Everest Kitchen, Marrickville

It's easy to dismiss Nepali food as being 'kinda like Indian' but there are just as many differences as similarities. Although both cuisines feature plenty of curries, Nepalese dishes tend to be less spicy, and based around tomatoes, not yoghurt or coconut milk or cream.

Keen to find out more, I headed to Everest Kitchen in Marrickville for this month's Eat This column in Time Out Sydney.

Eat this... 

Thaal

Thaal traditional Nepalese dhindo set $21.95
with goat curry, stir fried mustard leaves, radish pickle, tomato salsa, pappadum, lentils and dhindo

WHAT IS IT?
Thaal offers the perfect introduction to Nepalese cuisine: an all-in-one meal of meat, vegetables and dhal curry served in small kachaura bowls and presented on a metal tray.

WHERE CAN I GET IT?
Everest Kitchen in Marrickville is a modest suburban restaurant committed to serving traditional Nepalese dishes. Multi-coloured prayer flags and lanterns hang over a crowd that includes Nepalese families and curious locals. A huge LCD screen has looping footage of life in the Himalayas but to be honest, it’s more distracting than atmospheric. Service can be a little slow at times so turn up expecting a leisurely meal.


Traditional Nepalese entree set $19.95
with momo dumploings, char-grilled goat, grilled chicken salad,
crispy fried soy bean salad, beaten rice and potato salad

WHAT'S IT LIKE?
Choose your own curry for your thaal dinner set ($18.95–$24.90) from a long list of options that includes prawn, fish, goat, lamb, chicken, pork, deer and vegetable. When your mini banquet arrives, pick your way around the plate by scooping up mouthfuls of rice with curry or bhuteko saag sautéed silverbeet. A deep-fried pappadum is light and crisp and the gold cup on your tray contains a thin lentil soup. Little saucers of pickled radishes, tomato chutney and a cool raita yoghurt and cucumber dip help refresh the palate.

ANY NEPALESE SPECIALTIES?
It’s worth trying the traditional Nepalese dhindo set ($18.95–$24.90) which comes with dhindo, a millet porridge that is more often found in Nepalese hillside villages than in Sydney restaurants. The porridge is definitely an acquired taste, with an odd, gluey consistency and sandy texture on the tongue, but it improves significantly if you eat it together with the curry. Dhindo is high is protein, and usually eaten in hilly or rural areas of Nepal where rice is difficult to cultivate.


Deer meat curry $19.95

ANYTHING ELSE?
Hook into the mriga masu ko tarkari, a tender deer-meat curry ($19.95), fragrant with fenugreek, cumin cinnamon and coriander. Sadeko bhatmas ($6.95) is a crunchy salad of deep-fried soy beans mixed with red onion, chilli and spices. And you can’t go past the national dish of momo ($8.95): silky steamed dumplings stuffed with buffalo meat and served with a fiery tomato sauce.


Nepalese garlic bread $3.95





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The Everest Kitchen

314 Victoria Road, Marrickville, Sydney

Tel: +61 (02) 9569 7654

Opening hours:

Monday to Sunday 12noon-10.30pm

This article appears in the November 2011 issue of Time Out Sydney in my monthly Food & Drink column Eat This!  [read online]



More Time Out Sydney reviews:
Akash Pacific Cuisine, Liverpool (Fiji Indian cuisine)
ATL Marantha, Kensington (Indonesian fried chicken with edible bones)
Balkan Oven, Rockdale (Macedonian burek)
Cyprus Community Club Aphrodite Restaurant (roast baby goat)
Durban Dish, Baulkham Hills (South African cuisine)
Good Kitchen, Hurstville (Hong Kong cafe)
Hijazi's Falafel, Arncliffe (Lebanese breakfast)
Island Dreams Cafe, Lakemba (Christmas Islands cuisine)
Kambozza, Parramatta (Burmese cuisine)
La Paula, Fairfield (Chilean empanadas, lomitos and sweets)
Mario Tokyo Pizza (Bulgogi Korean pizza)
Olka Polka Bakery & Deli, Campbelltown (Polish cheesecake and rye bread)
Sea Sweet, Parramatta (Lebanese sweet kashta cheese burger)
Sizzling Fillo, Lidcombe (Filipino pork hock crackling)
Tehran, Granville (Persian cuisine)
Tuong Lai, Cabramatta (Vietnamese sugar cane prawns)

BLACK by ezard at The Star, Pyrmont, Sydney

To marrow. To marrow. I love you. Oh marrow.

