Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Living once put out a list of fine dining features that make a nice restaurant more welcoming. Those added touches that make you feel at home without looking for every opportunity to make a few more dollars.  Xanthi scored immeditely on two of these as you sit down – tap water offered (most fine diners offer you sparkling or still ie not free); and soon after – crusty bread and olive oil for dipping as you peruse the carefully planned menu.

All the dishes were beautiful earthenware tapas style plates.  I would love some of these at home!

The waiter suggested we order something from each section of the menu to share.  Dips/mezze, flat breads, mains and desserts.  Well with just two of us we thought we would order it Aussie style and treat it like one entree one main each.  We tried firstly the eggplant – two baby chargrilled lebanese eggplants (whole) and served with tomato sauce and some tzatziki.

When I went to Greece a year and half ago, there was one restaurant in Oia, Santorini that we kept going back to – fond memories – and one thing we tried there were zucchini fritters.  So for nostalgic reasons, this is what I had to order.   The pattie was great, but the oil wasn’t hot enough, so they were very very oily.  Three fritters came on top of a chickpea dip.  Yum though, but not good on the waistline!

Next, our selection from the Apo tin plastira – which means ‘From the wooden board’.  Xanthi’s site notes:

A plastira is the board that the women of the village use to stretch and roll out filo. The wood is made from pine trees and its properties make it the best surface to stop the pastry from sticking and tearing as it’s carefully stretched and thinned.

Our pastry is handrolled and made fresh. Baked fresh and served straight from the oven. Please be patient. Waits can be up to 30 minutes depending on demand.

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait so long, but intrigued we were by the rabbit stifatho – rabbit braised in tomato, honey, cinnammon, clove and red wine sauce and then shredded.  Hmmm….. eat bugs bunny?? Never tried it!  But gosh, they sure harped on it enough on Masterchef for me to be curious!  What came on our plate did not resemble bugs at all – but in fact looked like slow cooked chicken, or indeed pulled pork.  The pastry wasn’t light like the filo we get in the supermarkets – but it was definitely savoury and substantial.  As for bugs…. I would describe it like eating fishy chicken.   Maybe my palate is unsophisticated but it was definitely a bit seafoody.  Not in a delightful way, but interesting way.  I think I will leave elmer fud to eat dat wabbit!    I thought it was extremely pretty and good value for $16 though!  I did like it more than i like escargot though.

Now the REAL reason why I was desperate to try Xanthi was the pork belly baklava!  When excitedly telling my colleagues about it, the reaction was generally “Ew”. I think they associated baklava with dessert.  Pig dessert? Hmm.  But for me, I knew it had something to do with slow cooking, and something to do with savoury flaky pastry.  And it was also pretty.  It was two squares of pork belly, topped with two pieces of perfect crackling, with some prune sauce which added a sweet edge to the rich pork.  For my liking, I would have preferred the pork to be braised first – twice cooked. It wasn’t, which meant the fat could have been rendered down a bit more.   Perhaps a bit more stalk should be cut off the microherbs too – if I were to be really fussy.  But again, at $18, there really isn’t much to fault.

All in all, these 4 dishes plus a coke cost a tiny $55.   I’ll have to come back again for the baklava ice cream.  There are so many interesting things to try, and although there could have been a few things to be done to make it perfect ,hey it was opening week, it did well and I will be back!      Being next to Chat Thai and the food court, it was noisy though, so don’t go expecting a quiet intimate meal.  But do indeed go for the ouzo cart

And next time – the whole spit roasted beast! Yuuuummmm!!!!

For mains – Espetada De Frango (chicken skewer) $17 and Espeta a costa do sol (char grilled lean beef skewer) $19 – both served with salad, rice and fried potato cubes. 

And to finish – Creme Caramel. They ran out of portugese tarts again so be sure to order ahead (despite my doing so anyway!). 

The clams were tasty, with the fresh bread great for mopping up the juices. A tad on the salty side, it was a generous sized serve.  The Portugese sausage is like chorizo sausage – however, instead of lumps of fat – instead there were lumps of ham! Delicious and nutritious!  The skewers are an impressive main – coming out on sword like sticks, hung up on a stand at your table, with butter dripping down onto the plate at the bottom.  This is a fantastic venue for a group dinner – with plenty of street parking, and lively enough to still be intimate.

77 New Canterbury Road, Petersham, NSW (02) 9569-2319 *also in the entertainment book!

La Grotta 104 Ramsay Street Haberfield (02) 9799 0100

I have learned my lesson not to do entree and main with pasta as my entree, so I had an entree sized pasta as my main in order to fit in dessert. Again my favourite scallops spaghettini, spanner crab meat, lemon in a sauce of shellfish tomato brodo.  Personally I would have preferred a sauce that was either more saucy or more dressing like. This was in between like a broth, which certainly was tasty though!  I didn’t try the duck breast stuffed with apple, walnuts and wrapped in proscuitto came also with the leg – fall off the bone meat, in a rich jus on a bed of sauteed red cabbage.

