Bang Bang Izakaya Bar, Steam Mill Lane, Darling Square

Kampai! That's the chorus you'll hear inside the newest addition to Steam Mill Lane, Bang Bang. You'll find snacks - large and small - and plenty of drinks at this izakaya, the Japanese version of a casual pub. Go light with sashimi or order a heavier Japanese curry or deep fried prawn burger and wash it all down with everything from whisky highballs to rice lager to nashi pear liquor.


Entrance to Bang Bang

The restaurant design is ingenious, linking multiple dining zones within a relatively small space. A narrow entrance immediately brings visions of a back alley of Shinjuku. Head past the wooden high stools and hanging lanterns overheads to find the main bar area, a chaotic but wondrous assault on the senses. To the left is a glassed in booth ideal for groups, complete with music video screens and optional karaoke. The secret area is right at the back - hidden behind the hanging curtains is a traditional tatami room for anyone with the flexibility to sit cross-legged on the floor.


Kobore chirashi $16.80

We start with the kobore chirashi, a mix of raw seafood on top of sushi rice. Kobore means "spill", translated here to an artful cascade of salmon, tuna, kingfish, prawn and tobiko flying fish roe over a hillock of seasoned sushi rice. It's not the easiest dish to eat - we lose a prawn off the bamboo platform before enacting the "five second rule" - and the tobiko is hard to pick up with chopsticks, but there's plenty to interesting tidbits to pick through, including spongy yellow cubes of tamago omelette.


Lava omurice $15.80

Despite the pictorial depiction and description of a "split to open omelette", the theatrical reveal of cutting the folded omelette has already been done in the kitchen rather than at the table. Other than that, the lava omurice delivers on the comfort food front, the shimmering folds of barely cooked egg drenched with a glossy demi glace sauce.


Ketchup fried rice inside the omelette

Nestled underneath the blanket of omelette is a mound of ketchup fried rice, sweet but not overly so. It's the kind of dish you want to snuggle up, savouring the slightly chewy rice against the silky omelette and rich brown sauce.


Bang Bang tebasaki $9.80 for 5 pieces

Tebasaki chicken wings follow the classic Nagoya recipe, fried twice and covered in a sweet and savoury soy pepper glaze. It's messy but tasty eating. We ordered the small serve but if you're with a crowd you could justify a mountain of 15 pieces for $27.80.


Mentaiko cream udon $13.80

Mentaiko pasta has always been a favourite of mine, the salty intensity of pollock roe adding an umami hit to carbs. Here the usual spaghetti is swapped out for udon. It makes for a chewier experience let down only by the sparsity of sauce. There's barely a glimmer of saltiness and even less heat.


Karubi don $18.80

But all is right with the world when the karubi don arrives, fatty slices of wagyu rib eye fillet (graded 8 to 9+) on top of rice. The beef is ridiculously tender, cooked in a caramelised barbecue sauce that works so well with plain rice.


Drinks vending machine with Pocari Sweat, green tea and pokemon soft drinks

Don't forget to swing by the vending machines at the back for a can of Pocari sweat. And if you're in too much of a hurry to join the suits in a round of biiru, a counter at the front - complete with sampuru plastic food replicas - allows you to order your teriyaki chicken burger to go.






Bang Bang
14 Steam Mill Lane, Darling Square, Haymarket, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8591 7818

Opening hours
Daily 11.30am-10.30pm


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La Reina Queen of Venezuelan Arepas, Newtown

The arepa is everything to Venezuelans, a gluten-free cornmeal patty eaten plain or split open and stuffed with meat or beans. They’re about as ubiquitous as a burger or kebab in Venezuela, eaten any time of day but always a hit late at night. Sydneysiders might have seen La Reina’s bright orange stall at weekend markets or food festivals but their digs in Newtown finally offer a permanent address for arepa fans to get their fix.


Shredded pork pabellon $13.50
with black beans, feta and plantains

This small but cheerful eatery is already hugely popular with homesick South Americans. The menu is short and sweet, with photos providing a handy reference guide for newbies. Order and pay at the register before pulling up a stool at one of the communal tables. Staff will bring you your order.


