61
Spice up your life
A quick scan of the
menu atMahanakhon
reveals that the food
here is rather more interesting than
your average casual Thai: there’s the
fermented rice vermicelli known as
kanom jeen alongside the pad Thai,
and the soup section has northern-
style chicken and dill broth in with the
tom yum goong and tom kha gai. Ask
for the Mahanakhon noodles done
spicy if you’d like your face melted
off.Mahanakhon, 270 Castlereagh
St, Sydney, (02) 9264 7767
AND
ALSO
Qualis rex, talis grex
Make no mistake, folks,Bistro Rexis
a red-hot Potts Point scene, thick with
sharp bobs, big frames and black.
Lots and lots of people wearing
black. Jo Ward bangs out the bistro
favourites – parfait, terrine, tartare,
steak frites – with a few gentle twists.
Prawn beignets on a chilli-spiked
salad of lettuce, cucumber and aïoli
makes for a clever take on the prawn
cocktail. The wine list is a cracker, not
least on the gamay front. Get into it.
Bistro Rex, shop 1, 58/50 Macleay St,
Potts Point, (02) 9332 2100Hot ticket
It might not quite outdo Dainty
Sichuan in the bizarrely named
Chinese restaurant stakes, but there’s
definitely something winningly blunt
about Chinatown newcomerSpicy
Joint. The large and attractively
appointed restaurant has been
mobbed by customers since its
opening early this year, all clamouring
for its lettuce in sesame sauce,
braised duck gizzards, dandan
noodles and other highlights of the
Sichuan canon.Spicy Joint, 25-29
Dixon St, Haymarket, (02) 9212 1777BISTRO REX12-MicronLevel 2, 100 Barangaroo
Ave (entry via Watermans
Quay), Barangaroo, NSW,
(02) 8322 2075,
12micron.com.au
Licensed
OpenDaily noon-11pm
CardsAE DC MC V EFT
PricesEarth/Ocean
$18-$32, Land/Air $27-$43,
Scented $14-$22
VegetarianFive dishes
NoiseLoud, generic music
Wheelchair accessYe s
MinusToo much concept,
not enough service
PlusSome real and gutsy
cooking under all the hypeTALKING SCENTS
Gin & Tonic dessert
with Four Pillars gin,
lime and cucumber.SYDNEY REVIEW
from well outside Australia. Maybe they’re
singing from a different song sheet because
it’s a different team.
Justin Wise, 12-Micron’s executive chef,
is a transplant from Melbourne, as is the
pastry team. The Scented list is designed by
Darren Purchese, of Melbourne pâtisserie
Burch & Purchese. I’ve never been to Burch
& Purchese, but based on the evidence
of some of the dishes I’ve tried – “Cherry
Blossom / Cherries | Miso Caramel | Milk
Chocolate”, for instance, or “Mandarine /
Salted Caramel | Tonka Bean | Chocolate”
- I can surmise that they’re a technique-
focused mob. Lots of shiny blobs, broken
biscuits, crumbled chocolate and lovingly
quenelled ices, and blips of flavour that for
me play better on Instagram than they do
on the palate.
The $22 Gin & Tonic dessert comprises
Four Pillars gin, lime, lemon, cucumber and
juniper expressed in the formof jelly, lozenges of ice,
and various other blobs, powders and, yes, quenelles.
(Some of the quenelles have also been sprayed and/
or drizzled with other things along the way.) Tasted
individually, some of the components on the plate
would not have me calling for seconds. Tasted together
they fail to answer the simple question of why anyone
would order a gin and tonic at the end of a meal
rather than at the start.
Service is so wildly variable and, at times, just plain
lost that rather than be cross when a member of staff
fails to do something so basic as offer to take your
umbrella or coat, or bring your wine promptly enough
to drink with the course you ordered it for, you’ll likely
be moved to pity. If you happen to be seated, as I was
on my second visit, at a banquette slung so low the
table is above the nipple-line, I am confident they’ll
eventually respond to suggestions that you’d like to
move to somewhere better set-up for ordinary-sized
humans hoping to eat a meal in comfort. I am yet to
see the restaurant full, but so far the food has come
out fast. They mean well.
The wine list doesn’t suck. It tilts local: everything
by the glass but the fizz is Australian. If you want a
good French white under $100, you might count them
on one hand and have fingers to spare. On the list at
Banksii, right on the Barangaroo waterfront, you’ll find
maybe a dozen. A few doors up at Cirrus, it’s more like
two dozen. Stick with the Australian stuff, they seem to
be saying, and you’ll be okay, covering the spread from
the hipper newer players (Charlotte Dalton sémillon,
Latta sauv blanc, an orange Arfion Smokestack
Lightning gris) to the unassailably classic (riesling
from Grosset, chards from Vasse Felix and Leeuwin
Estate). It’s good wine, but it faces some stiff
competition in this neighbourhood.
I don’t want to talk you out of going to 12-Micron.
It’s my hope that you can look past the issues with the
branding, the eye-watering name, the coordination
on the floor and the tangle of gratuitous “concepts”
that it has been saddled with, and see the good
cooking and nice wine beyond them. The one thing
Barangaroo doesn’t need is more hype. Let’s hope
these guys stick to their knitting.#