Tag: review

Don Taco @ Redfern Social Club

I was lucky enough over my long weekend here in Australia to attend the newly opened Don Taco. This little kitchen is found at Redfern Surf Club, which for anyone unfamiliar with Sydney is ironic because Redfern’s inner west location is anything but close to the beach. Redfern Surf Club is as ironic as you would think when you get inside, with a very grungy hipster vibe, including an old-school set tv, fairy lights, and even a stuffed bin chicken (commonly known outside of Australia as an ibis). It’s hard to even find this place, as the outside of the building has some old upside down ‘Grill King’ home, which I assume suggests its historic roots.

This location is where the boys from Ume burger, a Japanese burger restaurant in Sydney, have opened up their next adventure, Don Taco. Opening just last Friday, they are very much in their early days of operation. Redfern Surf Club is a very fitting home for the restaurant serving up fusion Japanese and Tex-Mex food, as it’s all kind of a jumble, but somehow it all fits together.

It’s a pretty limited menu, but what is there packs a punch. We each got the Taco bowls (one with beef and one with 3 bean chilli), which was basically if sushi met a burrito bowl. The dish felt mostly Mexican, but with the addition of sushi rice and some Japanese flavourings, but was delicious, and suprisingly filling for the bargain amount of $12. We also got a share of beef and chilli tacos. The beef was the star for the tacos, and was pretty much the taco bowl but with a soft shell taco instead of rice. It was also good, but the Japanese flavours didn’t really come through.

As for Redfern Social Club itself. It is a place that is hard to categorise, and don’t be honest I don’t think they want to be categorised. You walk in and you are met with a wide audience of patrons, from large groups having a Sunday arvo sesh, to older families, to women meeting up for a drink, to a few couples who were probably just there for the food (like us). One thing that really suprised me was most people were sitting up at the bar, voluntarily. I find that the bar is often the last place everyone wants to sit, but there was plenty of chairs available and the patrons still chose to sit there, which lets you see the friendly vibes they are serving up there. The drinks were decently priced and great too. There are only a couple of tap beers, but a wide range of craft and normal beers as well. I tried a Sourpuss beer, as well as the Local Grifter Pale Ale, whilst my boyfriend tried the other tap beers. Our favourite was the on tap Cucumber kolsch by C-Brook. It was so different, and yet so delicious and refreshing. I am just kicking myself that I didn’t try one of their instagram-worth cocktails, but I know that we will be back there again because we loved the place.

Good location with good vibes, fantastic staff, good drinks at affordable prices, and delicious food. The only thing that could make this place better is if they offered a trivia night.

I give Don Taco and Redfern Social Club 8/10.

Tequila Mockingbird

Like a rookie (surely it’s to be expected when it’s my first review), I didn’t take any photos of the food and drinks I will be talking about in this review, so hopefully my words can paint a picture of what this place was like and capture the experience we had.

I went to a well-established restaurant in Sydney last night called Tequila Mockingbird. Now when your name is as punny as that, you know you’re off to a good start.

We turned up for our booking and were lead through a small little townhouse which was the home for the restaurant. We were lucky enough to have some of the best seats in the house, up on the second floor in the outside seated area, which had greenery all around (and thankfully a little portable air conditioner as Sydney was in the middle of a heatwave at the time). The only better seats there would be on the little balconies, but I was very happy with our spot. It is the cutest little space, the only thing that struck me though was it boasted itself as an authentic Latin American restaurant with a twist, and the decor didn’t really suit that at all. It was like being in a nice Australian cafe with Latin American music playing in the background. It was a little unusual.

We started off with cocktails, with a whole section dedicated to tequila (as you would expect with a name like Tequila Mockingbird). The Harper Lee references don’t end there though, with cocktails aptly named the Atticus Finch and the Harper Lee Ever After. I ended up getting the Piscojito, a delicious concoction of Barsol Pisco, lime, coriander and ginger beer. Sometimes when choosing cocktails it can be hit or miss, but this one was definitely a hit. I would never have imagined pairing tequila with ginger beer, but it was absolutely delicious and went down far too easily.

We then decided to opt for the Tasting Menu on offer, where you could choose items across the 5 sections of the menu: Raw, Street, Flame, Sides and Sweets. This deal is fantastic value for money and gives you the chance to dig into a lot of different dishes.

Raw: For our raw portion of the menu we went with the dish you can never go wrong with; guacamole. This is the first dish where we discovered the love of lemon within the menu. It was fresh and zesty, and accompanied with chilli flaked tortillas. The perfect start. We also got the ceviche tacos. I am not normally one for ceviche, but my friend wanted to try, and When in Rome! I am so glad that my friend was there to push me to try these, because they were delicious. It didn’t change my mind about ceviche at all, but the sauce and the crispy taco shells paired so well with it that it was easily once of my favourite dishes of the night. Our final Raw dish was a Buffalo Mozzarella with Salsa Verde and puffed black rice corn tortillas. This dish was my choice, and as like the rest so far, it was delicious. The salsa verde had a nice kick to it, which was balanced out well with the buffalo mozzarella. My only qualm with this dish was the ratio of mozzarella to tortilla. There just wasn’t the right amount, but all the flavours paired so well that all will be forgiven.

