Mamak

People have been raving about this restaurant and telling me in wild disbelief "I can't believe you haven't been". Why haven't I been? Well, firstly, I hate lines. Especially when they are long - like outside Mamak. Secondly, it's ideal when you have lots of people when you try Asian food. You can order lots of dishes and share them. This didn't seem to be happened, so, finally, I just decided to go with small groups twice! So, this is a combined review of both occasions.

The first time I went, we went late (9:30pm odd) - with the original plan of going to Golden Century. But, after finding out about the 30 min wait at Golden Century and turning the corner to Mamak to find no line, we were almost immediately let in. Luckily the restaurant closes at 2am. The second time involved lining up which I let my dining companions do while I took my time selecting some wine from the shop near by.

The food did not disappoint. The flavours at Mamak simply explode in your mouth. I am sorry I have not tried it before and I will be back more often - especially for the price. $5-10 for Rotis and $13-$18 for curries and BYO (although don't go pulling out your 1972 Burgundy, you get to drink in small tumblers!). It's a genuine experience with lots of soul.

1. Original Roti served with two curry dips and spicy sambal sauce. The Roti itself is delicious; the description on the menu gets it pretty right - "Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.". The spicy and sweet sauces are great to play with, combining a little of each or just one. It is such a simple dish, yet so, so yummy.  It is the equivalent to having great pizza. The topping adds flavour, but it's the bread that the star. 7.5-8/10
2. Roti Telur (egg Roti) and Roti Bawang (with red onion filling) served with the same sauces as #1- These were much less impressive. I found the outside soggy (curled up) and the inside barely tasty. The egg was well just plan egg. The onion just didn't do enough except add some crunchiness. The sauces needed to do the heavy lifting to make this dish work. Again, comparing to Pizza, it's like putting buckets of juicy topping which doesn't really cover the fact the base is not so hot. 3.5-4/10
3. Murtabak (chicken) Roti- This is quite a different looking Roti. It's filled with "spicy meat, cabbage, eggs and onions" and more than an inch thick. It's more like a Quiche in terms of consistency and even to an extent taste - although the Mutabak has much more meat. This was tasty and very filling, but did not blow me away. The sauces had to pick up the slack of the slightly overcooked egg and meat and the textures consisted of thick softness of egg and hardness of chicken, the cabbage kind of got lost in there. Still, would probably order it again. 5/10
4. Kari Ayam (chicken curry) - Curries in general seem to come out about 3 seconds after you order them! This does not make a difference to the taste however. Fantastic traditional malaysian curry dominated by sweet and spicy elements with grainy - at times thick- spices. The potatoes were not overcooked (a common problem I have found elsewhere and then they break up in the curry); the thickness of the curry was good allowing some spicy to sit on the chicken as you ate it. 6-7/10
5. Kari Kambing (slow cooked lamb curry) - This was a succulent and incredibly tasty dish. The lamb just perfectly cooked  - kind of like off the bone - with intense spices in a thick, dark curry. 7-8/10. 
6. Desserts - The Roti Pisang (with bananas) and Roti Kaya (with coconut and pandan) were both delicious. Served with ice-cream, they were like really amazing crepes. The Pisang was crispy on the outside, a bit of the soft fluffiness of the roti on the inside and then the squishiness of the not too sweet banana.  6.5-7/10.

One final comment I will make is that, some of these ratings using a /10 system were hard to pin down as it's hard to know how much emphasis to place on textures and balance when you just have a full flavour and yummy curry in front of you. This is where an alternative ratings system that I have developed (with the help of Imran) comes in. More on that later. For now, as part and parcel of that alternative system, maybe the question that needs to be asked is simply "would i pay for that dish again?". And the answer in many of these cases is a resonant yes! 

Bloodwood, Newtown

Five of us were given a table outside. Given the autumn weather was fantastically warm, this should have been fine. But, alas. With only one candle for light, we could barely see the menu. Another candle on request barely helped. Luckily we had looked at the menu inside while waiting for our table and many decisions had already been made. It did not however stop wine spillage or my suit sleeve having silken eggplant on it! Lol.

1. Vedai – A take on the Indian Wada. Fresh ingredients and well cooked, but relatively tasteless. Tamarind might be wrong sauce with it. 3/10. 

2. Chickpea pancake with zucchini, pumpkin & persian fetta – Very tasty, but as I first thought when ordering the dish, it lacked enough acid ingredients to drive the dish. It became one dimensional after a few bites. Adding lemon helped, but only a little. 4/10. 

