Kick the night off with a Long Island Ice Tea ($8)

26 Foveaux St
ph: 02 9212 1740
www.kbhotel.com.au
Open 7 days till late

What’s on offer:
A surprisingly good Thai bistro serving curries, noodles, stir fries and salads ($8-14 for mains) as well as  the usual pub grub (burgers, steak, schnitzel, fish and chips, all $9)

What we had:
Roasted duck curry (roasted duck with pineapple, lychee, cherry tomatoes and sweet basil leaves) and kraprow ped kai dow (roasted duck with chilli garlic, green bean, onion, bamboo shoots, hot basil and topped with a fried egg)

What it cost:
$27 for two or $13.50 pp (kraprow ped kai dow $14, roasted duck curry $13)

If you’re ever looking to see where the locals get loose – and I mean really loose – I recommend the KB. But be warned: it’s Sydney’s very own Hotel California.

The KB...you can check out, but you can never leave

This traditional English-style pub has been welcoming people into its warm embrace for more than 70 years. It’s a strong embrace; some just don’t seem to be able to tear themselves away. One well-loved local – a hot dog seller who never drank a drop, mind you – lived upstairs for 50 years.

He passed away in the pokie room just months after The Daily Telegraph published an article about him in its January 14, 2005 edition:

Colin Pearce, 74 today, has lived in the KB Hotel in Surry Hills for 50
years – but has never touched alcohol … Thought to be Sydney’s longest hotel resident, Colin is more than part of the furniture at the KB – he’s been there longer than most of it.

“When I moved in [in 1955] Mr Cremma charged me three pounds a week.
What’s that, $6. Then he left and we had Mr Isles, then Mr O’Keefe – he
was here 15 years – then Don Murray and Vera Ross and now the new lady.
I met her last week,” Colin said yesterday.

“The main thing that’s changed is the rent. Now I pay $165 a week.”

Roslyn Simpson – a beaming, buxom woman who has worked in the hotel for close to a decade – was there the day Colin finally left.

‘I was pregnant at the time with my second child,’ she says in a thick Liverpool accent.

‘Colin passed out on the floor in the pokie room, on machine number one. We went outside to try and resuscitate him…We were actually down on the floor and my boss was lookin’ at the cameras and thought that I’d gone into labour!

‘It wasn’t funny at the time but it’s quite funny to look back on.’

Oktoberfest at the KB

It’s about 11pm on a Friday and I’ve unwittingly managed to catch her on one of the busiest nights of the season. The pub is throwing an Oktoberfest bash and we’re huddled in the dark on the 2nd floor with the party raging beneath us.

It’s remarkably quiet, given the drunken anarchy we’ve just navigated to find a quiet spot.

‘Hi Leo!’ Roslyn greets a pyjama-clad lodger on his way back to bed. Some of these guys have been here for more than 20 years, she tells me.

Roslyn Simpson with Brad, the midnight sausage man. Roslyn has worked at the hotel since 2001.

Roslyn herself is a long-term resident of sorts. Now in her thirties, Roslyn has worked at the KB since arriving on a working holiday visa in 2001. Like most backpackers, she was expecting little more than fun, sun and parties.

Today, Roslyn and her husband (whom she met at the KB, of course) have two children, aged 4 and 6, and have just bought their second home. She says she has no intention of leaving just yet. ‘It’s so flexible; they work around when I want to be with the kids.’ 

‘Doesn’t sound like anyone who comes here ever manages to leave,’ I say, only half-jokingly.

‘Well unfortunately, they’re going to have to,’ she says with a melancholy smile. ‘We’re going up.’

The KB’s owner, Kathryn Young, has plans to expand the hotel, which occupies a heritage-listed building that has hardly been touched since the KB’s establishment in 1936. There are no plans to offer accommodation after the development.

Kraprow ped kai dow ($14) consists of roasted duck with chilli garlic, green bean, onion, bamboo shoots, hot basil and topped with a fried egg

I ask Roslyn if she thinks the expansion will change the place but I get the feeling she doesn’t want to think about it. She’d rather talk about what’s worth keeping from the present.

‘This place is special because it’s a meeting place as well as somewhere that you can come in and enjoy yourself,’ says Roslyn. ‘The thing about the KB is that you can have…maybe somebody who hasn’t even got anywhere to live…stood next to a millionaire and the two of ‘em will just converse; there’s no boundaries there.’

Rob Fulton, the man who in 2005 became the first person to win the top prize on Australia’s version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, was a regular patron back in the day.

‘Even up to the point where he won the million,’ says Roslyn. ‘He used to write the trivia for here, probably about six years ago.’

Roast duck curry ($13) with pineapple, lychee, cherry tomatoes and sweet basil leaves

Back downstairs a seething mass of revellers is singing along to the Top 40 hits pumping from the jukebox. Everyone is having a marvellous time. After all, what’s not fun about swilling pints, chugging cocktails and throwing yourself around a makeshift dance floor?

And with platters of complimentary finger food making the rounds (and that’s every Friday night, not just for Oktoberfest), $2 champagne and $5-$8 cocktails, it’s hard not to get just a tad merry.

