So I’ve always been really skeeved out by spam and all its fake bouncy luncheon meat cousins. I maybe ate it once or twice as a kid but never grew up eating it, never had a spam musubi or a spam sandwich for an arvo snack. So when Viv orders the Pineapple bun with pork luncheon and egg ($7.80) I was all prepared to take a courtesy bite and pass it back to her.

But behold! I am in love! The normally squishy ‘meat’ was pan fried so the edges were crisp and slightly caramelised and the saltiness of it just worked so well against the sweetness of the pineapple bun. And for those not in the know, a pineapple bun aka bolo bao doesn’t contain any pineapple but is named that for its crackly textured appearance. And just look at that gloriously oozy yolk!

We also ordered a normal Pineapple bun with butter ($5.80) too and OH BOY THE BUTTER! I thought oh the butter that’s peeking out looks like a nice amount but I’m sure it’ll just be the edge but nope! It was a giantass slab that filled the entire bun! The CORRECT amount folks!

I mistakenly ordered the Beef brisket with special curry sauce ($13.80) instead of the dried noodle with with beef brisket with special curry sauce ($13.80) argh and while rice is all fine and good I would’ve much preferred noodles with the curry sauce which was slightly sweet but deliciously savoury. There was a good amount of brisket but would’ve liked them to be more tender.

The Baked farmer bread with seafood, spaghetti, white sauce and onsen egg ($18.80) comes with a ‘limited quantities’ warning on the menu and it’s certainly impressively presented. Buuuuut it was kinda bland, even with the layer of melted cheese on top. The pasta in the white sauce needed something like salt or garlic or pepper I dunno, anything! There was also no onsen egg to be seen, unless it had prematurely broken open and spilled its yolky innards inside?

The Tofu Fa ($12) aka soya bean custard is steamed to order. There’s a warning on the menu about the 20 minute wait so we order it at the beginning with all our foods. The wooden pail contains a pretty generous sized metal bowl of silky smooth tofu fa and there’s saucers of sugar syrup and raw sugar on the side so you can adjust the sweetness to your own liking.

Hong Kong Bing Sutt also serve milk tea and their Signature Milk Tea, chilled ($5.30) comes in it’s own glass bottle. If you go with a group they have a family deal drinks special of 4 for $20 and comes in an ice bucket a la bucket of beers lol I have chosen Yuanyang, coffee mixed with milk tea ($5.30) which is strong but sweet and reminds me of my childhood years at the HK cafe in good ol Carlingford Village where my love of coffee first began!

Hong Kong Bing Sutt
Shop 8/11-15 Deane St,
Burwood

Trading Hours:
7 days: 11am – 10pm

Bella Brutta in Newtown is Sydney’s latest hotspot for wood fired pizza, a joint venture with LP’s Quality Meats’ Luke Powell and Porteno’s Elvis Abrahanowicz and Joseph Valor. The restaurant is surprisingly long, the bar lines the wall from the entrance with the pizza oven standing pride of place in the centre of the room. It’s Raff’s birthday and we are close enough to watch all the action of the pizza station with complete with pizza dough tosses.

We start with Cheese fritti with hot sauce ($4 each). The deep fried globes of goats cheese and parmesan are golden and crunchy on the outside with a scorching liquid cheese centre.

But it was just so tasty that we couldn’t help but keep on eating it and burning the roofs of our mouths. The wood fired green pepper salsa that came on the side has us exclaiming at the punch of flavour and saving the excess to dip our pizza crusts into later.

The Clam pizza ($26) has got to be my favourite pizza in Sydney right now. The crust is blistered and puffy, the surf clams are tender and the centre molten with melted pecorino cheese, a sprinkling of chilli and smashed garlic cloves that have an almost jammy consistency.

The special of the day was a 1 month aged ribeye ($40) sourced from the Riverina, done in a veal milanese style and crumbed in panko. The smoked beef fat and lemon vinaigrette was a touch on the too sour side but I can understand its presence for the fatty parts towards the bone. Speaking of the bone, Raff enjoying gnawing away and ripping every last juicy sherrick off until it was nekkid:P

We were stuffed buuuut we spied a Tiramisu ($16) on the menu and had to order it because yolo. Bella Brutta’s version uses both Disaronno amaretto and Amaro Montenegro liqueur and considering how much I hate both liqueurs, I actually really liked this tiramisu and thought it worked well with the generous layers of cream and mascarpone and is that hazelnut I detect? Delicious.

Bella Brutta
135 King St,
Newtown

Trading Hours:
Mon: Closed
Tues – Sat: 5pm – 11pm
Sun: 12pm – 9pm

Totti’s is the latest offering from Merivale with Mike Eggert (Mr Liquor’s Dirty Italian Disco, Pinbone) and Khan Danis (Rockpool) at the helm in the kitchen. It’s taken our group quite a while to finally make it out Bondi way and after weeks of drooling at the menu we’re keen to eat absolutely everything.

