Love Actually fans, especially my mum.

Get your red pens out and let’s see how you did!

ROUND ONE

  1. In Jingle all the Way, what toy does Jaime (and every other kid in the Country) want?

ANSWER: A Turbo-Man action figure.

  1. And what is the name of that toy’s arch enemy?

ANSWER: Dementor.

  1. What is the name of the department store that Jovie works at in Elf?

ANSWER: Gimbels.

  1. What is Santa’s gift to Halloween Town at the end of The Nightmare Before Christmas?

ANSWER: He makes it snow over the town.

  1. Who plays Charles Dickens in The Muppet Christmas Carol?

Answer: Gonzo the Great.

  1. Which Christmas movie also happens to be the last movie that John Ritter ever starred in?

ANSWER: Bad Santa

  1. In Gremlins, What are the three specific instructions for looking after a Mogwai?

ANSWER: “Never expose it to bright light, never get it wet and never, no matter how much it cries or begs, never, ever feed it after midnight.”

  1. What is the name of the black & white gangster movie Kevin watches by himself in Home Alone?

ANSWER: Angels With Filthy Souls.

  1. What does John McClane write on the sweater of the first terrorist he kills in Die Hard?

ANSWER: “NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN HO HO HO”.

  1. How many Tim Burton movies are set during Christmas?

ANSWER: Three – Edward ScissorhandsBatman Returns and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

ROUND TWO

  1. Besides Batman Returns, what other superhero movie sequel is set during Christmas?

ANSWER: Iron Man 3.

  1. Homicide Sergeant Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is ‘too old for this shit’. How old does he turn at the start of the first Lethal Weapon?

ANSWER: 50.

  1. What is the name of John McClane’s limousine driver in Die Hard?

ANSWER: Argyle.

  1. What is the name of the town that Gremlins is set in?

ANSWER: Kingston Falls

  1. How many of the 5 (!) Home Alone movies are set during Christmas?

ANSWER: 4, Home Alone 3 is the only one not set during Christmas.

  1. In the first Home Alone, what gift does does Santa give Kevin when he visits him before Christmas?

ANSWER: Three green Tic Tacs.

  1. In Home Alone, John Candy plays Gus Polinski, the polka king of the Midwest. What is the name of his band?

ANSWER: The Kenosha Kickers.

  1. What is the last line of dialogue in Home Alone?

ANSWER: Buzz yelling: “Kevin?! What did you do to my room?!”

  1. In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, what song does Uncle Frank sing in the shower?

ANSWER: Cool Jerk by The Capitols

  1. What is the last line of dialogue in Home Alone 2?

ANSWER: Peter McCallister yelling “Kevin, you spent $967 on room service?!”

ROUND THREE

  1. In Bad Santa, what gift does Thurman (Brett Kelly) give Willie (Billy Bob Thornton)?

ANSWER: A wooden pickle.

  1. Besides John and Holly McClane, which characters from the first Die Hard are in Die Hard 2?

ANSWER: Richard “Dick” Thornburg, the reporter and Al Powell, the Twinkie-loving cop.

  1. What is the name of the novel that Die Hard was based on?

ANSWER: Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp

  1. The building used for The Nakatomi Tower in Die Hard is actually the headquarters of which movie studio?

ANSWER: 20th Century Fox.

  1. Besides being set during Christmas, what do Lethal WeaponThe Long Kiss GoodnightKiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3 all have in common?

ANSWER: They were all written by Shane Black.

  1. Which 1996 Christmas comedy only just got its straight to video sequel in 2014?

ANSWER: Jingle All the Way.

  1. What movie are the gremlins watching in the cinema before Billy and Kate blow them up at the end of Gremlins?

ANSWER: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

  1. In Lethal Weapon, what gift does Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) give Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) for Christmas?

ANSWER: The bullet he was saving to commit suicide with.

  1. In Scrooged, who plays the ghost of Christmas present?

ANSWER: Carol Kane.

  1. What is the worst Christmas movie of all time?

ANSWER: Love Actually.


How did you do? If you got less than ten correct you are required to spend your Christmas break watching each of the movies referenced in the trivia over and over again until you know every line back to front! If you got over 20 correct then I’ll see you in the cinema for this year’s Christmas blockbuster: Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever!

Levins’s First Annual Christmas Movie Trivia Extravaganza

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014

Die HardGremlinsLethal WeaponHome Alone. What do these four movies have in common besides being AWESOME? They’re all set during Christmas!