‘You see so many different people, they all come in and…they just enjoy themselves, ’ Roslyn says.

‘It’s a great place to walk in if you’re a woman on your own or even a bloke…You can always…meet new and interesting people.’

PS. The Thai food here is great value and pretty damn tasty too. Definitely better than you’d expect from a pub. I would steer clear of the western menu, though – you’ll find far better elsewhere in Surry Hills.

PPS. For those who like a bit of local history: the official name of the KB is Kaybee Hotel. It was named after the lager made by the old Kent Brewery, which stood for 170 years on Broadway before closing its doors in February 2005. Kaybee Hotel, which for commercial reasons couldn’t officially use the initials ‘KB’ in its name, still sells cans of KB Lager today.

In Japan, edamame (steamed or boiled soybeans) is a popular snack with beer...and a hell of a lot healthier than beer nuts

54 Foveaux St
ph: 02 9211 8600
www.siorie.com.au
Open Mon-Fri 11am-3pm & 5pm-10pm, Sat 5pm-10pm

What’s on offer:
Japanese fusion, including sushi, sashimi, yakimono (grill), agemono (deep fried), udon (soup noodles), yaki udon (stir fried noodles), nigiri, and small, large and special rolls.

What we had:
Double crunch roll, dumpling roll, chicken karaage, salmon and avocado roll

What it cost:
$43.30 for three or $14.43 pp (special rolls $15.00 each, chicken karaage $8.80, salmon and avocado roll $4.50)

Siorie, a relative newcomer to the local restaurant scene, offers Japanese cuisine with a twist.

If you’re a fan of Japanese cuisine but want to try something a little different, Siorie is the place to go. Here, head chef and owner Inho Hwang fuses traditional Japanese cooking with flavours from across the Orient, including his home country of Korea.

Here you’ll find Hwang’s interpretation of many popular styles of Japanese cooking, including yakimono (grill), agemono (deep fry) and of course, sushi. (Incidentally, it might interest you to know that sushi, a traditional Japanese cuisine combining raw fish and vinegar rice, fuses several Asian influences. It originated in South East Asia and China, not Japan, although it was the Japanese who elevated it to an art.)

Dumpling roll ($15.00) with dumplings, cucumber, sesame, shallots and wasabi mayonnaise

Hwang’s signature offering are his ‘special rolls’ or urumaki (literally, inside out roll). Food historians credit the invention of urumaki in the 1970s to Ichiro Mashita, the head sushi chef at Tokyo Kaikan in downtown Los Angeles:

Uramaki was created because Americans had trouble eating nori. While Americans dining in the early sushi bars enjoyed the food, they preferred to not see the seaweed. To remedy this, the pioneering Chef Mashita at Tokyo Kaikan in Little Tokyo created the inside-out roll.

This development is widely believed to have fueled sushi’s early success in the United States, and has led to hundreds of variations on the first uramaki.

Hwang adopts this Western method of making sushi and combines it with typically Chinese or Korean flavours. The results are suitably enticing. Take the dumpling roll, for example, which combines Chinese dumplings with cucumber, sesame, shallots and wasabi mayonnaise, or the lobster roll, which borrows its spicy-sour flavour from Korea, and you’ll start to see the joys of fusion.

Double crunch roll ($15.00) with prawn tempura, avocado, tempura batter, crystal noodle and mayonnaise

The most popular, says Hwang, is the double crunch roll, with prawn tempura, avocado, tempura batter, crystal noodle and mayonnaise. (I’ve tried it and can confirm it is appropriately named.)

Siorie celebrated its first anniversary in August this year. Hwang, 31, says his first year of business went surprisingly well. ‘I was a little bit nervous, but from start the beginning, everybody like my restaurant … everything was alright,’ he says.

Fusion seems an appropriate style for Hwang, who is himself a bit of a cooking chameleon. ‘When I came here first time, I really like Japanese food so I changed my major again, again, again,’ he says.

Fresh and simple...salmon and avocado urumaki or inside-out roll ($4.50)

The first two ‘agains’ refer to the first and second styles of cooking Hwang specialised in during his training: Italian and French. Again I find him mixing cultures, having mastered Italian cuisine during a two-year traineeship in Seoul and French cuisine during three years of study at Le Cordon Bleu culinary arts institute here in Sydney.

But it was the simplicity and freshness of Japanese cooking that finally captured Hwang’s imagination. Unlike French or Italian cooking, in which numerous ingredients mingle to create a dominant flavour, says Hwang, ‘Japanese guys always make simple, clean; we can taste all the ingredients.’

Chicken karaage ($8.80) is a popular choice from the agemono (deep fried) section.

Hwang was formerly the head chef at Daikoku, a teppanyaki restaurant in Double Bay, but left after two years to study under head chef Lee who runs the kitchen at Zushi in Darlinghurst. Lee is renowned for his extensive knowledge of seafood.

Three years later, Siorie opened its doors. With its unique menu, speedy service, and clean, contemporary feel – not to mention very reasonable prices – it’s little wonder local foodlovers were pleased.

Which in the end seems to go full circle. ‘When I cook…I’m looking my customer,’ says Hwang. ‘When they like it, I’m happy.’

