Paper Cup

Six businesses in, Sydney café mogul Adriano Matteoni (of Glebe’s Clipper and Annandale’s Clover fame) has finally opened the shop he’s always dreamed about.

A two-minute stroll from Stanmore Station, walking into Paper Cup – with its bare concrete floor and exposed brick walls – feels strangely akin to entering a bomb bunker hidden beneath Camperdown Cellars. Boldly straddling the line between minimalist and bleak, the colour scheme would be completely monochrome if it wasn’t for a cluster of red pendant lights with exposed wiring hanging from the ceiling.

On ground level, a shiny new Synesso espresso machine – the Rolls Royce of coffee ware – sits staunchly on the counter, producing near perfect espresso shots and one-size-only takeaways with the help of a friendly Japanese barista-in-the-making. Under the guidance of an encouraging Matteoni, these shots are pulled using Paper Cup’s own ‘Natsu’ blend of Coffee Alchemy beans. There’s cold drip on offer too, which is left to stand for twenty-four hours to develop its rich caramel body before being served over ice.

The menu is as stripped back as the shop fit-out, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for with unique flavour pairings. Fried eggs come out beautifully runny in the pan, with Serrano ham, sage and dense toast. The Baharat beans with labne, maple syrup and toast offers a Middle Eastern take on the humble baked beans. Same goes for the Arabian Bircher with fruit and yoghurt – the star of the menu – despite traversing the dessert side of breakfast.

A couple of sandwich options see Paper Cup punching in the breakfast/lunch weight division, but only just. If Matteoni’s previous cafes were built on a tried-and-tested inner-west formula, then Paper Cup sees him venture off the safe and familiar path for the time being.

Paper Cup: 157/161 Cambridge St, Stanmore

Berry Sourdough Bakery and Cafe

In a town scattered with bakeries, hot bread shops, and a famous roadside doughnut van, it's a tough call deciding where to blow your carb intake for the day in Berry. But if you drive through the town centre and veer right off the main road, you'll find a likely candidate in the form of a regular whitewashed terrace house with a not-so-regular queue of customers winding halfway down the street.

Brother owners of Berry Sourdough Bakery & Cafe (or 'the Sourdough' as locals fondly refer to it) Joost and Jelle Hilkemeijer offer more than a mouthful of a name; their range of organic, hand-crafted baked goods and dine-in menu are a testament to the cafe's semi-rural location and ex city dwelling chefs ­– or as some might call it – the best of both worlds. An old school Alan Scott oven is used by a team of talented bakers to create such bready offerings as rye, corn, Levain Blanc, olive and brioche; each rested for a minimum of three hours and set to rise in willow baskets (the kind you can probably remember from your grandma's house).

For the pastry contingent, the brothers have hired a French-schooled-Japanese-hailing pastry chef who puts out croissants touted as some of the best in the country. But the buck doesn't stop at over the counter baked goods; the in-house breakfast and lunch menu is a high country affair – more manor than farmhouse – with a focus on fine local produce. From the homemade jams and preserves served with their house special sourdough, to the French toast with organic maple syrup, local smoked bacon and baked honey and pistachio ricotta, the menu dresses simple, high quality produce with some fancy modern trimmings. They also appear to be serious about their coffee, serving up speedy, boutique-roasted ristrettos and takeaway lattes to hordes of sleepy locals.

For a more substantial lunch plate, there's homemade chicken liver parfait with sourdough toast and papaya salad, spinach and ricotta ravioli with Mittagong tunnel mushrooms, and an abundance of local seafood options including local South Coast rock oysters, or zucchini and haloumi fritters with cured ocean trout, roe and cucumber. Told you this wasn't just a bakery.

Whether you're stopping off to pick up a fresh baguette and some pastries for a homemade afternoon tea on your Berry long-stay, or for a lazy brunch with the paper, Berry’s Sourdough Bakery is sure to please, as it has been since opening in 2003. It's the best thing to happen on this side of the Shoalhaven River, well, ever.

Berry Sourdough Bakery & Café - 23 Prince Alfred Street, Berry NSW

Fish Fingers and Banana Split - Bodega style

For most, the words "fish fingers" conjures up images of pre-crumbed frozen mystery fish, served by your parents to help you gain a taste for fish somewhere between your toddler and teen years. Same age-bracket goes for "banana split", but perhaps with a slight American tinge. Sydney Tapas restaraunt Bodega has reinvented the food wheel, and continues to do so on a daily basis with their fresh Argentinean culinary offerings often operating under similarly lo-fi names.

While the talk of the town is Bodeda owners Ben Milgate, Elvis Abrahanowicz and his new wife/old flame Sarah Doyle's (Maitre Di) latest Surry Hills restaurant Porteno, its little brother is still -and always will be- a favourite of ours.

