I believe in karma-of all kinds including and not limited to strange things such as karma of lifts. For not having a license for several decades means that I have gotten several lifts over the years and I probably owe the universe several thousand. So when I was confirming plans to meet with Laura at Janani she mentioned that she didn’t have her car. I offered to pick her up and drive her there in Purdie the Prius.
Slowly I fought my way through peak hour city traffic where I tried to find the lane markings which were slick and glistening with what looked like oil. We finally made it to Janani with a combination of the GPS and Laura’s instructions and fell upon it gratefully.
Laura is a regular here and she and her friend NQN reader Maddie have been going here for years so she gets a warm greeting when we enter. “I always order the same thing so let’s order weird things tonight and let’s order lots of food!” she says eagerly. We peruse the plastic coated pages and start at the drinks. The two owners, a husband and wife team are here 7 days a week and the wife answers any questions we have about the menu items.
Faludha $6 on left and Butter milk on right $3.50
The closest description of the faludha is a thick, rose scented milkshake drink with scoops of kulfi ice cream and faludha seeds. It’s is sweet, thick and delicious without being too overpowering with rose. In contrast is the butter milk-not buttermilk, the by product of butter making, but an entirely different entity. Here they blend coriander, curry leaves, cumin seeds and ginger with milk and serve it cold. It’s unusual and definitely savoury and your brain, especially after having the faludha thinks “No” but when yo think of it like a cold soup like a gazpacho through a straw then it tastes better. It’s kind of like the first time I tried a salty lassi or ayran. Now I love them both but the first time I didn’t.
Ginger Milk tea $3.50
“That’s three drinks right?” she asks us and we both nod. I always love going out to dinner with people that love to sample a lot. The ginger milk tea is my favourite of the drinks, not just for it’s warming properties on this cold and wet night but once I add a couple of teaspoons of sugar it gives a bit of spicy, milky sweetness that is like a little hug.
Chicken 65 $8
“Don’t ask me what Chicken 65 means” the wife says to us laughing. “What does it mean?” we ask. They say that it is called that because it has been made since 1965. The dish is made up of tender pieces of chicken marinated in what looks like a spicy yogurt marinade and grilled until juicy and charred on the edges. It’s similar to a Tandoori chicken in smaller, bite sized pieces.
Hopper: coconut milk and jaggery $3.50
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| December 18th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
I was so excited I could hardly dial the phone. I’m usually an email person, if the phone rings I stare at it for a good few seconds before realising that it is an object that I need to pick up and speak to (how I became such a natural at it during my teenage years is a mystery). But this question wasn’t one that I was prepared to wait for an answer for. I wanted to hear the answer yes immediately so I picked up the phone.
You see Dear Reader, I had found a restaurant that I was dying to try. It was in the new Cheap Eats book which I received a few weeks ago from the publisher. I was leafing through it in bed and one restaurant stood out to me: Al Dhiaffah Al Iraqi. Said to be the sole Iraqi restaurant in Sydney I knew my adventure loving friends Queen Viv and Miss America would also be intrigued to go on a trip out to Fairfield to give this little known cuisine a try. They answered a quick yes and I tempted Mr NQN with the knowledge that this would be a hearty meal for less than $20 a person and so a couple of days later we found ourselves driving towards Fairfield having picked up Miss America and Queen Viv on the way.
“Are we there yet? Surely we are!” Miss America said. He was hungry and admittedly so was I. It was 2:15pm on a Sunday afternoon and I had deliberately eaten a light breakfast. It was a hot day and we were hungry and thirsty.
“Ooh is that where we are going?” Queen Viv asked peering at the palm trees and the signage for Al Dhiaffah Al Iraqi. Inside about half of the tables are full and the staff are friendly and welcoming. We take a table for four and are given menus. It’s a short and sweet menu with twelve items including a yogurt drink and a tea and we take recommendations from our friendly waiter who tells us the most popular dishes.
And it’s true platter after colourful platter of two dishes in particular whizz past us while gigantic rounds of risen puffed bread and laid out on tables, one per person which is more than enough. A young girl dining with her family spoons rice into her mouth studiously trying not to spill a grain. We order three yogurt drinks before spotting the drinks fridge-a treasure trove of Iraqi soft drinks and pops. I go up and pick a couple of drinks including one called Pampa which the waiter who opens the bottle for me says is his favourite. The other drink I bought purely for the packaging, a Fez wearing gentleman for Abu Abed energy drink.
