Review: The Psari Shop (Dulwich Hill)

Another “fishy” review! My sister told me a while ago about a new fish and chips restaurant in her neighbourhood but with so many things to worry about I completely forgot about it. She had already been there a couple of times, so it was time for Al and I to try it. The Psari Shop sits where Cafe Dal’or used to be, a few metres away from the Dulwich Hill train station. The signs on the windows and the walls covered in newspapers (American, as many reviewers have noted) tell you it’s a fish and chips shop, but it’s fancier than what I was expecting.

The menu includes all the usual suspects with a few grilled options and an interesting sounding pickled octopus. Nope, we didn’t get the octopus this time, so don’t ask. They also offer a mussels & rice special that I’d be also keen on trying.

As I said before, this is not your typical dodgy-looking fish and chips shop. I particularly liked the log stools around the big communal tables, they vaguely reminded me of something from my childhood.

A couple of things I really like about this place is the homemade sauces and the salts. Sauces include lime & chilli, lemon, herbs & garlic, tomato, tartare, BBQ and hot chilli and are 50 cents each. There are also three shakers on the tables with plain, rosemary and oregano salts. Good stuff.

Most dishes come with salad, which you can choose from the ones displayed at the counter. We ordered a grilled barramundi with a salad of multi-coloured baby carrots, broccoli and green beans. The serving barramundi looked a bit small but I think it was an optical illusion (things in a box look differently than on a plate. That applies to lunch containers, too.) The salad was great, my only suggestion would be to serve it warm, but it was great to see something more creative than your standard takeaway salad. The fish was fantastic: moist and tender.

Grilled barramundi, veggies ($15)

We also ordered a BBQ pack for 2 with 2 swordfish skewers, BBQ octopus, grilled calamari and 2 grilled prawns. The chosen salad for this one had beetroot, feta, cucumbers and red onion. Good stuff. Everything in this pack was delicious. I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favourite. Everything was perfectly cooked, no chewy calamari, no tough octopus, no dry swordfish or prawn. Best seafood I’ve eaten in a while.

BBQ pack, beetroot & feta salad ($46 for 2 people)

Of course, we had to try the chips. We ordered the small size which was larger than expected. Chips were good and went well with the excellent tartare and lemon, herbs & garlic sauces.

Chips & sauces ($3.50 for the small chips, $0.50 for each sauce)

Hopefully this restaurant will last longer than its predecessor(s).

The Psari Shop
237 Wardell Rd
Dulwich Hill NSW 2203
(02) 9558 8704
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Review: Fish & Co (Annandale)

It’s not a secret that I’m a big fan of fish. I’m also a big fan of sustainability, and so Fish & Co entered my radar a long time ago. Considering the fact that it takes a 15-20 minute walk from home to get there, it sounded like a triple win to me.

Literally as soon as Alvaro got back from holidays back home, we went there for dinner with my sister. Service was terrific and very helpful when it came to choosing gluten-free dishes. We started with a ceviche of white fish, a more Central American/Mexican style of cebiche because it comes with avocado and tomato in addition to the traditional chili and lime marinade. The fish was super fresh and overall was a nice dish, although not as sour as we like it.

Ceviche of white fish ($18.50)

Our second dish was one of the specials, the oven-roasted salmon with creamy potatoes and za’atar zucchini. Overall a good dish, a bit subtle in flavours. Great potatoes, slightly dry salmon. While the balsamic reduction on the plate didn’t seem to belong with the rest of the ingredients it helped to moisten up the fish. The almond “crumble” that topped the fillet was an interesting and tasty addition.

Oven-roasted salmon ($38.00)

Our final dish was the grilled fish of the day, served with a warm shallot and tomato dressing and a choice of side dish. The fish of the day was coorong yellow eye and our chosen side, green beans with roast almonds and hazelnut dressing. This was my favourite dish of the night, also delicate in flavours, and very buttery.

Grilled fish of the day ($27.00)

Overall this place deserves a top spot in my book because of their commitment to sustainable fish (which you can also buy raw to cook at home) and their excellent customer service. They also have an interesting beverages list featuring organic wines.

