If you’re looking for famous home-made family recipes deliciously prepared the traditional Italian way, then you will not be disappointed. The menu is simple and yet it offers something for everyone. Why not try the smooth Penne Napolitana, or if Spaghetti Bolognese is more your style then jump on board, you are guaranteed to lick your plate clean. If you feel like something more meaty, then the mouth watering Chicken Schnitzel served with fresh lemon may be the way to go or for a hearty meal. I recommend the scrumptious Osso Buco. The sides are enticing whether it’s the Minestrone Soup, Italian salad, or Garlic bread to accompany the meal.

The restaurant itself is warm and cosy. Dom, who isn’t short of a yarn, makes you feel welcome. The decor is authentic and reminds me of a little restaurant tucked away in the country side of north Italy. The prices are unbelievable, mains under $12.00. That’s right, no misprint here – not only is the food great, the environment friendly, but the prices are “cheaper than chips”. To top it off, each customer receives complimentary fresh bread and a jug of homemade lemonade, made the old fashion way!

So what are you waiting for? Whether you want to dine in or take away, you will not be disappointed when you try this food the way your Mum would make it!.. (if she was Italian)

What: Nonna Maria’s Place Restaurant
Where: 56 Phillip Street, Parramatta
Phone: 02 9689 1112
Mains: Under $12.00

A block back from the beach is Scotties, Two Flat White’s tip for breakfast or dinner if you find yourself anywhere near Newcastle Beach. With its palm-shaded courtyard nook off Scott street, Scotties has come a long way from the battered sav & scallop style of fish and chippery it once was. Professionals on their laptops sipping frothy cappuccinos in the dappled shade seem just as at home as kids in boardies with their parents lugging sandy towels and negotiating bulky strollers.

Chef Jeramie Heywood’s menu spans the spectrum of accessible comfort food to hoity toity (Hiramasa kingfish, anyone?) with a focus on seasonal produce. Our tip would be to stick to the familiar fare. The fish and chips are still great despite the raging internet review debate which asserts the batter used to be better. The breakfasts are hearty (hash browns, avocado , sourdough, bacon, poached eggs etc) and the takeaway section on the side is replete with hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fishburgers, steakburgers and lentil burgers ($7-$9.50). Plus, they make a pretty decent coffee (Two Flat Whites writers need their caffeine.)

The service is a bit docile, but if you’re not in any great hurry the location compensates, and a pleasant morning/afternoon drying out from the surf can be had munching away. Dinner is a fairy-light lit affair and the restaurant is quite popular so consider booking to secure your table.   Being seasonal, there is an element of changeability to the menu though keep an eye out for Gumbo prawns in ginger sauce or snapper salad with green mango and sweet chilli dressing.  Seafood Sunday at $25 a head is rather tempting, and a good excuse to get into their interesting wine list.

36 Scott Street
Newcastle East, 2300
02 4926 3780

Article written by Estelle Pigot.

There’s a little place you need to know about.

La Boheme, in Grote St, Adelaide, was once a tobacconist and is now a perfect little salon replete with cabaret shows, gentle live music and a witty cocktail selection to make you cry ooh-la-la.

Cheeky burlesque on school nights, funk tunes spun from decks perched on piano tops on the weekend and local artists hang their work on the damask papered walls. Yes, it’s nothing if it’s not bohemian.

This intimate little, shabby chic distraction is Adelaide’s slice of gay Paris. While the clever staff shake up an American Beauty or an Absolut Hulk ($15), they will banter and flirt you into giddy smiles.

With a wear-worn chesterfield that stretches the length of the room, a rockabilly barman who hands you your receipt complete with a rose for the lady and a French-singing guitarist, there’s nowhere else you would rather sip absinthe in the city of churches.

36 Grote Street
Adelaide SA 5000
http://www.myspace.com/labohemebar
laboheme {at} iprimus.com(.)au

Article written by Estelle Pigot

Chocolate is not something normally associated with an ethical stance. It has long been the guilty pleasure snuck late at night in darkened kitchens, or secretly indulged in from a stash in the office drawers. It’s a food steeped in sin for being decadent, delicious and often the subject of glutinous greed.