Head chef Inho Hwang (left), also known as Sam, and waiter Hyunjae Nam, also known as Ken.

What’s on offer:
Traditional Thai cuisine, including soups, stir fried noodles, noodle soup, stir fries, salads and curries

What we ate:
Pad prik king (crispy pork belly) and nam khao tod (crispy rice salad)

What it cost:
$35.80 for two or $17.90 pp (okay, yes, slightly over budget but we went for the more expensive dishes – there are plenty of dishes priced at $13.90)

Hot and spicy...Thai cuisine the traditional way

Spice I Am is not just an adored, multi-award winning Thai eatery. Spice I Am is a manifesto about traditional Thai cooking and a physical challenge to chilli lovers all over the city.

Not every dish is spicy, but put it this way: if you can’t take the heat, you’re wasting your visit to this kitchen.

‘We like present traditional Thai food, authentic Thai food,’ says deputy manager Wilailuck Pipattanathan in her charming Thai accent. Wilailuck joined her uncle’s restaurant three years ago and takes charge during his regular visits to Thailand.

‘When everybody talk Thai food they would like to know, is too spicy for them or not? No, not all Thai food is spicy,’ she explains.

But the dishes that are meant to be spicy shouldn’t be eaten any other way. ‘Some Thai food, too spicy – but that should be spicy. This is traditional Thai food,’ she says.

I suspect it’s this uncompromising attitude to food that makes Spice I Am such a hit.

This bustling eatery is packed out most nights - but they don't take reservations so come early or join the queue

The eatery on Wentworth Avenue opened in 2004 (a fine dining spin-off opened in Darlinghurst in January) and is packed out most nights. They don’t take reservations so get there early or expect to join the small crowd gazing lustily at the food while waiting for tables.

It’s bustling and it’s noisy – the tables are crammed so close you can almost taste your neighbours’ pla pad cha stir fried chilli fish fillets (or maybe you just wish you could) – but there’s a cheerful energy to the place that’s very, well, Thai.

Oddly enough, Spice I Am is the brainchild of a flight attendant and airline food caterer, or so the story goes:

The restaurant’s birth was inspired by two individuals combining their unique ideas from their respective experiences, Padet Nagsalab and Sujet Saenkham. Mr. Padet had nine years of experience at Thai Airways Catering while Mr. Sujet was a flight attendant for over 12 years.

The duo agreed that Sydney had very few true Thai restaurants that delivered real Thai taste in its cuisine. So, they decided to open their own restaurant…

Thankfully, the dishes taste nothing like airline food.

Nam khao tod ($17.90), one of the signature dishes, is a crispy rice salad made with Thai pork sausages chilli powder and ground peanuts

The Wentworth Ave eatery remains a favourite among Thais, who in its early days were practically the only customers. Since making a splash in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2005, however, customers flock from far and wide.

Thai restaurants are strewn throughout this city, especially the inner city, and Surry Hills boasts its fair share of celebrated kitchens. But as Wilailuck explains, most Thai eateries churn out dishes ‘like for foreigner’.

‘Some dish, some restaurant put the capsicum,’ she says, wrinkling her nose. ‘In Thailand, we never know what is capsicum. How come? How can they put capsicum? What is that?’ Her eyes are wide with incomprehension and her earnestness makes me smile.

‘They have to put like long red chilli,’ she insists, ‘not capsicum.’

Pad prik king ($17.90), one of the milder dishes on the menu, is made by stir frying crispy pork belly and pork rind with curry paste, green beans and sliced kaffir lime leaves

Another example is the traditional green curry. According to Wilailuck, the only vegetable it’s supposed to have is eggplant. ‘We got three kind of eggplant: Thai long green eggplant, apple eggplant and cherry eggplant. Sometime many customer like ‘Can you put some more vegie in the curry?’’ She shakes her head.

‘We have to say: “Sorry” because you know the traditional green curry should be just only eggplant.’

Wilailuck is not kidding when she says they won’t change the taste of a dish. Not realising beforehand that it’s the spicy-way or the highway, I invite a friend who is not big on chilli. It takes more than five minutes of deep discussion with our waitress to find two dishes we think she can eat.

(The staff here, by the way, are exceptionally helpful. Not only are they attentive, polite and efficient, they are also extremely well informed – it’s well worth asking for recommendations.)

I watch my friend sweat, sniff and cry her way through the meal, mopping her brow and sucking on ice cubes as our sympathetic waitress brings us more cucumber. I secretly hope she’ll give up, leaving more food for me.

Cheap, cheerful...and a must for chilli-lovers

No such luck. We’re agreed. This is possibly the best Thai food either of us has ever eaten. At Spice I Am it’s not spice for the sake of spice; it’s chilli used the way the chilli gods intended: as a kick to get your senses humming. Beyond the searing heat, the flavours are rich, the meat is tender and the vegetables crisp.

According to Wilailuck, the most popular dish is the red duck curry. ‘This is present in Thai style – spicy and creamy, with coconut milk. When we present, we put in coconut shells,’ she says. Of course, it’s very, very spicy.