Fish & Co
41 Booth St
Annandale NSW 2038
(02) 9660 5575
www.fishandco.com.au

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Review: Thr1ve (Sydney CBD)

One of the big challenges people find when starting a Paleo journey is eating out. I think it takes a bit of research and a mindset shift to be able to make good choices. On the rare ocassions I haven’t brought my lunch to work, my go-to choices have been a large salad from Salad Plus (formerly Saladworks), roast chicken and salad from Coles or a sashimi salad from a sushi place in Wynyard station. Now I can add Thr1ve to the (top of the) list.

In the midst of the usual food court suspects in the MLC centre (Martin Place) there’s a “revolutionary” blackboard announcing high-protein, low-carb, no added sugar meals. Yes, this is not precisely the advice that you get from the government (which by the way works wonders to make the population fatter, sicker, and more dependant on the pharmaceutical/medical industry).

Thr1ve offers good food and supplements (also exercise programming but I’m not sure how it works) with a Paleo/Primal bias. According to their website, that means that most of their menu complies with the following characteristics:

No added sugar.
No processed carbohydrates.
No grains.
Nutrient dense vegetables and fruits options.
High quality animal and vegetable protein options.
Superfood and herbal garnish options.

Thr1ve is open Monday to Friday for breakfast and lunch. These are some of the things I found really appealing:

The option of having raw almond milk (or A2 milk, for those who do dairy) as a base for smoothies.
The option of customising your smoothie with “superfoods” (their protein/greens products, acai, bee pollen, lúcuma, or maca), nuts/nut butters (including coconut butter!), medium-chain triglycerides (MTCs), seeds, and spices.
The signature coffees: one with coconut cream and cinnamon, the other with MCTs and grass-fed butter.
The breakfast bowls with three free-range, dairy-free scrambled eggs as the foundation, instead of an early morning surge of insulin-spiking, gut-irritating carbohydrate (i.e. bread, cereal, porridge).
The lunch bowls and salads featuring quality protein (grass-fed beef, free range eggs and bacon).
Coconut oil mayonnaise. No explanation required.
Paleo treats made basically with nuts, seeds, and dried fruit.
Interesting stuff for sale: their protein and greens supplements, plus Paleo/Primal books (for example, Mark Sisson’s The Primal Blueprint and my favourite cookbook: Melissa Joulwan’s Well Fed).

Having said that, it’s good to point out that the menu is not 100% Paleo/Primal (as a business they must cater for conventional wisdom believers, I guess). You will find things like soy milk, brown rice, oats, legumes, toast and bread rolls. Do not eat those.

In my first visit I ordered the B.L.T. chop chop salad, crisp free range bacon, boiled egg, chopped iceberg lettuce, chunks of tomato & watercress, with a balsamic honey mustard dressing that is served separately. It was good and packed a very generous amount of chopped bacon that kept me well nourished for the rest of the day, which does not happen with other takeaway salads.

BLT chop chop salad ($9.50)

Note: this salad has been replaced (upgraded, I should say) by the K.B.A. (kale, bacon and avocado) salad with roast bacon, kale, avocado, hazelnuts, hazelnut oil, orange and lemon juice, salt and pepper, mixed greens base, served with an orange wedge and watercress garnish. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s in my radar. Something else that has changed with the new menu is that now you can mix-and-match the dressings.

On my second visit I had breakfast after an early morning workout (yes, I used it as an excuse to have a smoothie). Although all the signature smoothies sound really tempting (for example, salted caramel – dates, banana sea salt, and cashew butter), I ordered a custom one with raw almond milk, mixed berries, banana, and coconut butter (no sweetener). I ordered it with PerformaProtein but apparently they forgot to add it. Bummer.

The breakfast bowls are customisable too: besides the three scrambled eggs (or three egg whites with one yolk) you can choose brown rice (just because you can doesn’t mean you should), wilted spinach or roast tomato. You can also add free-range bacon, smoked salmon, grilled Tasmanian salmon, spicy tomato salsa, smashed avocado or roast veggies, for a fee. Mine had three scrambled eggs, roast tomato, and smashed avocado.

