Aaboll Cafe, Merrylands

Ethiopian restaurants in Sydney are few and far between but that makes Aaboll Cafe even more of a treasure, tucked in amongst the multicultural hubbub that is Merrylands. Walk past the cafe set-up out the front and step through to a rear dining room splashed with colour. The cheeriness of decor is matched by a warm and cheerful reception from staff, happy to lead any newcomers through their comprehensive Ethiopian menu.


Wall mural backdrop against the set-up for an Ethiopian coffee ceremony

Order individual dishes or get a combination platter for a taste of several dishes. A clear demarcation between vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes makes ordering easy for non-meat eaters. Many practising Ethiopian Orthodox observe regular fasting days where only vegan food is allowed.


Kitfo $17
Raw minced beef tossed with hot chilli, cardamom and herb infused butter

One of my favourite Ethiopian dishes is kitfo, a raw minced beef dish that feels like an African take on steak tartare. It's an extraordinarily large serving here, the minced beef mixed through chilli, spices and cardamon butter. The beef can be cooked lightly if you prefer.


Injera, chilli pepper and ayib cottage cheese served with the kitfo raw beef mince

The kitfo is eaten with injera, a sourdough flatbread that looks like a spongy pancake. Unravel the neat little scroll and use it to scoop up a little beef mince, some ayib - a fresh housemade cottage cheese - and a pinch of chilli pepper. It's a terrific combo.


Meat combination platter $18
Three meat and two vegetarian dishes

Ethiopian cuisine centres around injera. It's eaten daily in Ethiopia, made from a fermented batter of teff flour. The thin batter is smooth on one side and bubbled on the other, a little like a soft crumpet. Meat stews, cooked vegetables and salads are often piled across the top. Injera acts as both a plate and spoon, soaking up all the residual juices so the "plate" itself can be eaten.


Lamb tibs
Pan fried lamb strips with onion, tomatoes and herbs 

Our meat combination platter provides a scoop each of three different meat dishes plus two vegetarian dishes. Lamb tibs is a classic Ethiopian dish, cubed lamb pan-fried with tomatoes, onion and chilli.


Kye sega wot 
Tender beef simmered in herb infused butter with chilli, spices and paprika

The slight sourness of the injera provides a welcomed counterbalance to the spiced curies. Sure you could use cutlery but using your fingers is so much more fun. We pinch bits of meat and vegetables between the soft crepe. The kye sega wot, a slow-simmered beef is especially tender, and flavoured with a complex layering of chilli and spices.


Gomen be-sega
Beef with collard greens

Gomen be-sega is a comfort food dish of beef, onion and garlic cooked with collard greens. If there's a tastier way to eat your greens, let me know.


Atkelet 
Carrot, potatoes and string beans

Break up the protein overload with mouthfuls of atkelet, a jumble of carrot batons, string beans and slices of potato tinged yellow with tumeric. A side scoop of dressed garden salad fulfils all your vitamin needs.

It's worth stopping in on weekdays for breakfast too. Morning options include feefer, a special dish of injera mixed with a beef or chicken spicy sauce, cooked fava beans and chechebsa, a flat bread served with herbed butter, paprika and honey.






Aaboll Cafe
140 Merrylands Road, Merrylands, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8840 9076

Opening hours
Monday to Friday 7am-9pm
Saturday 12pm-9pm
Sunday 2pm-8.30pm


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Sixpenny, Stanmore

If there's one dessert you must hunt down right now it's the black truffle St Honore at Sixpenny. Originally only available for special occasion pre-orders, the dessert was such a hit that the kitchen will now occasionally make whole ones available for the day's diners. Individual slices are available as an additional dessert course until it sells out. It always does.


