Chocolate Dog Goes Mexican By Nite, Newtown

Corn chip in cheese dip

I love that you can find tasty food in the most unusual of places in Sydney. Like a spicy chocolate mole sauce in a Newtown corner eatery. By day The Chocolate Dog is your typical Aussie eggs and bacon cafe. At night, the site is sub-let to another restauranteur who offers a completely different menu: Mexican fajitas and tamales, burritos and chocolate mole.



It's a cosy and simple little space. Only a handful of tables inside, several two-seaters on the footpath outside. The mood is down-to-earth casual. The kind where, to get to the bathroom you traipse past the kitchen and skirt the edge of the storeroom, whilst the workers just smile and nod as you pass on by.


Queso fundido $9.50
Melted cheese, racheros sauce and mashed beans served with corn chips

I'm devastated to find out they have no tamales today, the traditional snack of ground corn with spices wrapped in corn husks and grilled. Instead we start with the queso fundido, a little white bowl filled with a molten lava of blistering hot cheese. We poke our crisp sturdy corn chips past the rancheros sauce and beneath the bubbling suface to find a mash of cooked kidney beans.


Beef burrito grande $15.90
Large flour tortilla filled with beef, beans or chicken
Served with sour cream, guacamole and rice

R has the beef burrito grande, a soft tortilla tunnel oozing with beef mince, and flanked by a mound of rice, dollops of sour cream and guacamole, a rainbow of salsa and a salad of greens.


Fajitas with prawns $19.50

AT has the prawn fajitas - a hot plate of fantastic aromas that envelopes us all at once. The prawns are plump and juicy and spicy and sweet.


Tortillas, salsa, guacamole and sour cream (prawn fajitas)


Mole poblano $18.50
Chicken breast fillets cooked in a unique spicy chocolate sauce
Served with salad and rice. Mexico’s most traditional dish

I only have eyes for one prize: the mole poblano. It's my first time trying this dish and I approach it with Hairy Biker-like gleeful enthusiasm. It's a thick sauce that almost looks like a lake of chocolate. I dip my fork in and taste it thoughtfully.

There's a definite taste of caocao but its bitterness is tempered by the richness of tomato, onion, and smokey chilli that packs a good dose of heat. It's slightly sweet but salty too, with the heady aroma of cloves and cinnamon, thickened with ground nuts. A sprinkling of sesame seeds adds a contrasting crunch, and I cleanse my palate every few mouthful so the bizarre but addictive cocoa flavour hits me clearly time and time again.


Strawberry pancake, Mexican style

AT is intent in dessert, so after a series of pleading exchanges, the Chef finally relents and says he will serve a strawberry pancake, Mexican style. A Mexican pancake is a tortilla soaked in strawberries blitzed with cream and doused generously with tequila. The tortilla is a little chewy but we appreciate the flavour sensation anyway.

A Chocolate Dog. A strawberry pancake. And some chocolate mole for all.




Chocolate Dog Goes Mexican by Nite
549 King Street, Newtown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9565 2526
Wednesday to Sunday 6pm till late

NB. Chocolate Dog closed briefly in Sep 07 but re-opened in Feb 08

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Mexican - Guzman y Gomez, Newtown