I can’t decide what was the highlight – my entree or my dessert!  I couldn’t go past the warm Valrohna chocolate pudding with honey comb ice cream – a cakey crust that oozed the liquid gold – into the other gold – the shards of honeycomb and the (slightly melted) scoop of honey comb ice cream – amazing. Not good for the diet, cholesterol, blood sugar or any other health indicator!

The rustic looking rhubarb crumble tart was served on its own with your waiter dramatically drizzling the syrup on top to finish – well neither of us could finish our desserts due to their huge servings, but contentedly sat back to enjoy the people watching which comes for free.

 Otto Ristorante, Area 8, 6 Cowper Wharf Road, Woolloomooloo

www.otto.net.au

The penne with calamari was a huge serve – tangy with capers, cubed potatoes and tender calamari strips – sssoooooo filling at $19 – warning: do not order pastas as entrees unless you are sharing!!

The strozzapreti di mare ($19) had to be had as spaghetti as the strozzapreti had run out.  A bit bland – some salt fixed the problem, and I enjoyed the tender fish, king prawns, mussels, calamari and octopus interwined with the neapolitan sauce (a bit oily).   And finally, the barramundi – another man sized portion – cooked perfectly tender, on a bed of vegetable caponata ($19) with capsicum, eggplant, zucchini – still with some bite – but a bit watery near the bottom (not sure why).  All in all, a fantastic place to eat – just make sure you are hungry! I wish I could report on the desserts too – but alas – next time.  You would do well to do a lap of the drummoyne bay run to work off your dinner afterwards!

Tre Pesci – 105 Victoria Road, Drummoyne www.trepesci.com.au

Ingredients (for 15)

• 2 cups arborio rice
• a pinch of saffron, soaked in 2 tblspoons hot water
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 chorizo sausages
• 1 squid tube
• 1 sliced red capsicum
• half kg of uncooked prawns
• 500g chicken meat
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 300g piece of fish fillet (I used barramundi)
• 1 tablespoon smokey paprika
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Method

1. In a large (I meant large!) deep frypan or paella pan, saute the sliced chorizo until cooked.  Set aside. Do the same for the chicken.
2. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, and saute the onion until translucent.  Add the rice and saute slightly to form a crust on the outside so it doesn’t go all gluggy when you cook it.
3. Add the paprika, saffron (and water) and the stock, and bring to the boil.
4. Arrange the seafood and capsicum in a nice pattern in the pan, add back the chorizo and the chicken, and place lid on the pan. Simmer on low-medium heat for 20-25mins or until the seafood and rice is cooked.
5. Scatter chopped parsley, and bring to the table to serve.

The food came very quickly in succession such that we were clearing room in between quick forkfuls of food.  First off the rank was a salad with crumbled feta, marinated roast capsicum and lettuce.  Then came my favourite off all time – Chorizo a la Plancha (grilled Spanish sausage). Oh dear. Only in looking at this close up shot did I see the fatty bits – but blindly eating, it was DIVINE. Crispy and tasty and plenty of it.

Next came the Patatas Bravas (fried potato with garlic mayonnaise and spicy tomato salsa). Unfortunately, I had only one cube of potato as that gross white substance had touched every other piece. I was told that they were delicious though, despite my prejudice.  Oh well, bring on the Champinones al Ajillo – garlic mushrooms – and don’t plan on having a pash afterwards.  They were very tasty and moist, and not overcooked either.

The garlic pizza came, with tomato dressing. Crispy crust and a good thickness, which would indicate that these guys could do a great pizza too.  But my attention quickly diverted to the sevillanas (prawns in spicy tomato). They came bubbling to the table – slightly dangerous, but so so fresh, and a great chilli bite at the end (too spicy for some on my table though).  There were 8 per serve.

Classic Tortilla Escapnola (omelette with potato and onion) was a perfectly set, moist omelette filled with thinly sliced potato, and onion flavoured with fresh parsley. They did it very well. And I can’t tell you about the Mejillones (black mussels in tomato sauce) because I don’t eat mussels either. But the comments were that they were just perfectly cooked and not rubbery at all.

  Alas, (Mary had a little) lamb skewers came next.  Although they looked so flavoursome (marinated in Morcoccan spices), this is not a meat of my preference, and I looked on as my friends commented on their moistness and tenderness and flavour.

I didn’t have to wait long for the pinchos de pollo con mojo (chicken fillet skewers) to come.  They came with an amazing harissa sauce (I think), and the chicken was marinated in amazing herbs and spices (and crispy on the outside but still moist on the inside).  Great with the spicy sauce.  Some bread came at the end in case we weren’t full, but we were well fed and content. Only thing I could have added would be maybe something sweet, but we were satisfied with a stop at a nearby gelato stop.  By the way, sangria is $5 per glass, or $20 per jug.  Softdrinks are very reasonably priced here too. And for an extra $5 per person you can have paella with your banquet too.  But you certainly won’t be starving without.