But Rebecca Kerswell, owner of Coco Chocolate, is an artist who works in the medium of chocolate and she is championing ethical production and good taste with her strictly regulated standards of production.   From her boutique shops in Kirribilli, Mosman and Edinburgh, Rebecca produces organic, GM free, gluten free, vegan, and fair-trade chocolate. You practically become a better person just by eating it!

And loving it? Well, that’s so easy it’s ludicrous.  Her delectable creations are drool-worthy delights!  With treats that include organic white chocolate ribboned with forest fruits, dark chocolate spiced with cranberry, cinnamon and nutmeg, chocolate-dipped chilli figs and praline quail eggs, it’s hard to resist bite-sized luxury. This is real chocolate at its best. Modelled on the European tradition, Coco Chocolate is high in cocoa content and sumptuous cocoa butter (the delicious, expensive parts that mass produced chocolate replaces with cheap sugar and powdered milk.)

With her business commitment to trading only with cocoa bean plantations that adhere to strict ethical guidelines, it’s a guilt free pleasure.

Just like the film “Chocolat” (2000), Rebecca is a real-life Vianne, selecting carefully from her creations a perfect flavour to capture a mood or personality.  A perfect connoisseur, she can discern between Madagascan and Caribbean chocolate, she strongly believes the only perfect accompaniment to real chocolate is a glass of Mas Amiel and lovingly packages her handmade delicacies, tying the ribbon herself.

Overseeing a team of artisan chocolatiers in Australia & Scotland, Rebecca is dedicated to using the finest ingredients and offering a very special, bespoke product. She founded a chocolatier school in the UK, runs coco tastings and connoisseur courses from her shop in Kirribilli and in 2011 will be opening a Chocolate School in Sydney where students will learn the art of hand tempering on marble.

www.cocochocolate.com.au

Article by Estelle Pigot

Do you remember the floury golden goodness of the pastry treats of your youth? You know… when you used to eat carbs.

Fingers of gooey dough, studded with raisins and lashings of pink icing. Custardy slices, strawberry and mock cream-stuffed neenish tarts, what next is the question… rich gentlemen have it, boys, in-di-gestion!

Sorry, Oliver aside, we do want more but then there seems to be a drought in Sydney. We will now refer to it as The Great Cake Shop Drought and, I’m afraid, it ushered in the canary-yellow, crumbly, hardened pastry that has permeated suburbia.  I’m sure I don’t need to remind you this has been followed by heavy, too-floury cupcakes, soggy pastry, thin icing, sickly-sweet aerated cream-substitute and a general reduction of apple filling all round.

Ah, yes, baked goods fans, these have been tough times.

Good apple cornishes and Chelsea buns have been replaced with a vogue in fancy rye breads and sour dough which could never satiate a true sweet tooth.

Yet, like a phoenix from the ashes… well in fact, nothing like a phoenix from the ashes because it was there the whole time (the whole 30 years!) But like a beacon of light in the middle distance, an oasis among over-priced organic cookies in the east and shrunken Woolworths doughnuts in the west, there stands a stronghold of hope.

The Ermington Cake Shop, in the small shopping strip off Victoria Rd (just before the Silverwater Rd turnoff) is serving up the good stuff.  Puritan staff with scolding eyes will begrudgingly fill your paper trays with 6 tarts for the price of 5 ($9) as you eagerly hop from one foot to another, smacking your lips  already imagining the shock of flavour that is about to flood your tastebuds. From an array of classic neenish, loganberry, caramel and – the All Star – pineapple tarts, your pudgy fingers will point out with glee your poison of choice.

But don’t stop there! Velvety and vast, they have a range of richly-iced chocolate birthday cakes, cinnamon sprinkled tea buns, gaping green-iced frog-mouths leaping from their patty papers, broad swirls of generous meringue peaking next to fluffy butterfly cakes.

It’s all here, just as it always was. A survivor from the culinary tragedy that has befallen a proud Aussie heritage of outstandingly decent bakery treats.

Go check it out and nostalgically indulge yourself in a walk down memory lane while you chomp on a rippingly good sausage roll.

Ermington Cake Shop

Betty Cuthbert Ave
Ermington NSW 2115
(02) 9638 2232

Article by Estelle Pigott

One serious contender is Palette.   Opening it’s doors just this year, management doesn’t seem to be sure if it wants to be a wine bar, a loungey café or a restaurant, fortunately it fails at neither.

