REVIEW: Old Mate on Crown

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

The Old Mate on Crown is less a cafe than it is an example of a perfect co-worker. I don’t know how they are at paperwork, but they’re in the break room every single day of the week, working wonders with that sandwich press and feeding the entire office with a smile on their face as they list the fresh produce between the perfectly buttered slices of Bread and Butter Project sourdough.

They lugged their juice maker to work and give you a free shot of vege juice with your coffee, which they proudly boast is from Toby’s Estate, a definite step up from the Nescafe, the only thing in the company freezer. Old Mate even drove out to Hurstville this morning and picked up some delicious cinnamon scrolls from Oregano Bakery.

Sure, they dominate the stereo with old Oasis albums you wish you never knew existed, but Old Mate’s unpretentious dedication to being a team player keeps everybody happy and they truly deserve those multiple “employee of the month” placards above their desk. The next time you wish you had a co-worker whose toasted sambos taste as cute as the chalk writing describing them on the menu, you know where to go.

Where
328 Crown St, Surry Hills

When
Mon-Sun, 7am-3:30am

REVIEW: Grumpy Donuts

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

Here’s a novel idea: start a company that makes donuts. Everybody loves donuts, even crap ones. Except the donuts this new company makes aren’t crap, they’re amazing. Beautiful works of saturated fat art, every colour of the unhealthy rainbow. Some are topped with chips, others sugar-coated cereal or crushed cookies. The best one is topped with candied bacon.

These donuts don’t have fancy, pretentious names. The donut covered in caramel and potato chips isn’t called fucking ‘Reginald’ or something, it’s called ‘Caramel and Potato Chips’. You know what you’re getting, and when you get one, you wish you got two.

These donuts come in a box with a sticker on them that says ‘GRUMPY DONUTS’ above a picture of a fairly grumpy donut cartoon. How could a donut be grumpy when it’s covered in potato chips?

So we’ve got a company that sells donuts that might be grumpy by name but are definitely delicious in taste. Incredible business model so far. Let’s go buy a box of these awesome donuts! Oh, what’s that? There’s no Grumpy Donuts shop? A handful of these donuts are only available on Fridays at Orto Trading Co. and The Wedge Espresso? Oh, don’t worry, you can order them from the Grumpy Donuts website, except you can’t actually do that right now because orders are currently closed? Perfect. I could say that a better name for this company is ‘Cocktease Donuts’, but that would imply that the donuts don’t have a hole in their middle, and save for the very delicious rectangular Maple Bacon Bar, they absolutely do.

If you can get your hands on a Grumpy Donut, do so. They’re worth the challenge.

REVIEW: Ngon Vietnamese Street Food

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015

There are three food courts in Chinatown, each of them worth visiting repeatedly, exploring every restaurant and familiarising yourself with as many of the dishes on offer as possible. It’s pretty hard to go wrong, but if you wanna ensure rightness, here is a simple Chinatown food court hierarchy to use as a guide: Sussex Centre > Eating World > Dixon House. Disagree? Fight me. 9pm tonight outside the Paddy’s Markets. Loser has to eat at the Westfield food court for a month. Enjoy your Snag Stand.

The most recent addition to Sussex Centre’s stalls, already home to 10/10 eateries like Happy Chef and Ikkyu, is Ngon Vietnamese Street Food, a clean neon Vietnamese affair that’s next door to another clean neon Vietnamese affair. On the menu are some 40 lunch options, a grab bag of someone who’s recently visited Vietnam listing as many of the great meals they had while they were there in 30 seconds. While there’s a lot of familiarity on the menu (bowls of vermicelli, banh mi, rice paper rolls), there’s also a Hanoi specialty on there, one I’ve not seen on a Sydney Viet menu before: bun cha hanoi.

Bun cha is a collection of bowls – one filled with noodles, one with herbs, another some sauce – but the star of the bowl show is one filled with grilled patties of ground pork, swimming in a warm and sweet broth. You mix some cold noodles into the broth, throw a few herbs in, add some chili, eat it all together and make a huge mess. It’s super fun and super delicious, and Ngon’s take on the dish is great value but lacking in the flavour department. The broth is sweet and strange, but the pork patties are lacking the taste of charcoal that they’re cooked over traditionally, Ngon opting to grill them over gas instead. A pile of grilled pork would improve with that same charcoal kick, and the usual varied collection of Vietnamese herbs is a few mint leaves and grated carrot. Still, it’s a fun lunch, and hopefully the start of more Vietnamese joints adding the dish to the menu.

