Cafe Strada - Summer Hill

From the outside, the place looks cold stark sandwich shop. The menu is simple and the inside is actually an internet cafe. Definitely not your run of the mill cafe, but they do serve some of the best food in the Summer Hill area!

Burger with the lot

First up, their burgers. Previously I talked about how I value a good greasy corner shop burger with the lot, and Strada falls straight into this category. Its not a gourmet burger made with sour dough bread and wagyu beef with goats cheese or anything fancy, but it is a good burger. Beef, lettuce, tomato, beetroot, pineapple, onions, bacon and a perfectly fried and still runny egg. Can't ask for much more than that.

Ontop of their burgers, Strada has some of the best chips I've ever had. The trick is to always order them "extra crispy". You can hear the clink clink clink of the chips as they get tossed in a big bowl for good salt coverage. You know those chips are going to crispy.

Big Breakfast

Mixed Grill

If you can wake up early enough, Strada also does a decent big breakfast. Its nothing to write home about, but its big, filling and good value. For an extra $1, you get a piece of steak as a part of their Mixed grill. Great value in my books.

Boscaiola

For such an unassuming shop front, you wouldn't expect Strada to do one of the best Spaghetti Cabonara's I've ever tasted! Unlike a lot of other Italian restaurants who douse their cabonaras with copious amounts of cream, Strada does it the traditional Italian way with eggs and cheese only. No cream. And the result is heavenly. The strands of pasta are lightly coated with a creamy eggy sauce so it won't leave you feeling bloated and gluggy after eating. Unfortunately I've only had it take away and don't have any photos :(

Their Boscaiola however, I've had eat-in and it was just as good. Whilst the boscaiola contains cream, its not swimming in a pool of cream. Another thumbs up from me.

Cafe Strada
12 Lackey Street
Summer Hill NSW 2130
Ph: (02) 9798 5691


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Jason's La Candela - Summer Hill

I do love my entertainment book. All the discount vouchers make it so much more fun trying out new places! My reasoning is, if its bad food, atleast you didn't pay full price. If its good food, even better! You got it at a discount.

With that in mind, I decided to try Jason's La Candela at Summer Hill. Having tried heaps of other restaurants around there, it was time to give Jason's a go.

The layout is clean and simple, giving you heaps of seating room. Since we were very early, the restaurant was empty except 2 other tables.

Not in the mood for pizza, I went the seafood marinara.

Seafood Marinara

The serving size was quite small, especially when you think of how much room the mussel shells actually took up. Taste wise, it was quite nice. Fresh seafood, simple tomato sauce and the pasta was cooked al dente. I just wish the serving was bigger as I was still hungry afterwards.

BBQ meat lovers pizza

My friend ordered the bbq meat lovers pizza. Since I was still hungry, he offered me a slice. I took about 2 bites before giving up. I found the pizza very very greasy and almost sickly with the sweet bbq sauce. The pizza was also too mushy for my liking, both the dough and the meat has the same soft texture. Meanwhile, my friend loved the greasiness and sweet flavour, but by the last slice, the grease and mushiness also got to him.

OVerall, the food was ok. The pasta was tasty even though the serve was small. The pizza was a decent serve, but I didn't like it at all. Mind you, I had a slice at the end of the meal, so I don't know if time was a factor, but my friend liked the pizza. I'll probably come back again since I'm armed with a new Entertainment book and see how it goes this time round.

Jason's La Candela
24 Lackey St
Summer Hill NSW 2130
Ph: (02) 9798 3897


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Da Vinci's Italian Restaurant - Summer Hill

I love going to Summer Hill at night, especially on a weekend. They try to promote the Summer Hill Village theme by creating alfresco dining, tables and chairs around the fountain for people to meet up and relax. But on the weekend at night, they also have live music. Walking past, you will see many kids running around the fountains, laughing and giggling. Parents will dance with their kids in the middle of the street and thoroughly just enjoying life. Right next to where the live band is, is Da Vinci's. In winter, you can smell the wafting aromas of wood fired pizza.

Its the first time I've actually eaten in at Da Vinci's, usually I grab their pizzas take away. They always have great offers, a large pizza or pasta for $10 take away! Bargain in my books!

Since we usually get their pizza, we decided to try out their pasta instead.

Bruschetta

First up, Bruschetta. Crunchy grilled bread topped with tomato, basil and drizzled with balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with oregano. The tomato was a bit soft for my preference, but overall, a delicious bruschetta, especially when the crusty bread absorbed all the lovely juices! I was fighting my friend for the last of the oil/vinegar on the bottom of the plate.

A "bianco" spaghetti marinara

Basically seafood pasta without the tomato sauce but with plenty of garlic. The pasta tasted delicious, with a generous kick of garlic, but I wasn't impressed by the seafood. The prawns and mussels were nice, but seemed like they were from a frozen pack. The calamari, however, was terrible. It was unbelievably soft, mushy and... brown, I could cut it by using my fork. With that said, the overall taste of the pasta was really nice and studded with heaps of garlic. I just really didn't like the actual calamari, and there was heaps in the dish.


