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.