Birthday at Beppi's

Established in 1956 by Beppi and his wife, and still managed by family today, Beppi's made a fantastic choice for a restaurant at which to celebrate my aunt’s recent birthday.

With its charming waiters, brick floors, peach coloured walls and warmly lit decor, Beppi’s is an elegant and friendly Italian restaurant with a fantastic looking wine cellar. Visually, it is similar to the downstairs area of Buon Ricordo.

Walking in, we find the table reserved for the night and each lady is presented with a small perfume gift. As we peruse the soft leather bound menus, we’re offered canapés from a tray and shown the fresh seafood of the day. Waiting for the entrees to arrive, we nibble on bruschetta, rich in garlic and bread, served with curls of butter.

Most of the entrees and seafood options on the menu are offered with the choice of ordering them as entrees or mains. The menu presents a large variety of seafood, pastas and meat dishes.

The entrees arrive and the muscles are cooked to perfection and served with a light broth. Every shell has opened up and none go to waste. The minestrone soup itself is quite thin, with chunks of vegetables. The seasoning is left to the discretion of the diner. Whilst I was enjoying my muscles, I couldn’t help but have food envy over the angel hair pasta sitting across from me. According to my cousin, who was eating it, I had every right to be envious as it was fantastic!

My partner ordered the duck for a main course and commented that the tang from the orange sauce nicely complemented the salty duck. The dish was quite rich and the prosciutto gave a slight crunch to the texture. Across from me, my cousin thoroughly enjoyed the scampi whilst my spatchcock, though a little fiddly, was served with a lovely mild mushroom sauce.

Though the service was initially very good, as the restaurant got busier throughout the evening (mid week), the quality declined and we were left rather thirsty. At one point I noticed a bronzed jug left on a serving table nearby, so I grabbed that to pour water for myself.

As no one was overly full, we all opted for dessert. My partner ordered the crepes, which were lit after being placed on the table. They were hot, sweet and very alcoholic! My chocolate mousse cake was not too rich and was presented beautifully with tightly wound rolls of white chocolate.

As it was a special occasion, a profiterole birthday cake was brought out as a treat. Had we known it was coming perhaps some of us would have skipped dessert!

All in all, a lovely night with tasty, fresh food.

Located

21 Yurong St

Sydney, 2010

Opening Hours

Lunch: Mon-Fri 12-3pm

Dinner: Mon- Sat 6-11pm

Closed Sundays and all Public holidays.

Price

$69 based on two courses

Fairly Good French Food for a Small Fare

From the owners of The Little Snail in Pyrmont comes The Red Snail in Darlinghurst, a restaurant that claims to serve inexpensive classic French food. That is exactly what they deliver. At $25.00 for three courses on a Sunday night, we were slightly unsure of what we’d get but figured that for that price, we couldn’t go wrong.

Parking in Darlinghurst is always an issue but hopefully that won’t deter visitors from this gem of a restaurant, and either will it’s ambiguous entry. To get in, you walk through what looks like the back of the restaurant – a courtyard full of outdoor tables – and through glass doors. This is actually the front of the restaurant and the only way in. Perhaps a sign or something in the courtyard would help?

Once inside, the restaurant has a warm decor with hanging red lanterns and a semi open kitchen. The tables and chairs are clean wood and floor to ceiling glass opens the restaurant up nicely. Mood lighting is given off by lamps and the trendy joint is equally great for family dinners, dates or nights with friends. Looking around, other patrons are mainly here for the second two reasons.

The menu itself has a generous selection of entrees, more limited range of main courses and a decent variety of desserts. We are asked to order all three at the same time, which is fine.

I start with the Salt and Pepper Squid served with Chilli and Lime dipping sauce. There are two types of squid on the plate, the body (not cut up into rings), which is soft but not too chewy, and legs, which are very crispy. A lot of places serve salt and pepper squid in a light coloured batter that is quite flakey. The Red Snail doesn’t do this. Their batter is heavier and dark in colour (and very good!) The flavour is quite strong, with a sauce that tastes like a spicy soya sauce and more a lemon, not a lime, as was described.

My partner ordered the duck of a specials menu, which was delicious with a sweet sauce and cranberries. It was served with bread, Melba toasts and a pappadum. Perhaps overkill with too many breads but a fantastic start to the meal.
The good food was complemented by good service, our water glasses never reaching empty and us never needing to ask for a refill.

For the main I ordered the Kangaroo fillet, served rare with native plum sauce. The meat was tender but the sauce was quite syrupy and too sweet for my liking.

My partner decided on the Pork fillet with a Dijon mustard sauce. Unfortunately he wasn’t keen on this. Whilst the pork was cooked well, the sauce had an unappealing flavour, with the mustard being too strong and overpowering.

The main courses were accompanied by a complimentary serving of vegetables in a light butter sauce. They were a nice touch and went well with both main meals.

When the plates were cleared and the dessert cutlery was set, the waitress placed it on an angle, which is quite unique. I thought it looked quite good and gave the place a little edge.

I always find it interesting to check out the bathrooms wherever I go, seeing how different establishments ‘do’ lavatories. In this particular case, the bathrooms let the restaurant down. They’re not designated male and female toilets, which some find off-putting. They are however individual rooms with one toilet, sink etc, which can be better than a big bathroom with stalls, it’s definitely more private. There’s an eery red light in the bathroom though, perhaps it’s meant to match with the red glow of the restaurant? It doesn’t work in the same way though, and just gives off a creepy red light district effect.