Chicken breast and avocado Reina Pepiada $13.50
with a lime and pepper aioli and slaw salad

The standard stuffed arepa comes jammed with shredded chicken, beef or pork with slaw. Our favourite would have to be the reina pepiada, a juicy chicken breast and avocado combo that’s zingy with lime aioli. Vegans can revel in slow cooked creamy black beans with grilled and caramelised plantain bananas with slaw. If you’re the kind of person who suffers from FOMO, get the sampler pack of four mixed arepitas (mini arepas) with your choice of fillings. Those cute little snack pockets even come tinted pink, orange and green by using beetroot, carrot and kale juice.


Fried plantain bananas

Whatever you choose, prepare to get messy. Nobody’s complaining though. It’s all about that warm and toasted crunch of the grilled arepa that tastes like the lovechild of a corn tortilla and an English muffin.


Shredded beef pabellon bowl $13.50
with rice, black beans, feta and plantains

Arepa bowls are easier to eat but not half as fun. The pabellon bowl lets you choose one meat with rice, black beans, feta, plantains and two mini plain arepas on the side. But before you eat, don’t forget the self-serve condiment station. Load up on the mild red pepper sauce and add squiggles of guasacaca, a gauacamole sauce made from avocadoes and vinegar.

Shredded pork pabellon with red pepper sauce and guasacaca avocado sauce


Shredded chicken arepa with red pepper sauce and guasacaca avocado sauce


Shredded beef pabellon bowl with chicken and beef stuffed arepas






La Reina Queen of Venezuelan Arepas
77 King Street, Newtown, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9550 9347

Opening hours
Wednesday to Sunday 11am-3pm and 5.30pm-9pm

This article first appeared in Time Out Sydney. Read this article online or read more of my Time Out Sydney reviews.

Poly, Surry Hills

It's been more than two years in the making, but Poly, the long awaited sister restaurant to Ester (geddit?), finally opened last week. Mat Lindsay's Poly takes up residence on the ground floor the newly renovated Paramount House Hotel, ostensibly designed as the hotel restaurant but self-described as a walk-in wine bar.


The open kitchen fuelled by wood

Wood fuels the kitchen, a remarkably open set-up that allows diners an unencumbered view of all the action. The glowing charcoal is used to simmer, grill and smoke, sandwiched either side by a deep-fryer and a combi oven.


Poly dining room

Truth be told, the space feels more like a restaurant than a wine bar, with long communal tables dominating the room. A massive L-shaped bar counter follows two walls, shadowed by a wine display stacked four shelves deep. Small tables for two line one wall, and there's one round marble table by the kitchen, just like Ester.


Complimentary buckwheat popcorn

Complimentary bowls of buckwheat popcorn are a nod to the building's past as the film storage warehouse for Paramount Pictures. It's a welcome salty hit, although their petite size make them finicky to eat in any significant quantity.


Visintini Friulano 2017, Friuli Italy $73

The drinks list is expansive running from sake (ten) to skin contact wines (over 20 bottles) and everything in between. Wines by the glass run for an entire page (20 options). Spirits and cocktails abound but there are only two beers - an ale on tap or a bottled spelt sour ale, both by Wildflower brewery in Marrickville.


Beef tartare with fermented hot sauce and housemade potato chips $24

The menu reads like a list of ingredients, starting with snacks like Kangaroo Island scallop with salted egg or grilled oyster with fingerlime and horseradish and graduating to larger dishes like chicken with white beans and buttermilk gravy.

The beef tartare is an ideal place to begin, a quenelle of finely chopped and beautifully coloured beef flavoured with fermented hot sauce and a snowfall of freshly grated horseradish. Housemade potato chips almost steal the limelight, wafer thin salted crisps that yield a satisfyingly noisy crunch.


Salt and vinegar haystack onion $10

Salt and vinegar haystack onions are also addictive. The super fine slices of onion are brittle and crisp, with just enough salt and vinegar to have your mouth puckering for more.


Pippies with leek and chilli $18

What looks like a simple serve of pippies with leek and chilli belies the complexity of the buttery lake of sauce it sits in. We wrest the tender cooked bivalves from their shell and then use the empty shells to drink up the sauce, gently salty with the taste of the sea.