Pampa and Abu Abed $2
The Pampa is sweet and fizzy and refreshing with a quality somewhere between Coke and sarsaparilla with a slight fruitiness to it. The energy drink reminds me instantly of those sugary sweet medicines from childhood-nothing really natural and Mr NQN points out that it tastes in the same genre as Red Bull, a drink I only drank once several years ago and couldn’t sleep for 3 days so I’ve never touched a sip since.
Yogurt drink $2
The yogurt drink is similar to the Turkish ayran although less foamy. It has more of a home made yogurt taste or a goat’s yogurt taste and is salty and slightly thicker than ayran.
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| November 3rd, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
Picture this: a full moon night. The three of us have driven a distance and frost blankets the car. Shivering as we alight the car we pull our coats tightly around us. Dave whispers “I’m a bit scared and a bit excited.”
We walk through the doors and see the “cage” to our right. Blood drips down from each post suggesting that many have been impaled in their efforts to meet the killer. And what is the killer? Well it’s not your ordinary monster, but a 30 cm or 12 inch diameter burger. How do you slay it? Well the challenge is to eat this 30cm burger along with a box of chips with gravy, a 1.25 litre bottle of drink and a large tub of soft serve. Of course this is after signing a release form essentially saying that its your own damn fault if you feel sick or have health problems afterwards.
Over 4,000 people have tried to slay the Killa challenge and of that number only a mere 22 have succeeded. There is no prize but instead there is your name up in lights along with the time taken to consume the beast. Perusing the chart we see one brave soul has taken as little as an incredible 23 minutes to finish their burger challenge although many take almost the whole hour at 58 minutes. And they’re all boys, no girls have done this. They tell us that about a dozen people a day try the challenge and we watch two very young boys with Justin Bieber like builds try to conquer it (sadly to no avail).
Dave was inspired by Takeru Kobayashi, the world eating champion who recently downed 69 hot dogs with buns on the rooftop of a Manhattan bar. From what we had seen, Kobayashi’s technique is to not only eat quickly of course but also dunk the food in water to help force it down. We assess the challenge. Each burger is 1.6 kilos with 800grams of meat and you can choose any burger you want. Swallowing gamely Mr NQN and Dave decide to give it a go. Mr NQN goes for the chicken while Dave goes for the “Smack burger”. I go for a more modest but still slightly alarming meal-the booty burger which has a beef patty, coleslaw and chips already on it-this presumably helps one put on a booty worthy of a Kardashian.
Note faux blood drippings!
The sauce selection has a few more offerings than most. I like having my fries with gravy and on the drive here we were waxing lyrical about pepper sauce and mushroom gravy on fries. I choose the Killa special sauce, Mr NQN the pepper sauce and Dave the mushroom sauce. The price for the challenge meal is $29 while mine is a more modest and less dangerous $7.20.
The Smack burger challenge $29
Proportion check! Click here to read the full story
| July 25th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
I am staring absolutely wide eyed. I have never been as fascinated with a menu in my life. In front of me names such as “Rou Wings”, “Russian Package”, “Beer Duck”, “Pig Leaves”, “Kidney with spicy sauce in Monolithic”, “Great Lunch Meat” and the unfortunately spelled “Vage Meal” dance before me tickling my funny bone and igniting my curiosity. These items sit in sections titled “Gruel” and “Inquisitor Series”. We are in Harry Potter land, we are actually in Auburn, at Taste 101 Chinese restaurant, a place that David had found purely by chance a few weeks before.
In fact we are so fascinated by the menu and deciphering its contents that we spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating our choices and asking each other whether “Choke lamb kidney” is perhaps a warning or whether they mean choko and whether “bad fish slide” (both under the “Inquisitor series”) is just the staff talking plainly and that any inquisitiveness will be rewarded with a whallop to the stomach.
After a few prompts from the waitress we manage to order a few things although some of the more interesting items are not actually available (the rack of lamb and pig feet rice box). I look at Belinda and when the third thing we want to order isn’t available I ask her “Why don’t we try the bad fish slide to see what happens?” and she pauses for a second before laughing and agreeing that it’s certainly worth a try. We watch as steamed buns the size of plates come out from the kitchen destined for the white rectangular plastic displays at the front.