We stumbled into the place 3pm on a Sunday seeking the restorative powers of an afternoon breakfast and taking our cues from the impossibly cool table of skinny-jeans out the front, ordered the Spanish omlette.  Enough for two, the mushroom and tomato – dense, aromatic breakfast was immensely satisfying and paired with the genuinely friendly service, I thought I had stumbled upon some great secret.

But then I started hearing about the “Jondee Black Angus” steaks.   Locals spoke about them with the fervour of recent converts. $27 of magic with a dollop of hollandaise. 

This kind of enthusiasm warranted further investigation, could it be my new favourite breakfast haunt was about to become an evening dining favourite too?

So, on the promise of $5 beers, 2 for 1 cocktails and $5 tapas before 7:30pm, a crowd of us assembled on Tuesday night to check this out once and for all.

The owner, Margot, was ready for us. She had “Up the Arse” cocktails lined up across the bar with beer and margaritas coming in a steady flow.

Almost the entire party went for the steak but in the name of journalistic research I made the effort to peruse the eclectic Mod Oz menu.  With some truly creative features on the tapas menu (Mexican risotto balls, beetroot and dill dip, fish balls and tempura whiting, pate and figs to name a few) I gave a few a whirl. For $5, it couldn’t hurt to try.

Interwebz reviews praise the beetroot risotto and a dining companion was noted to be licking the plate clean of his pumpkin fetta pasta. So, that speaks for itself.

A pair of latecomers were treated to a hastily rustled up tasting plate, with rare beef that melted in the mouth and antipasto treats a-plenty.

The attentive service offered by Margot and her staff made the experience a very homely one. The strange interior betrays how great the place actually is but was made up for by the music that pumped and created the atmosphere that might have otherwise been lacking.

Prices are what you would expect for the area, but that’s only if you miss happy hour and the early-bird $5 tapas deal which would make for a cheap and cheerful entrée…. Because there’s no way you can come here and  not order that steak.

Palette Restaurant & Bar
346 Victoria street
Darlinghurst,
(02) 9332 3823
Open Tue-Fri 5pm-11:30pm;
Weekends 9am-11:30pm

Article By Estelle Pigott

Two Flat Whites recently visited Brisbane hotspot Jade Buddha and the Shadow Lounge.

Perched on prime inner-city real estate, on a deck overhanging the Brisbane river with views of the glowing Storey Bridge, Jade Buddha restaurant is still a restauraunt that gets a lot of air time amongst the cool set in Brisneyland.   However, a quick Google search reveals the interwebz has not taken kindly to this restaurant.  It has has copped a serious bashing in the review stakes,  so unique in its relentlessly scathing remarks,  you would wonder why anyone goes there at all. But the locals are loyal in the sunshine state and Two Flat Whites was not going to be deterred!

The entrance has a ritzy asiatic feel but then you move out and through to the before mentioned deck,  which has quite a different, mod-Oz bistro atmosphere.   But I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that once you have a cocktail in the hand. They are a bit pricey but I did grow rather fond of their infusion cocktail, the Karma Sutra.

This mixed bag of various Asian cuisines gives an interesting selection of fusion dishes. The steaks comes recommended but we went for a lot of tasting starters and salads. The serves were hearty, certainly not what you would expect from a trendy new spot but they were a little over-priced and average to taste.

So its probably not the finest dining experience on offer in this fantastic town, but I suggest in a big group of friends on a summer evening, it could be a pleasant experience.

Where the restaurant lacks the strong atmosphere, dash upstairs to the Shadow Lounge bar, that has trendy ambience perfected.

The Shadow Lounge’s stunning interior gives a moody, oriental flair and was well complimented by the too-cool tunes they were pumping rather loudly. The staff are friendly and the manager was very helpful in suggesting other hotspots in Brisbane to kick on to. But for a chillled drink, there’s no need to go anywhere else.

Jade Buddha & Shadow Lounge
1 Eagle St, Eagle St Pier, Brisbane
Ph: +61 7 3221 2888
Web: www.jadebuddha.com.au

Sydney’s Quay restaurant is the 27th best restaurant in the world and Australia’s finest. The restaurant, which debuted at No.46 last year, leaped 19 places to its new ranking on the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, announced in London overnight.