My friend got a chicken penne in a creamy tomato sauce. A big thumbs up from my friend in terms of taste, but the serving was quite small. That's probably why I never order penne when I'm hungry. It looks like a big dish, but there's actually very little food in it.

Da Vinci's Italian Restaurant
25 Lackey St
Summer Hill, Sydney
Ph: (02) 9716 9000‎


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Pendolino Restaurant

OMG my blog posts are sooooooo out of order! I really need to be more organised with my photos. It wasn't until recently when I saw a few blogs post about Pendolino that I realised I had lost my photos from when I went! It took me about 20mins trawling through all my folders before I found it.

I can't even remember when I went, I think it was some time end of last year? Its been awhile but I can still taste the food in my memory!

Complimentary baby olives with olive oil for bread dipping

Olive bread and sour dough bread

Pappardelle con Ragu di Vitella e Maggiorana

Organic Hand Cut Pappardelle with Braised White Rocks Veal Sauce, Veal Marrow and Marjoram

Oh god....is this how proper hand made pasta is supposed to taste like? Where have I been and what have I been eating?!? I've tried dried home made pasta and supposedly fresh handmade pasta, but nothing comes remotely close to this. This was soft and silky, yet still had a bit of a bite to it. And the deep fried bone marrow was utterly moreish. I could do with a whole bowl of fried marrow.

Spaghetti Chitarra con Pesce D'Acquadolce

Freshly-made Chitarra Spaghetti with Barramundi, Wild Prawns, Chilli, Capers, Garlic and Pinot Grigio White Wine.

This was my favourite of the day. Although the pasta was rougher than the parpadelle, the flavour was amazing. I wish I had more crusty bread to mop up all the leftover juices in the plate.

Near the end of the meal, suddenly my friend goes "OMG! IAN THORPE IS BEHIND YOU!". And lo and behold, he's sitting on the table right behind me! I tried to convince my friend to take a photo of me that conveniently would have Ian Thorpe in the background, but she was too shy to do and I didn't want to interrupt his meal. But atleast now I can say I had lunch with Ian Thorpe! hehe

Pendolino
Shop 100, Level 2, The Strand Arcade
412-414 George Street
Sydney 2000
(Ph) 02 9231 6117
http://www.pendolino.com.au/

Hotel Food

One of the great things about a business trip is that its all expenses paid! Woohoo!! And I did something I've never done before. Order room service! hehehe Well, I have ordered room service before, but never on my own bill! This was a great opportunity to lie in bed eating on the spare time I had off. Plus, anything I order earns me extra bonus points with Hilton! (I just got my statement and I am now a Gold VIP Member!).

Spicy shrimp and angel hair pasta

For some reason, they gave me 4 breadrolls to go with my pasta. FOUR! *SiGH* I gotta keep remembering Texas Size!

Wagyu beef burger

Innards!

Surprisingly, this was one of the better burgers I had in Houston. Really juicy and flavoursome beef patty with minimal toppings to distract you from that flavour! MmMMmm

Tricolour tortellini with shrimp and andouille

Bagel and Lox for breakkie

I'm not a huge fan of Lox. I much prefer the taste and texture of smoked salmon instead. (For those who don't know the different, Lox is cured, usually with salt. This is different to smoked salmon).

Buffalo wings

Pulled pork sandwich

This pulled pork sandwich I had was terrible! Incredibly salty from the excess BBQ sauce they used. I woke up at 3am in the morning gasping for water as I was sooooo dehydrated!

BLT with sweet potato "fries"

They were really generous with the bacon. This was a nice change from the usual BLT you get in Australia. The American style bacon was super crunchy and made a really nice snack when bits of them broke off! hehe Bacon chips! So good but sooo evil!

The Apprentice (of the Non-TV kind)

Ever since I found out about the existence of The Apprentice, I've been meaning to make a booking. Its taken me almost a year and a half to make a booking, but hey, I got there...right? The Apprentice is basically a training ground for thei culinary and hospitality students as a way to gain experience by running their own high end dining restaurant...at a fraction of the price.

A sent a few emails to my friends, and next thing you know, a date was set and we had a booking. After gorging on all sorts of sweets for morning tea, I arrived at The Apprentice expecting a 4 course meal. Can I indulge or what?


There were no choices from the menu and all food was to be served banquet style with alternating dishes on the table.

Bread roll - made by the students

I know bread rolls are nothing special in general, but these ones are made by the students. And there were real mixed reviews on these. Some of my friends had lovely crusty bread rolls, some had soft fluffy ones, whilst I drew the short straw and had a ROCK HARD roll. I was able to play out a tune by bashing my knife against the bread, and accidently caused the bread to go flying across the table when I tried to cut it. Others enjoyed their bread with alot less playing than me ;) They were also very generous with the bread, bringing the bread basket around a few times.

Appetisers: (L) Prawn, avocado and grapefruit salad
(R) Carrot and red pepper soup

This was the first service ever for the students working tonight. So there was quite a bit of confusion as to what was going on, meaning I ended up being given 2 appetisers instead of 1. The prawn, avocado and grapefruit salad was basically a done up version of a prawn cocktail. The addition of the grapefruit did give it a lovely tang though. My favourite would have to be the carrot and red pepper soup though. It was thick and hearty. I would love a big bowl of the soup and bread on a cold winters day.