Where
Shop F6, Sussex Centre Food Court, 401 Sussex St, Haymarket

When
Mon-Sun, 12pm-8pm

How much
$9.80

I made my friend eat the level 7 spicy tom yum noodles at Do Dee Paidang

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

Everyone’s got that one mate who likes it hot. The one who empties the entire container of complimentary chillies into their bowl of pho and asks every staff member at a Mexican Restaurant “no seriously, what’s the spiciest hot sauce you’ve got?”. My one mate is Owie. I once emptied an entire bottle of cayenne pepper onto a sandwich I made him and he didn’t even notice the heat. I took him to Chairman Mao in Kensington, ordered the dishes that would put me in a coma and all I got was an acknowledgement, a raised eyebrow as he told me “yeah, it’s pretty spicy” before eating all the food on the table.

Do Dee Paidang, a small Thai noodle joint in Chinatown, has quickly reached a cult status for its small bowls of tom yum, which are filled with an aromatic broth, chewy rice noodles, various meats and fried egg noodles. The soups are graded from 0 – 7 on the heat scale, with each number representing the number of dried chilli scoops added to your broth. 0 is called ‘Do Dee Nursery’. Add one scoop of chilli and it’s already hot enough to warrant the name ‘Do Dee Monster’. I made it to level 3, and that bowl of ‘Do Dee Lava’ almost destroyed me. I could taste the chilli in my ears.

Level 7, containing seven scoops of dried chillies, is affectionately called ‘Do Dee Super Nova’. There was no fucking way I was going to eat a bowl of noodles named after a dead star, but I knew just the asshole who I could convince to eat it for me.

I talked it up a bit and as we looked at the menu Owie had a little bit of fear in him. “Maybe I should try a level 5 first?” he asked me. Level 5? What did I look like? Concrete Playground? This is Two-motherfucking-Thousand, motherfucker! I ordered two bowls of soup, immediately blowing the food budget offered by publications such as ours. I ordered Owie that level 7 Super Nova and got a Do Dee Nursery on the side, so Owie could try the soup in its unadulterated state (not because I’m a huge pussy).

The first spoonfuls of every spice level of tom yum are fantastic, a great mix of textures and taste. Event the first few spoonfuls of the Super Nova are ok, the other flavours allowed to exist before the chilli works its magic on your tastebuds. After 20 seconds Owie gives me that nod of acknowledgment he gave me at Chairman Mao. “Yeah, it’s pretty spicy”, but he keeps slurping away, stopping at the halfway mark to wipe the beads of sweat from his brow before taking his jacket off on what is supposedly the coldest day in Sydney’s last two decades.

I get my phone ready to record his failure but he persists, and within a minute he’s eaten all but a small pool of broth. “Drink it!” I yell, pushing the boundaries of our friendship. He does, leaving a mostly empty bowl, save for a few flecks of bright red fire powder. I give Owie a round of applause, the kind you only hear from white guys in Thai restaurants, and he stares into space. “That’s gonna burn tomorrow morning” he tells me, and I realise what a perfect epitaph that would be.

Where
9/37 Ultimo Rd, Haymarket

When
Mon-Sun 11am-1am

How much
$6.90 a bowl

Contact
02 8065 3827

REVIEW: Hartsyard’s ‘Fried Chicken & Friends’

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Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

One of life’s true miracles, fried chicken is readily available in most parts of Sydney at most times of the day. You could throw a handful of flour at a drumstick in a deep fryer and it would still taste pretty good, but genuinely great fried chicken takes time, and every fried chicken fan will tell you that the chicken they fry at Newtown’s Hartsyard is genuinely great.

Fried Chicken & Friends is the first cookbook by the couple behind Hartsyard – relocated New Yorker Gregory Llewellyn and Naomi Hart, who opened an American restaurant at the peak of Sydney’s obsession with faux diner food but rose above the hype and delivered a menu that included American classics cleverly tweaked to reflect their Sydney setting.

While they could’ve just called this book Fried Chicken, the Friends include recipes for sweet potato pies, fried oyster po’ boys and poutine, plus a palate balancing selection of pickles and salads, an insane dessert section and some cocktails to wash it all down with.

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As for the fried chicken recipe? It takes up the first 20 pages of the book, takes three days and requires a vacuum sealer. Like a lot of the recipes in Fried Chicken & Friends, it’s incredible to have it written out in front of you but it’s more likely to make you book a table at Hartsyard than it is inspire you to actually cook it. Some things are best left to the experts.