My friend and I resolve to work up her spice tolerance so we can sample the full range of dishes. What you need, I tell her, is chilli boot camp.

No doubt Spice I Am is the perfect training ground.

What’s on offer:
More than 30 Lebanese and Middle Eastern dishes, including dips, salads, grilled meats, vegetables, beans, rice and sweets.

What we ate:
Mixed entrée (platter of hommus, baba ganouj, tabouli and falafels) and pumpkin kebbe (pumpkin and burghul crust stuffed with chickpeas and spinach). For dessert, baklava

What it cost:
$29 for two or $14.50 pp (mixed entrée $16, pumpkin kebbe $8, baklava $2.50 each)

Attention to detail (with decor as well as food) - makes Jimmy and Anna Yousif's restaurant stand out from the crowd

The best and worst thing about Hannibals is the enormous menu. With more than thirty traditional and contemporary meat and vegetarian dishes on offer, you won’t know what to order – or when to stop.

Which is probably a large part of the reason people keep coming back – so they can feel like they’ve made some kind of dent in the menu. But it’s no simple feat. Owner Jimmy Yousif and head chef Anna Yousif regularly add new and unique dishes to their offering.

Each table is served a 'bottomless' basket of fresh Lebanese bread known as 'khobz'

Hannibal’s was first established more than 30 years ago at Bondi by family friend Halmy Borchan. Jimmy, who began with Halmy as a waiter, was around to see the restaurant move to Surry Hills in 2001. When Halmy retired three years ago, Jimmy stepped up to the helm.

The corner where Hannibals is teaming with restaurants all promising much the same thing – cushion rooms, belly dancers and ‘authentic’ or ‘traditional’ Lebanese fare. Hannibals is notable not only for its beautiful décor, but also its fresh ingredients. At other places on the same block, the shawerma (shaved grilled meat) looks (and tastes) like it’s been sitting next to the grill all evening – it’s tough, dry and cold.

No chance of that at Hannibals.

A professional belly dancer performs on Friday and Saturday nights...Farah went to university in New York and is studying law in Sydney (www.farahdance.com)

Anna, Jimmy’s mother, has been running the kitchen for the past 20 years, long before Jimmy took over the restaurant. Beginning her career in Dubai, Anna’s signature dishes combine Middle Eastern flavours with traditional Lebanese recipes, handed down through the generations.

‘My grandmother, she is a great cook, so [mum] learned a bit from her mum as well. It’s sort of a family thing,’ says Jimmy.

‘I mean, the traditional food, you learn from your ancestors, really. My grandma is still alive and she cooks the best dishes ever…She’s the master.’

The star attraction on the menu, according to Jimmy, is the pumpkin kebbe, which Jimmy assures me is exclusive to his restaurant. ‘People come from all over Sydney for it,’ he says.

The thick outer crust is prepared using pumpkin, cous cous and burghul (a Middle Eastern staple, also known as bulghur wheat) flavoured with Middle Eastern spices. It is then stuffed with chickpeas, spinach, onions and cheese, and lightly fried.

‘It’s a complex dish to prepare,’ says Jimmy. It’s delicious – and very filling.

The star attraction on Anna Yousif's menu...pumpkin kebbe

We complement our pumpkin kebbe and complimentary khobz (a basket of fresh Lebanese bread) with a mixed entrée platter that includes rich, creamy hommus (dip made with chickpeas), a smokey baba ganouj (eggplant dip), crunchy falafels (made with chickpeas and deep fried) and tangy tabouli (salad made with parsley, bulghur, mint, tomato and onion, and dressed with lemon juice and olive oil). We use the bread to scoop up the dips or wrap around various combination of food.

This is one of the best things about Middle Eastern cuisine – it’s interactive. Dishes and platters are shared around so everyone gets a taste of everything. It’s well worth getting a bit creative and experimenting with the different flavours to make your own mini Lebanese wraps.

Baklava, a popular Middle Eastern sweet, consists of layers of honey-sweetened pastry encrusted with finely chopped pistachio nuts

I ask Jimmy what makes Lebanese food ‘distinctive’. After several false starts he comes up with this searing insight: ‘Just the flavour of it; it’s different to other cuisines really…Lebanese food is full of vegetables and meat – and just the flavour of it. Everything is grilled, really, I mean, like falafel, if you look at falafel and everything, it’s really healthy; it’s full of protein and vegetables.

‘And it’s just the flavour.’

A simple ‘I don’t know’ would have sufficed.

There’s no denying that someone at Hannibals knows what they’re doing, but I suspect it’s not Jimmy. They say Mother always knows best – in this case, it could well be true.

What’s on offer:
For paupers, a home roast feed for $15 including a glass of wine from the Sticky brew barrel (available Wednesday nights only, from 6:30pm until the food runs out). For people with money, a three course set menu for $60.

What we ate:
Who do you think we are?

What it cost:
$15.00 pp

This used to be one of those places where only trendy yuppies had the pleasure to dine.

Since February, however, owner Michael Fantuz and the Sticky boys (sticky in a good way, not a wrong way) have been hosting paupers by the dozen, thanks to their scrumptious Wednesday night roast, priced for the financially-challenged.