Pork belly with black fungi and macadamia $16

Pork belly with black fungi on a skewer isn't an obvious pairing but it works. The fatty pork belly slices, slightly charred and sticky at the edges, contrasts with the cleansing crunch of black fungus mushroom. A smooth and silky macadamia sauce brings everything together.


Celery caesar $18

The celery caesar is described by our waiter as "like a Caesar salad without the bacon and a stronger taste of celery". It's not particularly reminiscent of a Caesar salad to my tastebuds (no croutons, egg nor creamy dressing) but as a salad, it's delicious, even if the narrow strips of seaweed are a non-Caesar-like addition.


Beetroot with labneh and Davidson plum $15

Much more of a hit is the beetroot with labneh and Davison plum. Its presentation alone is worth studying, the swipe of labneh and Davidson plum sauce resembling an edible artwork.

The beetroot has been dehydrated and then rehydrated, a process that results in a concentrated beetroot flavour. It's like a wrinkled beetroot candy. Labneh adds a tangy creaminess, offset by the sweet acidity of Davidson plum.


Blood sausage pie with hot mustard and herbs $22

Ester fans will know the blood sausage sanga on the menu well. Here at Poly, Lindsay and head chef Isabelle Caulfield, have hidden the blood sausage within a pie. It's worth hunting down.


Inside the blood sausage pie

A hemisphere of deep brown malt puff pastry holds the blood sausage filling, the pie itself split in half and then sandwiched together with herbs.

The pastry is feather light and flaky, a contrast that works well against the softened stickiness of the blood sausage inside. It's a terrifically elevated dish and one of my meal highlights.


Lamb chop with intercostal $15

We move onto the lamb chop with intercostal. The chop is cooked to a blushing pink. There's a fight for all the fatty bits near the bone of course. But it's the skewer of intercostal - all the bits of meat between the ribs - that's the real star. It's juicy, fatty, caramelised lusciousness.


Broccoli with nori and sesame $12

Against the richness of the lamb, the broccoli offers a great foil, its florets charred to a nutty brown and dusted with nori seaweed.


Chicken with white beans and buttermilk gravy $28

The most substantial dish on the menu is the chicken with white beans. There's a lipsmacking succulency to the chicken, offset by white beans that are on the chewy side of al dente.


Salt baked potato and smoked whey $10

My other favourite dish of the day is the salt baked potato with smoked whey. The potatoes have been baked in their skins in salt, magnifying their potato-y essence. We suspect they're grilled again so the skins became a papery crisp before they're split in half and doused in a smoked whey sauce that is toe-curlingly good.

It's seriously swoonworthy. We scrape the plate clean and order another serve. I expect you will too.








Poly
74-76 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8860 0808

Opening hours
Monday to Friday 5pm til late
Saturday and Sunday 12pm to late

No reservations. Walk-in only


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Lankan Filling Station, Darlinghurst

It's open. Lankan Filling Station is now trading at its new home in Darlinghurst. Expect lacy crisp hoppers, spicy curries and cooling coconut sambols at this narrow and buzzy eatery. It's a long overdue opening for O Tama Carey, who left her head chef role at Berta in 2014. Fans were first teased with Lankan Filling Station at its Brickfields pop-up in July 2016. Two years (and one drawn-out gas connection) later - with intermittent appearances at Carriageworks Farmers Market - Lankan Filling Station has a permanent abode. And I couldn't be happier.


Lankan Filling Station

The dining room is long and skinny, bookended by a bar and the open kitchen. On the day we dined we spied Carey, Jemma Whiteman and Pasi Petanen on the pans. Shelves stacked with gigantic jars filled with spices provide both colour and an easily accessible pantry.


Hot butter cuttlefish $18

The Short Eats section of the menu is where you'll find all the snacks, everything from crunchy murukku chickpea chips to crab cutlets (crab balls) to pan rolls, potato or beef fillings wrapped in a crepe and fried like a giant spring roll.

Whatever you do, make sure you order the hot butter cuttlefish, a Sri Lankan Chinese dish that's like salt and pepper squid on crack. Tender cuttlefish. Crisp batter. And a mouth tingling hit of chilli and spices. It's all jumbled together with onion, shallots and long chillies then bathed in butter. This is the kind of dish you could eat with a bowl of plain rice and be deliriously happy.