We started with the house Empanadas, reasonably priced at $10 for 3 or $13.50 for four puffy morsels of Argentinean-style beef served with a heavenly sauce called 'salsa criolla.' There's a vegetarian alternative too, but if you ask me, dining at an Argentinian eatery as a herbivore isn't the best use to use your culinary time.

The humbly-named "Fish Fingers" ($16) are no breaded affair; they are kingfish sashimi sitting atop garlic toast, topped with calamari ceviche and onions. Lashings of the stuff. Not the greatest date food, but the most incredible mix of ocean and earth that you may ever experience; it's fancy surf & turf for the not-so-faint-hearted.

We doubt that you're still ravenous by this point, so ordering the most expensive dish on the menu may not seem appealing, but leaving without sampling the signature South American slow-cooked meat would be sacrilegious. We ordered the 'slow cooked lamb loin with roast garlic miso and eggplant' ($32), and if you think your taste buds got a work out with the kingfish fingers, you ain't tasted nothing yet. The depth of the miso, coupled with the melt-in-your-mouth lamb will mark a flavour milestone in your life; we're willing to bet money on the fact.

To finish, we can't go past the pimped-up 'banana split' ($14), a cream flan served with dulce de leche ice cream (otherwise known as 'heaven'), ginger biscuit and of course, the dish-hero, banana. We've been getting inundated with dulce de leche around Sydney-town of late, from the gelato flavour of the month to dulce de leche-flavoured-cookies at boutique cafes, but these guys were one of the first to pioneer the sweet, milky, caramel goo on their menu.

Other menu highlights include (but are not limited to) the Jamón Serrano ($12), salad of fried cauliflower, chickpeas and silverbeet ($16), and steamed pork belly with warm salad of onion and shiitake mushroom ($24). The drink list offers an incredible selected of native Argentinean wines, beer and cider, and an exorbitant number of wild cocktail imaginings, so wild that they've turned the next room into a bar of sorts.

Bodega isn't tapas in the traditional, small-plate sense of the word, so come armed with your appetites. Like other likeminded Sydney hot-spots, they doesn't take bookings either, so best get there around 6pm (opening time) with a lick of drool on your chin for staff sympathy votes.

Bodega Tapas Restaurant & Bar

216 Commonwealth St

Surry Hills NSW 2010

Phone: +61 2 9212 7766

Email: enquiries@bodegatapas.com

Touch and go Japanese – Mizuya

Sometimes you just want to go to a restaurant and be totally left alone. Sometimes you just want to eat in peace, with no distractions and no annoyances. You don’t want to hear what offers are on, how exceptional the wine is, how you have the best seat in the house and how ‘you just made a very good choice maaaam’.

Sometimes, you just want the food and that’s that.

At these times, a plasma touch screen displaying the entire menu, which sits at the end of your table, is perfect.

Never underestimate how good it is to be able to simply touch an image of a dish that catches your attention and have it come over to your table in five minutes. And while you’re at it, never underestimate how your eyes will automatically become too big for your belly.

This may seem like a rather cold service but in fact, it’s efficiency to the extreme. You sit down, flick through the digital menu, order some drinks (by tapping on your poison of choice, of course) and then spend the rest of the time browsing through images of food and arguing with the person sat opposite you. It’s playful, it’s useful and it’s perfect for those who love to over-order and experience as many little dishes as possible.

There are a variety of extremely popular Japanese choices, such as the hot pots, which are brought to your table with clouds of steam following behind, not to mention some of the more unusual meats such as crocodile and ox tongue (apparently very popular). The way it works is to think of it as ‘Japanese tapas'. As if you are there to have a bit of fun with your food and to experiment a little. Order a few dishes, share them, see how you feel, then order more.

This is a great place to come with a small group of friends and feast yourself silly.

Click here to see more: Mizuya, George street

Chocolate naan - Aki's Indian

There’s something about high tea which doesn’t really appeal to glutton and nuts. Whichever way you stack four tiny sandwiches on a plate, it still looks like there’s less food than an average five year old would eat for lunch. Adding a few mini-desserts and a scone doesn’t really help either. Ok, so the champagne does, but that’s usually forgotten as soon as you see the bill…

Safe to say, high tea is often an overrated affair best saved for those with more money than culinary taste.

However, and we say this with real sincerity… when we discovered that Aki’s on the banks of Wooloomooloo, had an Indian afternoon tea on offer, we pretty much ran there – especially after hearing about the star of the show: the chocolate naan.

As far as culture goes, we’re not overly convinced that along the dense Indian side-streets of Mumbai etc, you’ll be offered a stack of porcelain plates with mini onion bhajis and samosas… but here in Sydney, it certainly makes for an interesting twist.

The chocolate naan (which let’s face it, was the sole reason we were forgetting our aversion to high tea) is a tiny and thin, rolled-up naan bread, smeared with runny chocolate sauce and strawberries. Think of a crepe or a pancake and you’ve basically hit the nail on the head - so sweet - so, so sweet. Wasn't quite what we were expecting – although, we weren’t really quite sure what to expect from Indian afternoon tea to be honest. It was delicious though – like a tiny mouthful of runny chocolate and pancake mix.

