Monday, October 31, 2005

Sydney Food Part Trois (the final installment in this series...)

Hmm not much has happened here in the country since I got back from Sydney. The weekend passed as a blur of Pathology, and trying to fight the rising panic that I did not know enough! Anyway to finish off the trilogy of last weekend (because we know all good things come in threes) here are the pics and reviews of 2 other places we ate at.

The first was Bravo Tratorria in the suburb of Crows Nest. This was an oldie and a goodie to us as we had our second date here! It has 101 pasta dishes and about 16 different types of Gelato. We were all geared up for gelato so we shared a small pizza and a small salad. The pizza was fresh but it was nothing to write home about. It had tomato base, bocconcini, basil, cheese and salami on it. The salad was a chicken caesar. The chicken was crispy on the outside and tasty on the inside. The dressing was a little on the sweet side for my liking but nonetheless, it combined well as a whole.

Our friends the newlyweds, B and J joined us for coffee and dessert. So me (as usual can't make up my mind) ordered the coppa jumbo which was 16 mini-scoops, one of every flavour. I had the assurance of J that she would help me. Richard ordered two scoops naked,one cassata and the other raspberry.
I'll see if I can remember most of the flavours. There was of course the above-named two, chocolate, hazelnut, pistachio, chocolate hazelnut(bacci), mango, lemon, almond, apple-pie, coffee, rockmelon and the rest was a blur. The trick is to take a bit from every scoop as fast as you can before they melt into one pool at the bottom of the glass. J wimped out after eating the equivalent of 2 scoops and I braved on for a bit more but the guys managed to help finish it off. It was very satisfying as each flavour was distinct from the rest. They do a rotation of flavours so its not always the same each time you visit. All that food plus two coffees and two diet cokes set us back $57.

The next day, Sunday, we had lunch in before we left in the suburb of Hornsby, which was close to where Richard's parents live. I had always wanted to try the Japanese place in a food alley with different restaurants attached to the shopping mall. It was called Asagao and some reviewers on the web had given it quite high a rating. I ordered the Teriyaki Seafood Bento ($16) which turned out to be reasonable. The sashimi was fresh and the california roll was very tasty, as was the teriyaki sauce. It wasn't too sweet and all around it was ok value for money. The agadeshi tofu was a bit bland but the salad had a miso dressing which was quite tangy. Yum.

Richard decided to go for a new dish supposedly concocted by the chef there. It had a chicken katsu smothered with an eggy sweet sauce on top of a bowl of rice and topped with ginger, radish and spring onion garnish. The sauce was on the thin side apart from the egg in it and was reminescent of the sauce that agadeshi tofu sits in.
It blended well with the chicken and was refreshing and filling.

Oh well enough remembering. I will probably do a segment on restaurants and cafes in my town as I chance upon them. Sadly as they are but a handful, you get a bit tired of them after living here for four years so I mostly cook at home. Tonight ... a strange concoction of minced pork in little balls, spinach, garlic in a bearnaise sauce tossed in a linguine. Wierd huh?

6 Comments:

At 5:14 AM, Blogger KirkK said...

Hi Rachel - This becoming quite a food blog :o) Nice photo's. I don't quite know what the conversion rate is, but $16AD, would be maybe $12US? That bowl looks like Katsu-Don - Usually a chicken or pork cutlet Donburi - Panko breaded either chicken/pork/menchi katsu, with egg, and a sahi based broth over rice. Usually with green onions and gari - really delici-yoso!!!

 
At 7:04 PM, Blogger Rachel said...

Hi kirk,

hehe you know what interests me... thats why I keep reading your blog :D

Anyway, yes your right with the conversion rate AUD 16 is about 12 USD.

You hit the nail on the head !! such a clever boy :) I couldn't remember the name of the rice dish and it is indeed Donburi :) your really quite a food expert, able to tell the dish just from a photo.

 
At 10:40 PM, Blogger RONW said...

Rachel,

May I borrow your 16 mini-scoops photo.  I will permalink back to Filling Good.

RONW Email

 
At 7:36 PM, Blogger Rachel said...

Ron,
Thanks for stopping by :)

Milly,
hehe well you just have to visit Sydney and 4 of us (DH, You, Richard and I) can attack it. Did I mention that place has 16 regular size scoops as well ??? That will probably need 8 people to eat it!

 
At 3:44 AM, Blogger KirkK said...

Think of the ice cream headache you'd get!! :o)

 
At 1:27 AM, Blogger m|chelle said...

?!? 16 scoops ?!?

BRAIN FREEEEEEEZE!!

*slurp*

 

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