Egg hopper set (1 plain and 1 egg) with pol sambol and seeni sambol $18

But here, it's the hopper that reigns supreme. String hoppers, a kind of pancake made from steamed rice noodles, are a Sri Lankan breakfast staple but we skip these in favour of the appam hoppers, bowl-shaped crepes available individually or as a set with sambol sides.


Egg hopper set (1 plain and 1 egg) with green pol sambol and kata sambol $18

We find the hoppers here are a little thicker in consistency compared to say, X Dream or Amma's Modern Kitchen in Toongabbie, but it means the lacy frill around the edges is louder in crunch, and stays crisp for longer.

You can use cutlery to eat these but the traditional way is to use your hands, tearing them apart and using the fermented batter crepe to scoop up curry, sauce and sambol.

The sambols are all terrific. I'm keenest on the green chilli pol sambol but there's much to like about the dried chilli kata sambol, sweet onion relish seeni sambol and the red chilli pol sambol too. The faint saltiness of the shredded Maldive fish against the freshly grated coconut is what makes pol sambol so addictive.


Goat in a black and dry curry with sweet spices $18

We order the black and dry curry with goat - the kitchen alternates cooking this curry with goat and mutton - and are rewarded with a deeply aromatic curry heavy with black pepper and cardamom.


Prawn in a fiery red curry soured with tamarind $20

The prawn curry isn't half as fiery as we expect, nor particularly sour with tamarind, but it's terrifically tasty, balancing sweet and tangy savouriness with just-cooked prawns.


Eggplant with tomato and tamarind $12

We devour the eggplant too, caramelly to the point of sticky. These are fried with tomatoes, onions, curry leaves and a heap of mustard seeds that add another dimension of crunch. Our table is loaded with so many dishes it feels like we're having a banquet.


Strawberries with rose syrup, long black pepper and whipped coconut cream $10

While we're still deciding on dessert, the kitchen sneakily sends out two sweets on the house. The strawberries with rose syrup is a daily special, and what looks like a simple dessert at first glance grows on me with each spoonful. The rose syrup sauce is mellow, spiked with the intriguing complex flavour profile of long black pepper. Add fresh sweet strawberries and a cloud of whipped coconut cream and it's hard to resist going back for more.


Watalappam baked jaggery custard $12

I'd been about to order the watalappam when it lands on our table too.


Watalappam baked jaggery custard with cashews and sesame seeds

The baked jaggery custard is smothered in a thick blanket of crushed cashews, toffee shards and sesame seeds. With your first spoonful you'll notice a comforting hit of cardamom. It's a combination that reminds me of the flaky Indian dessert, soan papdi (if you haven't tried it, get a packet from your local Indian grocer. It's amazing).


King coconut sorbet $6

The sorbets and gelatos aren't made inhouse but they are produced in arrangement with RivaReno Gelato. I'm outvoted on the spiced jaggery gelato that's said to taste like chai, and settle on the king coconut sorbet instead. It's almost floral in taste and not overly sweet, made from what we expect is king coconut water. There's a ginger and turmeric gelato too.

Buffalo curd with kithul palm treacle $8

We order the dahi, a fermented curd made with buffalo milk. There's a marked sourness to the curd, not unlike natural yoghurt, tempered by the subtle sweetness of kithul palm treacle. A sprinkle of toasted buckwheat lends nuttiness and crunch.

Milk hopper with jaggery and coconut milk $8

And of course we  had to order a milk hopper. Or two. Milk hoppers are delicious not just for the inclusion of jaggery cane sugar but the generous dollop of coconut cream as well. Heaven.



There are still so many more dishes we've yet to try. We need to make our way through the fish curry, the potato white curry and the dhal. If the staggering choice is all too much, you can order the $60 banquet that includes dessert as well as unlimited plain hoppers. Stop by and fill up soon.






Lankan Filling Station
58 Riley Street, East Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8542 9936

Opening hours
Tuesday to Friday 12pm-10pm
Saturday 10am-10pm
Sunday 10am-4pm