Street: Despite the Street menu offering all types of different dishes, we decided to stick with tacos. We had heard great things about the soft shelled crab tacos, and the crispy shrimp tacos also sounded too good to pass up. The crispy shrimp tacos were ok, they were yummy, but I think compared with all our other meals so far they were just average. The guajillo salsa was good, but definitely didn’t have the kick I would have hoped for. The soft shelled crab tacos though lived up to their reputation, and were definitely my dish of the night. All the flavours were amazing, and worked so well together. I had never heard of Chipotle Curd before, but it is now something I will never forget. It was unreal. If any of you have ever watched Easy A, imagine me doing the Emma Stone at the Lobster Shack, her eyes rolling around in her head with the sheer deliciousness of it all. I was getting pretty full already, and we were only now just reaching the mains. I wasn’t quite sure how much more my tastebuds could take.

At this point it was also time for another cocktail. This time around I decided to go for the build your own margarita, shaken with Blanco tequila. It was good, but I regretted getting such a plain drink when there was so many amazing options on the menu still to explore. My friend, on the other hand got the Gengibre Y Romero, with Corralejo Reposado, Canton ginger liquer, yuzu juice, lime juice, rosemary, cracked pepper and a salt & rosemary rim. This is a drink I would never have gotten for myself because the rosemary didn’t appeal to me, but after trying it I realised that the rosemary was what brought it all together. It was a fantastic drink, and one you could sit back and drink all night.

Flame: And now it was time for the main meal. After much debate we landed on the BBQ lamb shoulder with an Argentinian chimichurri. Lamb is not something I often get, so we thought it would be a good thing to try. It did not disappoint. The meat was moist, and almost didn’t even need the accompanying Chimichurri because it could have stood all on its own. We didn’t quite finish it all, but this wasn’t a reflection of how yummy this meal was, but more just how full we were by this time.

Sides: We went with something light and green for our side, the charcoal Broccolini with a tequila dressing and pea mole. Tequila as a dressing is an intriguing thing, but sadly the flavours of the tequila didn’t really come through with this dish. It was still another yummy side, and went well with the lamb shoulder, but not quite what I was expecting.

Sweets: We finally made it to the last dish. Now, I am not much of a sweet tooth, but when it’s there you can’t say no. We got the strawberry mousse with almond dacquoise, green apple sorbet, tequila strawberries. It was the green apple sorbet and tequila strawberries that really sold it to us. It was kind of like eating a strawberry flavoured pavlova, and I loved it. The sorbet was smooth, the dacquoise was crumbly, and the strawberries were sweet. It was a dream.

So we made it through the tasting menu, luckily wearing dresses so we didn’t have to unbutton our pants at the end. Tequila Mockingbird had been on my list of places to go and I am so glad I finally got there, because it did not disappoint. I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for somewhere a bit nicer for dinner, and people who like share style food. It would be perfect for a date, or even just a small dinner with friends.

Overall, I give Tequila Mockingbird 10/10. It doesn’t get any better than that.

 

To Obama

Before I start my first book review, let me preface this by saying I am not an American, and I have never spent more than a week there, so I have a limited view into what life is like in America. With that said, one book I believe that every American should read is ‘To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope’ by Jeanne Marie Laskas.

This book is about the letters that Barack Obama received throughout his presidency, the replies he sent, and the people behind the letters. This is not just about the nice letters he received telling him what a great job he was doing, in fact, not many of the letters were like that at all. Instead it was letters telling him that he was letting his people down, that a lot of his constituents have no faith in him, that their worlds were crumbling and they wanted Obama to fix it.

The foundation of the book is about how during Obama’s presidency, he committed to reading ten letters a day that were received by his office. Quite often he replied to those letters, by hand, responding to the American peoples’ worries, concerns and even once, to their homework. The concept of this book is so deeply intriguing, and gives you an insight into how Americans interact with their politicians and also the heavy burden that is carried by any President.

As someone from outside of America, it also gave me a lot of insight into how their political system interacts with the people, and also how different Presidents throughout time carried out this responsibility. Having long been a big Obama supporter, this book only made me love him more.

In terms of the actual writing though, it was a little disjointed and hard to follow at times. In between blocks of letters there are little narrations of people who wrote letters, or people that worked in the President’s office. There is no flow between these segments, and whilst they do tell individual stories and add colour to some individuals, they could have been better woven into a complete story and the stories didn’t always clearly link to the letters themselves.

Overall, this book was an outstanding read, and I would recommend it to all (not just Americans). It was moving, it was informative, and it made me gain even more respect for Obama. Perhaps the best part though, was the letters and stories that came after Trump was voted in and the continuation of the letters’ importance to Obama’s life post-presidency.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.