2014 Sebastien Brunet Vouvray Demi Sec 'La Folie' chenin blanc - Loire Valley, France $19
and 2015 Pyramid Valley Vineyards 'On Skins' amber wine - Marlborough, NZ $24

I first visited Sixpenny in 2012. I still smile at the memory of it. I remember the dishes as fine examples of complex simplicity, uncluttered by excessive ingredients or unnecessary techniques. A large group of us reserved the private dining room, separated from the kitchen by a giant window that ran the length of the room. The free floor show provided by the chefs was fascinating. We watched them working assiduously throughout the entire lunch service. They diplomatically ignored our gawking faces plastered up against the window.

Today it's just the three of us in the main dining room, a noticeably different dynamic as various parts of the room burst into conversation or laughter. Floor staff float graciously between tables.

Other changes have been afoot. Former co-head chef James Parry left the kitchen in February this year. That leaves Chef Daniel Puskas in sole charge of the kitchen.


Snacks

Two degustation lengths continue to be available for diners at both lunch and dinner. The small menu at $115 runs at seven courses. The large menu includes an additional course each of savoury and dessert for $145.

We choose the small menu.


Lightly pickled cucumber with rose and raspberry

A trio of snacks is the first to arrive. Mini towers of pickled cucumber are just the thing to kickstart our appetite, crowned with fuchsia pink shavings of rose and raspberry.


Pumpkin scallop

The pumpkin scallop refers to the puck of tender pumpkin hidden within a deep fried fritter ball, dusted in pumpkin salt.


Green tomato and cheese gougeres

My favourite snack of the three is the green tomato and cheese gougere. Trying to bite through the cloud of aged cheddar curls gives us the giggles but we're immediately silenced by the sweet and savoury burst of green tomato marmalade inside. I could have eaten a dozen of these alone.


Housemade sourdough with mascarpone butter

The housemade sourdough is warm from the oven, still noisily crusty on the outside with a pillow-soft core. The mascarpone butter is so good I could've eaten it with a spoon. I slather it an inch-thick across my bread instead.


Venison tartare with boudin noir baked beetroot and hazelnut

Venison tartare is not appear as you'd ordinarily expect. It's not until you slice through the crimson wall of beetroot that you spot the hand-chopped venison nestled beneath the nest of hazelnut.

Does Sixpenny has a knack of pairing proteins with nuts? I think so. Their former signature dish - mud crab with macadamia cream - created one of those light bulb moments of clarity. It made so much sense. Hazelnut and raw venison is another one. The nutty sweetness of hazelnut works so well against game meat. It's the texture too - microplaned into a kind of ethereal fairy dust.


Potatoes with oyster and raw mushroom

We marvel over the sculptural plating of the potatoes with mushroom before gently dismantling it. Our forks sink through the chunks of soft-cooked potato cooked in rye butter. Across the top are sails of raw mushroom slices, covered in mushroom powder. Ribboned throughout it all is a velvety smooth oyster mushroom emulsion.

The umami notes in this dish are incredible. Who needs meat when you have flavour-packed vegetarian dishes like this one?


Housemade malt and honey sourdough

Our server comes around with a basket of housemade malt and honey sourdough that nobody can resist. We can smell the honey even before it is carefully dispensed onto our plates. The sourdough is so crustily good here I wish I could buy an entire loaf.


Spanish mackerel with radicchio and fermented cucumber

The Spanish mackerel is covered by a curl of char-grilled Treviso radicchio.


Spanish mackerel beneath the radicchio

It's not until we pull back the covers that we find the Coffs Harbour Spanish mackerel hiding underneath. The fish is cooked masterfully, flaking apart with just a gentle nudge of our forks. The sauce is fermented cucumber and tomato essence. We revel in the nuances of tomato against the gentle bitterness of the radicchio and the mackerel.


Smoked duck with witlof and plum

The smoked duck is a breast that has been smoked with sage and hickory and aged for one week. We get echoes of Christmas ham in this dish, both in texture and taste. The duck skin has a smoky intensity to it, and the witlof segment with plum caramel provide counterbalances of bitterness and sweet.