Breakfast bowl ($8.50 + $2 for the avocado), custom smoothie ($6.90 + $1 for the coconut butter)

The smoothie was good but a bit watery compared to the ones I used to make at home back in the day. The eggs were slightly too set for my liking, but not bad. The peppery roast tomato was juicy and flavourful. I’m not very sure about the smashed avocado: it wasn’t fully mashed, nor completely chunky… I think it gives the wrong impression that they don’t care too much about presentation.

That was more than enough of a breakfast for me but I couldn’t resist the temptation of trying one of their signature coffees, specifically the mountain coffee: a long black with MCT oil and grass-fed butter. (A note on the butter: I panicked when I saw the dreaded pale yellow plastic container all artificial butter imitations come in and asked to see the ingredients. While it was not just cream and salt, it wasn’t that bad. Not Pepe Saya quality, but not crap.) I was expecting them to just stir the MCT oil and butter in the coffee (that’s what I do at home) but this is where the magic comes in: they blend a glug of oil and a super generous spoonful of butter with some coffee and add it to the rest of the pour. The result is frothy, creamy, unctuous, and delicious. At $4.90 it’s not precisely cheap, but to be fair it’s served in a large takeaway cup and can easily be considered a full breakfast. Even though I had trained that morning I was full for 6+ hours.

I will definitely post follow-ups as I work my way through the menu.

Thr1ve
Shop 28, MLC Centre
19-29 Martin Place
Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9221 3885
www.thr1ve.me

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Review: Atom Thai (Newtown)

In the almost 4 years I’ve lived around Newtown I haven’t been able to try all the Thai restaurants in the area. I have the feeling I never will, but I take every opportunity to try to accomplish that goal.

This time the chosen was Atom Thai. I remembered a food blogger mentioned it was one of the best Thai restaurants in Newtown, and my dining companion hadn’t had a proper sit-down meal there (just some bites during trivia nights).

My pre-meal online research revealed they’ve got a separate gluten-free menu. I hope one day all restaurants get on board with this excellent practice. Sebastian was happy for me to order gluten-free dishes to share.

First was the Hot basil chili crispy pork with green beans, fresh chilis, onions, bamboo shoots and Thai hot basil. It sounded better than it was. We were expecting pork belly pieces with a nice crackling on top, but it was just crackling cubes with a weird crunchy/chewy texture that hurt my soft palate. The dish was medium heat as described, and the sauce was okay.

Hot basil chili crispy pork ($19.90)

Dish number 2 was the salmon green mango salad, from my understanding one of Sebastian’s favourite Thai dishes. Since he’s the expert I will refrain from giving my opinion and report that he wasn’t impressed. He said it wasn’t tangy and as flavourful as he expected, maybe the mango wasn’t green enough and/or the inclusion of some apple slices didn’t help.

Salmon green mango salad ($22.90)

Atom Thai
130 King St
Newtown NSW 2042
(02) 9550 5965
www.atomthai.com.au

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Review: Mr Crackles (Darlinghurst)

Ever since I saw this post about Mr Crackles in Simon’s blog I knew I had to try it. As it usually happens, all the other food bloggers (possibly on Earth) were already reviewing, tweeting and instagramming their porcine feasts, making my craving and curiosity grow stronger. A prompt reply to a question I emailed to them told me that a) all the food they sell (except the bread) is gluten-free, and b) customer service is good.

Finally Gladys, Bonnie and I could find a day that suited all. Sadly, the horrible weather forced us to discard our initial idea of a picnic-type of dinner at a nearby park. The on-site sitting is not particularly comfortable so it was takeaway for us.

Bread and desserts… not too appetising for us

Crackling

We spent quite a long time pondering what to order from the menu, we wanted to try all the meats and their famous crackling, but were afraid it would be too much. Luckily we do know how to overcome fear when it comes to food and decided to order one of each. Luckily for us, you can order meat-only servings that cost $5 per 100 grams (you can also order just the salad but who would do that??!!)