For the past two decades of my life I have spent every Christmas Eve successfully convincing my family that watching Home Alone for the ninetieth time is way more important to our beliefs than going to midnight mass. I can quote that movie from start to finish and then immediately go into the sequel. My wife can do that with her favourite Christmas movie, Die Hard. An alarmingly large amount of my favourite movies are set during Christmas, and nothing warms my heart more than watching them all, one after the other, in the lead up to Christmas Day. Imagine an advent calendar where every window is actually a DVD case containing a Christmas classic, and on the 24th you finally open Home Alone. Beautiful.

Last night I hosted a Christmas movie trivia night at Sydney’s Goodgod Small Club. It wasn’t just any old trivia night though, it was my First Annual Christmas Movie Trivia Extravaganza, and it was so glorious that I had to let it live on in this festive issue.

There are three rounds of ten Christmas movie questions. Some of them are obscenely hard. The team that won got 25 out of 30. If you beat their score shoot me an email and I’ll give you a shitty prize, the greatest gift of all.

Questions are on this page, answers can be found over here. No cheating, ya filthy animal.

ROUND ONE

  1. In Jingle all the Way, what toy does Jaime (and every other kid in the country) want?
  2. And what is the name of that toy’s arch enemy?
  3. What is the name of the department store that Jovie works at in Elf?
  4. What is Santa’s gift to Halloween Town at the end of The Nightmare Before Christmas?
  5. Who plays Charles Dickens in The Muppet Christmas Carol?
  6. Which Christmas movie also happens to be the last movie that John Ritter ever starred in?
  7. In Gremlins, What are the three specific instructions for looking after a Mogwai?
  8. What is the name of the black & white gangster movie Kevin watches by himself in Home Alone?
  9. What does John McClane write on the sweater of the first terrorist he kills in Die Hard?
  10. How many Tim Burton movies are set during Christmas?

Ok, round one is over. I’m sure you did great. There’s a stack of Home Alone questions in the next round. Go fix yourself some mac and cheese and prepare yourself for…

ROUND TWO

  1. Besides Batman Returns, what other superhero movie sequel is set during Christmas?
  2. Homicide Sergeant Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is ‘too old for this shit’. How old does he turn at the start of the first Lethal Weapon?
  3. What is the name of John McClane’s limousine driver in Die Hard?
  4. What is the name of the town that Gremlins is set in?
  5. How many of the 5 (!) Home Alone movies are set during Christmas?
  6. In the first Home Alone, what gift does does Santa give Kevin when he visits him before Christmas?
  7. In Home Alone, John Candy plays Gus Polinski, the polka king of the Midwest. What is the name of his band?
  8. What is the last line of dialogue in Home Alone?
  9. In Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, what song does Uncle Frank sing in the shower?
  10. What is the last line of dialogue in Home Alone 2?

Ok, we’re nearly done. This next round is a goddamn doozy with a bunch of Die Hardquestions. Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!

ROUND THREE

  1. In Bad Santa, what gift does Thurman (Brett Kelly) give Willie (Billy Bob Thornton)?
  2. Besides John and Holly McClane, which characters from the first Die Hard are in Die Hard 2?
  3. What is the name of the novel that Die Hard was based on?
  4. The building used for The Nakatomi Tower in Die Hard is actually the headquarters of which movie studio?
  5. Besides being set during Christmas, what do Lethal WeaponThe Long Kiss GoodnightKiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3 all have in common?
  6. Which 1996 Christmas comedy only just got its straight-to-video sequel in 2014?
  7. What movie are the gremlins watching in the cinema before Billy and Kate blow them up at the end of Gremlins?
  8. In Lethal Weapon, what gift does Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) give Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) for Christmas?
  9. In Scrooged, who plays the ghost of Christmas present?
  10. What is the worst Christmas movie of all time?

You made it to the end! It’s a Christmas miracle! Hand over your answer sheets and let’s see how you scored.

Pok Pok Som drinking vinegar

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014

You ever tear your shirt off, punch the sky and drink a whole two litre thing of cider vinegar? Me either. What about crunching up half a bag of salt n vinegar chips then pouring a red powerade in the bag, shaking it up and guzzling? Such a complicated way to drink vinegar! There’s got to be a better way!