If Annie had discovered the divine pleasures of bone marrow, surely she would have sung a different tune.

Marrow is the only thing on our minds when we head to BLACK by ezard, the latest venture by Melbourne chef Teage Ezard, opening at The Star casino. Ezard is the creative force behind two hat restaurant ezard and Asian street food diner Gingerboy.


BLACK dining room

BLACK signals a new direction for Ezard, delivering an Australian grill menu that focuses on beef and seafood. The venue is cool and slick, a mix of elegant booth seating and leather upholstered seats, fronted by floor-to-ceiling glass windows that look onto Pyrmont Bay.


Waterbath, toasting brioche burger buns, booth seating and cooking a lamb rack on the grill

The open kitchen provides a complimentary floor show for patrons. We note the water bath bubbling merrily away, used to cook all steaks sous vide according to the menu.


The bar at BLACK


Complimentary brioche with butter and volcanic black salt

Complimentary loaves of brioche are a decadent way to start the meal, and even though the bread is already yellow from the amount of butter used, it's hard not to slather on a little more, especially when it allows you to sprinkle on flakes of volcanic black salt too. Staff happily provide more brioche when we polish two mini loaves in a flash.


Organic farm egg $34
Potato cream, white Alba truffles, Iberico ham and herb salad

When faced with a dilemma over what to order, the best thing to do is share. We engineer a three-course degustation of entrees which allows us to sample everything we'd been eying lustfully on the menu. The organic farm egg is a buried within a nest of crunchy potato twigs, eventually spilling its runny yolk over a bed of potato cream.


Thin shavings of white Alba truffles are rather subdued in flavour but we relish the melting fattiness of the Iberico ham.


Beef tartare $25
Heirloom beets, mustard ice cream and puffed wild rice

The beef tartare is barely recognisable at first, hidden beneath a glossy red blanket of beetroot jelly. We find a pillow of tartare beneath the jelly - pre-mixed but seasoned well. I find the beetroot tends to overwhelm this dish with its earthiness but the grains of puffed wild rice give a pleasant textural contrast.

Marrow flan $26

golden brioche, celeriac cream and king brown mushrooms

It's the marrow flan we'd all been looking forward, an artful arrangement of miniature brioche toasts topped with sauteed king brown mushrooms and globules of glistening marrow. It's a sinfully rewarding entree, from the quivering tower of celeriac cream, to the miniature fried quail egg and the eye-rolling fattiness of marrow treasure.


Rump cap grain fed wagyu MBS 9+ 250g $75
with marrow and shallot sauce $4

This isn't cheap dining. You can find a main at $29 for homemade gnocchi but the rest move upwards from $42. Steaks on the woodfire grill start at $45 for the grass fed 200g Angus fillet and top out at $140 for the dry aged grain fed one kilogram Angus T-bone (recommended to share among the table).

Lex's rump cap is one of the more unusual cuts available. Commonly available at Brazilian churrasco and known as picanha, the rump cap is one of the juiciest cuts you can get. It's soft, fatty and flavoursome, made even better with a splash of marrow and shallot sauce that is poured at the table.


Scotch fillet grain fed Angus MBS 4+ 300g $65
with truffle butter $8

Suze has the scotch fillet with truffle butter - we find the butter tastes more of mushroom than truffle. On a side note, although the use of sous vide does mean consistently tender meat, do others find a hollow trade off with texture? Sous vide often seems to involve a loss in toothsome chewiness that is half the carnivorous pleasure in eating meat.


Rib eye dry aged grass fed Angus 400g $52
with marrow and shallot sauce $4

I'd gone for the 400g dry aged grass fed Angus rib eye, a satisfying slab of meat cooked and served on the bone. It's cooked to perfection, although the fattiness of the meat combined with the extra marrow in the sauce causes some shallow breathing at one point.


Wood grilled vegetables with Romesco sauce $9; buttered potato puree $10;

potato gratin with parmesan and dill cream $10;

and cos with chorizo, piquillo pepper and heirloom carrot $10

We share a mix of side dishes - the potato gratin is perhaps a little strongly flavoured with dill and the pieces of chorizo in the cos salad are tiny. The wood grilled vegetables include cauliflower, eggplant and zucchini smothered in Romesco sauce and toasted almonds. We unanimously love the buttered potato puree which is thick and creamy with butter, and silky smooth on the tongue.