Tetsuya’s was the only other Australian restaurant to make the top 50, dropping to No.38. But two other restaurants – Marque of Sydney and Attica of Melbourne – were also picked at No.67 and No.73 respectively in the top 100, with Marque being honoured with the Restaurant Breakthrough Award. Greg Doyle’s Pier, which debuted in the top 100 at No. 94 last year, did not make it into the list this year.

Famed Spanish restaurant elBulli lost its crown after four years at the top, beaten to the number one spot by rising star Noma in Copenhagen.

The S.Pellegrino World’s Top 10 for 2010 is below. Click here to see the Top 100

1 Noma -Denmark (▲2) +45 3296 3297 noma.dk

2 El Bulli -Spain (▼1) + 34 972 150 457 elbulli.com

3 The Fat Duck -UK (▼1) +44 (0) 1628 580 333 thefatduck.co.uk

4 El Celler de Can Roca -Spain (▲1)+34 972 22 21 57 cellercanroca.com

5 Mugaritz -Spain (▼1) +34 943 522 455 mugaritz.comx

6 Osteria Francescana -Italy (▲7) +39 (0)59 210 118 osteriafrancescana.it

7 Alinea -USA (▲3) +1 312-867-0110 alinea-restaurant.com

8 Daniel -USA (▲33) +1 212 288 0033 danielnyc.com

9 Arzak -Spain (▼1) +34 943 78456 arzak.es

10 Per Se -United States (▼4) +1212 823 9335 perseny.com

The attentive service was simply superb. Our waitress was magnificent. As you turned your attentions around the restaurant you notice very simple décor, colours very easy on the eyes and dinner music setting the scene. Its show piece is a bar stacked to the rafters smack bang in the middle of the room with its old wooden Venetian style.

With a wide selection of traditional meals on offer, pastas, pizzas, seafood and risotto which all looked absolutely delicious and tasty, I began with the Crumbed Bocconcini; deep-fried crumbed bocconcini served with radicchio and a creamy gorgonzola sauce. This cheese is described by its Italian name which means small mouthfuls and that is exactly what you want to do while engulfing this mouth watering dish. For the main, I tried the Penne Boscaiolla sautéed bacon, mushrooms, and shallots in a white wine cream sauce which was equally as tantalizing.

The desserts from what I have heard are worth the wait, the menu offers Tiramisu, Gelato, Crème Brulee and much much more. There is an extensive wine list and they even make a mean cocktail; try the Toblarone, you will not be disappointed.

Cicciolina Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria is not just a restaurant, but a dining experience. I will be back very soon.

Article written by Liam Gibbs.

What: Cicciolina Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria
Where: 224 King Street, Newtown 2042
How: Ph: 02 9516 1166
When: Open 7 nights – 5:30pm till late

Tomodachi is the Japanese word for friend. The restaurant boasts a warm atmosphere, a place where friends come together to share a meal and good times, happy together like the fusion of Japanese and Korean cuisine. The staff greet you with a smile, are attentive and help create the relaxed and welcoming vibe.

The restaurant has one of the freshest and expansive sushi trains, so if you are after a quick meal before your film, it caters for you. The kitchen is an open plan, you are able to watch the chefs create there masterpieces. The aroma of the spices and sounds of the sizzling hotplates adds to the buzz. The décor is bright, simple yet elegant with dashes of red and white, wooden tables, wooden benches and Japanese style decorations.

The menu offers something for everyone. The Teriyaki Chicken was cooked to perfection, a little crunchy on the outside and succulent on the inside, while the sauce made my tastebuds stand to attention like an army of samurai warriors going into battle. On offer are traditional Japanese pancakes, all the regular Japanese delights and to top of the meal, why not try the rice wine or my favourite; the sweet and fruity plum wine.

Tomodachi offers wonderful film deals with the local cinema, caters for the romantic couple, family, group party or a quick bite. So why not drop by before your next shopping adventure or flick.

Broadway
Level two, food court
Shop 220, 2 Bay Street
Broadway Shopping Centre NSW 2007
Ph: 02 9281 6000

Rhodes
Shop 74, 1 Rider Boulevard
Rhodes NSW 2138
(Rhodes Waterside Shopping Centre)
Ph: 02 9736 1764

Article written by Liam Gibbs