Totti’s is hidden inside the Royal Hotel, make your way to the left past the bar and the bathrooms to find a beautiful rustic space. Inside, there’s views of the pizza oven and charcuterie slicing section but try and get a table in the light drenched courtyard with an olive tree at the center.

We start with the Wood-fired bread ($10) which arrives all puffed up with blistered pockets, a touch of olive oil and salt. The texture is incredible, like a super light and airy pizza crust.

We watch as the Salami ($8) is sliced to order and lightly drizzled with olive oil and greedily dig in.

We alternate mouthfuls of the salami with torn off bread to scoop up the Chicken liver parfait ($8). The parfait is rich, ridiculously smooth and creamy and caused me great anguish at having to share 😛

The pastas are all house-made and hand-rolled and the Prawn casarecce ($29) was hands down our favourite of the night! There was quartered prawns scattered throughout and while I would’ve preferred them whole, the intensely prawn-y sauce more than made up for this. The twisty casarecce pasta was perfect to soak up all the sauce, and I seriously considered ordering some more of the wood fired bread to mop up the leftover sauce.

I could eat the Rigatoni, milk-braised pork & chilli ($28) forever. The pasta has the perfect toothiness and shape to hold the pork nubbins and the lil hit of chilli and shower of parmesan has me sneakily scraping the plate for more than my share.

The Lamb ragu with pappardelle ($29) was a touch on the sweet side but the lamb is melt in your mouth tender and the silky ribbons of pasta perfectly al dente.

The Corn polenta & chilli ($9) is hugely comforting, like a warm hug. You all know my love for juicy corn so this was incredibly satisfying and the chilli amped up the flavour and kept this dish from being stodgy.

We decide to split the Tiramisu ($12) to share and it arrives looking promising- a generous scoop with a dusting of cocoa powder and what looks to be a good ratio of cream, mascarpone and moist coffee ladys finger layers. Buuuut I detect amaretto and that is my most hated flavour in all the lands (followed by celery). Also surprisingly there’s bits of almonds hidden under the cocoa powder, indistinguishable from the chocolate buds and I dunno mebbe it’s just me but I don’t like crunchy bits in tiramisu especially with my second most hated nut after the Brazil nut. Next time I’m gonna get the housemade strawberry ice cream sandwich!

Totti’s
283 Bondi Rd,
Bondi

Trading Hours:
Mon – Sat: 11.30am – 10pm
Sun: 11.30am – 9pm

While Haru Inukai’s ramen is known to all the ramenheads in Sydney (please bring back the clam chowder!), for a truly spectacular meal you guys have got to go to Gaku Robata Grill in Darlinghurst for dinner! It’s a cosy space, with the best seats in the house up front at the counter. While Gaku’s name implies they have a robata grill unfortch the council hasn’t given them approval just yet so skewers are grilled on a gas grill but don’t let that deter you because the sashimi is fresh, the service is attentive and the food is bloody brilliant.

We start with the Tasmanian Sea Urchin Hand Roll ($15), a textural delight with a crisp sheet of seaweed holding plump grains of sushi rice and briny Australian short spine sea urchin.

Then the Classic selection of sashimi ($36) which comes with plump scallops, buttery salmon, tuna and kingfish.

When the lid of the Chawanmushi ($12) was removed, the incredibly heady scent of truffle enveloped us. The steamed egg was so unbelievably silky smooth and I loved the buried spanner crab treasure hunt and my oh my that truffle flavour was just sublime.

The Treasure Rice Bowl ($18) is a feast for the eyes, I mean just look at it! It’s so beautiful, a tasty work of art! This bowl was super comforting with warm sushi rice, a generous amount of soy marinated tuna, petals of glorious sea urchin and spoonfuls of salmon roe.

The Saikyo Miso Foie Gras ($45) was available as a special and has me just about swooning with happiness. It’s a pretty spectacular looking lobe of foie gras that’s marinated in a Saikyo miso paste which has a gentle sweetness to it. The edges are caramelised and crisp, giving way to an unctuously soft inside.

And last but certainly not the least, the Japanese full blood A5 (marbling score 12) Wagyu beef from Kagoshima ($43/100g). How much is 100g we ask ourselves and should we just order double? The answer is yes, yes you should because HOMG THIS WAS SO FRICKEN GOOD I DIE. The meat just MELTS in the mouth, it’s ridiculously tender and fatty and HNNNNNNG so flavourful like the most intensely steaky flavour ARGH ALL THE CAPITAL LETTERS this was out of this world! There was an accompanying trio of condiments with Gaku’s special pepper sauce, smoked soy sauce and salt but I s2g it just didn’t need anything because it was so damn PERFECT.

Gaku Robata Grill
132 Darlinghurst Rd,
Darlinghurst

Trading Hours: (Ramen at lunch only)
Monday: 12 – 2pm
Tuesday – Saturday: 12 – 2pm, 6 – 10pm
Sunday: 12 – 2pm