Apple pound cake $19
Calvados ice cream, walnut crumble and golden raisin syrup

Desserts range in price from $18 to $22. There is heated debate at our table as to whether a pound cake should be described as 'heavy' or 'light' which leads us to order the apple pound cake so we can settle the argument. Although we obliterate the syrup soaked pound cake and the boozy Calvados ice cream, it still doesn't lead to any clear resolution.


Honeycrunch $18
Clover honey parfait, ginger biscuit, honeycomb and cinnamon

Honeycrunch is an elegant presentation of clover honey parfait coated in fine crumbs of ginger biscuits. The shard of honeycomb is delicately bubbled but it's the white powder beneath it that has us puzzled. Only clarification from the waiter confirms it as cinnamon powder much to Noods' delight, who guessed correctly.


Chocolate $22
Warm couverture ganache, banana ice cream and hazelnut mousse

The description of the chocolate dessert on the menu fails to adequately convey the spectacle involved with this dish. It arrives as an orb of chocolate over which the waiter pours a warm couverture ganache. In a scene somewhat similar to the eight texture chocolate cake at Quay, we watch the chocolate slowly melt and fall in upon itself.



The chocolate shell caves in upon itself to reveal the scoop of banana ice cream inside. It's a fun dessert that tastes like a molten Ferrero Rocher dessert, particularly with the rubble of hazelnuts at the bottom of the dish.

End scene and fade to black.



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BLACK by Ezard

Level G, Harbourside

The Star

80 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont, Sydney

Tel: +61 (02)

Opening hours:

Lunch: Friday 12pm-3pm

Dinner: Tuesday to Sunday 5.30pm-11pm.

Closed on Mondays

Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Steak - Chophouse, Sydney (1.7kg tomahawk)
Steak - Rockpool Bar and Grill, Sydney
Steak - Steersons, Sydney (1kg T-bone)

Project 8 Cafe, Ultimo

In a city that feels increasingly over-run with food and drink franchises, Project 8 is a breath of fresh [caffeinated] air. It's a hip but slouchy kind of cafe - a mix of good coffee, cool music and an affordable snacks menu making it a popular hangout for local university students.

Free range eggs with avocado and tomato on toasted sourdough, for example, will only set you back $7.50. It includes two fried free range eggs draped over thick slices of avocado and tomato on toast.


Cooking on the sandwich press

Eating during rush hour can result in a wait for your food. It all makes sense when you peer into the open kitchen - all the cooking appears to take place on two sandwich presses, a feat that is both impressive and quirky enough to charm.

Crack go the eggs, sizzle goes the bacon, as staff tend to the makeshift hotplates with casual aplomb. It's just like a uni student's bachelor pad - no wonder the kids here feel right at home.


Cappuccino $3.50

The coffee is taken seriously, brewed from a house-roasted blend that is rich and smooth.



Vegetarian sandwich $8.50

The menu is divided into sections, each using a play on words with the number eight. Breakfast items come under Initi8, a selection that includes a bacon and egg roll ($6), the tempting offer of Weet Bix or cornflakes with milk or hot chocolate ($4.50), and their popular hot pot of baby spinach, feta cheese and chorizo in napoli sauce with toast ($12).

Drinks come under Invigor8, salads under Regener8 and Lunch promises to Elev8. I'm disappointed that they've run out of their famous Project 8 Tuna Spread on the day we dine, a mix of tuna with sweet corn and chilli on two slices of toast for only $6.

Free range smoked ham sandwich $8.50

There are plenty of other options to keep us satisfied. The vegetarian sandwich arrives on a wooden board, stacked with roasted capsicum, grilled eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese and balsamic dressing.

The free range smoked ham sandwich is another perky number, spread generously with horseradish Dijon and slapped together with slices of Swiss cheese and green lettuce leaves.


Project 8 chicken burger $10

We can smell the chicken on the hot plate as it caramelises to a satisfying char. The Project 8 chicken burger is simple but tasty, the juicy chicken fillet pepped up with aioli, cheese, grilled vegetable relish, slivers of Spanish onion and salad leaves.

It's not all coffee. There's a good selection of organic teas (Earl Grey blueflower, green silver jasmine, Ceylon orange pekoe and chai), and they also make milkshakes ($4), fresh juices, smoothies and frappes (all $4.50).