Another casualty are the drinks. Most of the interesting ones on the menu are not available so we open up the fridge and make a selection. There seem to be an abundance of milk and fruit flavoured drinks so we grab a couple of those along with a mysterious looking tall can that has a cucumber on the front but is marked “pumpkin” on the label. ”Take a photo of my Diet Coke too!” David says cheekily. The milk fruit drinks are not to anyone’s taste-Belinda finds that they taste like shampoo smells and I just find them completely artificial tasting. Surprisingly the pumpkin or cucumber tea is the best of the lot with a sweetness and a pleasant if not particularly discernible flavour.
The cucumber/pumpkin drink
Pork bun
Now the reason why there aren’t prices here is because in some cases it was very hard to match the photo to the item on the menu and we couldn’t read the Chinese on the bill. But most items are incredibly cheap here with the average price of a main meal being $8.50-$10.50. I think the rack of lamb at $20something was the only thing that exceeded $20. There were two buns, a pork and a lamb one so we order one of each. There is spiced mince inside with plenty of garlic and spring onion in both but the slightly sweeter pork meat is the pick of the two. It’s like a perfect sized tasty sandwich. In fact it’s about lunchtime when I’m writing this story and I’m craving one of these sandwiches right now!
Lamb bun
The lamb bun is good with the same bread outer that isn’t too thick and it’s nicely toasty in the pan. Oh and a word of warning, the filling does spill out as it did all over us so use the plates to catch any strays bits so that they don’t hit your clothes. There aren’t napkins here to protect your lap, only tissues.
Pork chop with rice $7.50
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| June 16th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
“Let’s go for an adventure!” I say to Mr NQN one afternoon. We are well blessed with an unusually sunny day after what seems like weeks of rain shining down on us. And as my parent have loaned us their car while they were away we feel like we should go for a drive to seek out newer pastures to eat. A reader has told me of Albee’s Kitchen, a small eatery in Campsie which is said to serve food whilst being a little challenged in the glamour stakes.
“Why are we eating dinner so early? You sound like your dad” Mr NQN says to me as we make our way over there at about 3:30pm. “We’ll end up eating at 4pm” he points out quite rightly. My excuse is that I’ve skipped lunch in order to eat here and I’m very hungry indeed. Or perhaps that’s what driving their car has done to me. Gulp, perhaps he is right…
“What a hoon!” I say as a grey headed 60 year old gentleman in a souped up car does burnouts down Claremont Street and screeches past us followed by his mate of the same age. Yes it seems like I am my father.
“Is that Marmite chicken?” I can see going through one of the three menus. I had seen Marmite crab at another restaurant months before and was dissuaded from ordering it by my dining companions so I always vowed to try Marmite something. There’s a worn plastic covered colourful booklet with pictures plus a single laminated sheet with food specials and what it seems to be set meals i.e. the mains served with rice and there a laminated page of drinks on offer too. That’s not even counting the items stuck to the wall. On the right hand wall are names of a number of dishes and on the left are framed pictures of dishes.
I know choosing a dish based on an odd name isn’t the wisest choice but we choose a couple of dishes based on this including the aforementioned Marmite chicken, butter cereal king prawns as well as favourite such as char kway teow and a seafood and pork hand roll that the waitress recommended. For the last item we went for the set meal version which at $10 has one roll but also a bowl of chicken rice. I wash my hands in the bathroom which is through the kitchen and listen as the woks are going full steam ahead with the steady clunk clunk clunk of the metal wok scoop against the wok bowl . As I return to the table our first dish is ready.
Cendol $4
The straws given are fat bubble tea ones but the crushed ice is quite coarse so as a result you suck up a lot of ice. Most of this drink is ice with some coconut milk, palm sugar syrup and green tapioca noodles. What ends up happening is that because there is a lot of ice the green noodles get trapped between the ice. What is liquid though is good although there isn’t a great deal of it.
Rambutan and pineapple ice drink $3.50
This drink is not particularly sweet or full bodied, particularly if you’re trying it after the rich and sweet cendol. The rambutan comes from a tin and the pineapple juice can only be ever so slightly tasted (whereas pineapple is usually such a strong flavour) and there are small chunks of pineapple at the bottom. The overwhelming flavour is of the rambutan syrup from the tin.
Marmite Chicken $13.80
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| May 5th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella
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