Bistrot 916, Potts Point, Sydney

You do not have to leave Sydney and go to France to have delicious French cuisine. We have a great selection of French restaurants in our city. This includes one of my favourites, Hubert. Speaking of Hubert, their ex-head chef Dan Pepperell has opened a new restaurant in Potts Point called Bistrot 916. Yep, it’s the same dude that created all those dishes we fell in love with when Hubert first opened. 

Bistrot 916 is named after the fact that it’s a Bistro and that the phone number of the restaurant starts with 916. It’s located in the heart of Potts Point right where Lotus and The Fish Shop by Merivale used to be. The space has a moody contemporary Parisian vibe. It’s a casual restaurant but in the higher end of the spectrum and food prices are quite decent for its category. I went to visit the restaurant a few weeks ago with one of my best homies, Chocolatesuze.

 

We started with the lamb’s brains with smoked eel mayo ($18). This sounded daunting at first as I’m not a brain kinda guy but if it’s chef Dan’s creation, then it has to be good right? As expected, it was so amazing. So the brain was cooked like a croquette where the inside was fluffy (I honestly can’t think of a better description haha) with a golden-crisped coating. The smoked eel mayonnaise was thick and bursting with umami! Hack: leave some mayo aside if you order any dishes with chips/fries.

 

Then came out the Tuna tartare & beef fat fried potato ($26). This was probably my favourite dish during our visit. There was so much umami from both the tuna and potatoes. The potato was soft inside and loved the crispy caramelised bits on the outer layer.

 

The duck frites ($44) was delicious. The skin was slightly crisped, and the meat was juicy. The meat didn’t taste gamey, but it could also be due to the sauce that if came with, which masked it. The chips were crisped and perfectly seasoned.

 

I do prefer the steak frites ($56) to the duck though. The well-seasoned steak was cooked medium rare and was also packed with umami especially around caramelised bits. I would have preferred a thicket cut steak but nonetheless, this was delicious.

 

We were quite full so we didn’t end up trying any dessert. I would definitely come back to have the tuna tartarte with beef fat fried potato and lamb brain with smoked eel mayo. The lobster frites sounds good too!

 

Bistrot 916

22 Challis Avenue

Potts Point NSW

Website: https://www.bistrot916.com/

 

Totti's Bondi, Sydney

I knew I had to visit Totti’s after reading so many food blogs and raving reviews months prior to our visit. You can’t go wrong with restaurants under the Merivale group but what’s even more awesome is that this restaurant is run by celebrated chef Mike Eggert (ex Pinbone co-onwer). We finally made reservations and went on my birthday week.

The place had a very coastal vibe and some Italian influence in the interior. I mean, the menu is highly Italian inspired after all! We had amazing dishes from woodfire bread reminiscent of a Neopolitan pizza base to a massive umami-packed rib eye steak. Check out what I got up to in the video below. Enjoy!

Totti's Bondi

Cafe Paci, Newtown

Cafe Paci has been on my wishlist. I was so stoked that I finally got to visit it along with my good friend and fellow Sydney Food Blogger, Chocolatesuze. It’s located in Newtown and is easily accessible by public transport with lots of street parking in the area as well.

Click on thumbnail above or here for my Youtube video

Scallops, togarashi & sour cream

Tuna tartare

Sourdough pasta with pear and pecorino

Potato dumplings (gnocchi) with XO trout sauce

Fairy bread ice cream with brown butter custard

Chef Pasi Petanen has work at a lot of renowned restaurants in Sydney past such as Automata and ACME. He did a pop a few years back and has now found a permanent location on King Street, Newtown. The cuisine is bit of Finnish and Mexican with touches of Italian, Japanese and a lot more. The food is both innovative and delicious. They also have a wide range of wines to match with their signature dishes.

Click here for my video and more information about the dishes.

Cafe Paci

Poly, Surry Hills

What is up everyone?! I apologise for the long hiatus in this blog. It’s been a really busy few months. Also, if you don’t know yet, I have started a Youtube channel (link here) and have concentrated on posting vlogs to get it started. If you haven’t yet, please support your boy Raff and subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell to stay up to date with all my up coming videos. Also, the blog just turned 9 years old!