Who
Hartsyard’s Gregory Llewellyn and Naomi Hart

Where
Out now through Murdoch Books

How much
$49.99

REVIEW: El Shaddai, Merrylands

ELS

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015.

African food is a bit of an anomaly in Sydney – a scattering of restaurants in the Western Suburbs without a “best African food in Sydney” Buzzfeed article to help you navigate them. Sydney’s growing African scene has meant the emergence of more specific restaurants. Offering more varied and regionally specific menus, instead of the all encompassing “African cuisine” representing the many dishes of the second biggest continent in the world. The main street in Merrylands has seen a few businesses open in the last few years, turning one end of Merrylands Rd into a haven for hair extensions and awesome food.

El Shaddai specialises in West African cuisine – you can tell this when you walk in due to the smell of ginger and hot spices, plus the Nigerian dancehall videos showing on the TV. It looks like a humble takeaway joint from the outside – and those looking for humble takeaway food will find cheap fish and chips on the menu – but the rest of the fare is proper sit down knife and fork stuff.

There’s an abundance of stewed meats, charcoal chicken and an intriguing dish called ‘kan kan kan’, but the pride of El Shaddai is their jollof rice with fried tilapia. Jollof rice is red with tomato, vaguely spicy and completely ignored when beneath a colossal fish, fried whole with crackly skin. On the side is a spicy onion relish that makes the white flesh of the tilapia taste even better. Also on the plate: a by-the-numbers garden salad topped with intricate swirls of pink mayo dressing. The perfect salad to cover with fish bones.

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The unassuming neon sign out the front of El Shaddai is not one that you’d associate with a $30 fish dinner, but the kitchen delivers, making you promise to return to try the rest of the menu and find out whatever the hell kan kan kan is.

Where
130 Merrylands Rd, Merrylands

When
Mon-Sat 12-8:45pm, Sun 2-8:45pm

How much
Mains from $15

REVIEW: Aaboll Cafe, Merrylands

Originally published on TwoThousand in 2015.

African food is a bit of an anomaly in Sydney – a scattering of restaurants in the Western Suburbs without a “best African food in Sydney” Buzzfeed article to help you navigate them. Sydney’s growing African scene has meant the emergence of more specific restaurants. Offering more varied and regionally specific menus, instead of the all encompassing “African cuisine” representing the many dishes of the second biggest continent in the world. The main street in Merrylands has seen a few businesses open in the last few years, turning one end of Merrylands Rd into a haven for hair extensions and awesome food.

aaboll2

El Shaddai specialises in West African cuisine – you can tell this when you walk in due to the smell of ginger and hot spices, plus the Nigerian dancehall videos showing on the TV. It looks like a humble takeaway joint from the outside – and those looking for humble takeaway food will find cheap fish and chips on the menu – but the rest of the fare is proper sit down knife and fork stuff.

aaboll3

There’s an abundance of stewed meats, charcoal chicken and an intriguing dish called ‘kan kan kan’, but the pride of El Shaddai is their jollof rice with fried tilapia. Jollof rice is red with tomato, vaguely spicy and completely ignored when beneath a colossal fish, fried whole with crackly skin. On the side is a spicy onion relish that makes the white flesh of the tilapia taste even better. Also on the plate: a by-the-numbers garden salad topped with intricate swirls of pink mayo dressing. The perfect salad to cover with fish bones.

The unassuming neon sign out the front of El Shaddai is not one that you’d associate with a $30 fish dinner, but the kitchen delivers, making you promise to return to try the rest of the menu and find out whatever the hell kan kan kan is.

Where
140 Merrylands Rd, Merrylands

When
Mon-Wed 7am-8:30pm, Thu-Fri 7am-9:30pm, Sat 10am-9:30pm, Sun 2-8:30pm

Contact
02 8840 9076

The Mitchen: a podcast about FOOD

TheMitchen1400I’ve started another podcast! This one’s called The Mitchen​! It’s a weekly panel about food, hosted by ACME‘s head chef Mitchell Orr​ and I from his his kitchen table, with four guests from the food world joining us each episode to discuss food and restaurant news.

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For our first episode we are joined by four talented and hilarious chefs – Mike Eggert (Pinbone), Analiese Gregory (ACME, ex-Quay), Kerby Craig (Ume) and Clayton Eggert (Automata, ex-Momofuku Seiobo). Together we mourn the recent closure of Pinbone, find out how to pronounce Clayton’s new restuarant, react to the news of Noma hosting a pop-up restaurant in Sydney next year, argue over our favourite sandwiches and take a few shots at our good friend Dan Hong.

