Ah winter. How I hate the cold! I know Sydney’s weather is considered quite mild in comparison to other places around the world but mate, I layer up with thermals, jumpers, coats scarves and fleece lined stockings and I’m still bloody freezing! It’s little wonder that I constantly crave for warm, soupy foods like ramen! Spanish Sakaba is, like their name suggests, a Spanish and Japanese hybrid restaurant with classic Spanish dishes like paella, garlic prawns and chorizo alongside Japanese inspired dishes like tempura, yakitori and ramen at lunch.

Spanish Sakaba recently started opening for lunch on Saturdays so a jaunt over the bridge one dreary morning and we arrive in the lands of Willoughby. Every couple of weeks they do a ramen special and today’s offering was an Aburi pork belly ramen ($18.80). I liked the thick shio base but it was the pork belly that blew me away- thickly sliced, incredibly smoky, and meltingly tender.

The Wagyu Oxtail Ramen ($17.80) had a chicken and beef broth that was nice and light with a good peppery kick. The 6 hours slow cooked Wagyu oxtail meat was tender with gelatinous fatty nubbins and that whole mountain of fresh coriander was awesome because I friggen love coriander and it cut through the richness of the oxtail. This ramen came with thin noodles thought I must say I do prefer the wavy type?

The Black Mussel Ramen ($18.80) was awesome! The broth was a creamy white wine and chicken base and studded with shaved fennel, saffron, a generous amount of mussels aaand my favourite wavy noodles! I’m not even the biggest mussel fan but damn, I loved this ramen and would definitely order this again also lol you won’t be able to tell from the photo but the bowl is so massive you could totally bathe a baby in it.

Spanish Sakaba
537 Willoughby Rd,
Willoughby

Trading Hours:
Mon – Sat: 11:30am–2:30pm, 5:30–10pm
Sunday: Closed

I have many feels about the newly opened Wishbone in Enmore. When Hartsyard took off their famous fried chicken from the menu I was beyond devastated. And then owners Gregory Llewellyn and Naomi Hart decided their bar up the road, The Gretz would be making way for a new venture meaning their crunchalicious fillet o fish burger would also be bidding adieu. So while I’m sad to see that burg go, I was incredibly happy to hear that the fried chicken would be making a return at Wishbone AND that they would be serving poutine and biscuits!

Gone are the jeans covered stools, instead there’s a communal table running the length of the restaurant with smaller tables against the wall. Co-owners Blair Joscelyne and Marty Mulholland, creators of Mighty Car Mods have added their touch with car suspension parts holding up the tables, tow hooks and repurposed tool boxes scattered around the restaurant. The menu is short and sweet with fried chicken the featured event and a whole bunch of snacks/sides to go with it.

Chicken scratchings ($8) arrives first, the gnarled shards of chicken skin are the perfect bar snack, they’re crispy, salty and oh so satisfying. While kbrly and I liked the honey hot sauce, we would’ve preferred the sauce on the side to dip to control the amount on each piece as they got soggy super fast.

The Buttermilk Fried Chicken (4 pieces/$19) is just as I remembered, the golden batter all knobbly and gloriously crunchy and the meat incredibly juicy and tender. Sauces are a little steep at $3 per tub or 3 for $5 so our group of five order the Wish Bone hot sauce, unicorn ranch and smoked maple sauce. I enjoyed the hot sauce with the chicken (mad props to my taste buds for finally accepting a lil spice into my life!) but definitely preferred the ridiculously addictive smoked maple sauce over the unicorn ranch (not too sure what made this unicorn but I was glad it wasn’t a god awful rainbow colour).

Of course we had to get the poutine too! There’s a vego mushroom poutine that did tempt me because my, how I love mushrooms! But we decided to go for the Home style Poutine ($20), fries with beef gravy and cheese curds instead. The portion for this was so massive kbrly and I barely made it a quarter of the way through! The fries were perfect, golden batons of delicious fried potato soaking up the rich gravy and being the perfect vessels to scoop up globs of melty cheese.

And there were the sides! The Creamed corn with miso ($6) is a must order and is insanely delicious. Sweet corn nublets bursting with juicy sunshine, I love you! It is a touch on the sweet side (is that more honey I detect?) but it’s still bloody delicious and we all know corn is my favourite non digestible food in all the lands.

I’ve been craving for good, proper American biscuits for about 4 years now since my last trip the US. People generally describe biscuits as a savoury scone, and Wishbone absolutely nails them! An individual Biscuit with sausage gravy does sound a bit steep at $6 a pop but let me tell you, IT’S SO WORTH IT! The biscuits are baked to order with a light golden crust and ridiculously light innards and just begging to be used to mop up the slightly peppery sausage gravy.

I wasn’t too sure about the Biscuit with honey butter ($6) mainly because I’m so used to eating biscuits with savoury toppings but this was so damn tasty! Generous amount of creamy butter drenched in sweet sweet honey, perfect for slathering. Or for some people, eating with a spoon coughANGEcough

I probably should’ve ordered a vegetable or something but well, the Mac & Cheese ($6) was calling to me! This was awesome, creamy and cheesy with a delicious buttery breadcrumb crust that I may have swiped more than my fair share of 😛

Aaaand then there was dessert! A deliciously creamy peanut butter soft serve ($8) with caramel popcorn and a swirl of salted fudge in the center.