We took a taxi hoping that the food would still be warm and the crackling crunchy by the time we got home.

This is what we ordered: crispy skinned slow roast pork ($10, 200 grams), rosemary and garlic infused 12 hour braise lamb shoulder ($10, 200 grams), crispy skinned slow roast pork with Vietnamese salad ($12.50, large), marinated chicken with pumpkin salad ($12.50, large), braised Wagyu beef shin with pumpkin salad ($12.50, large), 2 cups of crackling ($5 each) and 1 serve of sweet potato wedges with chili aioli ($5).

Crispy pork, roast lamb, crispy pork & Vietnamese salad, marinated chicken & pumpkin salad, Wagyu beef & pumpkin salad

Yeah, it was a lot of food. Only one of us had leftovers for lunch… and it wasn’t me. Our favourite was, hands down, the pork. BTW, we ended up getting two servings of the same pork by mistake (don’t know if it was theirs or ours), our intention was to try the 5-spiced as well. I guess we’ll have to go back and try it. Our second favourite was the lamb, it was super flavourful and melt-in-your-mouth tender. The chicken and the beef were about the same for me, good but not fantastic. The beef was Bonnie’s least favourite, she found it boring. The salads were actually very good, much much better than the ones usually served in takeaway shops. Suddenly that “just the salad” option didn’t sound too crazy.

But wait! There’s more! I haven’t talked about the pièce de résistance yet: the crackling. The servings were very generous (oh yeah, I did leave a piece for breakfast), the crackling was hyper crunchy and only needed a sprinkle of salt to be perfect. In case you’re wondering, I ate it out of the fridge the next day and it was still crunchy. The sweet potato wedges, while obviously not as crunchy as the crackling, were delicious. The aioli was a tiny bit on the too sweet/too tangy side for me, but it still made a great dip for the wedges.

Crackling, sweet potato wedges & aioli, more crackling

Mr Crackles
155 Oxford St
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
(02) 8068 2832
info@mrcrackles.com.au
www.mrcrackles.com.au

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Meatcubes

The other day I wanted to make the Spiced lamb meatballs with balsamic-fig compote from Practical Paleo. Meatballs are relatively quick and easy to make, but the bottleneck for me is always the shaping step, so I had the great idea of making “meatcubes” instead, by forming a big rectangle with the seasoned minced meat and chopping it into squares, as shown in the pics below.

Perhaps the resulting morsels are not as attractive to the eye as their spheric counterparts, but the trick saved me some valuable time.

Spiced lamb meatballs with balsamic-fig compote from Practical Paleo

BTW, the dish was delicious. So far all the recipes I’ve tried from Practical Paleo, have been great.
Apart from recipes, the book has lots of information on health and nutrition, with guidelines for specific conditions. Worth every cent.

Recipe: “Arroz” a la cubana

The poor person’s Peruvian dish of choice is arroz a la cubana (Cuban-style rice), which I’m willing to bet doesn’t exist in Cuba (much like our Russian-style eggs, but that’s a topic for another time). When I was a kid it I considered it a treat (sweet fried stuff for lunch!) but then I realised it was just a cost-saving strategy. Either way, it’s a dish that is deeply ingrained in my memory, and as such I crave it from time to time.

I have no issues with eating small quantities of rice but this dish needs a big whack of it to fill you up and mop up the oozy egg yolk. Thus, I used the almighty cauliflower rice instead.

“Arroz” a la cubana
Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

1/4 head cauliflower
3-4 tablespoons coconut oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 plantain
2 eggs
salt and pepper

Directions

Separate the cauliflower in florets and chop it briefly in a food processor until its texture resembles rice or cous cous. Don’t over-process or you’ll end up with mash.
Heat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil in a small pot. Add garlic and cook at low heat to avoid burning it. Add cauliflower and cook for 10 – 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Season with salt.
Peel and slice plantain lengthwise. Heat 1-2 tablespoons of coconut oil in a pan and fry the slices at medium temperature.
Fry the eggs in the remaining coconut oil. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve cauliflower “rice” topped with egg and plantain slices on the side.