However, like most things on offer at afternoon tea, it was tiny. Breathe in too heavily and you might inhale it through your nostril. So miniature in fact, than when you ate it, you felt less satisfied and more frustrated that there was no more left to eat. This is also a testament to how good it tasted, and like every top chef will tell you… the key to a great restaurant, is to leave the diner wanting more. Which we certainly do… make the chocolate naan a fullsize dessert and we’ll be running down again!

For those who are curious about the other Indian afternoon tea tid-bits on offer… the rest included:

Upma with Papdi Crispies: Semolina cooked with green peas, curry leaves, ginger and green chilies topped with crisp savories

Vada Pav: Cocktail buns sandwiched with besan battered potato dumplings

Prawn 65: Famous Chennai staple of shrimps dusted in spiced rice flour

Kathi Roll: Shredded chicken tikka in wholemeal roti with spiced onions, coriander, mint and pomegranate dust

Paneer Chutney Sandwiches: The Indian take on sandwiches - Cottage cheese, tomato and chutney

Caramelised Saffron Infused Basmati Rice

Custard Petit Fours

Chocolate Naan

Click to visit Aki's Indian

Better Than Sex - House Restaurant

Someone once told glutton and nuts that if we thought food could be better than sex, then we weren't doing it right. Well, we reckon they're not eating the right food...

House Resaurant in Surry Hills is one of those places you show up to with 'the jury still out' expectaton-wise. It's got a slightly unusual licensing rule (drinks are to be ordered from the bar nextdoor only) and it's quite open to Elizabeth Street's speeding traffic. However, even with these things in mind, House will knock you for six - twofold.

Firstly, by completely blowing these undecided expectations away (this is more than just 'Thai food' - this is north-eastern street Thai, so good it'll make you want to go and live on the streets of Thailand!).Secondly, and quite literally, it will blow your tastebuds away. The food is hot. Seriously. Even the salads have a massive kick... and at one point we were definitely crying.

However, what glutton and nuts is more interested in, of course, is the most unusual and quite surprising thing on the menu - or the 'special dessert menu' to be precise. Now, we don't throw this around too often - but we had what was possibly the best dessert we're yet to taste in Sydney. Yes, from a small north-eastern street Thai on Elizabeth Street - it took us by surprise too - but without a doubt this dessert would hold its own (more than) against any of Sydney's best restaurants.

It was aptly named 'Better than Sex' and comes with a bit of a shy giggle from the waitress. The name hooked us in and the sheer size and look of it sold us. This dessert is big enough for two (but you definitely won't want to share!) It's lightly fried brioche, with green tea ice cream, caramel sauce completely saturating the dish and some runny chocolate thrown in to boot. The most gluttonous and delicious dessert we are yet to find in this city - and read early posts - this includes Quay Bar's guava egg!

The challenge is on... but we think this one will be hard to beat.

And if you're still undecided - it's called 'BETTER than SEX' - you HAVE to try it!

House

202 Elizebeth Street

Surry Hills

02 9280 0364

Molecular Mixology

As well known as beans on toast, yet more similar to beans ‘as’ toast – molecular gastronomy came, saw and conquered both our imagination and our taste buds. If you’ve not actually had bacon ice cream or snail porridge, then it’s likely you’ve at least heard of them, or come across something similar.

These days, the trend has relaxed somewhat, or as Heston so carefully put it, “it’s dead”. Yet, in its wake we’re left longing for more…

Step in molecular mixology, the intoxicating cousin of the gastronomic variety and the current focus of Smirnoff Black ambassador Tristan Stephenson, who has whipped-up the following cocktail, and is ready to share all...

VT Turbo

“The VT Turbo is a deconstruction of the classic vodka and tonic. The foam on the VT Turbo gives the drinker the familiar bitter kick of quinine, present in tonic water. Sipping through the foam reveals the classic sour balance of vodka, lime and sugar. By separating the two main constituents of the classic drink, the VT Turbo offers a different balance of flavour on every sip” TS.

Tonic Syrup

200ml water 200g sugar 10g dried cinchona bark Zest of half a grapefruit 4g citric acid

Add everything except the sugar to a pan and gently simmer for 15 minutes. Bring off the heat and stir in the sugar. Allow to cool and keep refrigerated.

Liquid part:

50ml Smirnoff Black 25ml Lime Juice 10ml gomme syrup 25ml Tonic Syrup 2 egg whites

Shake the Smirnoff black, lime juice and gomme with ice and fine strain into a chilled glass.

Shake/beat/whisk the egg white and tonic syrup to a soft peak.Float the foam on top of the drink and serve with a twist of lime.

Tristan’s cocktails are available at Smirnoff Black events. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming events on www.smirnoff.com