Dessert arrived and they both looked absolutely amazing! Major points to Red Snail for presentation on this one. We had ordered the Belgium Chocolate Mousse and the Passionfruit Cheesecake. The mousse wasn’t too rich or soft, which was great and the biscuit base gave some texture. The cheesecake was beautifully creamy and rich with plenty of passionfruit sauce and the garnish was crunchy.


The Red Snail delivers on its promise of classic French food without the sky high bill. The charming restaurant offers efficient friendly service and beautifully presented great tasting food. For $35.00 for three courses, it’s an absolute steal and at only $25.00 on Sunday nights, you’d be mad not to try it.

Cnr Kings Cross Rd & Ward Ave
Darlinghurst 2010
Ph: (02) 9357 4919

Opening Hours
Breakfast Lunch Dinner
Sat & Sun Fri – Sun Tues - Sun
8am 12pm 5pm - Late

Price
3 Courses $35
Sunday 3 Courses $25

Lotforty

Only having opened in March, Lotforty is still a relatively new and undiscovered Tapas bar, but don’t let that fool you into thinking you’re in for Spanish cuisine.

Lotforty, like many of Sydney’s Tapas joints offers Modern Australian cuisine at a price where you can afford to try a selection of dishes. This is the thought behind Lotforty, according to manager, Timothy Elchah, whose restaurant offers a menu that’s a mix of Modern Australian with an Asian infusion from their Asian Chef.

Lotforty is a place you’ll decide you’re going to before you arrive. You don’t have much of a chance of stumbling across it, as it’s hidden way up the top of Kings Lane. If you are fortunate enough to find it though, you’ll be in for a treat. The warmly lit restaurant is divided over two equally tiny floors, seating 50 all together. You’ll want to book for this one as the word is spreading fast; we managed to reserve the last two seats for the night.

Elchah has created a warm feel with polished wooden tables and tea candles, wooden and padded four leg stools and walls of wood and dark rich colours. Lotforty is great for a fun-filled night out and whilst it looks perfect for a date, the wooden floors can make it quite noisy depending on your neighbouring tables!

The attention is in the details with modern, nicely present menus, friendly, helpful staff, slices of lemon in the water, a wipe down of the table in between Tapas and dessert, and a complementary appetiser of a toothpick salad in a shot glass, which was very cool!

The one page menu is arranged in ascending price order with dishes ranging from $7.00-$14.00. We ordered six dishes to share between the two of us.

First to arrive was the Thai Chicken Salad ($12). The salad came in four portions and had authentic Thai flavours with a hint of spice. It was served in a similar style to the Chinese San Choy Bow – in a lettuce leaf. I noted however that we were only given tiny cocktail napkins to eat finger food, which left us with greasy fingers and not a lot of room to wipe them on.

Next to arrive were the Scallops ($10), two portions served in the shell. When the menu said they had prosciutto, I imaged it to be thin and crispy or thin and soft. It was neither and seemed more like diced ham. The olive tapenade was delicious though and the dish had a wonderful texture – a mixture of the fleshy scallop with something chewy and something crunchy all mixed in!

We were off to a fantastic start with the food. The bruschetta ($7) arrived next and this was one of the two dishes my partner was most looking forward to. He was let down though as the tomato was quite soggy and we found the dish lacked flavour. Perhaps the tomatoes they were using weren’t great or the dish was left out too long?

Not to worry, the seared beef ($12) was up next and my partner loved this. It was very peppery and quite salty. Personally however, I thought it was too oily.

This was followed by the Pear and Gorgonzola salad ($8) which looked wonderful on the plate. The cheese was very strong and the sauce was sweet, which gave the salad a great mix of sweet and savoury.

The second dish my partner was eagerly waiting for arrived, the duck pancakes ($12). This is also their signature dish. I was intrigued as they weren’t what I was expecting. Usually, duck pancakes are served on a small bland crepe (think Peking duck), but these were rolled up in thick breakfast style pancakes with some crispy onion on top. They were very hot and very sweet. My partner easily could have polished off another order and later said this was his favourite dish.

Chowing our way through each dish, we were sad to see the end and so decided to see the dessert menu! We ordered a dessert each with the intention to share and although I was quite full, my partner assured me he could finish them both off if needed (how generous!).

The desserts were each $9 and we decided on the flourless chocolate cake and a banana tart. The cake surprised me as it was served as a slice, whereas I was expecting a small, yet whole cake. It was served with sugared nuts, caramel sauce and fresh strawberries. The sauce gave moisture to the cake, which was very rich. The banana dessert looked fantastic on the plate and was a yummy mixture of warm coffee cream and cool mascarpone. The banana and coffee cream were sweet, so the mascarpone broke up the flavour well.

We had a fantastic night with well presented, great tasting food and friendly service. It was great to see that the staff were so efficient, considering that we were seated upstairs, away from the counter and door. The dishes are well priced and the tapas style menu worked really well, allowing us to sample a range of different flavours, which would perhaps be overpowering if we had just the one large dish.

40 Kings Lane

Darlinghurst 2010 NSW

Phone: (02) 9380 2728

Opening Hours

Wed-Fri noon-11pm

Sat-Sun 6pm-11pm

Price Range

$7.00 - $14.00