Pok Pok is a cool little Thai restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Or rather it was – now it’s a chain of almost ten restaurants and bars across Portland, New York and LA. Their bars in particular are great for snacking on some of the only decent som tum in the States, while sipping Som – their house made drinking vinegar.

While not as complex as a crushed up chips and powerade combo, the drinking vinegars are sweet and sour, perfect with soda water and even more perfect with liquor. I’m a big fan of the pineapple flavour but I’m excited to try the new weirder flavours like Chinese celery and Thai basil.

Anyone familiar with Asian drinking vinegars will find Som a lot less artificial tasting, and some people might even try and convince you that there’s some old timely health benefits to drinking them. While Som is 100% natural, it is mostly sugars and vinegar. It’s super delicious though, and isn’t happiness the greatest health benefit of all? For real though I just drank three bottles of vinegary sugar syrup please send help.

REVIEW: The Bearded Tit

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014

Lately I’ve been storming out of pubs within minutes of heading to the bar. Blame it on me not recognising any of the four thousand beers on tap, or me trying to order something on the menu that isn’t loaded with buzzwords that mean nothing. No, I don’t want a cajun sourdough pulled pork po’ boy slider pizza and even more no, I don’t want to try four tiny glasses of beer that taste like chai served on a wooden paddle. I want a schooner, a bag of chips and I want a pub to just be a fuckin’ pub.

You remember that feeling when you first walked into The Clare Hotel in 2002, frantically trying to decide which gross old couch you were going to spend the next four hours on, nervously clutching a beer you were ready to neck in case somebody came to I.D. you? Or the first time those significantly older mates took you to the Hollywood and you had the late night epiphany that there are literally hundreds of beers that are better than Coopers Green? Those memories come flooding back within seconds of arriving at Redfern’s newest bar, The Bearded Tit.

You may have seen the woollen dicks with tits out the front and thought “I’m not sure if I’m a woollen dicks with tits kind of guy”, but you’ll be quickly won over by The Bearded Tit’s loud and proud aesthetic. It’s somehow no nonsense while being 100% nonsense at the same time. There’s a sense of order in the millions of trinkets and artworks that adorn every inch of the walls. The owners have had this space for two years and I’d wager they spent most of those years deciding which trinket should go where, working out the perfect spot for the boar’s head with a trumpet in his mouth.

There’s no nonsense behind the bar. Three beers flow happily from the tap – Reschs, Peroni and Angry Man Pale Ale – aka you, your mate who works in accounting and your sweet wanker friend who paints for a living. There’s some seriously good cocktails and the menu is made up of bits and pieces you can buy from local food spots. We didn’t see the word ‘artisan’ written once.

The Bearded Tit calls itself a lot of things. A bar, a gallery, a creative space, a happy place. Above all though, The Tit is one thing – a great pub. The kind of place you can enter at 5pm and within what seems like seconds, last drinks are being called and you have three new best mates.

REVIEW: Zahli

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014

Everybody’s had that passionate argument before, screaming at their mates as they drunkenly stumble down Cleveland St, furiously scrunching at the paper bag encasing their longneck. Friendships have been lost over the endless quest to figure out which kebab store is better: Fatima’s or Abdul’s? Which dirty oil, dusty carpet, microwave using Lebanese institution is superior?

Those wishing to avoid that argument in the future can head around the corner, where Zahli recently opened on Elizabeth St. Zahli is clean, bright and modern. It’s like Fatima’s and Abdul’s had a baby who; went to finishing school, got rich and built a mansion next to mum and dads to rub its successes in their faces. The menu boasts ‘modern middle eastern’ but really this means ‘the same food you can get at most Lebanese restaurants but served very nicely on a plate that’s quite lovely’.

All the classics are here – the colourful pickles are great, the hommos and baba ghannouj nice and rich, the fried bread in the middle of the table as addictive as it is immediately replaced once you’ve finished it. The only misfire is the fattoush, which was too chunky and had too much capsicum. The mixed mezza plate more than made up for the fattoush, the ladies fingers, falafel, kibbeh and sambousik are all fresh and light, without that dank, old oil aftertaste.

Mains are where you’ll find a lot of dishes that aren’t found around the corner, among the mixed grill options are mjadra (lentils and rice), samki harra (grilled barramundi with nuts and tahini) and garlic prawns for some reason.

