Le Pub, Sydney CBD

When I visited Le Pub as part of a group of 5, I was expecting a set-up with more similarities to a Parisian bistro (the menu certainly consists of bistro food), but the DJ with doof-doof music operating under dim lighting reminded me of the Square Bar instead. I guess it's more lucrative to appeal to the drinkers on Friday nights, as evident from the empty tables in the half of Le Pub reserved for diners.

Our energetic waitress highly recommended the special of the day - the organic free range country chicken, leek, mushroom and tarragon pie served with truffled mashed potato. She also good-naturedly handled the barrage of questions asking whether she would pick the lamb or the pie, the chicken or the lamb, and so forth. Most of us chose the chicken pie - we were told that pie is one of Le Pub's specialties, along with the lamb. Someone cynically remarked that perhaps they'd made too many pies that day and were trying to push them off onto us. I'd had the same suspicions, but didn't want to voice them for fear of the truth...

One of my childhood friends exclaimed, "Who would pay $24 for a pie?!" He'd imagined those little frozen pies with the nervy beef filling that school children love buying at sports carnivals. Disgusting stuff. But no, these are pot pies served in ramekin dishes, with golden puff pastry wrapped over the top and a stew of meat and vegetables inside. Ours weren't the prettiest to look at, but the pastry tasted handmade and they were generous with the chicken inside. The truffled mashed potato was smooth, silky and buttery. If it contained a few potato clumps, it'd be just the way I like it. Sadly, most people have a phobia of lumps in their mash :(

Chicken pie ($24.00)

 

The childhood friend ordered the chicken - chicken breast on corn puree, with semolina frites and crispy jamon. I tried a chunk of it - tasty, crunchy, but a bit dry. 

Poulet ($25.00)

The other non-pie-eating friend received her lamb neck (with eggplant fritters, tomato dust, herb pistou and shaved cauliflower salad). She cut off a piece for me. The lamb could have been served alone and it would have been delicious. As a result of the long cooking (simmering?) process, it was cooked through entirely, yet tender and juicy. Lamb Eater must have sensed my food envy, as from time to time she muttered triumphantly that she'd made the right choice.

Collet d'Agneau ($26.00)

Baroque Bistro, The Rocks

Last week, I headed to the Aroma Festival in Circular Quay/ The Rocks. I naively hoped to grab a cup of coffee and a lardy hot dog and didn't take some things into account:

1. It was lunch time (albeit a bit late)
2. The lines were insane; and
3. Gourmet sausages always rapidly deplete.

And so, our 'quick and cheap' lunch turned into a couple of not-as-cheap-as-I-wanted open sandwiches at Baroque Bistro. How did this happen?

Well... We were meandering along George Street and turned onto the pedestrian street in-between Guylian and Orient Hotel, where all the food stalls were located. Stomach was rumbling and the crowds made our walking speed a torturous amble. Eventually we made our way along Playfair Street, where the crowd was a little thinner. It was then that we spotted only a petite line at Baroque. We joined it and thankfully only had to wait a few minutes to receive a table (as there were only two of us, we ended up taking priority!). And thus ends my long-winded explanation.

Service was brisk and efficient, providing us with a reprieve.

We decided to go halves with 2 tartines. Both were too soggy to eat without the aid of cutlery, but the flavours were simplistic and pleasant. It was a shame that these were the only two meaty tartines available to choose from, as two pork dishes made me crave for a bit more variety.

The sausage was accompanied with a couple of cherry tomatoes and a lot of onion, which had been sauteed lightly.

Grilled Toulouse sausage tartine ($14.00)

They were more generous with the pulled pork, which was once again surrounded by onion - this time of the less pungent red variety.

Pulled pork shoulder tartine ($14.00)

Overall verdict? Indifferent. The lunch wasn't particularly filling, but it was the early afternoon and we were planning on having dinner in a couple of hours, anyway. Most people probably order dessert after this (there was plenty of stomach room for that!), but we only had a few hours left to do some shopping and decided to leave.