3. Fried Salted Cod with oxheart tomato salad – Delicious dish where the tomatoes provided good acid to cut through the fish along with some cremier flavours. Lacked texture. 6/10

4. Mushrooms – Delicious 6.5/10. 

5. Lamb kibbeh with silken eggplant, kale and bullhorn capsicum sauce – The dish we had been waiting for. Very good freshly made Kibbeh, the eggplant nicely complimenting the compressed meat inside and crunchy fried outside of the Kibbeh. The Yogurt provided freshness. But, the pinenuts were outside the Kibbeh, and with the amount of light we had, it let the dish down. Still, 6.5-7/10.

Overall a decent restaurant with a very reasonable bill of $300 for 5 including a couple of ~$70 bottles of wine. Definitely one of the few quality restaurants in Newtown. 

Quick reviews: Glebe pt diner, Boathouse on Blackwattle, Danks St Depot

Glebe point Diner

Rabbit & Pork Terrine with pickled hairloom carrots served with Pistachio bread. Just delicious. Sweetness & pickled elements of carrots nicely articulated to sweet/savoury of terrine. Carrots, Pistachio add good texture. 7.5-8/10

Boathouse on Blackwattle

Ocean Trout /w Pine Mushrooms, Borlottli Beans & Horseradish. Lackluster dish. Fresh fish, not un-flavoursome, but didn't do much for me. 5/10.

Danks street depot

1. Fig blue cheese, walnuts and red wine reduction. Nice sweet/salty/savoury flavours albeit needed some more acid to cut through all the sweetness 6.5/10.
2. Pickled Beetroot salad with roasted Walnuts, Valencia Orange, Ruby Red Grapefruit, Baby Herbs and Cows Milk Feta. Great as usual. Great sweet/sour combinations, good textures. 7.5/10.

Rockpool

I have been to Rockpool once before. Sort of. I had been in the brief time when Neil Perry seemed to suffer a mid-life crisis due to not getting 3 hats. He decided to throw his restaurant and hats to the fishes and so briefly arose from the murky waters- Rockpool Fish. This was an excellent experience and I remember having a fish poached in Garam Masala. One of the tastiest fish meals I have ever had. Might even be right up there in the top 20-30 dishes ever.

But, the long fixed course menu with it's non 3 hatted status had held us (Hayden and I) back. No more I said, particularly as ratings systems seemed to be persistently wrong and favoured non-innovativeness in our opinion, we had to try. Someone had to do  it. Neil Perry has a ponytail -he looked creative and well...so did the menu!  So, we marched to the Rocks, but so no pool. (Yes, yes, the bad jokes will continue). By complete chance we had come in a week which was celebrating Rockpool's 21st birthday and were offered a free Sparkling wine. A nice surprise.

Besides the slightly austere service, the food was simply brilliant. I have to rate Rockpool above many better rated Sydney restaurants. I could almost dare to say that the food was as good as Quay (variable experience once amazing- better than Rockpool by a mile- and once probably not as good. New review soon). and probably marginally better than Est. (very consistent). The use of Asian flavours in subtle ways dominated the menu.

Some of the dishes included:

1. Fragrant crab broth with hand picked queensland mud crab, dashi custard, tapioca and wild bamboo pith. Subtle, well executed dish with excellent textures and a little bit of zing. Decent opener. 7/10
2. Western australian marron with three bean salad and almond cream. Subtle but amazing dish in which the beans were the star as much as the marron. Sweetness of the beans matched well with the juicy marron. Playing with various combinations was fun and added interesting textural elements. 8/10
3. Green lip abalone, red braised thirlmere goose, chicken crisps and fine noodles with xo dressing. Chef managed to balance off the subtleness of the abalone slices with the xo oil. Really liked what the crunchiness of the crisps at the top added texturally to the softness of the goose and abalone. 7.5-8/10
4. Macleay valley rabbit and sweetbread pie with frisée salad, cinnamon and “laphroaig” whisky sauce. Wow! If dish sounded amazing, it was! Slightly gamey & sweet meat of the rabbit articulated well to the sweetbread which articulated well to the sweetness in the whiskey while adding some smokiness (which went with the rabbit too) and acid to pull the dish through. More texture could have been good 8-8.5/10
5. Stir fried southern calamari, smoked “schulz” bacon, chilli, coriander and squid ink noodles. Didn't know what to expect. But with squid ink noodles, could you go wrong?! Flavours & textures just popping out at you. No more to say. 8.5-9/10
6. Chinese roast pigeon with prawn stuffed eggplant and black vinegar sauce.  Succulent pigeon with the sweetness beautifully lifted by the prawn & eggplant combo (which in itself added good texture). The zing of the vinegar brought the dish out of it's sweet but delicious death back to life. 8.5/10
7. Date tart (original since 1984). Gorgerous! 7.5-8/10

The rabbit (#4), Calamari (#5) and Pigeon (#6)