Now, let’s go to the main subject of this blog post. We’re here to talk about a restaurant that I have visited a few weeks ago and has become one of my new favourite restaurants in Sydney. Poly is a modern Australian restaurant and is located on Commonwealth Street (next to Paramount Coffee Project) in Surry Hills. It’s also by the same team behind another favourite restaurant of mine Ester. The space has the same elegant industrial vibe that Ester has. I also love the fact that when you put the two names together, it reads out as “PolyEster” (very witty).

First dish that we had was straight off the bat, AMAZING! I could eat their scarlet prawns, harissa and lardo on toast ($16 per piece) everyday! The combination of the umami packed prawns that had hints of sweetness, the complex spices of harissa and creamy lardo on toast was one of the most delicious things I’ve had.

The most premium way I’ve ever eaten potato chips is at Poly when we had their raw scallop, salted kombu and potato chips ($18). These were plump perfectly cooked scallops sandwiched in housemade potato crisps with salted kombu.

I can see why the fried potato and salted egg sauce ($15) is popular. It was like the most perfect golden hash browns shaped in cubes and elevated with umami from the salted egg sauce. I love the contrast of the textures of being fluffy soft inside and crisped outer layers.

I love the combination of cheese and mushrooms so we ordered the oyster mushrooms, stracciatella with beer and yeast sauce ($26). The oyster mushrooms just went so well with the stretchy stracciatella.

The koji marinated pork chop with corn sauce and smoked onion cream ($58) was easily my highlight of the night. The pork was fatty and tender with smokey notes and was packed with a lot of umami. The sweet and tangy notes from the corn sauce and smoked onion cream went so well with the pork meat. The meat was seasoned well and it came with a nice airy crackling.

The food and service is on par with their sister restaurant Ester. We were too full to try their desserts so we will definitely go back for that!

Poly

Address: 74-76 Commonwealth Street,

Surry Hills, NSW

02 8860 0808

polysurryhills.com.au

Opening hours:

Mon-Fri 5pm-late; Sat & Sun noon-late

The Thievery - Glebe, Sydney

I say this time and time again that our city is so lucky to have such a great diverse food scene. Sydney is home to many restaurants that specialises in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. Glebe alone has many amazing options. If you haven’t been to Thievery, then you need to hit them up!

Many of y’all know that Julian Cincotta is the genius behind the food at Butter Surry Hills and Parramatta. But did you guys know that he is also Thievery’s executive chef? Thievery is a modern interpretation and accumulation of Middle Eastern cuisine and a dash of some Mediterranean flavours. You can also see influences of Julian’s time in the early days of Nomad. The space also has a moody and hip contemporary Middle Eastern vibe. There are tables for two and communal tables on first and second floor. They even have a lovely balcony space.

First and foremost, y’all need to try their burnt butter hummus ($12)! Apparently, using butter in hummus is a common thing in Nothern Lebanon. It should be a common thing in Sydney too in my opinion! Lebanese bread dipped in the caramelised flavour of the butter with paprika in that fluffy hummus was heavenly.

Their Lebanese Fried Chicken or LFC ($16) is off the hook fam! The perfectly cooked juicy chicken fillets covered in beautiful rippled crispy spiced coating with sweet notes were delicious. It came with a sweet and salty black garlic sauce.

Their BBQ King Prawn ($16) is absolutely beautiful. Grilled giant prawns with beurre blanc, za’atar and calvisius oscietra royal caviar.

It’s currently truffle season and there’s a separate truffle menu available. If you like the sound of or have tried their burnt butter hummus, you will want to get your hands on their truffle hummus. Traditional hummus drizzled with truffle butter goodness and fresh Western Australia (WA) Manjumup truffles.

The Aphrodite Haloumi is grilled haloumi drizzled with honey, macadamia dukkah, freshly shaved truffles. It had those salty and sweet flavours that deliciously offset each other with sweet earthy and nutty notes from the dukkah and truffles.

Both food and service at Thievery is top notch. I’m already looking forward to my next visit. Also, just a heads up that Thievery will be doing a Middle Eastern Style Yum Cha from the 7th of August 2018 to the 1st of September 2018.  Check out their website and social media accounts for more details.

Thievery
91 Glebe Point Road
Glebe NSW
Contact: 02 8283 1329

Hours:
Brunch Saturdays: 12.00pm to 3:00pm

Tuesday -Thursday 6pm to 11pm
Friday 6pm to 12 midnight
Saturday 6pm to 12 midnight