Mead vinegar custard with frozen raspberry and strawberry

Our pre-dessert is another example of beauty in simplicity. An elongated quenelle of mead vinegar custard is the dam holding back a flood of frozen raspberry segments. We alternate between mouthfuls of silky custard, cold pops of raspberry and the sweet puddle of strawberry puree at the bottom. It's a terrifically elegant palate cleanser.


Presenting the St Honore to guests

We'd been looking forward to the St Honore throughout our meal and get a rush when the entire tart suddenly materialises at our table. It's an opportunity for us to see the St Honore in its entirety before being sliced into individual portions. After leaving our table it tours the room, prompting a lunge for phones and cameras by most diners. The chef smiles wryly through it all, patiently waiting for each photoshoot to finish.


St Honore

And can you blame us? The St Honore is a picture of perfection. Literally. I could look at this photo all day, admiring each perfectly piped disc of cream and the glistening allure of toffee on each profiterole.


Black truffle St Honore

You can add the black truffle St Honore (if it's available) to your degustation for $25. We elected to swap out our dessert course for the St Honore instead, paying an additional $10.


Profiteroles filled with hazelnut cream

The smell of truffle is intense, wispy flakes piled across the surface. A ring of profiteroles around the edge are filled with hazelnut cream.


Freshly shaved black truffle on the St Honore

We scoop up forkfuls of whipped cream and chiboust, piped on a golden base of flaky mille-feuille pastry. After one mouthful we wonder aloud whether we should order another slice, but really our eyes are far bigger than our stomachs. It's actually a huge slice.

I eat some of the truffle slices with the dessert. I reserve some to slowly savour on their own, quietly appreciating their gentle brittleness.

It's a fitting finale to a thoughtfully orchestrated meal. Service was just the right balance of friendly but not overly invasive attentiveness too. And having the chefs sporadically come out to deliver dishes to diners (Chef Daniel Puskas came out twice to our table) is always a nice touch.


Sixpenny garden

After your meal, don't forget to check out the kitchen garden out the back. We had an abbreviated tour from our server before she had to return to the dining room but you can stay and poke around as long as you please.


Wild ginger growing in the restaurant garden

Truffle season will soon be coming to an end so go visit for the black truffle St Honore while you can!






Sixpenny
83 Percival Road, Stanmore, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9572 6666

Opening hours
Lunch Saturday and Sunday from 12pm
Dinner Wednesday to Saturday from 6pm


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White Taro, Surry Hills

Angie Hong is in the kitchen. The food is coming out thick and fast. If you've always lusted over the Instagram pics that are #mondayhongdinners, this is a dream come true. It's all part of the new dinner service at White Taro commencing quietly last week. Minimal fanfare and muted publicity meant the dining room was only half-full when we visited on the weekend. Don't expect that to last. The food is far too good for word not to spread like wildfire.


Complimentary black sesame rice crackers and prawn crackers

Angie is behind much of the night time menu, twinkling with hard-to-find Vietnamese classics like deep fried rice paper rolls and grilled betel leaf rolls wrapped around minced beef. It's a rare opportunity to eat her food again, after she sold the last of her Thanh Binh restaurants (still trading in Cabramatta and Newtown) in 2012.

The restaurant business was one she fell into after her husband bought Thanh Binh in Cabramatta. Angie's background was in chemical engineering (she studied at UNSW in the early 1970s) and she formerly worked as an interpreter for the Australian immigration department. To the general public she's perhaps most known as the mother of Dan Hong, executive chef of Mr Wong and Ms G's.


Deep fried pork and crab meat rice paper rolls $12

There's plenty to like across the entire menu, many of which come with vegetarian options. Fresh rice paper rolls come with pork and prawn, soft shell crab or tofu and mushrooms. Australia's national dish, salt and pepper squid, comes in tofu or mushroom form too.

We immediately zero in on the deep fried rice paper rolls. Ours come packed with pork and crab meat. A vegetarian version is also available. There's a contrast of bubbled crispness and chewy inner layers to these, courtesy of the rice paper sheet wrapping caramelised to a golden hue. It's generously packed with pork mince and crab meat. Grated carrot and black fungus shreds add textural crunch.


