bird, cow, fish

By Franz Scheurer

This restaurant’s display of cakes and sweets is alluringly irresistible and there’s a whole wall of retail food goodies for sale, too. The line ‘bistro, espresso, cheese’ on the menu means that, as well as having breakfast, lunch or dinner in the bistro, you can sit at one of the front tables near the door at anytime for coffee and cake or a glass of wine and piece of cheese (make sure you try some of the fantastic house-baked bread too). This is a terrific idea and it works. Breakfast is delightful and you can generally easily get a table. For a hearty breakfast try the ‘Chorizo sausage with home made baked beans & a fried egg on sourdough toast’, it’s excellent.

Be warned that the noise levels can be quite high at peak times; this is probably not the place for a romantic first dinner. The similar lunch and dinner menus are quite comprehensive. ‘Trout rillettes with iceberg lettuce & bcf sourdough bruschetta’ turns out to be the best dish we tried at a recent dinner. The rillettes are wonderfully smooth, full of flavour without being fatty or smoky, and the bread is very moreish indeed. The ‘Potato gnocchi with prawn meat, burnt butter, verjuice, capers & crispy sage’ looked terrific but was too much of a good thing for me: I loved the gnocchi, burnt butter and sage, but the prawns seemed unnecessary and the verjuice made the dish quite acidic. I understand this could be a gender issue and the old adage ‘give the boys sugar and the girls lemons’ probably holds true as, true to gender, I found the ‘Seared thinly sliced skirt steak with Lyonnaise onions, raisins, thyme & veal jus’ far too acidic as well. Lyonnaise, to me means reduced onions and a lot of onion flavour. I’m not sure why the raisins are there (more Sicilian than Lyonnaise) and the acid far outweighed their sweetness. Although I love skirt (one of the most flavoursome pieces of meat) I did not enjoy this dish.

The wine list offers a number of options by the glass, though not many I’m excited about drinking. We ordered a glass of Primo Estate La Biondina Colombard (bloody good!) and a glass of Pizzini Verduzzo (a definite food wine). The skirt steak I paired with a Cullen Ellen Bussell Red, which worked well on its own but could not stand up to the acidity of the dish.

A selection of ‘Munster AOC and Shaw River Annie Baxter semi-hard buffalo milk cheese finished our meal. The Munster was too cold and under-ripe and the Shaw River far too feral and salty for us to enjoy. An exquisite Greek shortbread (I had to have seconds) made us forget any complaints as we munched on these outstandingly short and beautiful morsels.

Service was attentive, expedient and very friendly. Value for money is very good and if your palate tends towards the sour end of the spectrum, you’ll love the food.

Score: 6/10

For more information:

bird, cow, fish

500 Crown Street

Surry Hills NSW 2010

Tel.: 02 9380 4090