Review: Dinner at Pitt St Diner (Redfern)

Yep, another review for Pitt St Diner. Before you complain, please remember that the first one was a special banquet that is not in the menu and the second one was brunch. Regular dinner fare was yet to be covered.

The occasion was our friend Paola’s birthday. Four entrées were ordered to share: pork kofta with labne and braised eggplant, salt and pepper calamari with coleslaw, prawns with pistachio in a tomato-caper sauce, and chickpea, yoghurt and mint salad. Unfortunately for some of us, all of them had gluten, legumes and/or dairy.

Pork kofta with labne and braised eggplant ($16)

Salt and pepper calamari with coleslaw ($16)

Prawns with pistachio ($16)

Chickpea, yoghurt and mint salad ($16)

The restaurant runs a few daily specials. The beef special was Scotch fillet with onion rings and Cafe de Paris butter. I didn’t order this dish but got to try a piece of steak that was tasty and tender.

Scotch fillet ($28)

The fish special was barramundi served with duck fat potatoes. The dish also contained olives and tomatoes in a saucy sort of way but I was so hooked up with the duck fat potatoes that didn’t hear the full description. In any case, the fish was perfectly seasoned and cooked; the dish as a whole was a winner.

Barramundi & duck fat potatoes ($28)

The other main that got ordered by a few people was the twice-cooked pork belly with caramelised pumpkin, green apple and cider caramel. Beautifully presented and with bits of perfectly crunchy crackling, it was as tasty as it looked.

Twice-cooked pork belly ($27)

Bonnie baked a Paleo chocolate birthday cake (for a change!) that we thoroughly enjoyed with a dollop of double cream (for a change!). Cakeage was $1.5 per head.

Birthday cake

Paleo chocolate cake & cream

Pitt St Diner
96 Pitt St
Redfern NSW 2016
(02) 8668 5936
pittstdiner.com.au

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Recipe: Coconut affogato

Who doesn’t like affogato? Besides people who don’t like coffee. Or ice cream. Or cold coffee. Well, you get my point.

Because I have no desire of consuming regular ice cream any time soon (the dairy and sugar combo just kill me), I’ve been making my affogato with frozen coconut cream. I haven’t added any extra flavourings yet but I suspect it would be equally delicious with a dash of vanilla or almond essence, or a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Coconut affogato
Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

1 can coconut milk
2 – 4 shots espresso

Directions

Put the can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight.
Open the can carefully (do not shake it!) and scoop the solidified top layer of cream out of the can. Reserve the liquid for curries, etc.
Give the cream a quick whisk with the spoon you used to scoop it, divide in two portions and place in small containers, ice cube trays, plastic bags or cling wrap (I use silicone egg poachers). Chuck them in the freezer until completely frozen.
Prepare the espresso with your weapon of choice (I’m using a press these days) and pour over the frozen coconut cream.

Review: Fish Place (Surry Hills)

One of the restaurants I really wanted to go back to, The Smokehouse, sadly closed its doors a while back. Fortunately, I learned from Helen’s and Suze’s posts that the smoke boy is back in a much more casual venture.

Fish Place sits on a corner of Foveaux Avenue, right next to the kinda dodgy (to me) but incredibly popular Excelsior Hotel. If you walk past Fish Place you really can’t miss it.

The menu is illustrated on the wall and is short and sweet.

The salads, sides and sauces are on display so it’s easy to pick your options.

My sister and I ordered smoked salmon and smoked trout with salads and shared. We sat at the fisherman-themed courtyard which is way nicer than the bench up front.

Both the smoked trout and smoked salmon were delicious. To be honest, I didn’t find much difference in flavour between both (I guess smokiness overrides the natural fish flavour), but I liked the trout a bit better just because of its slightly firmer texture. The salads were good, one was a garden-style of salad, and the other has roasted beetroot and flaked almonds. I wish I worked close to this place, it would be a great option for a decently-priced, tasty and healthy lunch.