If memories of sitting on the floor at Fatima’s and awkwardly avoiding the gaze of the belly dancer as she knocks your tabouleh off the table have scarred you from returning to Fatima’s or Abdul’s, walk that extra hundred metres and spend that extra ten bucks a head at Zahli.

Christmas lunch debate: Vegans vs Carnivores

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014
Illustration by Katrina Sum

For me, Christmas Day is just an excuse to eat as much ham as possible, while still leaving enough room to be able to eat leftover ham on toast for at least a week afterwards. This is a proud tradition passed down from generation to generation in our family (hamily?).

Last year my younger sister Kate made the decision to become vegan. She had been a vegetarian for about a year before that. We were pricks about it at first but gradually her vegan recipes improved and we all looked forward to the meat and dairy-free meals and treats Kate would spend hours cooking (or not cooking, as is the case with most raw vegan snacks). She even started a website for her recipes that explains why you should carefully avoid certain foods and try to seek out healthier ingredients. Where I once used to groan, I now proudly boast to my friends of my slightly healthier diet, thanks in no small part to my sister.

But Christmas is around the corner. That means we’ve gotta start thinking about Christmas Day lunch, and the proud ham eating family tradition that comes with it. In order to avoid an awkward confrontation at this year’s dinner table, I had a conversation with Kate about some potential vegan Christmas lunch dish alternatives that don’t suck.

Levins: Hey!

Kate: Haaai.

Levins: I was just thinking about Christmas lunch this year, should we cook three or four hams?

Kate: If by hams you mean salads, then four.

Levins: What, like a salad made up of different parts of ham?

Kate: No hams for me.

Levins: No hams? It’s Christmas! You can’t even spell Christmas without ham!

Kate: Lev, I was vegan last Christmas and I’m still vegan this Christmas. No ham, no bacon, no roast pork, no chicken, no duck, no turkey, no turducken.

Levins: What about presents? Do vegans still believe in presents?

Kate: YES. Remember last year you even got me a vegetarian cookbook?

Levins: I did? I’m the best! Were there any vegan substitutes for Christmas ham in there?

Kate: They suggest felafel!

Levins: As a replacement for ham? I don’t know if putting leftover felafel on toast for the fortnight following Christmas will be as life-changing as leftover Christmas ham.

Kate: How about a big roasted celeriac! You can still have it flavoured with herbs and salt, polka-dotted with cloves, layered with orange slices and glazed with syrup! I can even dye it pink with beetroot juice!

Levins: That actually sounds OK. The leftovers need to last us until at least Australia Day though. We’ll need a 15kg celeriac. Can we smoke it in the Weber? With pineapples and glacé cherries toothpicked to it?

Kate: Sure! Although no glacé cherries, they’re poisonous! They’re bleached in calcium chloride and sulfur dioxide.

Levins: I’m pretty sure calcium chloride and sulfur dioxide make up 50% of the spirit of Christmas. The other 50% is roast meat! How can we replace the roast chicken with stuffing? That’s a big one. I refuse to eat mock meat. This year I’m giving myself the same gift I give myself every year, and that’s the gift of never finding out what Quorn tastes like.

Kate: Uhhh, me too. All self-respecting vegans hate mock meat! What even is mycoprotein? If you like stuffing so much maybe we can make stuffed eggplant? With barley and herbs, garlic, lemons, pomegranate molasses?

Levins: Can we make the stuffing more Christmassy by throwing some sage in there?

Kate: Sage = Christmas.

Levins: OK cool! So roast celeriac, stuffed eggplants and… prawns! Vegans eat fish right? I’ll head to the fish markets now!

Kate. Woah, woah, wait, no. No we do not!

Levins: Not even if we dip them in our uncle’s famous cocktail sauce made out of mayonnaise, ketchup and bourbon?!

Kate: How about I make rice paper rolls instead?

Levins: I guess you put prawns in those sometimes.

Kate: Usually they’re filled with prawns, but we could make ours with summer fruitscucumber and avocado, mint and shiso leaves, pickled carrots with toasted sesame seeds.

Levins: Can we still dip them in cocktail sauce?

Kate: No mayo – although I actually have a cashew mayo recipe!

Levins: No thanks. We’ll just hold the mayo and dip them in ketchup and bourbon. That’s lunch sorted – now all we need is dessert! Let me guess – a raw fruit pudding? With a kale smoothie instead of custard?