‘There are 193 normal restaurants in Surry Hills,’ declares a sign out the front. ‘This is not one of them.’

Damn straight.

Sticky's Wednesday night home roasts ($15, including a glass of wine)

With Sticky, the adventure starts before you even get there. The few who have been lucky enough to discover it by chance will know exactly what I mean. Stumbling across Sticky is like a treasure hunt – half the fun is finding the damn place.

Once you’ve managed to locate Taggart’s Lane (not necessarily a simple feat), look for a shadowy entranceway and a glass door with a phone number on it. Call it and tell whoever picks up that you’re downstairs. Once you’ve been buzzed in, step into the elevator and press 6.

Sticky stepped elegantly onto the Surry Hills scene in January 2008, five months after Michael opened Table for 20 downstairs.

Table for 20 started with the ‘hood dinners’: a bunch of friends would take over someone’s house, cook up a storm and guzzle a lot of wine. Eventually, these humble evenings outgrew themselves:

It started getting out of hand when the neighbourhood dinner table moved beyond 10 people and so we started Table for 20 to keep the tradition going … My friends say coming to Table for 20 is kinda like coming to my place for dinner except that the dinner party seems to keep getting bigger and you never know who you’re going to meet…I like the idea of that.

At Table for 20, everyone sits at two long tables and food is passed round on huge shared platters – just like at a dinner party.

Michael's table is about drawing people together

Michael says the philosophy behind it draws a lot from the idea that the table brings people together. ‘For me, growing up in an Italian family where you had to be home at a certain time because that’s when you ate – even if you didn’t want to eat, even if you weren’t hungry, even if it was with people you didn’t really know or you didn’t like…you still sat down to eat.

‘There was a lot of respect for the table,’ he says, ‘and I think we’ve lost respect for the table in our society.’

I get the impression things have changed from how they were when the restaurant opened two years ago. This is how Michael described it back then:

It’s pretty low key, we don’t do trendy, we don’t do restaurant reviews or fancy promotions. We just do local feeds, for people that live locally… It’s a good excuse to get to know people and really aims to move away from the private single table dining experience to something more laid back and communal.

Communal, yes. Low key, hell no. The first thing you’ll notice about Table for 20 and Sticky are that neither of them are anything like your mate’s place – unless your mate has a gigantic contemporary chandelier with spindly arms hanging in the centre of his house or sumptuous Victorian lounges and velvet armchairs upstairs.

Not quite your mate's place...but who's complaining?

Of course, when you get a fabulous idea like this and stick it in Surry Hills, it’s hard to stop things getting trendy. No matter. The fundamental concept of meeting new people and sharing a meal has survived.

For example, regulars to the table will probably have met Mama and Papa Fantuz; they come for dinner about once a month. ‘They don’t sit together,’ says Michael. ‘They like to sit at opposite ends of the table and mingle.’

Others will have dined with Mike, who runs the Hope Street mission out of the same building and often brings guests from his counselling and rehabilitation centre. ‘Mike brings people to help rebuild their confidence and self-esteem, and sense of what’s happening out in the world,’ says Michael.

Owner Michael Fantuz is out on the floor as much as his staff

The very lucky have even been able to share their table with a future partner. Michael tells me that in the past two years, at least three couples have met and fallen in love at his table. One couple married last week and another (so we’re told by an excited guest who drops in during the interview) just got engaged.

Michael is very much the perfect host – he likes to look after his guests personally. Of course, his very hands-on style of management means we’re not likely to see any more Table for 20s or Sticky Bars popping up around Sydney.

‘I get asked all the time,’ he says. ‘But if I gotta be here and I gotta be there, it’s not gonna work…It’s not something that you can set up and just let other people do; it’s not a McDonalds.’

I raise a mocking eyebrow. ‘Actually, I think McDonald’s is the one kind of restaurant Surry Hills doesn’t have,’ I tease.

‘And McDonalds is a wonderful thing,’ he adds, with a smile. ‘But it’s not that…unless Donald Trump or someone wants to have a hundred of ‘em!’

What’s on offer:
All day breakfast, toasted sandwiches, melts, salads and pasta

What we ate:
BBQ chicken and bacon melt, a New York Decker

What it cost:
$19.80 for two or $9.90 pp (meals $9.90 each)

Hands down the best breakfast joint in town

Nestled in a charming renovated terrace house beside a Zen Buddhist store, Frames combines simple flavours and generous helpings with a super chilled out vibe.

This relative newcomer to the Surry Hills café scene is hands-down the best breakfast joint in town. It has everything you could ask for, including fun and friendly staff, a bright and airy garden courtyard and unbeatable value for money.

‘We wanted to go for something basic, fresh. We didn’t want to go too fancy,’ says co-owner Scott Whitby. ‘And value for money. We’ve both worked for places where it was so overpriced and felt bad asking for that much money.’

Co-owner Scott Whitby says the look and feel he and his partner wanted would only have worked in the inner city

Stretched lazily on the comfy courtyard couch, the sound of trickling water mingling with the smell of hot bacon and freshly brewed coffee, the same thought will keep bubbling up in your mind: ‘I am so great for finding this place.’

