What a wonderful weekend it's been with the sunny bright weather all weekend! I hope you all agree with me, as it's always good to imagine that everyone is having a great time on this earth.
This weekend I got the chance to visit an old friend in the east part of Sydney city, the Paddington Inn. A few years ago when I used to work in the Paddington/Moore Park areas, I used to visit Paddington Inn with my work mates for lunch and Friday drinks. I have quite a decent memories of the place and the food. I remembered it as being a comfortable modern pub with decent food and good crowds. The pub was significantly renovated not long after I moved from the area.
With the good memories I had of the old Paddington Inn, I was looking forward to checking out the new version. Since it was a weekend evening, it was packed when we got in there. My date and I went through the front room which seems to be more of a pub with classy modern setting and the TV tuned in to the sports channel like most other pubs. We then walked further into the back room which has the setting of a reasonably romantic bar/restaurant with the high tables, stools and sofa booths. We went up to the bar to order our food and pick up a couple of drinks. We then sat down at the booth closest to the bar, sharing with another lovely couple who seems to be enjoying each other's company as much as their food. It gave me a good feeling up to this stage.
With approximately 10 minutes wait, our orders were delivered to the table - a nice service I didn't expect since it is usually self-service in most pubs. Another thing I realised from this pub is the fact that it doesn't have any game rooms, poker machines, and cigarette machines. I hope they're not hidden somewhere in the corners of the pub as I like the idea of a "clean pub".
After a light and very funny romantic comedy french movie at nearby cinema (he is a contributor to the idea of a romantic comedy for the evening) that hurt my stomach with laughter, I was hungry-as I am most of the times. I dug straight into the dishes, including his before he even started eating. It doesn't make me sound like the classiest date, does it? His order was the Harissa spiced chicken with polenta crisp, eggplant braise and green beans while I had the Rump steak with fries and salad. I prefer to skip the more adventurous meals in the pubs and stick to the more standard dishes.
Lets start with the Harissa spiced chicken with polenta crisp. As much as I try to be the nicest critic I could be, I promised to present the most honest opinions of mine on every topic. Here we go... the chicken breast was dry and flavourless with slightly burnt grill lines on it. The polenta crisp is more like polenta cake with barely any crispy surface. The eggplant braise was tomato based with only original flavours of the ingredients. The only good thing in the dish is the fresh crunchy green beans. My date seemed to be fine with the dish. It's good to see an evident that may be this time I've met an easy going man who is not so fussy about everything, when it might just be them who's filled with issues. I hope he takes it as a complement when I said it's a relieve to meet someone who is easy to deal with...
Anyway, back to the meals. My steak was better. The steak itself was cooked to the right standard of medium rare as I ordered it to be. The pepper sauce was creamy with good flavours of salt and the right amount of pepper to represent its name. The fries were thick cut and lightly deep fried with crunchy external texture and soft centre. The salad was less than average. It was salty with a big S! The only things I could taste in the dressing were lemon juice, a little bit of olive oil, and plenty of salt. I was disappointed with the fact that their dining standard has decreased significantly from the decent memories I had of the old Paddington Inn. Luckily, I had a wonderful company for the evening that kept me in a cheerful mood.
For dessert, we went back to Micky's Cafe, a few doors away from the Paddington Inn. Prior to the movie, we stopped by this cafe for some drinks. They have good range of wines and beers. The iced coffee had good espresso taste without the bitterness of the two shots in the mix combined with good balance of the creaminess of milk and slight sweetness of ice cream. So when we went back to Micky's cafe for dessert, we were expecting a pretty good one. He ordered the strawberry pancake. When it came out, we were slightly-but-not-so pleasantly surprised with the plate of pancake, ice cream, and strawberries that has no sauce on it. They happily brought a small jug of maple syrup over at our request. The pancakes had the perfectly soft and fluffy texture. The strawberries were fresh and sliced with consistent thickness, the ice cream was the highlight. It was creamy, smooth with fresh strawberries flavour. To accompany the pancakes dessert, I ordered the Paddington Princess cocktail. It was fresh and sweet with plenty of passion fruits and light content of the Cointreau.
While I will be back to Micky's cafe to try more of their dishes, I may visit Paddington Inn again only for the drinks. All in all, I believe we both had an enjoyable evening. Have a good week everyone!
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