Kate: We could make a whole tray of treats just like Grannie does each year. Bliss balls, chocolate slice, mini chia puddings, trufflesgingerbread men; all made vegan with thanks to non-dairy milk and chia seeds.

Levins: I’m kinda on board but good luck convincing Grannie.

Kate: It doesn’t all have to be vegan, we can have a mix of both. I just don’t want to be stuck eating just lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber slices.

Levins: Variety is the spice of life, that’s why I made Christmas crackers that are half vegan, half omnivore. Some have a raw mushroom inside and the others have a cold party pie.

Kate: Mum already bought christmas crackers filled with cheap plastic toys, paper hats and bad jokes. Don’t worry, plastic is vegan. Delicious plastic…

Levins: OK one last question. What do you want for christmas this year?

Kate: A dehydrator! Next year we’ll have an entirely RAW vegan Christmas.

Levins: As long as I can use it to make jerky for New Years, you’ve got a deal.

And with that, Christmas was saved. God bless us, everyone.

Xmas Breakfast Baloney Sandwich recipe, by ACME’s Mitch Orr

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014
Illustration by Kat Sum

ACME is probably our favourite new restaurant that opened this year, so we were stoked when head chef Mitch Orr made us an extra festive version of one the greatest (and most photographed) dishes on his menu, the baloney sandwich.

Mitch told us that this is a breakfast sandwich, but we think it’s perfect for eating at any point on Christmas Day. In fact, we plan to eat one at breakfast, one at brunch, one on the way to Christmas lunch before serving a platter of them during lunch, then – well, you get the idea. These are monumentally good and we’re going to eat a shitload of them. Thanks Father Mitchmas!


Mitch Orr’s Xmas Breakfast Baloney Sandwich

For the glazed mortadella:

50g per person mortadella
wholes cloves to stud
100g brown sugar
80ml maple syrup
80ml honey
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
60ml whiskey

Mix the honey, maple syrup, sugar, mustard and whiskey together.

Stud the mortadella with the whole cloves as you would a leg of ham.

In a pan over medium heat fry the mortadella in a small amount of butter, add the honey mix and lower the heat. Keep spooning the glaze over the mortadella until it’s reduced and sticky. Remove the mortadella from the pan and portion.

For the Potato Bread:

6g dry yeast
55g sugar
185g milk
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
6g salt
120g potato puree
500g bread flour
75g butter

Bring all ingredients out to room temp.

Heat the milk and potato puree in a pot until it reaches blood temperature. Whisk a little to break up the potato puree.

Place the sugar and yeast in a large kitchen aid bowl. Add the milk and potato. Whisk lightly and leave until the yeast activates and the mix becomes “spongy”.

Whisk in the eggs.

Add all the flour and salt to the kitchen aid bowl.

Using the fold/knead sitting work the dough until the sides of the bowl become “clean” (you may need to remove the dough and need it by hand if the kitchen aid becomes over worked).

Add the butter and repeat the same process (again, you may need to work the dough by hand).

Keep kneading the dough until it is smooth and shiny, about 10-15 minutes. The dough should feel like someone shoulder. Allow the dough to rest for 10 mins covered.

Portion the dough into 30g pieces. Roll into balls, keep your hands lubricated with olive oil. This prevents the dough drying out.

Place the balls onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Allow the dough to prove. When pressed the dough should spring back about 25% of the way.

Bake at 175 for 15 minutes (we do this in a fan forced combi oven, it may take longer in a home oven). The buns should be soft, fluffy and golden.

For the Tomato Ketchup:

1 clove garlic
1 bayleaf
pinch of coriander seeds
cinnamon quill
85ml malt vinegar
40g brown sugar
500g tinned san marzano tomatoes
Tabasco sauce to taste
Salt to taste

Put everything except salt and Tabasco in a heavy based pot and bring up to boil. 
Turn heat right down and let the sauce reduce for a few hours, stir occasionally.

Remove the cinnamon quill and bay leaf. Blend the sauce until smooth. 
Check the consistency and reduce more if needed.

Once reduced to a nice thick consistency season the ketchup with Tabasco and salt.

To serve:

Fry one egg per person. Keep the yolk runny. Trim the edges of the eggs so they will fit inside the potato bread.

Tear open the potato bread, lather with ketchup, stuff with glazed mortadella, add the fried egg, squirt more ketchup, close bun. Shove in face.

Serve with eggnog and a side of candy canes.