At $9.90 for almost everything on the impressively large menu, plus BYO licensing if you’re going for the hair-of-the-dog-style hangover treatment, you can’t help worrying that this place is too good to be true. Priding yourself on having discovered such a gem, the only thing tainting your pleasure and serenity is the fear that somehow, someone will take this place away…

But hopefully not any time soon. After all, they say the first year in business is the toughest and Scott and his partner, David Moorehead, marked Frames’ one year anniversary earlier this month. They threw a big party with their regular customers and favourite locals.

BBQ Chicken and Bacon Melt $9.90

‘That’s one of the main reasons we went for the real casual vibe – for the regulars. We wanted people to come here and – not even purchase anything, just come in – say hello, chitchat and then go again,’ says Scott.

‘We didn’t want the whole ‘college shirts’, stuck-up people…[W]e’ve both worked in the eastern suburbs and it kinda puts a dampener on your day when someone’s screaming at you because you put one gram too much butter on their toast, you know what I mean?

‘We didn’t want that kind of atmosphere. It was like, been there, done that, I’ve served you, I don’t want to serve you anymore. You just ruin my day.’

Frames' courtyard...the only thing better than the bacon. Or comparable, at least.

Scott, 24, has worked in hospitality for more than 10 years, learning the tricks of the trade on the job. Puzzlingly, he describes his first job – at a food court KFC in Wollongong – as ‘one of the best jobs I ever had’.

The stuff of dreams, no doubt. This may well be the first time in history that working at KFC has inspired a lifelong passion for the food service industry.

‘I’m not lying,’ he insists, ‘Looking back, it was one of the best jobs I ever had. I ended up running the whole kitchen…It was a big thing back then, when I was 13!’

Count them...the boys have collected more than 40 frames - and the gallery is still growing

Since then, Scott’s love affair with hospitality has only intensified since that first, heart-stopping encounter with the Colonel’s deep-fried fantasy. ‘I love everything about it – the art of the food and the customer service….How do I explain it?’ he muses. ‘I love pleasing people when it comes to my food and coffee.’

And it has obviously worked – on David, at least. The pair met at The Coffee Club, when Scott was a store developer and David, a manager. ‘After a few years, we were just like, “Why are we doing this for other people?” and we put our heads down and started saving,’ says Scott.

Two years later, the former Italian restaurant at No. 658 – now completely renovated – stepped humbly onto the local scene.

And the name?

Scott laughs. ‘My partner. It’s all him. We tried to get so many other names, but they were all taken. Then it just came into his head one day…Initially, I was like: “No, we are not calling this place ‘Frames’,” but then it grew on me.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s catchy…it became a focal point.’

With more than 40 frames adorning the café’s cosy walls, summoned from all manner of second-hand and bargain stores, it could hardly be anything but.

Photo courtesy of Murdoch Books

633 Bourke Street (cnr Devonshire Street),
ph: 02 9699 1011
Open Tues-Fri 7am-6pm,
Sat-Sun 8am-5pm

What’s on offer:
Perfection wrapped in pastry (gourmet sausage rolls and pizzettas, rustic breads and artisanal pastries)

What we ate:
Sausage rolls (lamb and harissa, pork and fennel, and beef and olive), strawberry creme brulee tart, lemon tart

What it cost:
$20.80 for two or $10.40 pp ($4.00 for sausage rolls, $4.40 for pastries)

The mammoth queue snaking out the door and up Devonshire Street says it all. Well actually, the 368 page book by the same name ($69.95, Murdoch Books 2009) says it all – literally. According to artisanal baker Paul Allam and pastry chef David McGuiness, co-owners of Bourke Street Bakery, they’ve held nothing back. Timeout Sydney asked Allam if the pair were worried about the consequences of spilling all their secrets:

No, not at all. I don’t have that mentality of holding things back and hiding things. We are happy to give away everything.

Of course, as McGuiness points out, it’d be pretty hard work starting a renegade Bourke Street Bakery and if someone else wants to get up at three in the morning and start kneading dough…

The Saturday morning queue snakes out the door and up Devonshire Street

Hot off the press this month, Bourke Street Bakery: The Ultimate Baking Companion divulges the secrets for more than 90 mouth-watering treats. According to the publisher, the book offers “clear and concise instructions, aimed at the novice home baker”.

Thanks, but no thanks. I’m happy to walk around the corner, hand over my four bucks and have the experts do it.

Chocolate tarts and strawberry creme brulee tarts are among the delicious treats available at Bourke Street Bakery

Paul and David are disarmingly humble for a pair of bakers with a cult following. And they really do have a cult following. I’m part of it.

I managed to resist the lure of the magic bakery for a good five months after moving to Surry Hills. I would throw disdainful looks at the Saturday morning queue as I pushed past, muttering to myself about people with too much time on their hands.

Paul Allam and David McGuiness make sausage rolls to die for

Then one day, I went for a job interview at the café opposite the bakery…and almost didn’t get the gig because I hadn’t tried the sausage rolls.

‘Are you serious? You live just around the corner from here and you haven’t been there?’ spluttered my prospective employer.