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Project 8 Cafe

137 Broadway, Ultimo, Sydney

Tel: +61 (02) 9280 3216

Opening hours:

Monday to Saturday 7am-5pm


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Izakaya Fujiyama, Surry Hills

If there's one dish you must order at Izakaya Fujiyama, it's the tuna jaw. This behemoth of bones, fin, gills and cartilage is one of life's pleasures - a testament that good eating can be found in the most unlikeliest of places, and that foraging for your own food provides endless fun.


Sushi bar counter at Izakaya Fujiyama

I'm dining with thefoodpornographer and Juji Chews tonight, both Perth food bloggers on a die hard eating tour of Sydney.

"Is there anything you've done in Sydney that hasn't involved food?" I ask.

There's a thoughtful silence before tpf pipes up "We went to the Opera House! And then we ate lunch."


Dining room and sake bottles

Izakaya Fujiyama sits alongside El Capo and Orto Trading Co, a trio of gastronomic big-hitters in an otherwise quiet street in Surry Hills.

In Japan, an izakaya is a tavern, a place people go after work to drink (usually sake) with snacks available on the side. Here at Izakaya Fujiyama, patrons can sit at the bar and enjoy appetisers with their drink, or sit down in the dining room and order a complete meal.

The sake menu can be a little intimidating but staff will happily offer suggestions that match your dishes. I ended up with the Kaishun Junmai Thoukarakuchi Hiyaoroshi ($10.50), pleasantly light and crisp with a clean finish on the palate (No. 43 on the sake menu).


Asazuke $4.50
Salt pickled mixed vegetables

We start with asazuke, a small dish of salt-pickled cabbage, carrot and cucumber that swings between salty, sweet, chilli and ginger, awakening our tastebuds and whetting our appetite.


Omakase sashimi plate $24.50

We leave the sashimi plate in the hands of the chef (omakase), a worthy investment of trust that rewards us with plump slices of fresh salmon, mackerel, kingfish and tuna curled against mounds of finely grated daikon and a paperthin shaving of radish.


Sushi chef at work in the kitchen


Kenji's Fried Chicken $13.50
Karaage chicken with house made Kewpie

Kenji's Fried Chicken is the house version of KFC. There is no comparison. We tear apart the piping hot chicken and risk burning ourselves on the thick plumes of steam. The batter is deliriously good - crispy and seasoned and fantastically gnarled and nubbly for extra crunch.

The house made Kewpie mayonnaise is the icing on the cake, not overly greasy but adding extra zing to the already succulent chicken.


Crispy pork belly with yuzu pepper $24.50

It's hard to resist any dish that says pork belly, especially ones that are preceded with the word "crispy". We fall upon the thick chunks of pork that are generously meaty - but really all we want is the tile of crackling on the top.


Teriyaki beef kalbi $28.50
Glazed grilled beef ribs with green chilli relish

The teriyaki beef kalbi is carnivore heaven, a celebration of pink and juicy beef rib cooked on the bone. The meat is fatty, sweet and juicy, served with a spicy green chilli sauce with plenty of kick. It's worth fighting over the rib itself, and gnawing away at the connective tissue.


Tuna jaw $38

The tuna jaw offers the biggest spectacle, stacked on a chopping board that will threaten to leak fish "juice" all over you if you're not careful. It's a dish that demands to be shared slowly, picking away with a fork to reveal clumps of dark and light flesh that moves from lean to fatty. The fins are cooked to a brittle stage so you can snap off the ends and eat them like a chip.

The bones can be stripped clean with some patience, and we marvel at the sheer size of the jaw bone, and how so much tastiness can be found in something that is often thrown away or consigned to the stock pot. Two bowls of soy dipping sauce provide all the seasoning you need.


Izakaya Fujiyama bar counter


Fujiyama Jaffa $13.50
Frozen chocolate cake with kumquat, yogo and popcorn

We struggle to finish everything between four people, but we manage to find room for dessert, opting to share the Fujiyama Jaffa. It's a prettily plated dessert that offers a playful mix of tastes, textures and temperatures.

The frozen chocolate cake is sweet against the tart candied cumquat and the tang of yoghurt ice cream. Popcorn kernels provide a crunchy component, contrasting against the smoothness of the yogo that is much like a silky chocolate mousse.

I'd go again for the tuna jaw. And Kenji's Fried Chicken.