Bo la lot $18
Char grilled betel leaf rolled with lemongrass minced wagyu beef

Bo la lot is the prettiest assembly I've seen, garnished with micro leaves and edible flowers. Betel leaves (lolot) are used to roll up mini cigars of lemongrass beef mince. Here it's minced wagyu, accompanied by a pungent dipping sauce of fermented shrimp paste, chilli and pineapple. The chargrill imparts a gentle smokiness, while the betel leaf keeps everything juicy.


Green papaya salad with soft shell crab $22

One of our favourite dishes of the night is the green papaya salad with soft shell crab. It's a huge portion for the price, with two whole golden-fried soft shell crabs resting on a bed of zingy shredded green papaya. We revel in the crunchfest, especially the puffy shards of black sesame rice crackers.


Vietnamese fried chicken wings $15

Forget KFC. Angie's VFC or Vietnamese fried chicken wings are the business. The chicken is marinated and then dusted in flour before hitting the deep fryer. They're so tasty I'm happy to eat them on their own, but a tamarind dipping sauce on the side will add a sweet and tangy stickiness if you prefer. We also love that the platter of six is all mid-wings - every Asian's favourite deep fried chicken piece.


Bo luc lac $34
Shaking beef with grass fed scotch fillet

Bo luc lac means "shaking beef", a reference to the way cooks must shake the wok as the beef cooks. Grass fed scotch fillet is a terrific way to elevate this dish, the cubes of beef richly intense in flavour yet tender. Dunk them in the little pot of lemon pepper sauce on the side, and alternate mouthfuls of beefy goodness with juicy slices of tomato fanned across the plate.


Canh chua $34
Hot and tangy soup with barramundi, okra, elephant ear stems, tomato and fresh pineapple

Our final dish is canh chua, described on the menu as shareable between four but we manage to polish this - and everything else - between three hungry females. This is just the kind of thing you need on a cool evening, a tangy tamarind soup sweetened with fresh pineapple. Traditionally it's served with fatty belly pieces of perch but the barramundi version here is a lovely nod to local produce. You can also order it with king prawns or get the vegetarian version.


Barraumndi, okra and elephant ear stem

The smell of fried garlic hits us as soon as this steaming bowl lands on the table. It's a treasure trove of goodies in here. The spongey slices of elephant ear stem, swollen with soup juices that squelch with every bite, are the highlight. Fossick for okra, tomato, bean sprouts, fresh pineapple and thick chunks of barramundi. The soup is addictive, a balance of salty, sour and sweet. Ladle the soup over plain rice for a hearty finish.


Jimmy's jaffa mousse $14
Burnt orange, hazelnut cocoa sable, Grand Marnier cream, candied orange peel and chocolate twigs

Desserts are fancier than you'd expect. Jimmy's jaffa mousse is a collaboration with ex-MasterChef 2016 contestant, Jimmy Wong, assembled in a shallow glass like an edible terrarium. We dig past the dollops of Grand Marnier cream and hazelnut cocoa sable "soil" and hit the ethereal fluffiness of chocolate orange mousse. There's an impressive level of detail here, including thin chocolate twigs pushing up from the soil and blowtorched segments of dehydrated orange.


Citrus pannacotta $14
Dehydrated cumquat, cardamom coconut crumble, raspberry sorbet and passionfruit curd

The other dessert offering of the evening (of course we ordered one of each) is the citrus pannacotta. This too, has an elaborate assembly of components. The pannacotta is layered with a citrus jelly, served alongside a swoop of passionfruit curd littered with cardamom coconut crumble. The supporting cast member, the raspberry sorbet, is the real star of the show though. It's wondrously smooth, intensely red, and just the right level of sweetness.

Angie's dinner pop-up will run at White Taro for a minimum of three months. That means you have until early November to live your #mondayhongdinners dream. I'd go early. And go often while you can.