‘No, actually. The thought of starting my weekend standing in line seemed kinda nuts to me,’ I reply, laughing.

No response. I stop laughing.

* Insert awkward silence*

Tumbleweeds roll by. I’m thinking: ‘Did I just blow this interview…?’

Finally, an icy cold reply. ‘It’s worth it. Very worth it.’

For three weeks after tasting my first sausage roll, I couldn’t stop talking about it. I tried to tell as many people as possible about my amazing discovery. ‘Do you know the magic Bourke Street Bakery?’ I ask my friends/family/colleagues/people on the street.

Pretty much everyone does. I’m pissed off that no one bothered to tell me about it before.

But enough about me. Let’s talk pastries.

Pear and rhubarb tarts

The original store in Surry Hills opened in 2004. A sister store, Central Baking Depot, opened on Erskine Street in the CBD four years later. Three more Bourke Street Bakeries have sprung up since: at Chippendale (128 Broadway), Marrickville (2 Mitchell St) and Alexandria (474 Gardeners Rd).

While such rapid expansion now seems somewhat inevitable given the extraordinary success of the original bakery-café, Paul and David say they haven’t taken the project lightly:

We were too paranoid to let just anyone make the product and were also distrustful of our success. We were scared to put on more staff, so we raged ahead with what seemed to be a social experiment to test whether two men could coexist in a bakery 17 hours a day.

There’s a social experiment I think I could support.

Lemon tarts

Today these humble, hardworking bakers are in charge of more than 60 staff across the inner city. Unfortunately, the expansion seems to have taken its toll on their standard of customer service – at the Surry Hills store, at least. These are not happy, cheery bakers. This is service of the sullen, brusque, give-us-your-order-and-get-out school. In fact, it’s so confronting, it’ll make you forget your order when you finally get served, which only provokes more hostility from the staff.

Organised chaos ... they won't stop to chat inside tiny Bourke Street Bakery

So here’s my advice: repeat your order to yourself over and over as you stand in line. When you get to the front, have your money ready and both hands free so you don’t fumble with the pastries. Speak loudly and confidently and don’t ask how it’s going. It’s busy, can’t you tell? There’s no time for fussing about with niceties.

Luckily, the treasures you’ll find here are sensational…and definitely, very worth it.

What’s on offer:
23 traditional pizza toppings (from $10 for the small size up to $19.50 for the large), pasta (spaghetti, fettucine and lasagne, all $9.50) and garlic bread and salad

What we ate:
Continental (cabanossi, mushrooms, prawns and garlic)

What it cost:
$10.50 (small), $14.00 (medium) or $18 (large)

Simplicity is the secret to the pizza at Dimitri's

You can smell Dimitri’s from three doors down. In a good way. The smell draws you in like a kebab shop draws drunks at 3am. The first time you walk past, you might be able to resist entering, but you will slow down to take in the aromas and peer inside to see what’s cooking. And chances are, you’ll get about 100 metres down the street before turning round and coming back.

At least, that’s what we did. And we’d already had dinner.

We wander in and choose two stools opposite the counter. An old newspaper article is taped to the wall. ‘Pizza the key to a healthy heart’ reads the headline. ‘Eating two pizzas a week could halve the risk of a heart attack,’ begins the article, except someone has crossed out the word ‘two’ and written ‘nine’ above it in blue biro.

I like this place already.

Once inside, beyond the comfy leather seats and the smattering of wooden tables, you’ll find three pretty understated blokes. One of those blokes – the lean one, with rough hands and a gentle voice – is Dave ‘Dimitri’ Thompson. He’s owned the joint for the past 15 years.

The secret to a great pizza, says Dave, is simplicity.

‘I let all the other places carry on with your marinated this and tandoori that,’ he says, with a bemused smile and just a hint of pride. ‘This menu hasn’t changed for 30 years, maybe even 35 years, since he started the place.’

‘He’ refers to Dimitri, the real Dimitri – a Greek immigrant who one day in 1975 set up shop in Surry Hills, opposite the Clock Hotel. Dave reckons Dimitri is probably still alive and would be about 80, maybe even 90, years old now.

Christopher 'Mad Dog' Davenport, Ken Williams and owner, Dave 'Dimitri' Thompson make a mean pizza

In his previous life, Dave was a greengrocer. ‘There was nothing in particular that drew me to the pizza business,’ he says. ‘I just thought: ‘Why not? Be my own boss. Could be alright.’ ’

When Dave and his late night pizzeria moved to its present Crown Street location about six years ago, a crowd of fans followed.

‘I enjoy the customers, especially the loyal local customers,’ says Dave. ‘Some customers have been coming since before I even owned the place.’

I can see why. The pizza comes out piping hot, toppings generously piled onto a thin, crispy crust. This is the way pizza is meant to be.

Pizza the way it's meant to be

Dave, it seems, is known for his generosity. Slippery, Dave’s greyhound, would probably vouch for that. Dave’s wife, Meredith, brings him round every night for the leftover ham.

Chris Davenport, the latest person to join Dave’s staff, would also vouch for Dave’s generosity. An electrician by trade, Chris has been living upstairs for the past six months and working a couple of nights a week to cover the rent.