Wishbone
125 Enmore Road,
Enmore

Trading Hours:
7 days: 5pm to late

I love birthdays. I feel like a person’s birthday is a good way to celebrate that person, having them in your life and acknowledging that they mean something to you. And yes I know you could say you shouldn’t have to wait for a specific day to show that you appreciate someone but hey, when someone remembers and plans ahead of time to make sure they can spend time with you I get all the warm fuzzies thinking how lucky I am to have such awesome friends in my life. When my birthday rolled around, Isaac and I went out to eat at Ete in Barangaroo and celebrate another year of surviving.

We start with the Woodfired bone marrow ($12) with truffled streusel and caperberry. The bone marrow is unctuous and quivers as we dollop huge globfuls onto the toast. I kinda wished there was more than 1 bone per serve but I guess that’s probably a good thing for my cholesterol.

The Chicken liver parfait ($14) is rich, incredibly smooth and comes with a layer of hazelnut and quince jam. I loved that they were super generous with the cracker and bread basket too! My pet peeve is always that there’s never enough crackers and you feel when you get a refill that you’ll have to pay heaps.

I was a bit wary about ordering the Duck breast ($34), mainly because I’ve had too many dry duck dishes than I can count but luckily this confit leg duck was anything but dry! It was perfectly juicy, tender and while the skin wasn’t crisp I enjoyed the sliver of creamy fat and mopped up all the juices with some leftover bread.

The Lamb rack ($44) of juicy, pressed lamb belly was bloody tasty and so friggen tender. How great is lamb when it’s done right??

The Pomme puree ($12) is PERFECTION. It’s silky smooth, ridiculously buttery and is all that is good in the world. And I’m not sure if Isaac was being a great friend but I managed to eat much more than my share of this amazing mash and carefully scraped the bowl clean.

We were pretty full but honestly we could not go past the Assiette mignardise selection of mini desserts ($38) because I mean, LOOK AT IT! A mini trolley of desserts! It’s an instagrammers dream! And how much do I love variety! There was toasted meringue covered cake pops, chocolate eclairs, lemon meringue tarts, macarons, ice cream and mini dishes of creme brulee.

Été
T1.03 Tower 1,
Barangaroo Ave
Barangaroo

Trading Hours:
Mon – Thurs:
Lunch from 11:30am – 3pm
Dinner from 5:30pm – 9:30pm

Fri:
Lunch from 11:30am – 3pm
Dinner from 5:30pm – 10:30pm

Sat:
Dinner from 5:30pm – 10:30pm
Sun:
Lunch from 11:30am – 3:30pm

It takes a lot for me to make the trip over the Bridge. But for the past couple of weeks I’ve been craving barbecue and with Black Bear Barbecue closed on the weekends (edit: I spoke too soon, they’re doing a popup at Entertainment Quarter on the weekends now!), I managed to convince the boy that we needed to visit Smoky Sue’s in Neutral Bay and check out their offerings. And then another visit when Raff and I took a day off for a food crawl!

The Double Platter ($55) comes with your choice of 3 meats and 1 side with fries, pickles and a sauce. Such value! The portions of the meats were pretty generous, we stuffed ourselves silly and had about ¼ left to take home (haha barbecue leftovers are so good tho, thank you past Suze). Smoky Sue’s does barbecue in a not so traditional way, sous viding the meats for a bit and then smoking so the meat is always incredibly tender and juicy but still with the delicious smoky flavour.

For our meats I decided against the pulled pork, pulled lamb, fried chicken and pork ribs. Next time fellas! Instead we got the Texas style 100-day grain fed point end beef brisket which is a beauty, I mean, check out that smoke ring! The meat is tender with a ribbon of creamy fat and a good hit of smokiness. But that bark! It’s a flavour that’s just out of this world, with that magical combo of caramelised and salty edges that will make you want to curl up and go to barbecue nirvana..

I loved the plump and springy smoked sausage links (from Challenger Smallgoods) that’s stuffed with cheese and jalapeno though I would’ve liked a bit more heat (woah who am I?).

HNNNNG. Can you hear me drooling from behind your screen? The 100-day grain fed beef short ribs is nothing short of mouthwatering meat heaven. It was so ridiculously tender I could’ve used a spoon to spoon with it cut it apart! It was fattylicious and insanely juicy with a delicious smokiness throughout. It’s a pretty giant serve and this pushed us into meat sweats territory. But I’m not complaining! No siree!

For the choice of sides, I get the Slaw- thinly sliced red and white cabbage and grated carrot with balsamic dressing for some semblance of health. It’s crisp, refreshing and helps to cut through the richness of all the meats. On my second visit with Raff we get the Mac and Cheese bombs, creamy mac and cheese that’s been crumbed and deep fried to molten perfection.

Raff couldn’t resist the Ribby McRibFace ($28), a limited time only special that is just so friggen epic with a their incredible beef short rib, slaw and American cheese between Brasserie Bread’s soft milk buns. The short rib bone is easily pulled away leaving one beast of a burger and is definitely one for the meat-lovers out there.

We also scored wings drenched in Franks hot sauce on the house (Thanks Owen!) they’re new to the menu ($15/12 wings) and Smoky Sue’s will be giving away 2000 free wings on Sunday 29th September with any purchase!

Smoky Sue’s
3/6 Rangers Rd,
Neutral Bay
(02) 9908 3909

Trading Hours:
Tues – Thurs: 5.30pm – late
Fri – Sun: 12pm – late
(Kitchen closes 9pm)