White Taro
67 Albion Street, Surry Hills, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 0108

Angie Hong's pop-up menu will be available Wednesday to Saturday from 6pm until early November 2016

The cafe will continue to trade Tuesday to Sunday 7am-4pm


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Uncle Tetsu's Japanese Cheesecake, Sydney

There's no shopping bag more de rigeur right now than the red and white carry bag from Uncle Tetsu's. Forget your fancy designer labels. The hottest accessory in Sydney will set you back just $18. This Japanese cheesecake shop has been inundated with queues as soon as it opened. For a cheesecake that has built its reputation in Japan on its use of Australian cream cheese, it's a neat circle of life that has finally seen it open up shop in Sydney over twenty years later.


Daily queues outside Uncle Tetsu's

Timing your visit is the trickiest part. The queues outside Uncle Tetsu have been non-stop. The good news is that after three weeks of production, the kitchen team is a picture of efficiency. At 9pm on a Saturday night, I was about 80th in the queue and only had to wait about 15 minutes until a carefully boxed cheesecake was in my hands.


Uncle Tetsu's first opened on Oyafuko Street in Fukuoka, Japan 

Uncle Tetsu is Tetsushi Mizokami. He opened his first Uncle Tetsu shop in Fukuoka, Japan. Today there are more than 70 outlets around the world, including Taiwan, Canada and the United States.


View of staff preparing cheesecakes in the open kitchen

Sydney's store takes up prime street frontage along George Street within the Regent Place complex. As the snaking queue shuffles forward, the final stretch yields a tantalising view into the open kitchen, jammed with staff working at breakneck speed. Everyone has a specific job - folding boxes, tearing off baking paper from freshly baked cheesecakes, or branding the Uncle Tetsu logo onto the surface of each cheescake.


Japanese cheesecakes in the oven

The smell is incredible, like an enveloping hug of sugar, butter and eggs.


Sieving the honey madeleine batter

In addition to cheesecakes, you can also order honey madeleines, all made from scratch for your viewing pleasure.


Filling patty cases with honey madeleine batter

The honey madeleines aren't baked in the traditional French clamshell shape, but their patty pan shape does guarantee a larger serve than normal. And the signature bump is included.


Honey madeleines $15 for four

Fifteen dollars will net you a box of four honey madeleines. They're a little softer than traditional madeleines but they do warm up a treat in the microwave. The madeleines are distinctly soft and buttery, with a faint hint of honey sweetness.


Uncle Tetsu's Cheesecake box

Let's be honest though. Everyone is here for the cheesecake. Demand has been so high that each customer is restricted to a single purchase. If you need more than one, you'll have to rope in a compliant - and patient - friend or two.


Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake $17.99

Each cheesecake is sheathed in protective paper. Unwrapping it feels like revealing a rare and fragile treasure. Even the holes in the box has been designed so the warm cheesecake doesn't create condensation within the box.


Inside Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake

Don't expect an American cheesecake flavour when you buy this. The classic Japanese cheesecake is a distinct variant, often known as cotton cheesecake because of its light and cotton-soft texture. Like many Japanese dishes, the flavour is subtle and elegant, and far removed from any concept of gluttonous excess.


Light and fluffy

Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake can be eaten either warm or cold. I refrigerated mine overnight and then tried a slice cold from the fridge and one warmed slightly in the microwave. When warmed, the cheesecake feels more like a souffle, with an eggy-ness that overtakes the flavour of cream cheese.

At 4C, the cheesecake takes on stronger vanilla notes, with a more noticeable - but still subtle - taste of cream cheese.

The texture is everything. It's like eating a fluffy cloud.

Uncle Tetsu's will be expanding its menu soon to include the rest of its signature products: the angel hat (a domed cheesecake), honey and cheese madeleines and honey cheesecakes.






Uncle Tetsu's Japanese Cheesecake
501 George Street, Sydney (Regent Place)
Open daily 11am-10pm