‘As you can probably tell, Dave’s a really nice guy. Ken, the guy out there [another staff member], was working here and he told Dave I was in a bad spot. So Dave lets me live upstairs and help out here while I get things sorted,’ says Chris.

So it’s Dave, Chris and Ken behind the counter this Friday night. On the counter, in a small glass tank, are two goldfish. One is called Colin the Comet. The other doesn’t have a name yet.

‘That one’s new,’ says Dave. ‘He’s a replacement for a seven-year-old fish that died last year.’ I ask Dave what the dead fish’s name was. ‘I’m not really sure,’ he says. ‘It was one of four that were called One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish and Blue Fish – but I lost track of which one he was.’

Dave, his wife, Meredith, and their dog, Slippery. Slippery cleans up the leftovers each night.

The boys standing behind the counter drinking beer out of tumblers when two young women in heels and dresses come in. ‘Can I get two $25 notes, please?’ says the brunette, handing a fifty to Chris.

‘Uhh…I think that’s going to be a bit tough,’ says Ken, with cheeky smile.

The two women look perplexed for a moment. ‘Oh, you know what I mean!’ says the brunette, embarrassed.

‘Um…Actually, I don’t,’ says Chris, looking to the others for guidance as we all have a chuckle at the young woman’s expense. They eventually get their money sorted and are on their way, heading towards Oxford Street. The boys return to their tumblers.

And that’s the best thing about owning a late night pizza joint in Surry Hills, says Dave. The variety. ‘You get to see all kinds of things,’ he says with a grin. ‘The whole spectrum of humanity.’

What’s on offer:
All day $10 menu, regular menu ($10-$20) and chef’s recommendations ($11.50-$21.50)

What we ate:
Chicken schnitzel with gravy

What it cost:
$10 pp, no charge for extra gravy

Hotel Clarendon... the home of the best schnitzel in town

This is where you go for chicken schnitzel. This is the only place you should go for schnitzel. Shakespeare’s Hotel, just 100 metres up the road, has schnitzel on the menu but we never eat their schnitzel because eating is cheating and you just don’t cheat on the schnitzel at the Clarendon.

There’s other stuff on the menu – burgers, pasta, steaks, pizza, risotto, fish and so on – but I’ve never managed to get past the schnitzel so I can’t comment on those dishes. I can tell you, though, that the schnitzel is really good.

Several factors combine to create the kind of schnitzel that makes you want to have a monogamous relationship with it. One is the crumb coating. It can’t be too thick or too thin, nor should it be gluggy, pastey or floury. It should be crunchy and golden brown. And it should adhere to the chicken, caressing it firmly but lovingly, like the arms of a lover.

(Yes, we are still talking about schnitzel.)

‘A good schnitzel is about the chicken,’ says head chef Chun Jae Sin in a thick Korean accent. Chun Jae, 31, has run the Clarendon’s kitchen for the past two years. ‘And it is essential – essential ,’ he drives his finger into the table to emphasise the point, ‘that the oil is clean.’

Chun Jae began training to be a chef in his home country of Korea. In 2004, he come to Sydney on a year-long working holiday visa and worked at Yama, a sushi and sashimi restaurant in the QVB. He returned to Sydney in 2007 and his been here ever since, completing a TAFE course in hospitality management and culinary service in July.

The chef’s recommendations are all Chun Jae’s creations. The char grilled lamb loin chops served with mash, peas and a rosemary and red wine gravy ($11.50) catch my eye – although I’m not quite tempted enough to forego the schnitzel. The shepherd’s pie ($13.50) also looks good. Chun Jae’s pick, however, is the fresh salmon supreme, pan fried with roasted chat potatoes, French beans, almond flakes and avocado salsa (slightly out of our budget at $21.50).

Head chef Chun Jae Sin shows off his lamb skewers. Harry, one of the cooks, stands in the background.

‘In the morning I go to the fish markets at Pyrmont and I choose the fish myself,’ says Chun Jae. ‘The first thing you look at is the eyes; they should be clear. Then you look at the skin, it should be shiny and pink.’

Chun Jae’s favourite food is kimchi – a traditional Korean side dish consisting of pickled vegetables – and he plans to add some Korean dishes to the menu in a few months. He did this a year ago, with great success. The first addition, he says, will be bulgogi (bul meaning ‘fire’ and gogi meaning ‘meat’ in Korean), a dish made with beef slices marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil and other ingredients that Chun Jae says are ‘secret’.

Chun Jae says he’d like to own his own restaurant one day, although he doesn’t know what kind of cuisine he’ll cook.

‘When I start, I work three years in a Chinese restaurant, then one year in a Korean restaurant and in Australia, one year in a Japanese restaurant. Then as a student, I also work as a grill chef in Circular Quay and now, I work here so I don’t know what kind of restaurant I will open,’ he says, grinning widely.

Then his eyes widen and he nods vigorously, suddenly becoming serious. ‘But I know I want to be chef forever,’ he says resolutely.

I don’t know if he’ll succeed in being a chef forever, but if he does, at least it means we’ve got a while to get sick of the schnitzel and try something else on the menu.