Vietnamese$$
It's part indie dive, part diner and all fun here, where ordering is a cruise from the front bar and dining room through to the kitchen, where a massive glass hot box is filled with a world of meats from sausages and pulled pork to roast pork belly with puffs of blistery skin. The idea is you either pick 'n' mix by the gram (100 gram minimum purchase – sorry pedants), or go for a "pigsy plate" – a bit of everything for $25 a person along with a pickle, beans and a bread roll.
This is a Mark Jensen joint. The Red Lantern chef is cooking a sort of American-Vietnamese mash-up, teaming up with Mick Bain from the craft-centric Royal Albert Hotel. It's a pedigree that promises tasty treats on the plate and interesting beers in the glass.
Oh, and all the Aussie rock over the speakers. (Somebody in that kitchen really likes Noiseworks.) There's Barnesy, 1927 and, well, pretty much every other nugget of Aussie gold you'd care to name.
You can see where they're going with this – the craft beer, the smoked and barbecued meats, the tunes. It's all very Portlandia. Or at least, you could see how it could be if it was served out the back of a food truck, the Feral smoked porter was in go cups rather than room-temperature glassware, and you were hanging out in a park whittling your own cutlery.
Down to the business of eating, everything appears on heavy metal trays – the kind that you might see used by inmates in Oz or Prisoner – cutesified with gingham-printed paper placemats. The kransky, soft and fatty, is a table divider depending on how you feel about cheese-flavoured meat.
And while the slightly stringy and woolly pulled pork is OK, the hoisin baby back ribs – sticky, yielding, dark and fragrant with pepper – are much, much better.
Don't bother with the less-than-exciting sides. It's all about the raw power of the Vietnamese-style sausage which we order in our Roll of the Day (ROD?) – a banh mi-ish construction of cabbage, pickled carrot, chilli and coriander.
Love that you can order that sandwich with any of the meats from the hot box, and if I were a little more badass, I might even bypass the roast pork and go for straight crackling.
But who am I kidding? Only Jimmy Barnes could pull a move like that.
THE LOW-DOWN
PRO TIP ... You can order any pork product you like on the banh mi
LIKE THIS? ... Head north of the bridge to South American barbecue kings, Papi Chulo. 22-23 East Esplanade, Manly, 02 9240 3000
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