Sel et Poivre, Darlinghurst

'Sel et poivre', when translated to English, means 'salt and pepper'. It's a humble name for a humble French bistro. However, where that French bistro is situated outside of its country of origin, its status is elevated and high expectations are drawn - that one will come across actual Parisian fare eaten by real French people. Considering that thus far I've had better experiences eating French food in restaurants situated outside of France (my last expedition in the Parisian food scene did not yield much satisfaction), my biggest motivation in visiting Sel et Poivre was to reminisce over escargots.

Having spent part of my childhood in Malaysia, I grew up appreciating Western food cooked well, as when done poorly in an Asian country, it can taste very very wrong! Some of my fondest memories include visiting Lafite in Shangri La KL on special occasions and gorging on breadsticks, slices of baguette, escargots and fresh sorbet in between courses. While the style of Lafite tends towards fine dining, the largest impression that it left on my young palate was this equation: Snails = Yummy.

So what does this have to do with Sel et Poivre? Well, escargots are a bit of a rarity here in Sydney. It's hard to find them in groceries, and almost as hard to find them in restaurants. This meant I was all excitement at the prospect of seeing a dozen snail shells sitting on a silver platter immersed in garlic butter sauce.

Sel et Poivre is situated on that strip of Darlinghurst that everyone visits to eat at Gelato Messina, the Victoria Room, Wow Cow, etc. We were greeted by a friendly waitress who gave us the option of selecting where to sit. We decided on outdoor seating, facing the street.

Exterior

Watching the world go by...

Using my peripheral vision, I eyed the basket of baguette and was just about to open my mouth to order it, when the waitress preempted me and asked if we wanted bread to go with the escargots.

And so our orders were taken and the escargots arrived, bathed in parsley and garlic butter sauce. I was pretty disappointed that they came without the shells - though serving only a decorative function, part of the fun in eating snails is extracting them with tongs and miniature prongs! The texture was slightly chewy, as it should be, and the sauce didn't overpower the seafood flavour of the snail meat. Nevertheless, there was something missing - maybe there was too little garlic? I can't really place my finger on it.

Escargots - 1/2 Dozen ($9.90)

 Our basket of baguette was served with standard packets of melted butter. The bread was lightly toasted, crunchy on the outside and soft, dense and warm on the inside. It was a pretty nice filler and went well with both the escargot sauce and our mains.

Basket of 1/2 baguette ($3.50)

I'd ordered the beef cheeks, which were immersed in Burgundy sauce, soft carrots, a bit of diced tomato, and mushrooms. The Burgundy sauce was incredibly rich, so I couldn't really eat too much of it. The highlight of the dish was definitely the marinated beef itself, as it was tender and fell apart with a slight motion of my knife.

Beef cheeks ($23.90)

 As my friend had also ordered something that attracted a side of fries, they combined both of our servings of fries into one basket. They weren't limp, but they weren't very crunchy either - though they became pretty addictive after dipping it in the Burgundy sauce!

"Frites"

I sampled the steak tartare that my friend ordered, which had the option of being uncooked or seared. She chose the seared option. It was served at room temperature, which was surprising at first, as we'd figured that the searing would have created more heat. The accompanying sauce was Bearnaise, a rich combination of butter, vinegar and egg - tasting a lot like mayonnaise.

Steak tartare ($19.90)

Afterwards we took a look at the dessert menu and were amused to see that Sel et Poivre had self-proclaimed their creme brulee to be authentic. Nevertheless, we decided to pass on partaking of the sweets there, as we were planning a dessert crawl through Boon Chocolates and Gelato Messina.

All in all, Sel et Poivre is worth a try. The decor is charming, the service is friendly, the food is alright and the portions are generous (and I think I actually heard some French being spoken on the premises). However, from what I've tasted, it's not so memorable that I would actually revisit it (particularly with all the other tempting restaurants nearby).