Boon Cafe at Jarern Chai Grocer

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014

Like a gremlin doused with water, Chat Thai has been multiplying over the last few years – with locations popping up in shopping centres and food courts. While each new location has stayed true to the O.G.’s mantra of Thai classics done extremely fucking well, their latest venture breaks all the rules (and still does things extremely fucking well).

If you’ve ever eaten a Chat Thai curry and thought ‘this would be insanely good on a sandwich’, sing your praises to the Lord of Holy Basil, because Chat Thai has been reading your mind and has opened their take on a typical Australian cafe. It’s housed inside their brand new grocery store, Jarern Chai Grocer, itself worthy of a long review praising its colourful collection of produce, both local and imported. A stroll through the aisles is the perfect distraction as you wait for your bowl of crab pasta.

What’s that? Crab pasta? At a Thai joint? It’s all par for the course at Boon Cafe, nestled in the middle of the grocery store. By night the cafe offers a traditional Isaan Thai menu – beautiful soups, noodles and curries as good as you’ll find at the first Chat Thai around the corner – but breakfast and lunch is way more fun, when the mother/daughter team of Amy Chanta and Palisa Anderson present a selection of sandwiches, salads and pasta that feature Thai flavours while avoiding tacky fusion label.

Between thick slices of sourdough from Brickfields Bakery, you’ll find thai sausage, pork larb, fermented rice cakes, smoked eggplant relish and a shitload of chilli. These decadent sandwiches immediately stake their claim for the best in the city – and before you start uninviting your friend who pretends to have a gluten intolerance, don’t worry! The sandwiches can be served as rice bowls too!

Swing by for a sandwich at breakfast, then return for a few bowls of pasta at lunch. The pasta comes fresh from Porcorosso and provides a good chew, a nice contrast to the soft rice noodles typically used in Thai food. The kamut fusilli is a highlight, the yellow twists of pasta turning even yellower as they soak up the spicy oil from pork sausage and slide through raw egg yolks.

The level of heat in each dish is a welcome difference from your average cafe, and if you find it a bit much, suck down on one of the house made tisanes – a sweet herbal tea that changes flavour throughout the week. After trying one flavour, you’ll want to return a few times to make sure you get through them all. Add Boon Cafe to the top of the list of restaurants that we’d be perfectly happy eating at for breakfast, lunch and dinner – leaving with a bag of groceries to take home.

REVIEW: Belly Bao at Goodgod Small Club

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015

The third restaurant to take up the kitchen space inside Goodgod Small Club might be the best yet. Stepping in hot on the heels of Jonkanoo’s short and sweet tenure and following three years of The Dip, whose head chef was about as good at cooking as he is at righting.

The opposite of Caribbean and cheeseburgers might be Taiwanese food, but Belly Bao are serving up one of the greatest Taiwanese creations, bao! The soft, pillowy fold-over bun things with delicious braised meats inside. Bao have appeared randomly on a few menus across Sydney over the last few years, most famously as Momofuku’s pork bun, but Belly Bao is Sydney’s first dedicated house of bao, with eight varieties on the menu.

All of the food groups are covered – pork, chicken, crab, beef, tofu and ice cream. I was expecting to love the slow braised pork belly bao the most, a classic bao available at a few Taiwanese restaurants around Sydney, however it was a little disappointing, the usually melt-in-your-mouth belly fat was on the thick and chewy side. Instead the king bao of the menu is the roast pork belly with crackling, pickled radish and mayo. It’s juicy, crunchy, salty, sweet and delicious. So are the other savoury baos, but the roast pork belly bao is the juiciest, crunchiest, saltiest, sweetest and most delicious. All hail king bao. The crispy tofu bao was my second favourite, which will be good news to vegetarians sick of eating fast food vastly inferior to the meaty options.

There’s (thankfully) no mock meat alternative to the other star of Belly Bao’s menu – fried chicken. Combining the best parts of Taiwanese salt & pepper chicken and sticky Korean fried chicken, this fried bird is immediately some of the best in town. Don’t go overboard ordering every single bao in one sitting – make sure you leave room for an entire fried chicken to yourself, best eaten while sitting in the middle of the Goodgod dancefloor with your eyes closed.

The fluffy white bao wrappers are deep fried until crunchy and brown and stuffed with ice cream for dessert, which is a sentence probably far more effective at getting you down to Belly Bao as soon as possible than this entire review. Hop to it.