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Izakaya Fujiyama
G09/52 Waterloo Street, Surry Hills, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9698 2797

Opening hours:
Monday to Saturday from 5.30pm til late

No bookings

Related Grab Your Fork posts:
El Capo, Surry Hills
Japanese izakaya - Iiza, Newtown
Japanese izakaya - Kasumi Izakaya, Haymarket
Japanese izakaya - Izakaya Den, Melbourne

Caysorn, Haymarket

Sydney may be over-run with Thai restaurants (hello Newtown) but newcomer Caysorn comes with a difference - serving up dishes from the country's south. Typically these dishes are heavier, more robust with spices, and have a chilli factor that is off-the-charts hot.

Decor inside Caysorn

You'll find Caysorn on level one of the Prince Centre in Chinatown, above Menya and the Chinese dumpling houses on Thomas Street. It sits on the site of the former short-lived Korean all-you-can-eat, now transformed into a smart and buzzy restaurant that is reassuringly popular with Thai ex-pats. 


[front] Thai iced milk tea $3.50 and
[rear] Iced longan drink $2.80

It's hard to resist a Thai iced milk tea, even if you can feel the excessive sugar eroding your teeth with every sip. What it will do is soothe your burning tastebuds with great effectiveness — strongly recommended if you plan on ordering the hot stuff. Those who prefer a stronger beverage will be relieved to know that Caysorn is licensed, with beers starting at $5.50 for a Blue Tongue Light.

Goong Paer Tod $6.90

Tumeric batter with school prawns, green leaf and chilli sauce

I've been to Caysorn twice now, and each time Goong Paer Tod has been the table's favourite. It's like a patty of whole school prawns, clustered together with tumeric batter and deep-fried until deep orange. You can eat these prawns whole, dipping them into the accompanying chilli sauce before relishing the crunch of prawn shells as they shatter into crispy shards with every bite.



Nahm Prik Kapi $8.80
Spicy shrimp paste with cha-om omelette

There is much to love about the Nahm Prik Kapi spicy shrimp paste, a salty fishy concoction that is the star of the dish for Thai palates. We're equally entranced by the cha-om omelette, a fluffy eiderdown of egg filled with acacia shoots.


Gang Ped Pork Rib $14.50
Spicy curry with pork rib and kaffir lime (without coconut milk)

Gang Ped Pork Rib sets the chilli scene, a richly spiced curry that is filled with chunky pieces of pork rib - worth nibbling on to extricate all the meat from around the bones.


Tai Pla Kanoom Jeen $8.50
Salted Tai Pla spicy curry with grilled fish, cashew nut and vegetables with
Kanoom Jeen rice vermicelli and vegetables

It's the Tai Pla that separates the serious chilli fans from the wannabes. This is seriously hot, a dark and murky fishy curry that starts with a gentle burn and ends with furious blinking as you try to hold back the tears. Even the G-Man, a Thai ex-pat, admits this is crazy hot.

The Tai Pla is served with Kanoom Jeen, fresh vermicelli rice noodles that is another specialty of the south. The noodles are meant to counteract the spiciness of the curry, a rather futile attempt in this instance.


Kanom Jeen self-serve vegetable bar

The self-serve vegetable bar is the fun part that comes with ordering Kanoom Jeen. It's a help-yourself mix of raw green beans, cucumber slices, pickled radish, carrots, bean sprouts and sprigs of aromatic Thai basil. We douse them cautiously with the Tai Pla curry. It's an addictive way of eating your vegetables.



Pla Sam Rod $10.50
Tossed crispy fish with three flavour sauce


Plam Sam Rod arrives as three whole fish, deep-fried and topped with a thick paste of chilli, garlic, fish sauce and tamarind. 


Had Yai Fried Chicken $6.90 (two pieces)
Deep fried marinated chicken with fried shallot

And we move onto my constant favourite: fried chicken. Is fried chicken not the greatest unifier across all cuisines?

The Thai version is devoid of batter, dusted only lightly with flour and then deep-fried until the skin is thin and brittle and tanned a golden brown. It's even better dipped into chilli sauce in-between mouthfuls of sticky rice.


Toast bread with pandan custard and Thai milk tea $5

We finish with a slice of toasted sweet bread, cut into fingers so we can dip them like soldiers into the saucer of warm pandan custard. It's eggy and rich and sweet with coconut - the perfect antidote for our chilli trauma.

Caysorn

Shop 106-108A, Level 1, 8 Quay Street, Haymarket, Sydney

(take the escalators on Thomas Street or enter via the glass doors on Quay Street)

Tel: +61 (02) 9211 5749

Opening hours:

Monday to Sunday 11am-11pm
Licensed and BYO