Subscribe to The Mitchen on iTunes or stream episodes from our Libsyn page. Throw us a like on Facebook too! New episodes up every week!

THE DIP’S LAST WEEK

Originally posted on The Dip blog.

Welcome to the last week of The Dip. Don’t be sad – be organised! Get your crew together and make a booking for one last Dip trip before it’s too late.

We’re keeping it simple all week. Only a few specials – we’re mainly focusing on our regular menu. It’s all about that last plate of Pulled Pork Nachos, that last Lev’s Dawg and that last Young Cheezy.

Here’s some of the awesome things you can be a part of during our last week!

WEDNESDAY – GAME OF THRONES TRIVIA

Join Nick Coyle for an evening exploring George R. R. Martin’s world, covering all four seasons of the HBO show. Free and first in, best dressed. Kicking off at 8pm but be early – this one will be big!

THURSDAY – ONE LAST DIP HOP

Remember Dip Hop? We’re bringing back The Dip’s weekly Front Bar party for one last dance, with Head Chef Levins, Dip Hop regular Leon Smith and Dip legends Batesy & McKinley!

To make it a proper Dip Hop, we’re bringing back The Juicy J for one night only! It’s The Dip’s take on a ‘Juicy Lucy’ burger – the beef patty is filled with gooey American cheese and served with onions, pickles, tomato, lettuce and TRIPPY SAUCE.

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Enjoy rap and enjoy burgers. It’s a no-brainer. Free from 9pm.

FRIDAY – TEARS

Come watch our kitchen staff cry as they work through what is sure to be our busiest night ever.

SATURDAY – OUR LAST NIGHT & THE RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT

It’s our last night ever – and your last chance to eat your Dip favourites! Come enjoy our menu for the last time, and then join us for a huge party out the back with our head chef Levins DJing nothing but nostalgic 90s dance BANGERS until late into the night!

One week to go! We hope we see all of you at some point!

THE END OF AN ERA

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We’re closing The Dip in four weeks.

At the beginning of this year our son Archie was born. You’ve probably seen him all over Instagram. Having a kid changes your life – mostly it meant that Bianca needed to be at home with him almost every day, keeping her from The Dip. We have been blessed with incredible staff who were more than capable of running The Dip without B – even without me – but The Dip was something that B and I started together, and the idea of it existing without both of us just didn’t seem right.

So rather than The Dip morphing into something less like the restaurant we opened together three years ago (potentially better, potentially worse, we’ll never know!) we’re gonna go out on a high note. The Dip’s last night of trade will be Saturday the 12th of July.

Needless to say Goodgod Small Club isn’t going anywhere and I’m looking forward to throwing more parties with them into the future.

It’s hard to believe that we even got The Dip up and running. Between Bianca and myself we had a total of 0 years experience in the restuarant industry, but with a bit of help The Dip opened for business in May 2011 and since then we have enjoyed three awesome years of serving the food we love to eat to thousands of happy faces. We’ve worked with a few of our food heroes and have been honoured to be a part of the amazing funhouse that is Goodgod Small Club.

There are so many people we need to thank for making those 3 years great – and we’ll get to that over the next 4 weeks – but first and foremost we need to thank Jimmy and Hana from Goodgod Small Club for choosing us to fill their kitchen space in 2011. It’s been such a thrill to follow in their inspiring footsteps and open our own business, and even more of thrill to work with them on so many exciting events. Jimmy is currently talking with potential food collaborators to take advantage of the soon-to-be available kitchen opportunity. So if you think you’ve got what it takes, or if you’re just interested in what the next incarnation is, you should send Jimmy an email – jimmy@goodgodgoodgod.com.

As for me and what I’ll be doing next, everybody who knows me knows that I’ve been working on ten different things as well as The Dip over the last few years. I’ll be focusing more of my time on Heaps Decent, Halfway Crooks, DJing, running parties at Goodgod, being a kool dad and will probably start ten new things by the end of the year.

The most important thing for you to take from this is that there are only four weeks left for you to eat a Lev’s Dawg. Or a Young Cheezy with a side of Pulled Pork Nachos. In fact, we’ll be bringing back all of the most beloved specials, so if you never got to try a Ribwich or a Watermelon & Bacon Burger, you’ve got four weeks to come down and try those too.

I’ll be in Wilcannia all week with Heaps Decent but once I’m back I’ll be working at The Dip every night and I look forward to seeing all of you there for one last Dip feast!

Thanks so much,

Levins

The Dip