Scallop with pea puree sauce, spicy tomato and roasted capsicum coulis

I'm pretty sure the scallops on this dish should be warm, but they were stone cold as if they were taken out of the fridge to come to room temperature. I actually didn't mind the fact that they were cold, but I wished the scallops were slightly bigger. Each scallop was about the size of a 10c piece. With those complaints aside, the pea puree was heavenly. Fresh and creamy with a slight nutty taste. I tried to scrape as much of the pea puree off the plate without looking like I was trying to lick it.

Lamb filo triangles with tzatziki dip

These tasted similar to the Turkish Icili Koftes and was filled with lovely spicy lamb mince, plump sultanas and pinenuts. This would be my favourite out of the two entrees.

Rabbit Fricasse with fettucine

I'm a huge fan of Gordon Ramsay's "The F Word". I was watching it with my friend once, when Gordon Ramsay made a Rabbit Fricasse with Tagliatelle. My friend immediately went "OMG!! YUM!!! MAKE THIS FOR ME!!". So when I saw the same dish on the menu, I just HAD to get my hands on it. So when all the mains came out, there was a lot of swapping around, and somehow I managed to get the rabbit.

Now, although I've never eaten Ramsay's version of the meal, I know it did not taste like this. For one, the rabbit was severly overcooked, to the stage that a few of us could not cut into the meat. I was expecting the rabbit to be lightly pan fried,to keep it moist, or stewed until it falls apart. This was neither, and the same goes with the pasta. Parts of them were al dente, clumps of them were undercooked and stuck together. However, the sauce for this was delicious. I would've been happy with the pasta and just the sauce.

Twice baked Yarra River Salmon on truffled mash and beurre blanc

I didn't try the fish, but it looked too overcooked and dry for my liking. I like my salmon really pink in the middle. This was completely cooked through.

Roast Sirloin of Beef, dijion jus, black pepper crust and roasted root vegetables

Despite the beef looking fairly pink, I was told the beef was extremely tough. Some people got well cooked pieces (see below) and some medium rare, but all commented on how tough the beef was. It looks like they had cut the beef on the wrong grain making it impossible to cut through with the dinner knives they gave us.

I think all the mains were quite disappointing for our table. Luckily, dessert made up for some of that disappointment.

Chocolate Orange Meringue Gateau with chocolate sauce and orange cream anglaise

I'm definitely not a chocolate orange fan, but I didn't mind this. The gateau was more of a choc orange brownie with meringue ontop, but it was still a nice dessert.

Tuiles basket with berry sorbet and berry coulis

The sorbet was more like ice cream, but it was still lovely and fresh anyway. The tuiles were light and crispy and went really well with the ice cream.

Despite my criticisms above, I actually really enjoyed myself. Its probably a good idea to keep in mind that they're students in training, and don't expect a 5 star cuisine and service. SOME people were quite inconsiderate of how nervous some of the students were. Mainly, a waitress was clearing our table of the mains, and this inconsiderate guy, PUSHED past her, knocking her plates over and onto our stuff. Now, he could easily have waited the 10secs, or walk around the table, but he had to push past her.

For $27, you get a 4 course meal, and they even served tea and coffee afterwards. What a bargain! We're planning on going back in a few weeks after the students have had more experience and were less nervous.

I am the pasta masta! (Not)

I got a pasta machine at the end of financial year sale in 2007. Its been sitting there ever since waiting to be used. I decided to bite the bullet and finally try to make my own pasta. (OK, I've made it once before without a machine, and that's a WHOLE different other story...)

I managed to turn this:

Into this:


Into this:

Let me say that to even get pasta into a thin sheet like that took me AGEEEEEEES!!! Jamie Oliver! You lie! It's so NOT a 5min job! Mind you, it was probably my fault more than anything. I didn't have a table I could clamp the pasta machine down onto, so I had to get my mum to hold onto the machine for dear life whilst I cranked the pasta through again and again. I literally broke into a sweat from doing this.

Once we got the thin pasta sheets, I decided to turn it into tagliatelle by hand cutting it. Except the pasta got stuck together because I was too lazy in properly flouring the layers. So it was another 5 mins to get everything unstuck. It wasn't until the 4th batch that I remembered the machine came with a pasta cutter!!! Still, my hand cut ones didn't turn out too bad:

Whilst I was making the pasta, I had the sauce simmering on the stove.


Here's my final product:


Close up:

The pasta turned out quite well. I actually preferred the ones I hand cut, not because they were "rustic", but I didn't roll the pasta out as thin so it had more bite to it. Next time, I am definitely making this outdoors. I ended up COVERED in flour. I had flour in my hair, on my face, all over my clothes and when I sneezed, I swear flour came out. I had to make a quick dash to the backyard to pick some basil and snagged my shirt on the fence. When I managed to untangle myself, I saw a cloud of flour billowing from my top..... Nevertheless, I am going to make pasta again next time!